In this solo episode of The Business of Executive Coaching Podcast, host Ellie Scarf addresses executive and leadership coaches, challenging the notion that referrals and word‑of‑mouth should be the primary business‑development strategy. She acknowledges that referrals are valuable when they occur, but argues that relying on them alone is a mismatch of expectations—especially for newer coaches—because the coaching market has become more sophisticated and competitive. Ellie outlines two natural windows when referrals tend to surface: an early “warm‑network” phase and a later 5‑10‑year plateau, but stresses that between these periods coaches must actively acquire corporate clients. She critiques a “hope‑based” approach as having no pipeline, control, or certainty, and advocates taking ownership of client acquisition to build a predictable, scalable business. The episode concludes with a call to action, promoting her 12‑month Corporate to Coach Accelerator program that teaches coaches how to develop a corporate client pipeline, and invites listeners to book a call, rate the podcast, and connect on LinkedIn.
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Hello and welcome to The Business of Executive Coaching Podcast. I'm your host Ellie Scarf, and I'm here to do two things. I'm here to share practical advice, and I'm here to share stories from coaches who are out there doing it, growing their businesses with corporate clients. And I want to show you that not only can executive and leadership coaches build businesses serving corporate clients that are profitable and flexible and purposeful, but I also want to show you that that you can do it too. I think as coaches working with organizational clients, we will create a positive ripple effect far beyond our work. And my job is to take all of the business advice out there combined with 20 years as an executive coach growing businesses and my time as the head of sales capability at a billion-dollar company and share what really works now and what really matters so that you can change the world one client at a time. Today, I want to talk about referrals and word of mouth as a business development strategy. So firstly, I don't have anything against referrals and word of mouth as a source of business. They are absolutely fantastic when they come. They are a testament to your great network, your credibility. And when they come, you should celebrate loudly, right? And I think having a referral strategy is, is important. However, if referrals and word of mouth are your whole business development strategy, We need to talk because I think that there is a huge mismatch in expectations. And I think it is perpetuated, not obviously intentionally, by coaches who have been in business for a long time. And I think that this is doing newer coaches a disservice. And the expectation that I think has been set, that it is not only possible, but it is in fact preferable and in some ways perhaps even morally or ethically superior to have most of your business come from referrals. And from word of mouth sources. But if you are earlier in your coaching business, I need you to put this expectation aside. Because for many coaches who have been in business for many, many years, of course they have more referrals and word of mouth work. Just because of the existing number of clients that they have. And you too will find in 5 to 10 years that a higher proportion of your business is going to come from referrals and word of mouth and from my personal favorite, repeat and expanded clients. And honestly, I think for coaches who started their businesses 15 or 20 years ago, it was a much more viable route because the market was less knowledgeable about coaching. And so if people knew that you were a coach and knew someone who wanted a coach, they were much more likely to connect you because there were just fewer options out there and the conversation wasn't as sophisticated. But I don't think this works now. I don't think it works for coaches starting their businesses or growing their businesses now. And There are two phases when referrals will probably come your way. When you first start, right? First hang your shingle up, there will likely be a few folks in your warm network who will be massive advocates for you, right? And so please lean into warm outreach and find these folks, right? And so this may be a source of referrals early on. And then again, when you are 5 to 10 years into your coaching practice, this will start happening again. But in between those first few and 5 to 10 years later, you are going to have a strategy to go out there and get clients yourself. But this is not a bad news episode, right? In my opinion, this is actually excellent news, and here is why. So when you are sitting around waiting for referrals, you have very little control. You are literally waiting. There are no guarantees. There is no pipeline. There is no visibility, no certainty at all. The only strategy in that is hope. And as I say, hope is no strategy at all. It's actually important that from hope theory, the psychological concept, brilliant. Hope as a business strategy, less brilliant. The alternative to this though is to take ownership, right? And to decide that business growth is your priority and to learn how to find and grow corporate clients yourself. And any referrals, massive bonus. The benefits of this approach to taking ownership is that you will then have a level of control of your destiny. Destiny, right? You will learn how to predictably go out there and grow your business. You will learn what works, you will learn what doesn't, and in the process, you will grow in ways that are far beyond business growth, right? You will grow in ways that you can't even imagine. And what an extraordinary thing to build a business from scratch, right? And the sooner you dive into this learning curve, the process of learning client acquisition skills, the better, because the learning curve is going to happen no matter what. The question is just how long it will take and when you will start it. So I hope that I've just said— I know this is a very short episode, but I really wanted to just get across that referrals are great, but you do not need to have any expectation or assumption that most or some of your business is going to come from referrals and word of mouth. And if you are finding that it's not coming, there is there's nothing wrong with you or the business you're building. You've just been perhaps led a bit down the garden path. That is the way that coaching businesses grow. And in my experience and what I'm seeing day and day in and day out, that is no longer how coaches are growing businesses. Instead, you need to take control and take ownership of your business growth through learning a really good strategy for client acquisition. So if you are committed to taking ownership of your business growth, let's talk. I run the Corporate to Coach Accelerator, which is a 12-month group coaching program for executive and leadership coaches and consultants aimed at teaching you the skills you need to build your pipeline of corporate clients. I would love to talk to you if you know you need to learn these skills and you know you need to implement them ASAP. You can check out all the details of my program over at elliescarf.com/cca. It's in the show notes. And you can also book book a call from that page or head over to elliescarf.com/bookacall and let's talk, right? Let's talk about whether this is a good fit for you. Secondly, if you find the podcast helpful, I'd be really grateful if you would take a moment to rate and review it on whatever platform you listen in on. And do connect with me on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with more podcast listeners and I'd love to be part of your community. See you next week.
