Ive found a really interesting statistic.

Although the small business administration says that over 80% of all small businesses will fail within 2 years, and 90% by 5 years. Doesn't that say that there is a real need for coaches?

However, the statistics for consultants and coaches is that over 90% will fail within their first year, and most will never make more than $100K.

Scary isnt it?

So why is that? Arent we supposed to have all of the answers for running a business, and for driving people to success?

When I started my own business coaching practice I would have thought so, but most of the coaches Ive run into fit the mold I mentioned above.

So, why is it?

• Most coaches dont treat their coaching business as a business.
• They arent terribly different from most of my business clients that have their nose to the grindstone in technical details.

An example I frequently use to my business clients is this:

Think of a cook in a restaurant that loves what hes doing, and is probably darned good at it. He thinks he knows a whole lot more than the boss, so he goes across the street and starts his own restaurant. He spends his time making better and better meals and cant understand why few walk through the door.

You may have heard the saying: Work ON your business, not IN your business.

Well, success will come only when that cook stops working on how good he is at the technical part of his business, and start focusing on the critical things that have to happen:

• Running a business, developing a plan, understanding all of the pieces, and key numbers, and then making all of the critical numbers happen:
  • Marketing (getting more people to find him)

  • Sales (getting more of those that find him to buy from him, and keep buying from him) And finally,

  • Production (delivering the product efficiently and making customers happy). This is where he had been working anyway.

So, as a coach have you been working consistently to deliver the exact number of new appointments each and every week, closing the exact number of new customers every week, and finally, being able to deliver results to happy customers.

Most coaches are not any different than the cook in that restaurant. They are focusing on what they think they do well, coaching people, but have either not looked at how to run a business, havent developed a plan that shows them where they are going and how to get there, dont understand what activity will deliver the exact number of clients a week.

Actually most are setting back saying it will get better once people find me, and theyll find me in a few weeks. Let me ask you a very important question: If they havent found you already why do you think it will change next week, or next month. It wont.

Im going to run a series of articles over the next few weeks on how to build a successful coaching practice, starting with how to run a coaching business (it is a business by the way), marketing (getting the exact number of appointments you need NEXT WEEK, not later), how to close more sales. Im going to assume that you know how to coach.