I was starting to gain momentum and I could see the halfway mark, but I wasn’t sure what to do next. Fifty hours was only 20 hours away. I would often ask myself “What else can I do?”. As coaches, we encourage our clients to expand their horizon, to look at all the options. I did the same.

I don’t want to take away from the coaching itself and only talk about my clients as ‘coaching hours’. I take a lot of pride in my work, and I care deeply for all my clients and their forward movement. My intention for sharing my experiences is to help coaches grow their business and find new clients, so I’m framing my experience with that in mind.

I had learned a lot about working with clients, reaching out to my network, and what kind of clients I wanted to work with, in my first 30 hours. I needed to keep learning and doing what I was doing in my next 30 hours. Instead of getting stuck in the ‘I don’t know’, I took the ‘what else?’ as an opportunity to try new things. Let’s be clear here, I was still working with my coach. Coaches are people. People need coaches. Coaches need coaches. In working with my coach, I recognized that it was my chance to get creative to experiment. I had done about 45 hours by the time January rolled around. I thought: “Cool… New Year… people are generally looking at the new year and reflecting on what they want that year to look like. Some people want a change and have never experienced coaching. What if I give people a taste of coaching?” It wasn’t really a taste, because, as we all know, change happens over time and the value of coaching happens over time. So the offer was a taste of what a coaching conversation would feel like.

I put it out there to my network. Again on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and email. “Tell everyone and anyone who will listen what you’re doing”, I would tell myself. I offered a 30-minutes coaching conversation for the first 10 people who signed up in the month of January. It was great to get the word out there, I got to work with 10 new people for 30 minutes each, supported some of them in making decisions, and clocked 5 hours of coaching. Success! Did I get any new clients from these coaching conversations? Nope! Did I learn anything? Most definitely. I learned how to have a 30-minute coaching conversation. This learning actually helped me refine my initial consultation call with prospective clients. It gave me an opportunity to practice and to figure out what I would ‘cut out’ in the consultation call. It taught me the value of a discovery session, the value of developing a coaching relationship with a client, and the value of coaching over time. I wouldn’t recommend doing too much of this because, again, there is more value in working with a client over time, both for the coach and the client. But this was a great way to get my name out there, remind people that I am a coach, and let more people know what I was doing. The most important step in this process was to ask myself ‘what’s the learning here?’ The answer will be different for everyone.

I was also getting to a point where I was starting to shape what I wanted in a client. I knew I wanted to coach people who recognized the benefits of coaching and saw the value in the change and growth that coaching supports. These changes could be from a leadership perspective, career transitions, personal development or even as a way to grow a business. I also knew that I wanted coaching to be a full-time job and so I had to consider the service I was offering. I got to put on my business hat and start thinking strategically about how I wanted to grow my business. Did I start right away? Did I start as soon as I hit 60 hours? Nope! But I was starting to think about it. I started asking myself what are the assets I can offer to my clients? What specialized knowledge and expertise do I have outside coaching?

I needed time to do this thinking. So I started to revisit my schedule, revisit what I wanted to do with my time. I started using a scheduling application, which helped me keep all my appointments organized and allowed my clients to book their own. I took a look at my ‘availability’ and started playing around with it. I was getting to know myself and was strategizing about how I wanted to grow my business; I knew this would take focus time, so I blocked off chunks of time to do the work. I also blocked off time in my day for myself. I wanted to make sure I ate lunch, had a coffee break and got outside. I didn’t have that many clients that my days were going to be packed back to back, so I thought I should avoid having appointments scattered throughout the week if it was unnecessary at this stage. While I kept doing what I was doing in order to bring on new clients, I had changed some of my focus. I should also mention that in my first 30 hours I was still taking courses to complete the training part of the certification and to build out my coaching skills. By the time I had finished my first 30 hours, I had finished most of the courses and was able to shift my focus from training to building my business.

Revisit the schedule, revisit what you want to do. Most importantly, don’t look at what other coaches are doing. Well, look at it in order to shape what you want and what you don’t want, but don’t look at it if it’s going to get you on the comparison train. Figure out what works for you. If Instagram isn’t for you, don’t do it. I would recommend trying it, but if it’s not your vibe, then don’t do it. Same with LinkedIn and Facebook. Do none of it, do all of it. If it’s not your thing, then what is? Do you like talking to people one-on-one over coffee or zoom? Do you like asking people to introduce you to three more people? Do you love YouTube or blogging or writing a newsletter? Do that. Do what speaks to you. Do what is aligned with your values. Notice I’m not going to say do what makes you comfortable, because starting your own practice is far from comfortable. Learning a whole new skillset as adult, and asking people to pay you for it, is not comfortable. Do what makes you feel like you.

Use your voice. Experiment. Reflect. Learn. Do it again. I reached 60 coaching hours the day before my birthday. The next day, I went to the spa.