Potential LIP Business: Virtual Coaching

This week’s theme of potential businesses which can help enable your LIP life is about running a business as a virtual coach - aka an online coach or a remote coach.

As a business coach & consultant to solopreneurs and small businesses, this year I have worked with clients who are based in the UK, the South of France, Australia and the US, coaching them from our LIP locations of Panama, Buenos Aires, Toronto and Grenada.

Based upon my experiences this year and the future plans I have for this part of my business, here are some of the things I’d recommend considering, if this is the type of business you’d like to run as a location independent professional…

• When considering what type of virtual or online coaching to offer, aim to play to your strengths. Whilst there are a number of untapped niches out there, to create and run a business based on authenticity, integrity and honesty I believe that it’s necessary to have some experience of successfully doing or having done what you’re offering to coach others to do.

• If you are new to coaching, then consider getting an official coaching qualification from somewhere like CoachU, Coachville or another respected coaching certification. Coaching, like Virtual Assitance, is an unregulated profession so if you have no prior experience of a particular niche, nor any coaching experience, a recognised certification may help you build your credibility and reputation.

• Building a portfolio of coaching services and products should be a long term focus. This has partly to do with creating an exit plan for the business but also helps you focus on creating some passive streams of income from what you do. I’ve recently been doing a lot of work in this area and now have a funnel/portfolio of business coaching products & services that I’m really happy with.

• If you have previously been used to coaching or doing business with people face-to-face, then it might take some adjusting to provide your coaching services virtually. Coaching, in itself relies on a fair amount of feedback from the coachee - both verbally but also physically. If you are talking to people on the phone/via skype (and not using video calls), then this makes the feedback aspect much harder.

• When considering what type of service to offer, getting clients to commit to a longer term coaching course/program is not only a benefit to them, it is also a benefit to you. Having a regular, monthly source of income from say 10 coaching clients who are all signed up to 6 or even 12 months of coaching with you, provides a mesaure of financial security whilst you travel and ensures a steady income.

• As you will likely be travelling around whilst coaching - perhaps working from different time zones to your clients - you must ensure that your travel plans don’t negatively impact the work you do with clients. Small things like getting your times wrong and missing client calls might not seem a big deal to you, but it’s the little things like this which can make you appear unprofessional and unreliable.

• Never under-estimate the demands that coaching can place on you. By its nature can be emotionally and mentally challenging - you are often helping clients through problems and difficulties. Leading your LIP life can place additional stresses on you which you wouldn’t otherwise be facing if you were based in one place - be prepared for this and ensure you don’t stretch yourself too thin.

Coaching can be an extremely rewarding business to run - and one that allows you to be location independent. It isn’t however the easiest of businesses to set up, gain clients for and market whilst you’re travelling. You should therefore ensure you have built up some sort of coaching practice before you leave your home country to pursue your LIP life.

If you’d like the to receive my own fortnightly “Business Success Secrets” ezine, designed to provide business tips and insights to solopreneurs running their own businesses, then enter your name and details below…

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Comments

November 13, 2007

Another great post with valuable information. The more I look into my next adventure the more I realize that coaching is what is going to get me there.

Thanks for the info and the inspiration.

Posted by CoachKip

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