Hello and welcome to the Business of Executive Coaching podcast. I'm Ellie Scarf, a senior executive coach and now mentor to executive and leadership coaches who want to grow their businesses with more corporate clients.
I've grown my coaching businesses solo and in partnership with workers and associate coaches and even as an in-house coach. I have seen it all and now I want to help you on your transition to building a thriving executive coaching business that replaces your corporate salary, gives you the flexibility you want and makes a difference to your clients,your coaches and the world. As we celebrate the holiday season and take a short break, I wanted to share with you some of the most popular episodes this year. These episodes have something in common which is that they are very practical and they all solve real problems that you might be grappling with as a leadership coach working with organizational clients.
Today's episode is called the eight things to include in your 2026 coaching business strategy. As part of the best of series, it made sense to run this one in this episode at this time of year because we've been talking about all things planning. I've talked a little bit about the things to keep in mind, the bigger picture approaches, how to reflect effectively and what this episode does . Well, okay, I've done all that.
Now let's get down to nuts and bolts of what should be in the strategy.People always listen to this one when they discover my podcast, they go back to it so you are in for a treat. It is very practical. It'll help you with your planning for 2026.
Reach out if you have any questions about it and I will get back to you on the other side of these holidays. Okay, so on to today's topic, which is all about what you should be including in your strategic plan for 2025 and specifically my strategic pillars that I take my group through. So I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but podcasts that are sort of business related have been running their planning, their annual planning episodes earlier and earlier every year.
Now I used to really look forward to the week between Christmas and New Year, maybe the week after New Year because that's when the podcast would all release their planning episodes and I had a bit of time and I used to love reflecting. I think they're probably all just assumed that. That's when people have time to plan.But the truth is this has shifted and I think it's probably shifted because in business we generally need to be ready to go come January. So we need to be a little more organized and I think that November or early December is a perfect time to be planning your 2025 if not before.
So I'm jumping right on board that train and I'm going to have a November planning episode and you know I hope this means it's not too late to be helpful and that it's something you can use as you start to think about your process.
So I'm going to stay focused today on one part of planning for 2025 which is what are the pillars that I think you need to factor into your strategy for your coaching business. Now of course you need to start any strategic planning process with a review of the year that was and that's usually a really broad review of what went well, what didn't, a specific review of your metrics against each of the categories.
In the accelerator we have quite a detailed workbook and monthly metrics guide that we review on a quarterly basis and I think but I think it's really good to do a lack an overall review on an annual basis and so anyone who joins the accelerator during our early bird period of the launch next week they will be invited to the 2025 planning workshop with our current members which is really exciting and always a lot of fun and it's great to take a bird's eye view of the year ahead.
So if you are interested in doing that whole process then join the accelerator and you will definitely be on board for that for this year. So I also before I start talking about pillars I think it's really important to start with a bit of a pat on the back because often we dive into what hasn't gone, how we've hoped and that is really important but it is missing a huge piece of the puzzle.
So I would encourage you also to lean in first to the wins that you've had, the successes that you've had, the things you want to do more of, the things you learned, all of the good stuff because that's what we want to be. You know that's the message we want to give ourselves, give the universe, if you've got a bit of a bit of a bit of energy but what is the stuff you want more of and I think we can often tend to focus only on the things we want less of and because of you know the negativity bias that we have in our brain that can kind of crowd out the good stuff sometimes. So make sure you start with that but other than that what are the pillars of strategy
that I think you need to include?
They are firstly your products and services, secondly your pricing, thirdly your revenue sources and breakdown, fourthly your business development strategy, fifth, fifth is marketing, sixth is financial management, seven is systems and support and eight is your development, right? So your growth and learning. So pillar number one is all about your products and services.
So when you're doing your strategy, I mean I think this is kind of obvious, it's really good to look at so what is it that you are selling, what are you putting out there? And I think it's important to look at this on a few different levels. Firstly, I think it is really important that you enjoy what you are doing. So if there is something that you don't enjoy,then you need to be clear that that's not something you are actively promoting.
Secondly, while we often craft things that are bespoke for our clients you know an example might be facilitating a leadership program that links into their capability matrices with the use of a psychometric and individual coaching program, right? That might be a program that we develop for our clients.
It's really good to be clear, like we can be flexible like that and I think we should, but we need to be also very clear on our boundaries which is what we won't do and our core buckets on what it is that we do. And this is unique for everyone and it might be that it's pretty simple, like I always recommend people have you know the clarity on two to three things offers,key offers that they have and that might be a standard executive coaching offer. It might be that you facilitate certain types of training content or it might be that you run group or
team programs, right?
For example, but I think we need to be clear on what they are and you know, for example, one of the things that I quickly decided I didn't do is that yes, I like to facilitate you know team development and I used to do team and group coaching, or I still do quite a bit of that, but you know I prefer not to run too many workshops on things like management or management topics specifically, so feedback and communication even though you know sometimes I love them, but I decided that I couldn't focus on them effectively.
So you need to be clear about what you do and don't want to do and I think it helps to consider the data around, enjoyment is one piece of data that I think you need to consider, but I think the other pieces of data are you know what is the investment of time and energy and business development energy versus the output in terms of revenue and potential opportunity that arise off the back of it.
So doing an analysis of that and figuring out what you know your unique blend of products and services by way of your offers, what that is. And so in the accelerator we dive a lot into the specifics of what your offer is, but in advance of 2025 I recommend getting really clear on what your core offers are and how you would like to deliver them.
Bonus points if you take some time to do the work about what client challenges your ideal clients might be having that make your offers no brainers for them, because doing that work is going to then inform your marketing and your sales approach, which is going to create like a virtuous cycle, which is golden when my selling services.
The second pillar is a pricing review and I think everyone should do a pricing review at least annually if not more. Now I've run a masterclass on pricing which some of you may have heard already so I don't want to dwell on it. And a pricing review doesn't always mean increasing your prices, but in the earlier days of business often it does. And it can be really something that doesn't come naturally, it might be awkward, but I want you to remember that cheaper doesn't mean easier to sell in the corporate coaching world, because credibility and pricing are often conflated as the same thing.
So have you thought about what your prices need to be for the market that you're in and what your strategy is going to be to increase your prices over the course of a year? And that might be that you actually map out, oh here this is what I think I'm going to do quarterly. So every new client that enters my world on a quarterly basis, the prices I will quote them will increase in this predictable fashion. And you know I recommend small increases applied consistently. That's my tip. But if you think you're well under the market, then do it in one fell swoop as well. But again in the accelerator we talk a lot about pricing, but it's interesting.
The more we, the further people get along in their membership, the less we're talking about pricing, because they get more comfortable with increasing their rates. So the third pillar is your revenue plan, getting clear on your revenue plan. And this is a really helpful,or quite a fun activity I think, where we start with your revenue goal, and then you break it down into how exactly you are going to get to that goal, given the offers that you have.
So as an example, and I don't think this is necessarily an example you would have in the early days, but if you had a goal of $120,000 in revenue for your year, your goal then translates to about $10,000 a month. Of course it's not linear, you will have highs, you will have lows.
But if we think about it as an example, there are a lot of ways you could get to that target. It could be that you want to add $10,000 of new coaching clients each month, right? And then that sort of then transpires over the course of a year to add up to that. And it might be one new corporate coaching client at $10,000 per month. It could be two at $5,000, whatever that looks like. Or it could be that you say, okay, well, I want to add a $5,000 coaching client and run a $5,000facilitated training day or offsite each month. Or you might say, I actually want to build a core group of four retained clients that are a combination of coaching and consulting with people that know and trust me at $20,000 per client per year, plus then I'll add in some ad hog associate facilitation along the way to take me up to my goal. Or you might say, I want 50% of my target to be associate coaching and the rest to come from my direct clients.
But I think breaking it down like this into a plan or a projection just gives you some direction and something to assess against. And it doesn't mean that if you don't hit that target or that exact breakdown that there's anything wrong, it just gives you a sense of how things are going. So I think it's useful.
And it also gives you some information about how you'll reach out to your clients. It'll inform your content plan as well. The fourth pillar, I think is the big one, of course, and that is your business development strategy.
Now, in a short episode like this, I can't cover all the specific shows how you will grow your business. But in your strategic planning, you need to identify the ways you intend to get new clients. And this includes things like how will you connect with your warm network of, I guess, their, you know, past colleagues or friends or family or existing clients? How will you connect with your warm network? How will you, what will your outcome and activity goals be for your business development? Right? You know, how many sales goals, sales calls do you want to have on a weekly basis or monthly basis? What are the activities you're willing to commit to? And then identifying, you know, what clients you will prioritize, how you'll use your strategic outreach approaches, other strategies, even boosting your referral network, having a loss leading offer, building a coaching adjacent offer to get you in the door and more.
And this is honestly probably about 75% of what we do in the accelerator. There's a lot in it, but you need to have a plan. Because if you have defined your, your, your revenue target, you've got your revenue plan, then actually you need to get the clients that are going to fill in those buckets. And that means building your sales funnel right from, right from getting people at a high level through converting them into clients. So your strategies to do that are what is important to break down here.
The fifth pillar is marketing. And marketing is obviously a big part of business development. But I think I like to pull it out separately. Because I think as much as possible, marketing should follow your strategy. And what do I mean by that? I mean, If you have a goal of promoting a particular offer to a particular type of client, you should be talking in your content about the challenges that those clients are facing that might make your offer relevant to them.
And you might not be so transparent about it. You might talk broadly quite a bit about things that your clients are going to relate to, right? So stories of things you've experienced. And this is all generally very authentic, right? Because these people are probably your target clients, because you have an affinity with a role or an industry.
And that's, you know, that's the way we can leverage our network most effectively. But talk to them, talk to them about what their experience is. Talk to them about your experience facing those same hurdles and building connections on that basis. And so planning out your marketing on an annual or a quarterly basis can take a lot of the anxiety out of execution. Because I know that a lot of coaches really overthink what they're putting out from a content basis.
They can suffer from perfectionism, which means that they redo it and redo it and redo it and never post it. So, you know, it's really helpful to build a plan that you can then execute. And, you know, in the accelerator, we like to talk quite a lot about this in our calls, about how do we get out of our own way and just post it? And we talk about, you know, What is the resistance we feel to taking these actions? Because a lot of coaches don't feel comfortable posting. They certainly don't want to feel exploitative or salesy or annoying.
So there's a lot of, there's a real balance to be struck between feeling authentic and good about what you're putting out there and what is required to grow a business. So we grapple with
that a lot in the accelerator. It's a great source of conversation and support of each other and challenge of each other as well, right? So pushing each other to, you know, get a little bit outside of your comfort zone. It's also helpful in the marketing pillar of your strategy to think now at the start of the year about what strategies you think you might like to experiment with over
the course of a year because you can't do it all at once.
So you might need to decide what you might like to try and whether it's realistic or not. And I think everything is realistic if we give it the right amount of time. And that might be things like you might want to experiment with video content or YouTube or a podcast or paid ads or daily posting or creating your mailing list, which is something that I do recommend, or hosting live events for potential clients,like breakfast briefings and things like that. And so I think it's worth thinking about what those are and planning them out for the year.
The sixth pillar is that you need to keep your finances front and center. And that means your financial goals, reviewing your P&L regularly, assessing your margins for each product or offer, breaking down your annual goal into quarterly targets,and deciding if you need a different way to manage your cash flow if it's not working for you.
So, you know, I think that that is really important and becomes more important with time. And so setting things up on the right basis is really important. The seventh pillar is all about systems and support. And so this is a little bit about reflecting on what systems and support you think you are going to need to prioritize in 2025. Now, this is part about technology, but it's also about the process. So it's about identifying where your bottlenecks are, where you are repeating tasks unnecessarily, what you are avoiding, and figuring out what system or process is going to help reduce that friction.
So a guiding principle that I find helpful for me is what is a decision or a tool or a process that I can implement or make now that is going to stop me having to make another hundred decisions down the track, like decide once, set a system up once, and then repeat and you know, really leverage that. And then, you know, do you need support?
So you might be needing practical support like a VA, you might need mentoring and coaching, like from myself in the accelerator, you might need support with household tasks, but really think about what that is. And then finally, the eighth pillar is your development. So we have a tool inside the accelerator that is aimed at helping you assess your development, you know, all of the dreams you have of the training you'd like to do, for example, coaching you'd like or the supervision, but you know, to help you think about what is the most strategic first investment. And I think it's really great to look at all of your investment plans with a strategic lens. Now, what training do you need, what training do you want, what is where your interests lie, and where are you going to get the greatest bang for your buck?
I think you need to think about that on an annual basis. And so sometimes it might be that you need to prioritize your next stage of coach training. You might prioritize an assessment certification.
Sometimes your next priority will be investment like in the accelerator to help you grow your business while you layer experience on top of the coaching training that you already have. So whatever that is for you, you need to make a plan. And that plan should be the time that you need to capitalize on that and the financial investment that you need to make. And I think it's helpful to have that all mapped out. Okay, so I hope all of those made sense.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Business of Executive Coaching. If you found it helpful, please share it with a colleague or friend on LinkedIn. And don't forget to tag me so I can say thanks. I would be tremendously grateful also if you would leave a review on Apple podcasts. More reviews means more people can find us.
