8 things to include in your 2026 coaching business strategy. Best Of Series!

Hello and welcome to the Business of Executive Coaching Podcast. I'm Ellie Scarfe, a senior executive coach and now mentor to executive and leadership coaches who want to grow their businesses with more corporate clients. I've grown my coaching businesses solo and in partnership. I've worked as an associate coach and even as an in house coach. I have seen it all and now I want to help you on your transition to building a thriving executive coaching business that replaces your corporate salary, gives you the flexibility you want, and makes a difference to your clients, your coaches and the world. As we celebrate the holiday season and take a short break, I wanted to share with you some of the most popular episodes this year. These episodes have something in common which is that they are very practical and they all solve real problems that you might be grappling with as a leadership coach working with organizational clients. Today's episode is called the Eight Things to Include in your 2026 Coaching Business Strategy as part of the Best of series. It made sense to run this one in this episode at this time of year because we've been talking all things planning and I've talked a little bit about the things to keep in mind, the bigger picture approaches, how to reflect effectively and what this episode does is said well. Okay, I've done all that. Now let's get down to nuts and bolts of what should be in the strategy. People always listen to this one. When they discover my podcast, they go back to it. So you are in for a treat. It is very practical. It'll help you with your planning for 2026. Reach out if you have any questions about it and I will get back to you on the other side of these holidays. Okay, so onto today's topic, which is all about what you should be including in your strategic plan for 2025 and specifically my strategic pillars that I take my group through. So I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but podcasts that are sort of business related have been running their planning their annual planning episodes earlier and earlier every year. Now. I used to really look forward to the week between Christmas and New Year, maybe the week after New Year, because that's when the podcast would all release their planning episodes. And I had a bit of time and I used to love reflecting. I think they probably all just assumed that that's when people have time to plan. But the truth is this has shifted and I think it's probably shifted because in business we generally need to be ready to go come January. So we need to be a little more organized and I think that November or early December is a perfect time to be planning your 2025 if, if not before. So I'm jumping right on board that train and I'm going to have a November planning episode. And, you know, I hope this means it's not too late to be helpful and that it's something you can use as you start to think about your process. So I'm going to stay focused today on one part of planning for 2025, which is what are the pillars that I think you need to factor into your strategy for your coaching business. Now, of course, you need to start any strategic planning process with a review of the year that was, and that's usually a really broad review of what went well, what didn' a specific review of your metrics against each of the categories in the accelerator. We have quite a detailed workbook and monthly metrics guide that we review on a quarterly basis. And I think. But I think it's really good to do like an overall review on an annual basis. And so anyone who joins the accelerator during our early bird period of the launch next week, they will be invited to the 2025 planning workshop with our current members, which is, which is really exciting, always a lot of fun, and it's great to take a bird's eye view of the year ahead. So if you are interested in doing that whole process, then join the accelerator and you will definitely be on board for that for this year. So I also, before I start talking about pillars, I think it's really important to start with a bit of a pat on the back because often we dive into what hasn't gone how we've hoped and that is really important, but it is missing a huge piece of the puzzle. So I would encourage you also to lean in first to the wins that you've had, the successes that you've had, the things you want to do more of, the things you learn, all of the good stuff. Because that's what we want to be, you know, that's the message we want to give ourselves, give the universe, if you've got a bit of woo energy. But what is the stuff you want more of? And I think we can often tend to focus only on the things we want less of. And because of, you know, the negativity bias that we have in our brain, that can kind of crowd out the good stuff sometimes. So. So make sure you start with that. But other than that, what are the pillars of strategy that I think you need to include? They are, firstly, your products and services, secondly, your pricing. Thirdly, Your revenue sources and breakdown. Fourthly, your business development strategy. Fifth. Fifth is marketing. Sixth is financial management. Seven is systems and support and eight is your development. So your growth and learning. So pillar number one is all about your products and services. So when you're doing your strategy, I mean, I think this is kind of obvious. It's really good to look at what is it that you are selling, what are you putting out there. And I think it's important to look at this on a few different levels. Firstly, I think it's really important that you enjoy what you are doing. So if there is something that you don't enjoy, then you need to be clear that that's not something you are actively promoting. Secondly, while we often craft things that are bespoke for our clients, you know, an example might be facilitating a leadership program that links into their capability matrices with the use of a psychometric and individual coaching program. Right. That might be some, a program that we develop for our clients. It's really good to be clear like we can, we can be flexible like that and I think we should. But we need to be also very clear on our boundaries, which is what we won't do and our core buckets on what it is that we do do. And this is unique for everyone. And it might be that it's pretty simple. Like I always recommend people have, you know, clarity on, on two to three things, offers key offers that, that they have and that might be a standard executive coaching offer. It might be that you facilitate certain types of training content or it might be that you run group or team programs. Right. For example. But I think we need to be clear on what they are. And you know, for example, one of the things that I quickly decided I didn't do is that yes, I like to facilitate, you know, team development and I used to do team and group coaching or I still do quite a bit of that. But you know, I prefer not to run too many workshops on things like management or management topics specifically, so feedback and communication, even though, you know, sometimes I love them. But I did decide that I couldn't, I couldn't focus on those effectively. So you need to be clear about what you do and don't want to do. And I think it helps to consider the data around. Well, enjoyment is one piece of data that I think you need to consider. But I think the other pieces of data are, you know, what is the, the investment of time and energy and business development energy versus the output in terms of revenue and potential opportunity that, that arise off the back of it so doing an analysis of that and figuring out what you know, your unique blend of products and services by way of your offers, what that is. And so in the accelerator we dive a lot into the specifics of what your offer is. But in advance of 2025, I recommend getting really what your core offers are and how you would like to deliver them. Bonus points if you take some time to do the work about what client challenges your ideal clients might be having that make your offers no brainers for them because doing that work is going to then inform your marketing and your sales approach which is going to create like a virtuous cycle which is, is golden when we're, when we're selling services. The second pillar is a pricing review. And I think everyone should do a pricing review at least annually, if not more. Now I've run a masterclass on pricing where, which, which some of you may have heard already, so I don't want to dwell on it. And a pricing review doesn't always mean increasing your prices, but in the earlier days of business often it does. And it can be really something that is doesn't come naturally. It might be awkward. But I want you to remember that cheaper doesn't mean EAs to sell in the corporate coaching world because credibility and pricing are often conflated as the same thing. So have a think about what your prices need to be for the market that you're in and what is your strategy going to be to increase your prices over the course of a year. And that might be that you actually map out. Oh, here this is what I think I'm going to do quarterly. So every new client that enters my world on a quarterly basis, the prices I will quote them will increase in this predictable fashion. And you know, I reckon recommend small increases applied consistently. That's, that's my tip. But if you think you're well under the market, then, then do it in one fell swoop as well. But again, in the accelerator we talk a lot about pricing but it's interesting, the more we the, the further people get along in their membership, the less we're talking about pricing because they get more comfortable with increasing their rates. So the third pillar is your revenue plan getting clear on your revenue plan. And this is a really helpful or quite a fun activ where we start with your revenue goal and then you break it down into how exactly are you going to get to that goal given the offers that you have. So as an example, and I don't think this is necessarily an example you would have in the early days. But if you had a goal of $120,000 in revenue for your year, you know, your goal then translates to about $10,000 a month. Of course, it's not linear. You will have highs, you will have lows. But if we think about it as, as an example, there are a lot you could get to that target. It could be that you want to add $10,000 of new coaching clients each month, right? And then that, that sort of then transpires over the course of a year to add up to that. And it might be, you know, one new corporate coaching client at $10,000 per month. It could be two at $5,000, whatever that looks like. Or it could be that you say, okay, well, I want to add, you know, a $5,000 coaching client and run a $5,000 facilitated training pro training day or off site each month. Or you might say, I actually want to build a core group of four retained clients that are a combination of coaching and consulting with people that know and Trust me at $20,000 per client per year, plus, then I'll add in some ad hoc associate facilitation along the way to take me up to my goal. Or you might say, I want 50% of my target to be associate coaching and the rest to come from my direct cl. But I think breaking it down like this into a plan or a projection just gives you some direction and something to assess against. And it doesn't mean that if you don't hit that target or that exact breakdown that, that there's anything wrong. It just gives you a sense of how things are going. So I think it's useful. And it also gives you some. It informs how you'll reach out to your clients. It'll inform your content plan as well. The fourth pillar, I think, is the big one, of course, and that is your business development strategy. Now, in. In a short episode like this, I can't cover all the specific hows of how you will grow your business, but in your strategic planning, you need to identify the ways you intend to get new clients. And this includes things like how will you connect with your warm network of, of, I guess, their, you know, past colleagues or friends or family or existing clients? How you, how will you connect with your warm network? How will you. What will your outcome and activity goals be for your business development? Right. You know, how many sales goal, sales calls do you want to have on a weekly basis or monthly basis? What are the activities you're willing to commit to? And then identifying, you know, what clients you will Prioritize how you use your strategic outreach approaches, other strategies, even like boosting your referral network, having a loss, leading offer, building a coaching adjacent offer to get you in the door, and more. And this is honestly probably about 75% of what we do in the accelerator. There's a lot in it, but you need to have a plan because if you have defined your, your, your revenue target, you've got your revenue plan, then actually you need to get the clients that are going to fill in those buckets. And that means building your sales funnel right from, right from getting people at a, through to converting them into clients. So your strategies to do that are what is important to break down here. The fifth pillar is marketing. And marketing is obviously a big part of business development, but I think I like to pull it out separately because I think as much as possible, marketing should follow your strategy. And what do I mean by that? I mean, if you have a goal of promoting a particular offer to a particular type of client, you should be talking in your content about the challenges that those clients are facing that might make your offer relevant to them. And you might not be so transparent about it. You might talk broadly quite a bit about things that your clients are going to relate to, right? So stories of things you've experienced and, and this is all genuinely very authentic, right, because these people are probably your target clients because you have an affinity with a role or an industry. And that's, you know, that's the way we can leverage our network most effectively. But talk to them, talk to them about what experience is. Talk to them about your experience facing those same, same hurdles and build connection on that basis. And so planning out your marketing on an annual or a quarterly basis can take a lot of the anxiety out of execution. Because I know that a lot of coaches really overthink what they're putting out from a content basis. They can suffer from perfectionism, which means that they redo it and redo it and redo it and never post it. So, you know, it's really helpful to build a plan that you can then execute. And you know, in, in the accelerator, we like to talk quite a lot about this in our calls, about how do we get out of our own way and, and just post it and we talk about, you know, what is the resistance we feel to taking these actions. Because a lot of coaches don't feel comfortable posting. They certainly don't want to feel exploitative or salesy or annoying. So there's a lot of, there's a real balance to be struck between feeling authentic and, and good about what you're putting out there and what is required to grow a business. So we grapple with that a lot in the accelerator. It's a, it's a, it's a great source of, of conversation and support of each other and, and challenge of each other as well. Right. So pushing each other to, to, you know, get a little bit outside of your comfort zone. It's also helpful in, in the marketing pillar of your strategy to think now at the start of the, you think you might like to experiment with over the course of a year because you can't do it all at once. So you might need to decide what you might like to try and whether it's realistic or not. And I think every, everything is realistic if we give it the right amount of time. And that might be things like you might want to experiment with video content or YouTube or a podcast or paid ads or daily posting or creating your mailing list, which is something that I do recommend, or hosting live events for potential clients like breakfast briefings and things like that. And so I think it's worth thinking about what those are and planning them out for the year. The sixth pillar is that you need to keep your financials front and center. And that means your financial goals, reviewing your P and L regularly, assessing your margins for each product or offer, breaking down your annual goal into quarterly targets, and deciding if you need a different way to manage your cash flow if it's not working for you. So, you know, I think that that is, is really important and becomes more important with time. And so setting, setting things up on the right basis is really important. The seventh pillar is all about systems and support. And so this is a little bit about reflecting on what systems and support you think you are going to need to prioritize in 2025. Now, this is part about technology, but it's, but it's also about process. So it's about identifying where your bottlenecks are, where you are repeating tasks unnecessarily, what you are avoiding, and figuring out what system or process is going to help reduce that friction. So a guiding principle that I find helpful for me is what is a decision or a tool or a process that I can implement or make now that is going to stop me having to make another hundred decisions down the track, like decide once, set a system up once, and repeat and, and you know, really leverage that. And then you know, do you need support? So you might be needing practical support like a va. You might need mentoring and coaching like from from myself in the accelerator, you might need support with household tasks, but really think about what that is. And then finally, the eighth pillar is your development. So we have a tool inside the accelerator that is aimed at helping you assess your, your development. You know, all of the dreams you have of the training you'd like to do, for example, or the coaching you'd like, or the supervision. But you know, to help you think about what is the most strategic first investment. And I think it's really great to look at all of your investment plans with a strategic lens. Now, what training do you need? What training do you want? What, where do your interests lie and where are you going to get the greatest bang for your buck? I think you need to think about that on an annual basis. And so sometimes it might be that you need to prioritise your next stage coach training. You might prioritize an assessment certification. Sometimes your next priority will be an investment like in the accelerator to help you grow your business while you layer experience on top of the coaching training that you already have. So whatever that is for you, you need to make a plan. And that plan should be the time that you need to capitalize on that and the financial investment that you need to make. And I think it's helpful to, to have that all mapped out. Okay? So I hope all of those made sense. If you have any questions, please do drop me a note. I'm always, always happy to talk about it a little bit more. Now I also want to take a moment to share about the launch of the Corporate to Coach accelerator. You can probably hear how excited I am and not least because I hope that it is part of your 2025 strategy for some of you. So firstly, doors to the accelerator are opening next Monday, 25th November, and if you join, your membership will be for the January 2025 cohort, which means that you have access for the whole of the year of 2025, which I think is a brilliant amount of time to really make some meaningful steps. But depending on when you join, you may get the bonus of immediate access. So you get free access for all of the December calls. But I'll tell you about the bonuses after I tell you a more about what is included in the accelerator. So firstly, in case you didn't already know, and many of you do, the Corporate to Coach accelerator is the main way that I work with coaches. So it is a 12 month group coaching program that is just undergoing a major transformation for 2025. So this is the first version of it that looks this way with all new curriculum and many more coaching calls, you can check it all out at www.elliscarf.com and that acronym stands for corporate to Coach Accelerator. So check it out if you, if you have a moment and I'll put it in the show notes as well. But the accelerator, the big goal of the accelerator is to halve the time it takes you to build a thriving coaching business. And in 12 months what you'll do is you're going to work towards Getting your next 10 high paying corporate clients so that you feel confident that your business can support you financially now and in the future. You're also going to leverage your professional experience and your professional network to build your sales pipeline to more than 100 ideal prospects. And the depth of your pipeline really is the biggest predictor of new client flow. So you're going to learn how to continually grow your pipeline. And the more you focus on your pipeline, the healthier it becomes and the more your business grows. So we focus a lot on your pipeline. You're also going to take the stress out of marketing and the unknown of what should I be doing when. And we're going to do that by implementing a marketing and business development system that you can implement in five hours a week. So you know, you will do your content, your outreach, network growth in five hours a week. We will also make sure that you have built your key assets during your first 90 days. And that includes your website, your LinkedIn profile, your coach bio and more. So with, with my guidance and accountability and advice and the support of your cohort, you will avoid the procrastination and perfectionism traps that derail so many coaches when they're working on those things. You'll also join a network of a global network of coaches who are helping to, who are working to build businesses that are both profitable and making an impact on the world. And you know, this source of collaboration and brainstorming, support and encouragement is, is really the community that you might have lost when you stepped away from the corporate world. So you know that's, that's a really important part of what you can get when you join. And you'll also build your flexible schedule that suits your business and that allows you to show up for the priorities in your life that will push to the side in your corporate role. So you know, whatever that looks like for you, we will put that in place. So if you want to take Fridays off, go for it. Want to work school hours, go for it. We're going to make that work for you. And you will have a coach and mentor that's me on your side to help as you go. And you know, as coaches, we all know the power of having a coach and a mentor when we're in transition. And through the accelerator program, you're going to have me on by your side every step of the way as well as this incredible group of other coaches. Now what that looks like practically inside your 12 month membership is that you will have a one on one kickoff session with me where we will dive into your business, your professional background, your network, your ideal clients, your offer and your priorities based on where you're at now. You will have weekly group sessions with me. We have three different coaching times every week. So there is something that works for every time zone and ideally my plan is there's something that works really well for every time zone and there's something that is also okay. So you should, should have two options really maybe three, you know, and in the group, group coaching sessions you can come and report in so there's an accountability piece. How are you going with your, with your marketing tasks? What's, what's happening for you? You can bring questions for hot seat coaching, you can bring something you want to brainstorm, you can bring something where you're feeling stuck, you can come and ask for a pep talk. All of those things. Things. You also will get your 90 day quick start program which is all about getting your key assets built. And so we will go through there's curriculum and there'll be a group component which will, which will be you know, prompts together in the Facebook group to check in. And you'll do that every week as well. If you're working through the Quick Start, you will report in on that during your weekly, weekly calls. You will also have the BD accelerator framework which is the content and the tools that will help you do that marketing in five hours a week. So we tell you what to do. You don't have to figure it out for yourself. And you also get access to the corporate to coach blueprint and that is the end to end foundations of how to set up a coaching business. All the way from starting thinking about compliance and structure all the way through to you know, hiring a VA and selling into corporate clients and setting up as a corporate supplier, all of those things. You also in the, in your membership get unlimited reviews and feedback. And that means that I will personally review all your assets whenever you update them. So that includes your website, your bio on link, sorry Your profile on LinkedIn, your coaching bio which is one of your key documents and I can, I will always review video feedback for you when you send that for me. But I would just say just wait till you hear one of the launch bonuses which takes this to another level, which is very exciting. And as I mentioned there's also a Facebook group which is, you know, the hub of the network we have within the accelerator. And you know, these are coaches around the world and the global cohort is one of the most amazing things I think about the accelerator is that you're not in a bubble. You will get different inputs and different views on what coaching looks like around the world. World. You also have access to an on demand portal that has got all of, all of the past masterclasses and there's a lot of them, guest experts, templates, tools, workshop series. There's so much content in there to answer almost any question. And finally a private podcast feed. So all of the coaching calls will be uploaded to a private podcast feed. So if you don't want to watch the video, you can't attend live. You can just listen to it if you're out for a walk or in the car, listen to the coaching calls there. So launch next week. We have got a series of bonuses available and you know, stay with me because there's a lot and I want to share them all. But the main premise is that the earlier you join, the more bonuses you get and the, the most, the most value and the, the, you know, the highest value offer is for the people who are on the wait list who will get 72 hours of early access before we open doors to, to everyone else else. So firstly the standard price to join the accelerator is US$4,997 per year. And of course there are payment plans available if that's out of reach as a one off. But if you join during the launch, we want to make it easier to join. So if you join during our launch window, which is basically from Monday to Friday next week and this is in November, if you join in that time you will receive $500 discount on that price and you will also get instant lifet to the corporate to coach blueprint digital course and you'll be able to jump in there in December ahead of your program kicking off in January. We also have an early bird period. And so if you join during the early bird period and that is the first 48 hours of the doors being open, if you join during that period you will, you'll also get the, the discount and the blueprint access, but you're also going to get, get full access to the accelerator membership. So the calls, the curriculum, the archive, the master classes, you'll get that in December, but that's free, so you'll be in immediately. You can start attending as soon as you like, but your memberships will still run for the whole 12 months of 2025. And if you join in the early bird period, you'll be invited to the 2025 planning workshops that will be held at the start of December, so you can attend them live. And there'll be two time zones available, or you can watch the recording at a time that works for you. So everything we do is recorded and you can do that. So you're really inspired and excited and ready to go come January 1st. And then, as I mentioned, so the best deal comes if you jump on the wait list now. So if you jump on the wait list, you will be sent a link so that you can join in the 72 hours before doors open. If you join during this window, you will receive all of those bonuses I just mentioned. Right? So immediate full access, the planning workshop, the blueprint, and you'll receive an even bigger discount. So you'll receive a $750 discount off that total price. And this is really cool. You're going to receive a personal LinkedIn profile audit by a LinkedIn expert and an expert who's not me, by the way. So I have a lot of expertise in LinkedIn, but I love to get advice from subject matter experts and specialists and so I want to do that for you. So if you join from the wait list in that early, early ope option, you will get that as well. So, yeah, plus you get all the other, the bonuses as well. So I've thrown so much info at you. You can check out the sales page, which is www.elliscarf.com CCA and I think my main message is join the waitlist so that you can get first access and you can get all those bonuses. So, so also when you join the wait list, you'll get a link to book a call with me. And, you know, I really encourage that because that will, you know, allow me to get across your business, help you think through your priorities and your challenges, and help provide you with a plan of what you should focus on first as you grow your business. So definitely do that. I'm going to put all the links in the show notes, but jump on the wait list. Come to the webinar. Podcast listeners always make the most wonderful members of the group. And, you know, I hope that this could be your best strategic move for 2020. So have a great week and my next podcast episode will come to you with doors to the Accelerator officially open. I'll see you then. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Business of Executive Coaching. If you found it helpful, please share it with a colleague or friend on LinkedIn. And don't forget to tag me so I can say thanks. I would be tremendously grateful also if you would leave a review on Apple Podcasts. More reviews means more people can find us. This episode was brought to you by the Impact Coach Collective, where executive coaches grow their businesses in a community of peers with business, education, mentoring, deal clinics and more. If you'd like to contact me or work with me further, all my free resources, courses and more info on the Impact Coach Collective can be found@elliscarf.com have a brilliant week and I look forward to talking to you again soon.