I made the decision to document and share my journey as I create my online training and coaching business. I’ll be sharing the successes and lessons (because there’s no ‘failure’, just lessons…)
But one of the first things I needed to do was to decide what success means to me.
Why should I bother with this now?
In his popular book, the 7 habits of highly effective people, Stephen Covey teaches about habit two, which is to begin with the end in mind:
To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.
It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy – very busy – without being very effective…
How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and, keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most. If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster. We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but we will also be truly effective only when we begin with the end in mind (Covey, 1989, p. 98).
So it’s important to think about what a successful online training and coaching business looks like, so that I can identify the steps that I need to take to get there.
Even more importantly, how does it look to ME?
That distinction is very important.
Success according to me.
Not according to someone else.
So I put on my ‘Feeling’ cap and asked myself… “How does success feel? When will I know for sure that I am successful?”
If this business is going to be successful, it must be structured to fit ME – my quirks, personality, lifestyle… ME. I will not change my life or who I am to run the business. The business is there to support me. To allow me to fully express myself. To allow me to live my life exactly as I want to live it.
That means that my business must fit into my life and support my lifestyle.
As I’ve said before, getting to ‘successful’ is not a sprint. I realize that it’s a journey. It will take many months, maybe even years, to get to where I feel that my business is truly successful.
I’m therefore looking at success strategically.
I will have a series of success milestones. Each of these milestones will be one more step towards where I ultimately want to be. I won’t put a time limit to my milestones. I want to grow into them. I want to learn as I grow, and share my lessons with you.
So, I have an idea of what my ‘ultimate’ success looks like, and then I have created a number of smaller successes to ‘hit’ along the way. That’s how I’m defining my success.
So…
Where am I going? What does my ultimate success look like?
- My ideal business should not require too much of ME. Eventually, I know that I want to do much less of one-on-one coaching and much more of online training that does not require too much of ME. I may offer very limited, VIP-style coaching on rare occasions, but I don’t want to be doing lots of individual coaching. Most of my income will need to come from almost passive-style training courses. I won’t be entirely hands off, but my involvement will not be as high as it would be if my business is largely based on offering one-on-one coaching services
- My successful business needs to allow me to work from anywhere – as long as I have an internet connection and a computer. Kind of like a couch lifestyle 🙂
- The business needs to support my lifestyle – so I should be able to meet all my expenses, have some left over for fun, rest and restoration, for savings, health insurance, pension… In other words, the income from this business needs to fully support my desires. I can’t put a dollar figure to that, since my needs and desires will depend on the season 🙂
- The business should not imprison me. Yes, it’s a training and coaching business. That generally means that I’m the brand. However, I don’t want a business that can’t run if I don’t wake up feeling like working in it in the morning, or if I’m ill, or if I take a vacation… It must have the right kind of systems that will enable it to run with minimal intervention from me. I won’t completely disappear from the business, but I just don’t want to feel like I’ve been imprisoned. I love my freedom too much… Do you get me?
That’s the end goal – the long-term plan.
It’s true that I could model my business right now to start off with training programs. There’s nothing wrong with that. I just have a feeling that going that route might require much more… I may need to already have many interested members subscribed to my newsletter.
On the other hand, with a coaching business, I really just need one person to invest in a program for me to start making money. Plus having a coaching program gives me the opportunity to test my products and learn what works, what needs to be improved, how to make things easier for my clients to implement and get results, etc. That way, when I eventually transform these coaching programs into training programs, I will already have done some type of verification. Hope that makes sense.
That’s the plan right now. But since I’m the Chief Experimenting Officer (CEO) of my business, I reserve the right to change my mind and change my plans 🙂
It’s great being the BOSS, ain’t it? 🙂
In the meantime, there are smaller steps that I need to take that will lead me to the ultimate. [By the way, the ultimate success is not static – it will be a shifting goal, depending on how my life will be and the related needs. So that’s something else to consider :-)]
So, what are some of these baby steps or mini-goals?
- Build a list of subscribers interested in what I have to offer – I’ll have small goals within this, for instance, get 100 subscribers, then 1000 subscribers, and so on.
- Create free offers related to my main topics
- Create paid offers related to my main topics
- Get my first online coaching client
- Make my first $1000 from training and coaching offers
- Make my first $5000 from training and coaching offers
So that’s MY current plan for getting to success.
What does “successful” mean to YOU?
Running your coaching business does not have to be complicated for it to be successful. Your business just needs to be right for YOU. Design it to fit or support and not disrupt your life. Another coach’s business model may not be right for you. Don’t feel that you need to do your business like someone else. Do it your way.