On Becoming A Business Coach

In his 8th year as CEO – 8 long, hard years during which he had dragged his Company from the brink of insolvency to market dominance and a $2bn a year turnover – the Chairman whom, just 1 year before, Brian had introduced to his Board as the man to guide the Company to its next level, staged a coup. Unfortunately, Brian was not part of the Chairman’s new Vision and, at 55, he found himself with the sort of pat on the back that made Julius Caesar flinch, a golden handshake, and no job.Traveling for that year had helped but Brian found that his enjoyment was compromised by his negativity. He had packed on 15 kilos of flab – expensive, gourmet flab, but flab nonetheless – and he had the distinct feeling that his brain had gained some flab as well. He felt he was losing his edge and that it would be a waste of time going back into the marketplace to find a job.Then there was “the phone call”.A phone callOne of Brian’s protégé’s, Todd, had recently taken a redundancy from the Company and bought into a friend’s thriving engineering business, but he was struggling with the issues of running a team of just 50 employees in which he seemed to be “all at C” (you know: CEO, CFO, CTO, and all the other C’s, including Marketing and Sales) so that his new partner could focus on production and on meeting the flood of orders.

Todd was, in his own terms, “drowning” and now he was calling for help. Could he catch Brian for lunch – and for some of the mentoring that had been part of their relationship in their former roles?

Brian said “yes”. At the end of a long (sober) lunch, Todd walked away with “a plan”, looking 10 years younger and 10 kilos lighter, and Brian felt the delicious kick of having dug into his experience and skills to ask a series of superbly-crafted questions that had cleared the overwhelm, lined up the priorities, and had lights going on all over the board for Todd throughout their session.

A different type of calling

It was a small step from there.

Brian felt himself snap out of his haze. He could distinctly feel putting aside his sense of hurt and betrayal, and in its place he installed “gratitude” – gratitude to his former Chairman for breaking him out of a mould that had clearly not been good for his health, and for opening the door to other new, and exciting possibilities.

Business Coaching looked interesting and in his usual analytical fashion, Brian researched the likely challenges to success in that role, and came up with six. These he placed in the order in which he expected to encounter them:

6 challenges to overcome

1. Client acquisition: How do I find Clients? No clients, no business.
2. Fee justification: How do I get paid my first level income goal of $500 an hour?
3. Client retention: How do I keep clients long enough to do some good?
4. Client transformation: How do I change people whom I am not employing?
5. Proof of value: How do I and my Clients know if their investment is working?
6. Practice management: How do I Coach and run a business at the same time?

The hard facts

One of Brian’s strengths had always been research and a relatively hard-headed and pragmatic approach to challenges and his research revealed some disturbing facts, among them that only 9% of coaches earn six figures and above.

Brian was used to earning seven; was financially secure enough to scale back to six; but would not survive long term on five!

There was also the fact that earning at his target $500 per hour on a face-to-face basis would require him to acquire or develop systems that would ensure that he could deliver consistent quality to his clients in a time-effective manner for himself. A few quick calculations provided a sobering estimate of the time and work required to develop such systems – it was prohibitive!

Managing The Risks

Then he came across ProfiTune Business Systems, researched their coaching systems and methodology, their templates and products, their history and the people behind the business and, as he tells others, the rest is history!

3 years down the track Brian has a boutique clientele of 10 hand-picked clients stretching his brain while bringing in more than $250k a year.

He works with his clients 3 day week, mostly by phone, trades a few shares – and has taken up sailing!

And he blesses his former Chairman as he starts each new working day!

If you’re looking for your next career, could this be it?

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1. We will email you a detailed Frequently Asked Questions document. That is likely to answer around 95% of all of the questions you’ll have about this opportunity. If our answers extend your initial interest, then;
2. We will ask you to ring us (on 1 300 2 PROFIT) to arrange a phone interview; and
3. We will ask you to email us any additional questions you may have, so we can answer them in writing, before we talk. If your interview leaves us both with the feeling that we should proceed, we’ll negotiate a timetable for making that happen.