How to start your coaching business – MasterMind sessions

how to start your coaching business

What are these sessions about?

We come from all walks of life, have different backgrounds and various ambitions. You will likely find someone who has done something similar to you. You are also likely to find someone, who has a completely different story from yours, and this could likely catapult your thinking on what else you could utilize for starting up your coaching, consulting or training business.

How to start your coaching business: who is this for?

  • You are working as a coach, trainer or consultant and want to start your own business in these fields
  • You have your own coaching, training or consulting business, but want to add some ‘spice’ and ‘ooomph’ to it and looking for others to help you out in figuring out the next step in doing so
  • You have a great ‘half-baked’ idea, and want to add some structure and reality to it
  • You want to develop your self-awareness and understand your skills and strengths (and how you could put these into service for your own business)

How will we progress within a session and how will you benefit?

  • During each MasterMind session, we will talk about one of the overarching topics (see the ‘Specific topics that could be discovered’ box) and see where each person in the group is with that topic.
  • Hearing each other and sharing your own thoughts will bring about new thoughts to others and is a great help when we channel these energies and thoughts into specifically building your own business.
  • Because I believe in abundance and that we live in an abundant world, I also believe that we can help each other tap into new market segments, as we live in different locations and serve very different audiences. And who knows…you might find a great business partner here that you could partner with in the future!?

What is the benefit of participating in the sessions?

  • Think and talk about your half-baked ideas in a safe and secure setting, among like-minded and trusted people
  • Grow your self-awareness around the topic of starting up your own business
  • Understand in a structured way both yourself in this story, and how you may serve others on your market
  • Hear and learn from others’ stories, thoughts and experiences
  • Help others by sharing your knowledge
  • Identify those target audiences and topics where you sound credible, authentic and knowledgeable to provide coaching / training / consulting in. We will also help you with specific ideas to explore further.
  • Come away after each session with a sense of progress about developing your own business and putting thoughts into actions.

Technical details:

Space:

  • The sessions will be delivered over Skype conference calls that allow us to chat freely.

Date and time:

  • 5 sessions in total will take place
  • Time: 5pm (Central European Time zone which is GMT +2) = 8am PST, = 11am Eastern Time US)
  • Each session will take 2,5 hours (from 5pm to 7:30pm in the GMT+2 time zone)
  • Each session is limited to 6 participants to allow time for everyone’s development.

Fees:

  • Each session costs €55+VAT (€70 gross or the equivalent in USD), for a total of €350. If you decide to pay in full, up-front, total cost is only €300.

Registration:

  • Please send an email with your intention to participate to frankbenedek@gmail.com. Once your payment comes through, your place is fixed.

Specific topics that we will explore:

  • Who am I really? What do I pay attention to? Am I doing the things that play to my strengths?
  • Belief-system: what do you believe about yourself, in terms of your abilities and capabilities? What is the ‘internal CD’ in your mind playing (related to starting your own business and your career ambitions)
  • What are your limiting beliefs and how can you change them to progress quicker to a state of mind you prefer? Are you allowed to be successful?
  • ‘Who can I serve, who needs me and my coaching, training, consulting skills?’
    • What is meant by target audience and who are they in you case (those looking to benefit specifically from your strengths, resources and knowledge)? Is it only your routine propelling you forward, or are you engaging your real strengths on a daily basis?
    • Value Proposition Design – how can I design it for myself?
  • Self-branding: what do you tell others about yourself? What could you tell instead?
    • Strengths, resources
    • Visibility, as a criterion: how visible are you? What do you dare to tell people about yourself? Where/what is you talent that earns you money?
    • PrezTech: what is the ‘message’ going out to people you talk to?
  • Networking and communication with others – who does what well, and what could you learn from them?
    • Getting yourself surrounded/acquainted with people who could propel you forward; who do you need around you to help you? How can you go about these topics?
    • Communication with others: what and how do you communicate?
    • Sociometrics and team dynamics in your current life-situation: how could it be improved a notch?
    • Practical and pragmatic: creating / improving your website

Who is the ‘How to start your coaching business’ MasterMind group session facilitator?

My own story goes like this: I started my career In marketing communication at creative agencies, and found that I enjoyed working on multiple clients at the same time, often in very different industries and functions. I really liked working as an account manager and later account and strategy director and understand how communicating certain elements of a business attracts the target audience of that business. Hence, I quickly developed this ‘lens’ of always needing to identify and understand your customers first, and create products and services that meet their needs second. (At this point, you may notice that many businesses do this the other way around, which is silly.) After advertising, I wanted to get a better grip on understanding how to run a business and decided to do an MBA in 2008/09 (University of Oxford), followed by doing various business consulting stints that allowed me to think more deeply about how to run a successful business. I wrote successful business plans which brought these business owners grants and funding from various sources. In 2013 I became interested in coaching and training, and have been doing it ever since, running my own business as an entrepreneur. I am an accredited ICF ACC member, currently in the process of gaining my PCC credentials.

In the past 7 years, I have held over 300 trainings hearing the personal stories of about 2000 participants; coached people and leaders for 500+ hours in total; and have been fortunate to learn and master among many things Transaction Analysis, NLP, Action-oriented Team Coaching, Business Model Innovation, Value Proposition Design – and created / rethought many evergreen topics to help people advance in their lives (communication, stress management, time management, innovation and change, personal branding, and strength-based coaching to name a few).

When I think of coaching and a coaching business, I usually see personal stories to be told and put into a context that potential target audiences of that coach can relate to. E.g. if you have travelled all over the world, and have taken on various jobs, you know how and what ‘change’ means. You can relate to people in transitions from one walk of life to another, and hence will sound authentic and credible to these people. There are many target audiences you may think of that can be explored and served by your coaching, training or consulting business. These are the things I want to help you, and want to ask others in this MasterMind series to help too.