How to Write a Life Coaching Business Plan (The Easy Way!)

You’ve been working hard to get your Life Coaching Business off the ground. Now you need to figure out how to market and grow it! That’s where a life coaching business plan comes in!

We’re Cass and Tee, and we’ve been helping coaches succeed for years, as well as being coaches ourselves! We understand the importance of a business plan. This is the most important part of your life coaching business.

Today, we’re going to explore all the steps for creating a simple and effective life coaching business plan. We’ll help you outline what you want to offer in your life coaching business, who your ideal clients are, and what strategies you’ll use to grow your business. 

We’ve even included a template that is ready-to-go for you so all you have to do is fill in the blank. 🙂

Let’s dive right in!

What is a Life Coaching Business Plan?

Your life coaching business plan tells you in concrete terms what it is that you wish to achieve from your business. This plan lets you know where you are starting, where you aim to be, and the timescales that you are looking at. It also tells you what resources you need.

It’s an important means of keeping yourself on track with your current plan because you will have an end goal in sight. It will also bring structure to your approach, and encourage you to slow down enough to think about the steps.

You don’t have to write a novel-length plan, however. A short, simple plan is often more effective, and that’s what we are going to show you how to create today.

What to Include in a Life Coaching Business Plan

Section 1: Mission Statement

Your mission statement should encompass your business and what it involves. A stranger who picked the document up and read it would know exactly what your life coaching business does and how it does it.

You should think about the following areas:

• What do you do? – What role do you see yourself fulfilling and what problems do you solve?
• How do you do it? – Do you engage your clients face to face, over the phone, via email? What teaching methods do you employ?
• Who do you do it for? – Are you looking to improve life for your clients? Yourself? Your family?
• What value do you bring? – Whose problems are you solving? How are you making things better?

Section 2: Executive Summary

Use this section to explore a bit more about your life coaching business and expand on the previous one. Why have you chosen to start this business? What does the business mean to you and to your customers?

Think about things like:

• What type of business it is.
• What industries it serves.
• What its purpose is.

This will help you to better understand your life coaching business and its position.

Section 3: Products and Services

In this section of your life coaching business plan, break down your products and the services that you offer to your customers. You should have a good sense of the things that you provide and what they cost, even if this is subject to slight alterations later.

Make yourself a full pricing list for the products you will sell, and a separate list for the materials that you will need to buy, with the cost of those materials alongside. Think about what the products you will have to buy will cost you, and start drafting a budget.

This will help you build your pricing sheet and ensure you are charging enough for the things you plan to sell to your customers.

Section 4: Targeted Audience

A good life coach knows their clients intimately, so take some time to think about your ideal clients and who they are. This might be one of the most important steps, so take your time over it and refine it.

Look at the demographics you’re serving and think about how you can speak to them. What social networks do they use online? What sorts of things do they share and engage with? What are the current trends and how can you tap into them?

Build a profile for your client, looking at things like their age, gender, preferences, etc.

Section 5: Client Needs

Once you have your client profile, you’ll need to start thinking about what problems you are solving for your potential customers. What are the pain points in their lives, and how are you going to make a difference to those points?

This area is about pinning down exactly what your business offers. Be specific and detailed. For example, don’t write:

“I will help people feel happier.”

Write:

“I will help people pinpoint what they need to change to feel happier.”

Being specific will ensure you have a strong foundation for your life coaching business.

Section 6: Client Acquisition

Next, you will need to think about how you are going to actually attract those clients. How will you let them know about your life coaching business?

You should think about the areas that you can use to promote yourself. Do your customers spend a lot of time in yoga studios, and could you put up notices there? Are you going to advertise on public transport?

Social media is a very powerful promotional tool, but you should also think about tapping into forums and advertising in print.

Once you’ve identified the areas, think about what you will do to attract customers, such as free trials, etc.

Section 7: Competitive Advantage

Think about what makes you stand out and who you are up against. What sets you apart from the crowd and why?

Make a list of your products and how they differ from products offered by your closest competitors. It isn’t enough to just feel like you are a better coach; you need an edge that makes you a preferable choice for clients.

Make some bullet points of things that make your life coaching business different from the others in your industry, and use these to craft your angle so that you are clearly offering something unique.

Section 8: Owner Passion

You might already know in your head why you are passionate, but write it down in your life coaching business plan. It matters, and putting it on paper is a good way to stay focused on it. Many coaches leave this step out of the business plans, but it’s a really good way to motivate yourself and keep yourself on track.

Once you have written about what drives you in your life coaching business, you should add three bullet points that reflect the top strengths you will bring to it. For example:

• I will show my clients compassion.
• I am an excellent listener.
• I am good at identifying problems.

Section 9: Finances

Few people enjoy looking at the financial side of things but it is important, and you don’t have to go super in-depth here. Simply spend a bit of time thinking about:

• What you want to gain financially from the business.
• What funds you will need to put into the life coaching business and where you will get these.

Write down some of the basic costs of setting up, such as website design, logos, promotional materials, and any training that you require.

Section 10: Business Goals

It’s very important to know where you are going next, so make sure that you also write down some goals for the future. What are you going to accomplish in the coming months?

You can list as many goals as you like, but you should make sure that you have a six-month goal, a one-year goal, and a five-year goal as a minimum. These will motivate you to keep taking your life coaching business to new heights and stay on task, rather than losing your momentum.

Final Thoughts – How to Write a Life Coaching Business Plan

A life coaching business plan is a must-have for any coach. It’s where you outline what you want to do in order to grow your business, how much time you will spend on each task, and what tools you can use to make it easier for yourself. 

To help, we have a free template in our resource library for coaches HERE. Sign up and you’ll see the coaching business plan in the business resources section: 

Let us know in the comments if you download it and use it in your business! Have fun with this process – don’t think of it as work but rather an opportunity to dream big about the future success of your coaching business!