As coaches and consultants, most of us started our businesses because we wanted to help leaders thrive and grow. We wanted to have purposeful conversations with business leaders that spark transformation. Of course, we want to be successful and build clientele, but what we hear is that most coaches and consultants would rather focus on their client experience rather than managing their business.
Unfortunately, once your client list goes beyond two or three, we can no longer wing it, rather, we’re forced to manage the “rest” of the business – progress tracking, assignments, sponsor data, communication, and scheduling. Although growing our businesses is desirable, in order to do so we have to find ways to manage the undesirable items that come with it.
As we aspire to grow our coaching and consulting businesses, our competition is doing the same. Over the last 18 months, organizations have experienced the impact of effective (and ineffective) leadership more than ever. According to a Training Industry report, even with the pandemic looming, organizations spent $357.7 billion worldwide on leadership coaching, training, and development in 2020 and are planning to spend more in the years to come.
In order to stand out from the growing competition, we need to be savvier in the way we run our businesses, showcase our offers, and relate to sponsors and managers who engage us to solve their problems.
Technology is key.
By harnessing the power of technology, we can boost productivity, streamline communication, and, for lack of better words, become omnipresent with our clients and sponsors.
Optify, along with hundreds of other companies, has realized the importance of technology when it comes to growing a coaching or consulting business. What we came to understand was the right technology should answer three essential questions:
- What’s in it for your business?
- What’s in it for your clients?
- What’s in it for your sponsors?
Let’s dive in.
What’s in it for your business?
The right technology should help you with your own internal business. Instead of bouncing from Google Docs, spreadsheets, SurveyMonkey, email, and your old-school pen and paper, you should be able to gather all your data, assessments, and program information in one place.
On top of being a container for your information, the right coaching platform can help you duplicate your engagements to standardize results, track client progress to know where you are in the engagement, save time, and professionalize your business model.
What’s in it for your clients?
Clients are looking for ease, just like you are. A good coaching platform will help them see their own journey, keep their goals top of mind, schedule with you easily, know their information is confidential, and access valuable resources either from you or on their own.
They’re looking for a portal that meets their needs so they can develop to their best potential with your coaching.
What’s in it for your sponsors?
Going high tech brings shows your value to your sponsors as well. You can give them a 360-degree look at where their leaders are in their engagements with the click of a button without breaching confidentiality. You can set up program information with organizational goals in mind and print it to share with your client and their manager. And you can track real, tangible results to prove your ROI for their business by implementing surveys throughout the programs.
High-tech is the language that organizations are speaking right now, don’t make them hire a translator, meet them where they are.
Every coaching and consulting engagement is different. We all have different needs and different questions. Come up with your own list of features that would complement your practice, provide value to your clients, and show results to your sponsors.
At Optify, we started as a scalable coaching provider and discovered our list – organization, consistency, transparency, accountability, and scalability. That’s what inspired us to build Optify Solo and Optify Teams. To help other coaches provide high-touch coaching to a high-tech world.
Learn more about how Optify could help your practice at optify.io/platform
