42 Oct 13 - transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Business of Executive Coaching Podcast. I'm your host, Ellie Scarf, a senior executive coach with over 17 years’ experience, which I now bring to my role as a mentor and business coach to executive coaches. When it comes to the coaching business, I have done most of it, to be honest.
I have grown coaching businesses, solo and in partnership. I’ve been an in-house coach and an associate coach. When I’m talking about selling coaching to corporate clients, I’m sharing from a place of experience and empathy. I work with coaches through my group program, the Corporate to Coach Accelerator, where executive and leadership coaches grow their business with more corporate or organizational clients.
I’m also a mom, a big reader, and an even bigger fan of my mini schnauzer, Yoshi. Keep listening for practical tips, inspiring stories, and prompts to grow your business your way.
Before I dive in, I want to share that I’m running a free live masterclass next week on Tuesday, the 21st of October (potentially Monday the 20th if you’re in the US). This masterclass is called Business Growth for Executive Coaches: Your Pipeline to Consistent Clients Without Feeling Like You’re Constantly Selling.
The premise is to break down the executive coach pipeline-all the foundations and systems you need to build a predictable pipeline of corporate clients without constant selling. I’ll talk about the executive coach pipeline as a simple, repeatable structure to take the stress and confusion out of your business development.
I’ll also cover the core processes behind consistent clients-how we go from system to operationalizing sales and marketing so you know exactly what to do each week and each day. I’ll share how important it is to replace ad hoc effort with a system—moving away from guesswork and random acts of marketing to a reliable process that fills your pipeline.
I’ll talk about why a framework beats hustle, and how clarity, structure, and rhythm give you confidence in your business development so you know it’s working. Finally, I’ll share how everything fits in context, with LinkedIn being just one part of a holistic process.
I’ll give you a taste of this today-some core foundations that are part of your business development process. To learn more about the full system, head to elliescarf.com/pipeline to sign up, or find the link in the show notes.
In the last few weeks, I’ve shared a lot about the importance of executive coaches having a system for business development and marketing. We know it’s important to build consistency around business development activities because that’s what translates into real growth.
Having a system is also helpful for mental health, stress levels, and that sense of peace and certainty that we’re on the right path. The most successful coaches have a good system, so it’s worth tuning in.
Today I want to share three important components you need in your business development system to achieve the outcomes we’re aiming for-real business development conversations that lead to real opportunities and engagements. These engagements could be coaching, facilitation, consulting, a hybrid, or something else in your aligned offer suite.
The three things I’ll share are part of what I’ll show in the masterclass, but they’re also the core of what I teach inside the Corporate to Coach Accelerator.
The first component is a set of strong assets. Often we don’t think about assets as strategically as we could. Inside the Accelerator, I have whole modules on each of these, but for now I want you to make sure you have what you need to promote your services confidently.
This isn’t about perfection. It’s about aiming for what my previous business coach Claire Pru called B+ work. It’s better to get it done than to get stuck in perfectionism. Inside the Accelerator, people complete assets to B+ level, then send them for specific feedback.
When I talk about strong assets, I mean:
1. Your coach bio.
This is your number-one tool when working with organizational clients. It acts as your proxy inside client organizations. HR or L&D will use it to select coaches, potential coaches will read it to choose whom to meet, and leaders will use it to approve coaching engagements. It also stays in circulation even when your contacts leave, so it needs to be compelling and speak to the common challenges of your ideal clients. I’ll share a proven template for this in the masterclass.
2. Your LinkedIn bio.
Inside the Accelerator, we have an in-house LinkedIn coach, Kate Merriweather. She runs monthly live LinkedIn sessions and provides personalized audits of members’ profiles with practical, direct feedback. Even if you’re not in the program, I recommend checking her out for a professional audit.
3. Your website.
You need a strong website that speaks to your ideal clients. It doesn’t need to be complex—just professional, validating, and aligned with your audience’s expectations. It should clearly answer who you are, what you do, and the key challenges you help solve. It doesn’t have to sell for you-that’s what sales conversations are for-but it should help someone decide they want to talk to you.
Those three assets form your foundation. To build them, you need clarity on your ideal client, the industries where you have credibility, and your offer suite-what you want to do and what problems you solve.
The second component is understanding your numbers game. To systemize business development, we need to get clear on both outcomes and inputs. That means reverse-engineering your revenue goal into practical steps.
For example, say your annual revenue goal is $120,000. If your average coaching engagement is $12,000, you need 10 engagements. If 50% of your proposals are accepted, you need to issue 20 proposals. If one-third of your sales conversations lead to proposals, you’ll need 60 sales conversations. If 25% of your initial outreach messages lead to conversations, you’ll need 240 outreach conversations.
If 25% of those result from your total outreach, you’ll need around 960 outreach messages per year. If you work 44 weeks per year, that’s about 22 outreach messages a week-quite manageable when broken down.
As you get more repeat clients and larger engagements, these numbers change, but it’s essential to start by tracking them: how many proposals are accepted, how many conversations lead to proposals, and how much outreach results in engagement.
The final component is developing rituals and routines to operationalize your system. The key is understanding your brain, your life, and your commitments.
Ask yourself:
* Are you a drip-feeder or a batcher?
Drip-feeders do best with daily consistency, like a focused “hour of power.”
Batchers might dedicate half a day per week to business development, plus 15 minutes every other day for maintenance.
* Are you more self-motivated or externally accountable?
If external accountability drives you, use systems like our Slack channel, where members share priorities on Monday and check progress on Friday.
Whatever your preference, identify the four key tasks you’ll complete every week and create rituals that fit your energy and schedule.
I hope this helps you see the most important components of an effective sales and marketing system for executive coaches. I’ll go into much more detail in the masterclass on October 21st. Head to elliescarf.com/pipeline to sign up and join us live.
Can’t wait to meet you there, and I’ll be back next week with more.
