7 Reasons Your Coaching Business Isn’t Growing

You’re a coach, trainer, speaker, author or thought leader, and you’re doing what everyone tells you to do: post content daily, launch a podcast, provide value, and overdeliver.

And yet, the results aren’t coming, or at least not as fast as you’d hoped for.

Here’s the truth: there has never been a better time to share and monetize your expertise than right now. But with great freedom comes great responsibility.

Now that the coaching and thought leader space is being bombarded with new entrants, what used to work years ago no longer works.

Let’s explore the 7 reasons why your coaching business isn’t growing and what to do about it so you can separate yourself from the crowd and monetize your expertise.

1. You’re Treating Your Business Like a Fun Hobby

I love hobbies, but they don’t pay the bills. (See: my untouched Taylor guitar for the last 9 months.)

A hobby is something you do when you “feel” like it —and if you do this, you’ll get hobby results.

For many coaches, they aren’t taking their business seriously enough, and it starts with a mindset shift: you own a business, so treat it like one. You are the CEO, so act like one.

2. You Haven’t Fully Owned Your Value and Expertise

Coaching is about leadership, and part of leadership is fully owning your value and expertise.

Often, it can be easy to feel like an imposter —or compare yourself to some of the biggest names and feel like you’re not good enough.

Remember: you don’t have to be at the mountaintop to lead others, only a few steps ahead.

As JJ Virgin once told me, we’re terrible at owning our expertise because it’s so close to us. Own your value and expertise, and act like it.

3. You’re “Winging” Your Content, Programs, and Offers

Many coaches and thought leaders wing their business actions and wonder why it’s not working.

This includes half-hearted launches, copying other people’s programs and trying to be on every platform at once because Gary Vee said so.

Clearly, this is not sustainable and it is why most people won’t last more than a couple of years in the industry.

Instead: be strategic and reverse engineer your business to serve your dream clients. Take weekly time to review, reflect, and course-correct on what’s working, and what’s not.

4. You’re Following Exactly What Everyone Else Is Doing

You launched a membership because one person did, and it bombed. You started a podcast, and no one listened. Where is the strategy?

Modeling others in the coaching, training and live event space is a fantastic idea —but copying them without a strategy is a recipe for disaster.

Remember: in most cases, 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts.

Which means, focus on the few things that do work —instead of trying to do what everyone else is doing.

5. You Don’t Know Who Your Dream Client Is and How to Speak to Them Directly

This is a big one, and extremely common. If you’re not fixing one problem for one person —you will offer general advice.

And offering general advice in a crowded world means you’re going to be left behind.

Personally, I took my own advice and realized my dream clients were location independent entrepreneurs who were making close to six figures —and wanted to double their business in 90 days while working half the time.

Ask yourself: who are you speaking to and what is the outcome you’re delivering?

6. You’re Not Obsessed With Acquiring the Skills to Amplify Your Value

Key word: obsessed — as an expert, you must identify the key skills and ensure you are dedicating real, focused time to them every week.

As a coach and thought leader, this could be anything from honing your copywriting to learning about paid traffic or social media marketing.

What I teach my clients is to go all in on one skill every quarter, and be specific on what they are studying, why it matters, and how they will know they improved or not.

• 

7. You’re Living Reactively, Checking Followers and Likes, and Living in Distraction

Countless online business owners spend their days lost in distraction, comparing themselves to everyone else.

They start their days on social media and don’t have any real strategy around what they’re doing.

In 2020, focus is your competitive advantage —time block your core activities including lead generation, sales, and systems.

Building Your Coaching Business

So, there you have it: which one of these connected with you as a thought leader, coach, and expert?

Remember: you can build a thriving six or seven (and beyond) figure business by monetizing your expertise.

But with countless people becoming coaches every single day, it’s going to get harder. By following these steps, you can take command, stand out from the crowd, and get your worth.