Failure. Nobody likes to think too hard about it.
Last Friday I found myself sitting between two business coaches at the Mums's The Boss event at our local chinese restaurant. No pressure there, then!
Actually, Leigh Williams of Truesilver Coaching and Heather Townsend, The Efficiency Coach were very charming and not at all intimidating. Both were curious about why I'd spent three years training as a coach yet wasn't running a coaching business. Good question.
The advice I was given when I started my coach training was to study my coaching course, attract and work with coaching clients, work on my own personal development and hire a coach to help me work on my new business. All at the same time as holding down a day job and having a life.
I planned to gradually phase in my new coaching clients as I phased out my IT training work. This sounds sensible, but as soon as I took my attention away from my freelance training, my marketing slipped and my bread-and-butter work slowed down. I didn't have much choice but to take on some contract training work, working five days a week for several months at a time – usually with a four-hour commute every day. Leaving no time for my coaching business.
Looking back, that method of getting a business off the ground was never going to work. After three years I was fed up with struggling and in desperate need of a change, so I happily went back to being an employee.
Heather and I commented on how few trained coaches went on to run successful coaching businesses.
"But 75% of businesses fail in their first two years, so coaching is no different" said Leigh.
It's a chilling statistic. It's got me thinking how I can be in the successful 25% this time.
What are you doing to make sure your business is still alive to see its second birthday?
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