So… you’ve decided to start a coaching business? Or maybe to get more clarity within your current coaching business? Either way… congrats! The brainstorming phase is now over and it’s time to develop a plan of action. That’s right, it’s time to create your business plan!
Now before you freak out, take a deep breath. We are going to make this process as simple as possible for you. Unless you are applying for a loan, you do not need a traditional business plan. Do you know those crazy 300 page documents with all those charts? Yeah… those. We’re not going to make you do that! Together, we are going to create a short, sweet, but powerful mini-coaching business plan.
Inside this blog post you’ll learn:
✔️ Why you need a coaching business plan.
✔️ What to do before you start writing your plan.
✔️ What to include in your coaching business plan.
Why you need a coaching business plan.
A coaching business plan is really about clarity and focus for you, your partners, your investors, and your executive team. This plan will help you build a business that will support you financially, have an impact on those around you, and leave a lasting legacy you can be proud of.
The research you have to conduct to finalize a coaching business plan will help you peer into the future and predict different outcomes. Though it’s certainly not perfect, it helps you map out where you currently are and where you’re headed.
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Specifically, a business plan helps you…
- Estimate total startup costs
- Understand your target audience
- Compete from the start
- Anticipate challenges
Bottom line? A business plan helps keep you on track. It ensures that you focus your attention on the right things and helps you avoid mistakes that could sink you.
Ready? We’re going to walk you step-by-step through the process of creating a solid business plan.
What you need to know before you start writing a business plan.
At Lovely Impact, we are all about dreaming big. Have you seen our tagline? “Launch your coaching website. IMPACT THE WORLD.”
We truly believe truly in that mission. However, every coaching business has to start somewhere. Unfortunately, many business plans are wildly unrealistic. The initial excitement of starting the business often causes coaches to massively overestimate how successful they’ll be and underestimate the challenges they’ll encounter.
In order to be effective, a coaching business plan needs to be realistic. Before you launch, you want to be relatively confident that you have a good chance of succeeding.
In many ways, a business plan should help you decide whether your coaching niche and business idea will pan out. It’s possible that you may put together your business plan and then realize that the potential outcome isn’t as bright as you initially thought. That’s okay. It forces you to go back to the drawing board.
This is why taking the necessary time to do the market research, analyze your financial needs, and map out your strategy for the future is super important. Don’t look at being realistic as the thing that’s preventing you from dreaming big. View it as building a foundation for a successful, long-lasting business.
What to include in your coaching business plan
We want you to put a lot of thought into each section of your coaching business plan. To help, we’ve not only included a free download in our Free Resource Library, but we’ve also broken each part down for you:
Section 1: Mission Statement: Keep your mission statement concise and specific but make sure anyone reading it will have a full understanding of your business. Your mission statement should include what you do, how you do it, who you do it for, and what value or need you are serving.
Section 2: Executive Summary: In this section, you should describe your business in more detail. What type of business is it? Why did you start this business? What does it mean to you and your customers? What industries do you service?
Section 3: Products and Services: Here you’ll want to list out and describe all of the products and services your business will offer. But we want you to dig a little deeper by including pricing and materials needed to provide them to your customers.
Section 4: Targeted Audience: Now it’s time to describe your ideal customer. Include demographics, influencers, trends, where they are online, and more. Don’t get too obsessed with this. In chapter 3 we’ll be doing a deeper dive on marketing research.
Section 5: Customer Needs: What need is your business fulfilling? Here you’ll need to discuss the pain points and frustrations of your potential customers, and how your business will solve those problems.
Section 6: Customer Acquisition: In this part of the plan, you’ll discuss where your customers are and how you will reach them. Include social media platforms, forums, magazines they read, activities they frequent, etc. Explain how you will use these mediums to promote your business and reach your customers.
Section 7: Competitive Advantage: What makes your business so unique? This is where you explain why you are better than your competition, how your products and services stand out, and what make you different.
Section 8: Owner Passion: Here’s a section that many don’t add to their business plans, but that’s the point of this course right? Describing why you are personally passionate about this business is important to keep you motivated. Be sure also to include your three top qualities that you will put into your business.
Section 9: Finances: Here we go! Don’t panic. For this part, we will keep it very simple. What are your financial goals? How will you fund this business? Finally, what is the cost to start this business?
Section 10: Business Goals: For this part, list what goals you plan to accomplish in 6 months, one year, and five years from now.
Download our free the coaching business plan worksheet
Ready to get started writing your coaching business plan? Head on over to our free resource library and look for the “MINI COACHING BUSINESS PLAN”. This guided workbook goes along with this blog post and was developed to help you create a short, sweet, but powerful mini-coaching business plan.
Sign up here: https://lovelyimpact.com/free-resource-library-for-coaches >>
About The Author
Hey! I’m Tee, a Certified Business Coach and a Co-Founder at Lovely Impact. I help coaches grow and scale their coaching businesses. Here on our blog, my content focuses on web design, marketing, business, and social media strategy.
Tee, thank you so much for this article! I’m planning to download the mini coaching business plan because I love how you laid it out here!
Hi Laura! I’m so glad this helped 🙂 The mini coaching business plan is laid out exactly like this, so if the article helped the download will follow the same process.