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Author: Suzanne Evans | Total views: 28 Comments: 0
Word Count: 1152 Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 7:40 PM

Entrepreneurial Mindset for Coaches – Pinpoint the Right Group of People to Work With

Step one in growing and launching a business is what I call Grow Up. Get your mindset for entrepreneurship. What this means is that maturity does not solely come from experience, age, wisdom or longevity. It comes from decisiveness. When you decide to stop living small and embrace your possibility, that's when you reach full maturity.

Remember, coaching is a business. It's a passion and for most of us it's a calling, but at the end of the day you're becoming an entrepreneur and it is a business. You may need to change your thinking to be more business-oriented, as many coaches do.

When I got my mindset for entrepreneurship, when I decided I knew that I could design my own destiny and that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, everything aligned. The teachers I needed showed up, the money flowed, and I became a center of influence.

You've got to get to a level of maturity and get your mind set for entrepreneurship first. Then follow your passion and what you love and know will become your niche.

Actually I don't like the word niche. I think it actually holds a lot of coaches back and a lot of people get stuck on "What is my niche?" and a little obsessed about it. It is very important and you have to have a target market, but I've re-languaged that to be 'who needs you most?' Follow what you love and what you know will become who needs you most.

Think about what you cannot get enough of. What or who just fires you up and you could talk about it for days? It's the kind of thing that people have to shut you up because you're so impassioned you want to share it. That's your target market. That's your hive. Those are the people who need you most.

You might be like me. I was literally niche-phobic for almost a year. I could not decide what my niche was; I wanted it all. My business was growing nicely but I could feel that there was a weight that was keeping me from really exploding.

I now know that if I had gotten that target market - who needs you most - earlier, and if I had committed to that, I probably would have built my business in double time.

Most coaches have the problem that we want to help everyone, and that often ends up helping no one. We see the needs all around us, but it doesn't mean we can help them all.

I knew very early on I was meant to work with other entrepreneurs, but I kept saying, "You know what? I just started building my business myself. I couldn't possibly do that. Look at me. I've just started." Even though my instincts and my gut were telling me that's what I'm supposed to do, I ignored it for quite a while.

It was in my bones. Had I just embraced that I would have done things with less stress and even faster than I did them.

Getting your mindset right and understanding who needs you most are two factors that will be instrumental in bringing success to your coaching business.

Part two: What's Your Motivation for Marketing Your Coaching Business?

Sometimes I get a question from people, "How do you stay motivated to market?" That question, I have to be honest, always worries me.

Close your eyes for a second. This is a silly, fun exercise. Go back to middle school or high school to that crush. That crush on whoever it was - a teacher, a girl or boy, whoever it was you had that crush on - that you were stalking to see when they would be at their locker. You felt like you were going to lose your breath because you were so enamored with them.

Take that moment for just a second and let me ask you this. Did you ever have to have anyone remind you to see where they were or to check on that Wednesday and see what they doing, or to write a love note if you were dating them?

Did anybody have to wake up and say, "Suzi, make sure you write Bob a love note?" That doesn't happen, right? It's such a part of you it's in your being. You know to go check where that person is or to write them a note or find where they are and sit with them at lunch.

That's really how the marketing of your business should be. You need to make sure you have a target market and a business structure that you are so in love with that no one needs to remind you to market.

When you decided what group of people needed you most, that you were qualified and excited to serve, you started along a path that can have lots of unexpected happy surprises, leading you into opportunities that you never knew existed. As one thing leads to another, just stay alert to people who can be connectors for you, opening new doors for speaking, writing, media, and projects.

At the same time, like any journey, you need to be monitoring your progress and correcting course from time to time. Most commercial flights are off course a high percentage of the time, and yet they arrive at the right destination. How is that? Because the pilots are making small course corrections to get back on track.

Measure everything you can in your business so you know what's working well and worth the investment in time/money/energy, and what's not. With the goal of constant improvement, your small tweaks along the way will really result in significant progress over time.

I put both feet on the floor in the morning and I say, "What can I do today? Who can I teach something about marketing? How can I market something? What's something I could sell?" I just love it.

People talk about workaholics and I have to be careful that I take time out for myself. Not because I'm obsessed with working and I have to do the job, but because I love it so much. It's energy for me. I love to see the difference that my coaching has made in someone's life, business, relationships, and finances.

That's how authentic marketing should feel for you. The motivation comes from within because you know the value of what you're doing, and you're enjoying learning how to serve more people, making more connections, and growing your wealth as you implement the marketing that works best for you.

About the Author

I’d like to invite you to learn how to help more people, make more money and enjoy more freedom with the free 5-day mini course, "Awakening Your Authentic Entrepreneur," at http://www.HelpMorePeople.com/minicourse.htm

Suzanne Evans is best known as the 'action expert' and has coached hundreds of solopreneurs to model her multiple six figure business.