My story is my story. It probably won’t be your story. But there may be things you can learn from my story. So if you are sitting comfortably, we’ll begin!
I left Accenture in August 2014 when my job was made redundant. My safety-conscious self thought that I wanted to work for another company (even though I said at my Accenture interview 17 years previously that I saw myself running my own company within 3 years). So I interviewed. When one of the recruitment agents told me I was “too innovative” for the jobs he was recruiting for, I realised that roles that would be fulfilling or challenging for my level of experience and values were like hens’ teeth. I also realised that I rather liked being the boss of my own time.
Only then did I decide to set up Clare Norman Coaching Associates Ltd, in January of 2015. Building what I call a solid business has taken me five years. Don’t expect to be an overnight success. It takes patience and persistence!
The lesson: don’t expect to be an overnight success – though if you are, congratulations!
My first step was to decide what Clare Norman Coaching wanted to be when it grew up. I chose a Limited Company because I wanted to work with organisations and thought that I was more likely to be taken on as a company compared to a sole trader. I don’t remember what data I had for this assumption, but it was the route I took. If you are in the UK, you can find out more about which route is best for your circumstances here….and I suggest you also get advice from an accountant.
There are lots of things to learn when you first start out, and many new roles to step into. I found it a little overwhelming, changing from bookkeeper to web designer, to marketing manager, to business developer, to administrator to data protector. At some point, you may outsource these, but at the start, you will need to get to grips with them all. I actually enjoyed the steep learning curve – it was a great growth opportunity for me, but it was also tiring.
I spent a fair bit of time up-front figuring out my policies, things like payment terms, cancellation policy, data protection statements, and contracts. Give yourself the time to get these set up, but don’t forget the business development conversations alongside them.
The lesson: take the set-up seriously.
When I set up my business, I had 14 years of coaching under my belt and was a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation, so I knew I could coach. I also had a good grounding in managing myself, which meant that I was disciplined enough to work 9-5 most days but knowing that I could also book a haircut or coffee with a friend to give me a sense of flexibility. I was/am detail-oriented, which served me well as I set up the operations of the business; but I wasn’t/am not particularly visionary. That bit needed to be developed in me. I had worked virtually for many years on a global team, which stood me in good stead, especially when the pandemic hit as I could have great conversations that way standing on my head. Oh and I had been writing an internal blog and micro-blogging for 7 years, so I had got over the fear of my voice being heard. I could create a passable website too, as I had been working in WordPress at work for a while.
The lesson: draw on all of your transferable skills as you set up your business.
My best advice for social media if you are timid is to find your own authentic voice and don’t spend too long editing. People resonate with personal stories more than anything else. Whatever you write, try to be useful to people, sharing something that might make them feel like they are not alone. That may mean that you need to be vulnerable. That can feel odd when you are trying to build credibility, but it shows people that you are human. We coaches don’t have life sorted, and shouldn’t put ourselves on pedestals by posting everything that is positive. That’s not real life.
The lesson: be authentic, be yourself, don’t try to be someone you are not!
As an introvert (and this is going to sound familiar to many of you), I wasn’t really into networking events, and although I did attend a few, I didn’t find anywhere my ideal buyers hung out. Most of the groups I attended were populated by small business owners, for whom coaching seemed to be a luxury item. I know others have made a niche with this market, but I didn’t have the extroverted energy to build relationships this way. I preferred to be at home, safely creating materials and plugging away at connecting with people over social media. For some reason though, I didn’t make the most of my global network – despite the fact that most of my more recent work connections were all over the world and not in the UK. I tried to reconnect via LinkedIn with UK-based people from my past – people who knew my work and loved me already, so I didn’t need to prove myself, but they were UK based. As I look back at that, I don’t really understand why I wanted to build a UK-based business rather than a global one (which it has become latterly). That said, I did get most of my early sales from people who I didn’t need to build relationships with because I already had relationships with them – even if they were relationships from years before.
Whether you are building a local or global audience, you need to talk to lots of people, but we’ve proven in the pandemic that doesn’t have to be face-to-face.
The lesson: lean into your existing network, old and new.
But one thing I learned was that reconnecting with friends who had moved into interim HR/OD Lead roles was a good way to be invited into one company, then to be invited into the next company they worked for, then the next and so on. It doesn’t always work once your main contact leaves a company, but if they have introduced you to other buyers in the company, it’s a good source of work.
The lesson: people who move companies can be a good source of work.
I was lucky in some ways that my husband had a well-paid job that could support both of us as I built a business from scratch. It meant that I didn’t come across as desperate in my conversations with people. I could have coffees and not worry if those didn’t lead to work immediately. I didn’t need to be pushy. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to prove that I could be the self-sufficient, independent businesswoman I had been before. I was driven to earn as much as I did in my corporate life. That helped in some ways as I had dogged determination to keep going through thick and thin, but it hindered me in others – success is not only about money and I did get myself in a bit of a tizz sometimes. Now I am in that wonderful position of bringing in more money than I did back then, but I take a minimum as salary; I take the rest of my profit as pension because we don’t need that to live.
The lesson: be persistent and know that success comes in many forms.
Back to my offering…I knew what I wanted to offer (coaching) and I knew that I wanted to work in and be paid by organisations. I described myself as a transition and leadership coach as that was what I had tended to do previously. My experience was in banking and professional services, and I had coached a lot of outsourced people across multiple industries as well as a handful of people in charities that Accenture supported. From a business model perspective, it felt as though I would need to do less business development if I were in a pool of external coaches for an organisation or two or three, as they would use me multiple times for multiple coaching conducts rather than me having to sell even more to get individual clients.
The lesson: think about your business model.
I spent quite a bit of time jumping through hoops to become an associate for several coaching providers. Naively, I thought I would get most of my work that way. But it didn’t really happen for me. I would say that two out of ten associate companies brought me perhaps 8-10 hours of work per month between them. Not enough to make a good living. But what I notice about those two is that they have a small pool of coaches, with whom they can build a trusted relationship. I notice that the larger the pool of associate coaches, the less work you get. Diversity in the pool is good for the company to be able to show to their clients (look how many options your employees could choose from), but it doesn’t work for the coaches, as only a small minority of them get work – and it’s often the same people who the associate company knows well. So I have politely withdrawn from being on the books of most of those larger associateships as it was cluttering my portfolio.
The lesson: if you want to work with associate coaching companies, join ones where you are already well-known and respected and where there are not too many other coaches on the books.
Talking of portfolios, I didn’t want to have all of my eggs in one basket. Not least because I didn’t believe that I could coach all day every day. It also didn’t feel like a good business model. Cross-selling works well for me these days because I have a portfolio of 1-1 and team coaching, action learning facilitation, mentor coaching, supervision and training leaders as coaches and coaches to be action learning facilitators. I love the variety of that, and they feed me – mentally and financially!
When the pandemic hit, I thought that I would lose much of what I had built. Thankfully, because I did not have all my eggs in one basket, I was ready to pivot. Coaches suddenly had time to invest in their credentials, which they had been putting off. So I spent more time mentor coaching in 2020 than anything else. I had also gotten ready to start teaching aspiring mentor coaches, so that was also fortuitous timing. There was a huge upswing in the numbers of people getting credentialed in 2020 and 2021…and I hope this will continue as coaches recognise the need to differentiate themselves from the many new coaches getting trained after being made redundant.
The lesson: have a portfolio of linked services that you can cross-sell and a portfolio with at least a couple of buyer types.
Marketing to coaches has been much easier for me. They hang out on Linked In much more than leaders/buyers of coaching do. And they love networking/supporting each other. I know that I surrounded myself with people who were at least as good as me if not better so that I could learn from them. I hope that I was fair in my exchanges with them – I remember one time when I wasn’t and I was called out on it. That has stuck with me ever since, and if a coach asks me for my time, I am getting better at asking for something in return these days, whether that is monetary or something else. I do also give a lot of thought capital away like this story for free via social media.
The lesson: what is the fair exchange?
I set up an ICF coaching circle about 3 years ago, and that has been a great source of business for me as coaches have got to know me in a non-salesy environment. I also wrote a book for coaches, about everything I had learned from seven years of mentor coaching, which has been great for my credibility. Alongside that, I ran a number of webinars on the difference between mentor coaching and supervision, which have been good for business building.
The lesson: get creative about how you promote yourself and your service.
The trouble with having two audiences for my work (leaders/buyers of coaching and coaches) is that my marketing time is halved for each of those audiences. I still don’t quite have the balance right I don’t think, but I am making more of a conscious effort to divide my marketing time between them. I have felt stretched too thin across them in the past. That is something to bear in mind about a portfolio of offerings and a portfolio of audiences.
The lesson: the more target audiences you have, the more marketing you need to do to tailor your messages and call them to action.
Now let’s talk about money. Working out my rates was tricky at the start as there were no public benchmarks out there. Very few coaches publish their rates on their websites. If you want to read more about this, I have written articles in Coaching at Work about rates for coaching and rates for coaching supervision. The first few times I shared my rates, I had to hold my nerve and not immediately discount them. I know lots of coaches who do pro bono work at the start to get their hours up and get their confidence in coaching. Thankfully, I was already confident about my coaching. The trouble with pro bono or reciprocal peer coaching is that it doesn’t give you confidence in asking for money. That’s quite a different skill! The more times you ask, the easier it becomes.
The lesson: charge for your coaching sooner rather than later.
I notice that organisations often ask us to give our time for free in return for profile-raising. In my experience, that raised profile doesn’t often lead to paid work, so think carefully about the fair exchange that you want to ask for – or decline their kind offer!
The lesson: what is the fair exchange? (again!)
Your rates need to take into account all of your costs. Do not undersell your time, because it’s not just the time you are working with clients that needs to be covered. See my post about costs. Keep your costs as low as you can at the start. You have time, but you don’t have money, so do as much as you can for yourself. I was always very cautious about not spending money before it was in my bank account and making sure I had enough to cover taxes, insurance etc. Growing before I spent. These days I can invest more to make more, but I’m in a different place now.
The lesson: be sure to cover your costs in your fees, so that you not only break-even but make a living.
What else can I tell you about what I have learned? Not to be afraid to ask for referrals. Or to call people to action. Or to ask for testimonials. People can’t read our minds. They don’t automatically know that we would like a referral or a testimonial, so we need to plant that seed. I get most of my work through referrals these days. It took a good while before my business felt like it was running on referrals – probably 5 years – but now that it is, I don’t need to do nearly as much networking as I used to.
The lesson: ask for referrals from satisfied customers. What’s the worst that can happen?
I am also diligent in following up with people who have expressed an interest or had conversations with me. They can sometimes seem as though they drop off the radar so it pays to be persistent in these follow-ups. Not so often that it feels like nagging, but enough that they don’t forget their commitment to themselves. I think I may have followed up too much in the past (as I had plenty of time). Now, my follow-ups are spread out a little more and that feels like a better cadence. I do regret not using a customer relationship management system right from the start as that would have made follow-ups much easier. I have tried a couple, but not really found one I liked. I would recommend this though, because as soon as you grow your customer base, it’s hard to keep up with them.
The lesson: set up a (free) CRM from the beginning.
That brings me to systems, processes and support. I found an IT support person through recommendation almost as soon as I started, as I need someone who knows what they are doing (which I generally don’t). I outsourced my bookkeeping about two years in when I didn’t want to be spending time logging and tracking expenses and invoicing. I made a mistake choosing my first accountant as he hadn’t kept up with software support, so moved after a couple of years to a much better service that charges me much less too. I worked with a marketeer for a day about a year in, to get clearer on my offering and how to sell my service (and wished I had done so sooner as she taught me some invaluable lessons). I brought in a PA when I had been in business for three years because I realised that I needed business support so that I could be available for business-building conversations and working with clients. My advice is to do this just before you really need to because it gives you the capacity to hand over well.
In the beginning, my PA focused on the social media that doesn’t need my personal voice and scheduling of posts that I have written, making things eye-catching with Canva. That’s the stuff that is creative to do, but really time-consuming. But she has become more than that for me…I know I can trust her because she has run businesses herself and I often bounce ideas around with her. We’re in the process of looking at a coaching/training platform that can streamline contracting, tracking and communications with clients. I have been looking for something for a while, but nothing has ever met all my needs before (integrated with Xero and Outlook for example). She has also introduced me to a couple of great web designers (after I made a false start choosing someone I had met at a networking event who couldn’t deliver to my time scales as he had bigger clients who took precedence over my small investments) who have taken my website to a whole new level four years in and then again six years in. Every one of these people has come by recommendation and all except the first accountant have been great.
The lesson: outsource to give you and your business the capacity to grow.
Way before I took on my PA, I had a wonderful network of coaching friends with whom I could chew the fat, mull over ideas, exchange encouragement etc. These conversations kept me on track when I felt as though I was losing motivation and momentum.
And of course, I got myself a supervisor and a mentor coach to keep my coaching sharp. I surrounded myself with coaches who were at least as good as me, if not better so that I could be constantly stretched.
Over time, I have broadened my coaching network as I felt as though I was in a bubble of like-minded thinkers and needed to see things from others’ points of view to be able to figure out what I thought. But this is less about business development and more about coaching.
The lesson: surround yourself with great people, both similar and different to you.
My weeks have gotten steadily busier and now I have the problem of having to make people wait to work for me. Nice problem to have, I know, but it means that I need to be firmer with myself in keeping my own boundaries. At one point, when I started to use a scheduling tool to save me time in emailing back and forwards with dates, I found that my diary got too overloaded with client work and I wasn’t able to manage my energy levels. So I have now blocked off time in my diary for three half days a week for marketing, admin and creative work. I am learning to hold these boundaries – that is a work in progress for me as I don’t want to let people down. But I keep reminding myself that I will let them down more if my mental health does not enable me to do a great job when I am with them.
The lesson: know how much you want to work and stick to it.
Where will my story go next? I have some ideas in mind, but I have also learned to keep an eye on the future. What does the world of tomorrow need from us as coaches? I know that technology will change the way I automate some of my processes – and maybe AI might support me in coaching in years to come too. I know that I will go where my energy goes. I know that I will always be trying to stay fresh and innovative, whatever that looks like
I hope my story has been useful to you. As I said at the start, it is my story and it won’t all be applicable to your context, but it might spark some ideas for you.
Your next step might be to register in my Coach’s Business Development Mastermind, a place where coaches support and challenge each other towards their business development aspirations. If that sounds as though it could be useful to you, take a look at the details here.
