How to start your Coaching/Consulting Business

Yo, yo, yo I can taste yo, yo, yo, yo I can taste. Yo, yo, yo, yo. Hello, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Happy Friday, everyone. Today is day two of my month long going live. Every single day. I'm going to find a better way to say that because that just did not flow off the tongue today. I want to. I'm just coming to you shortly. I'm going. I have an appointment that I have to get to in a little bit. But I wanted to come to you shortly and talk about what it really, really takes to build a successful coaching or consulting business. Okay. Because we're over complicating it, people. Okay. I'm going to go over the three things that I hear most often that people get all flipped out about and think that they need to figure out before they get started and it's completely false. And then I'm going to talk about the three things that you actually do need. Okay? So first and foremost, want to do some housekeeping. Just changed my agenda in my brain. I'm going live on the Facebooks, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on YouTube. Sometimes I don't see comments from everywhere. I love this to be interactive. So if you're. If you're tuning in, hi. To the little eyeballs popping up, welcome. I love this to be interactive. But if you comment and I don't call you out, please don't take it personally. It's probably just that Streamyard is not showing me your comments. Okay? I'm not mad at you, I promise, unless you say something rude. Okay, then we're gonna have to have a talk anyway. Let's talk about the three things that. That you do not need to get started. Okay? Number one is a business plan. Okay? I know this is the one that people get all bent out of shape about. I mean, there are a bunch of them. People get bent out of shape about. You do not need a business plan. Okay, let me. Let's talk about business plans and what their place is in starting a business. Okay? A business plan is completely necessary for, say, a restaurant. Restaurant that is going to the bank for a loan and trying to get investors. Okay? A business plan is necessary for a clothing brand that is going for a business loan and trying to get investors. Okay? A business plan is basically a piece of paper where you write down how you think this is going to go. Okay? And. Hi, Gabriel. I'm going to pop your little comment in here. Good afternoon. Welcome. So business plans are great, and also they're kind of full of shit. Okay? A business plan is basically a piece of paper that predicts how you think you're going to make money, okay? So it is basically laying out how you foresee this being successful. All right? Sometimes they're completely wrong, okay? Look up the number of how many restaurants fail and don't continue past five years, okay? Business plans are not a guarantee of success, okay? They are a projection. They are best case scenarios. They are, they are. Here's how we're going to allocate the money that you give us. You actually don't need a lot of money to start a coaching or consulting business, okay? You need. I mean, you can set a free website, I'm sorry, a free email address you can market through social media that's also free. You can set up credit card processing through Square, and that charges 2.9%. That's pretty average for credit card processing. You can do it pretty bare bones. I think the thing that would cost you the most amount of money is if you were to set up an acuity scheduling account, which I highly recommend. It allows for you to let people to book with you directly, which is a lot easier. Makes you a little. Look a little more professional. It also helps you do subscription payments, okay? So if you have clients who pay you on retainer every month, it just auto charges them, okay? So you don't have to invoice them. And it doesn't get weird when you have to chase them down for money. Don't recommend that. So you don't need a business plan, okay? If you want to write one for fun, go for it. But I dare you to look at it in two years and laugh your ass off, okay? Because I guarantee your business will not have grown that way. Number two is you do not need a website, okay? I know, I know, I know, I know. Websites give us credibility. That's what you want to say. Websites tell people that we are who we say we are, right? Yeah, sure. So I. I bet you $100 that if I were to set up a website that said that I was a neurosurgeon, okay, I do surgery on brains, neurosurgeon, that there would be people out there who would stumble upon it and be like, oh, my God, that Katie McManus is a doctor. Didn't know that. Where did she go to school? They'd go to that website and it would verify in their brain that I was a neurosurgeon. Now, I didn't even graduate college, okay? And I didn't take one science class that's actually why I didn't graduate college, because I didn't want to do the general education requirements. And I wasn't willing to put myself through that because it seems stupid. You do not want me doing surgery on your brain, okay? That is not something that anyone should want in their life. Your website, yes, it can give you some credibility, but you don't want to do that yet. Most new consultants and coaches, when they set up their very first website, this is what they end up doing. They look at their resume, they take the details, they write more about those details, they slap it into a website with a picture of themselves and maybe like, a picture of, like, a lake or someone doing, like, this successful pose, right? You're very special. You're very special. You have an extraordinary list of accomplishments. You have special experience experiences. I celebrate everything you've done in your life. Your ideal client who would be going to that website to check you out further is not going to understand how you being captain of your college lacrosse team is supposed to help them find a new job, okay? They're not going to understand how you overachieving, like, three quarters in a row for your sales role is going to help them. Them meditate better, okay? It just doesn't translate. It doesn't help your ideal clients, the people who you want to see. This website doesn't help them understand how exactly you are useful to them. It just tells them more things about you. And I'm about to say something, it usually comes across a little harsh, and I mean it with love. In this greater scenario of you running a business and serving clients, the thing that matters the least is you. The person who matters the least is you. Your business is about your clients, not you. Okay? Of course the things you bring to the table are helpful to your clients, but you have to start with what they're going through, okay? And until you know that, until you have that set up in your brain and your website can be completely about that, you're better off not having a website. Okay? So that's number two. Number three. And I hear this a lot. I hear this a lot. And I get it. Taxes are really stressful, okay? Taxes. Doing your filings every year, figuring out the money side of it is stressful. You do not need a QuickBooks account, however, before you're making money, okay? I can't tell you how many new business owners come to me and they're like, I'm so excited. I have an LLC. I have this, and I set up a QuickBooks account account, and I'm like, great. How much money are you making right now? And they say, none. None. No, I don't have any clients yet. Haven't had a client yet. No money. And it's a little cart before the horse. Okay? You're setting up all the systems. I. I applaud you for it. But what. What these three things are, is they are busy work, right? Because they are not the things that are going to get you clean. Clients, okay? And to have a business, you need to be making money. And to make money, you need to have clients. You see how that works? So stick with me. I have three things that you actually do need. To be able to have a business, to have a successful business, to even just get your very first client, you need these things. Number one is you need a problem that you solve. Okay? You can call this a niche, but I. I actually prefer to call it a need. What's the need out there that you fulfill? Okay. When I started out, I picked a niche, and it was, I'm going to help men be better at dating. And if you know me, you know that I'm always saying picking a niche is a dance of the universe. I didn't get it right the first time. I got mostly female clients, and then most of them came to me for executive coaching. And then after I built a fairly successful executive coaching business, all my coaching friends were like, wait a minute. How did you do that so fast? And I didn't realize that I had taken my sales and marketing experience and morphed it into some really simple, organic way to set up a business. So I started teaching it, and I was like, holy shit, I love this so much more. Because I felt like I was teaching alchemy, okay? I was teaching these other coaches who were changing lives how they could literally turn their words into money, okay? And I loved that so much more. And the need, the need out there was so huge. I want you to go out and find that first. What is the problem that people have that you love helping them fix? Okay? That is the first thing you need to figure out in your business if you're going to have any success. Okay? You can call the niche, you can call the need. You can call it a problem you solve. I'm not attached to the language, but you need to figure out something specific that you help people with. Okay? Next. Number two, you need a fucking voice, okay? I see too many super, incredibly talented coaches and consultants out there who are really passionate about what they do, who can change lives, who can change organizations, who could just seriously make the world a better place. And yet they're not talking. They're not talking about what they do. They're not explaining the problem that they solve. They're not showing up. They're not being visible. Victoria, I'm laughing at you hitting the point so clearly. Know them well? Yeah. I mean, I talk about this all the time. Thank you, Victoria. But I just want you to remember that you have a voice. You have a voice, and I don't care how boring your life is. Don't care how ordinary, how banal, how benign. I'm trying to think of other words that kind of allude to boring. If you can think of any, please pop them in the chat. You have things worth saying. Okay. You have beliefs, you have. Say you're a dating coach. And really, you help people who. Who recover from their last breakup, who want to get over that last breakup, really figure out who they are and then move on to their next relationship. Okay. You know, I have a belief around this. I'm just going to share this with you. Feel free to steal it if you're a dating coach. You know, when we break up with someone, we're not just breaking up with that person. We're also breaking up with the version of ourselves that we were with that person. Okay? We're breaking up with a part of ourselves, and that's why it's so painful. That's why it hurts so much right now. That simple belief, you could take and apply it to, like, 30 different rom coms out there, and you could go and talk about it all the time. And in doing so, you'd be telling people, hey, I talk about breakups all the time. I help people get over their breakups so they can get into their next relationship. Boom. You have a voice. It's that simple. This is one of the things that I love working on with my clients is helping them really pinpoint what their beliefs are and how they frame it to the world so that they can showcase what it is they do and what are the problems they solve for their clients. Okay. It's hard to do for yourself when you're starting out. So if I'm saying this and making it sound super easy, you're like, katie, I've tried that. I can't figure it out. Don't worry, okay? You're not alone. I'm going to give you a little homework, okay? So you're gonna jot this down. You're gonna write down 100 beliefs that you have about anything in the world, Okay? A lot of those Beliefs are going to be ridiculous, okay? Some of them are going to be stupid, some of them you're going to write down. And as you're writing it down, you're like, why am I writing this down? I don't believe this. And that's okay, because in that hundred there would be about 15 to 25 that you'll see and be like, oh my gosh, I think I could use that as content. And I want you to go out and make one post about it and I want you to tag me in it. One post about one belief, that's all I'm asking. But I want you to write down those hundred beliefs that you have and if you're willing to take that, that challenge on that homework, shoot me a dm. I love to hold you accountable for it. Now finally, the third thing that you need in order to have a successful coaching or consulting business is you need a strategy to get clients to work with you. That's it. And when I say strategy, I don't mean like a 19 point plan where you're showing up here, showing up there, blah, blah, blah. I mean, you have to kind of figure out what you're selling first, right? So maybe you're selling like a six month engagement where they work with you, figure out how often they talk to you. You have to figure out how much you're going to charge for this. By the way, the money map for coaches is in my freebies. Go and download it. If you don't know what to charge, seriously, you need to charge fairly so that you can survive doing this work, okay? People don't care how much you charge per hour. They don't, they care that you solve their problems. Okay? So you need to figure out how long people work with you, how often they talk to you, how much they pay you. Then you have to figure out which social media platform you need to be showing up on. And here's a rule I do for my clients is only one. Pick one social media platform that you're going to show up on consistently. Use your voice there. Do not overcomplicate it on three different platforms because you know how that goes, right? You commit to posting every single day. And Angela. Yes, yes. Tell me what comes out of it. I can't wait to see your post. You know how this goes, right? You commit to doing like three reels every single day on Instagram and then you're doing seven TikToks every single day on TikTok and then you're going to post two times on LinkedIn every single day. And then it gets three days in, and that's a lot of work. And so you kind of falter and you forget about Instagram. You only do two on TikTok and, you know, you start writing a post on, on LinkedIn, but then you get, like, stressed out because you're like, oh, God, like, is this smart enough here? And then you don't do it the next day, and then you don't do it the next day, and then you've just failed already. So it doesn't feel good to even go back and do a little bit of it because you've already failed. It's kind of like that thing that happens in the new year when you set a resolution to, like, lose weight or go to the gym more often. And he said something really aggressive, that you're gonna go to the gym every single day. And then, like, by the 13th, like, you hit work really hard and, you know, you're getting really tired and maybe you went out the night before with some friends and so you're kind of hungover and you're tired and there's a really long, stressful day, and you really just want to go home and order like, like a burger and some fries to be delivered to your home. And so you skip the gym, right? And the next day you just, you think about going to the gym. You're like, I could, but I skipped it yesterday. There's already, like, this sense of failure associated with that building because you skipped it one day. I don't want you doing that with your social media strategy, okay? I want you committing to one thing that you're going to show up on every single day. When I say show up, I don't necessarily mean posting every day if you don't have the bandwidth for it. I mean showing up and commenting on other people's stuff. I mean, showing up. If you're doing on Instagram, show up in the stories, okay? Do something impromptu. Show them what you're eating for dinner. Who cares? Don't overcomplicate it, okay? Create a small, simple strategy that will get you started, okay? As your business grows, your ability to manage it will grow. And as you develop more need to figure out the more complex parts of your business, you're going to start talking to people like me, business strategists and coaches, you know, and you're going to pick the right one for you, who has the right energy, who can match you, who can support you in exactly the way you need to be supported, and they're going to help you customize a strategy, okay? This is what I love doing for my clients, all right? Find someone who is the right fit for you, who can help you take your business from one or two clients to a full book of business, to launching a group program, to working with corporate clients, okay? To getting paid to speak on stages. All those things, okay? You're gonna get there. It's not gonna happen overnight. You want to start with the simple, small strategy that's gonna get you your first few clients right now. And with that. Can't believe I've been talking for almost 20 minutes already with that. I just want to remind you, business plan. Setting up a website when you don't have a niche, a need, or a problem that you solve yet, and signing up for a QuickBooks account. They are busy work. That is not client getting work, okay? To get clients, you need to figure out the problem that you solve. You need to own that you have a voice that is worth listening to. And you need a simple strategy. Don't overcomplicate it. Okay? If you need help with any of this, what you're going to do is you're going to go to my bio and you're going to click on the link. There's a little link tree thing there. And you're going to go and click a generate income strategy call, and you're going to book one with me, okay? Because if you're stuck, I do not want you staying stuck. That doesn't serve you. It doesn't serve your clients. It does not serve the world, okay? And I'm not. I'm not here for that. I'm here for you getting past being stuck and going and doing this already. All right? With that, I have to go. I have an appointment to get to. And it's Friday. I hope you have an amazing weekend. Like I said, I'm going live every day this month. So you will see me going live this weekend. I'm not sure when, but if you want to be notified, then. If you're not following me, then go ahead and follow me. If you're on LinkedIn, I think you can hit the bell and maybe you'll be notified. I don't know. Anyway, I hope you have an amazing weekend and I can't wait to be live with you again soon. I get weird when it ends. I'm just gonna go there. Angela, Victoria and Gabriel, thank you for tuning in. And if you have any questions or you are taking on that homework assignment, DM me. Okay? Happy Friday, everyone.