A Coach’s Checklist of the 10 Keys to Focus and Growth

Totally overwhelmed and scattered in running and trying to scale your businesses?

Many of the coaches I know – and whom I coach on business-building and productivity -- feel totally overwhelmed and scattered in running and trying to scale their businesses.

I so often hear things like, “It’s hard to do all the stuff I need to be doing -- tech, branding, social media, etc.” Or, “I want to get to six figures, but I can't work fast enough to do it all! And I need to bring back balance to my life.”

It’s critical that we have a sense of how focused vs scattered we are in our business, and which keys we’re doing best and worst on, so we know where to focus more of our energies.

So, if you’re a “doing-it-all-yourself coach,” this list of 10 Keys is for YOU!!

• • •

The 10 Keys to Focus and Growth

Key #1 Have a killer lead magnet.

To be a laser-focused coach poised for growth, you’ll want to have a powerful freemium – aka, a lead magnet. Here’s the main upshot: If you are not building your email list every day, you are tying one hand behind your back – actually, more like both hands behind your back – in terms of your ability to grow and scale your business.

And if you already have a lead magnet of some kind, great. But, be sure it’s KILLER! Is it capturing plenty of new leads every week? 

Key #2 For setting yourself up for focus and growth, have a consistent flow of outbound content to your clients, prospects, and followers.

I know, I know – this is HARD. But the fact is that 99% of people who sign up for your freemium are NOT ready to buy. (Wouldn’t it be nice if they were?).

Furthermore, a prospective client or buyer will require eight or more interactions with you before they’ll even consider hiring or buying from you.

A consistent stream of value-packed content is the way to have those trust-building interactions.

Key #3 Is to know what your key competitors are doing.

The coaching profession is GROWING, and things are changing fast – the revenue models, the types of offerings. New revenue streams are getting easier to create!

Watching a handful of smart coaches can keep you abreast of what’s next.

• What are your key competitors doing?
• How do they market their product?
• What are they selling?
• What are their price-points?
• Furthermore, what are they up to on social media?

Now, I realize that as a coach in a globally internet-connected world, we are in effect competing with every other coach in our niche who can work with clients remotely or sell products online.

BUT, you benefit from having a set of key competitors that you regard as your peers – or your betters: a handful of coaches who are doing not only what you’re doing but what you might want to be doing.

• • •

Key #4 For focus and growth in your coaching business is to have a mentor.

We all need a mentor – whether another coach, a leader in your niche or a marketing or business-building guru whose podcast you’ll listen to or webinars you’ll attend. Someone you can follow, continually learn from and be challenged by. 

Quick – who’s your mentor? If nobody comes to mind, put a note in your calendar to just think about it.

My mentor for the last two years has been online marketing guru Amy Porterfield. I absorb EVERYTHING she talks about and does on specific topics relevant to my business, and doing so has more than DOUBLED one of my nine revenue streams.

Key #5 Is to have a morning ritual.

During this time, you’ll determine what your day will be about – like identifying your “3 Biggies” for the day. 

• Previewing your appointments.
• Listing miscellaneous to-dos…or just setting an overall intention.
• The absence of a morning ritual is a recipe for scatteredness.

The presence of a daily morning ritual is a recipe for calm and clarity for your day; for focus, proper prioritization; and increased likelihood that you will complete your important to-dos. And speaking of prioritization…

Key #6 Is to have a system through which you determine what you should be working on TODAY, this WEEK, this MONTH.

You need to have some kind of filter.

Key #7 Is the ability to consistently attack, follow through on, and complete your daily, weekly, and monthly goals.

As a coach, you know that follow-through is a core productivity requirement.

It’s lack of follow-through that’s got so many coaches telling me that what’s NOT getting DONE in their businesses tend to be important, business-BUILDING initiatives like:

• Creating or improving their Lead Magnet
• Building new revenue streams
• Consistent Social Media content
• Keeping up with Emails
• Website Improvements
• And, of course, Follow-Ups with prospects!

• • •

Key #8 Is a system for capturing and building on your own and other’s ideas for content and marketing.

You know how it is, you have ideas flying all over the place – both in your head and in physical notes on stickies and digital notes in your phone and computer.

Yet few of us have a SYSTEM for reliably capturing great ideas and, more important, a system of transferring those ideas into a medium best suited for RETRIEVING and BUILDING on them! 

Key #9 Is a regular practice of paying people to do things you COULD do yourself but choose not to (and that includes automating many of your tasks).

To paraphrase Tim Ferriss:

“I am always looking for things I can pay someone to do, so I can do something only I can do.”

And Key #10 for focus and growth in your coaching business is working each day on your RGAs (Revenue-Generating Activities), e.g.:

• Client acquisition
• Client retention
• Primary marketing efforts
• Developing and deploying new products, etc.

This is a big challenge for most coaches, because we are wearing so many different hats, have so many to-dos vying for our time and attention every day, and, especially if we don’t have a morning ritual to plan out our day, we end up chasing irrelevant tasks that don’t drive our business. 

• • •

To quickly recap, the 10 Keys to a Focused Coaching Business Poised for Growth:

1. A KILLER lead magnet.
2. Consistent outbound content.
3. Knowing what your top competitors are up to.
4. Having a mentor – real or virtual who’s feeding you best practices and challenging you to put them into action.
5. A morning ritual to pause and plan your day.
6. A prioritization SYSTEM so you’re working on the RIGHT STUFF every day.
7. Consistent attack and follow-through.
8. A system for capturing and organizing all your ideas.
9. Always looking for things to delegate.
10. The right amount of focus on your RGAs – your revenue-generating activities!!

Before you go, CLICK HERE to grab my complimentary checklist: The 10 Biggest Mistakes Coaches Make on Their Homepage. It’s likely you’re making one or more of these (very fixable) mistakes that impact your business.

What are your thoughts on this topic? I'd love to know. Shoot me an email at [email protected] or DM me on Instagram @alanpbrown.

Bless!

Alan