3 Challenges of Creating a Thriving Consulting Business

Three challenges of running a coaching business, and how to grow without taking on too much.

"Having a packaged leadership development offering that targets high-potential non-executives, also helps me with these three business challenges."

If you own a consulting/coaching business, chances are, your business is you. And there’s only so much one person can do! Even though I’ve been running a successful consulting business since 1999, I still have peaks and valleys. And, I work with a lot of really impressive coaches and I see them struggling with the same challenges. After some reflection, I’ve boiled it down to three main struggles:

1. Credibility. When you first leave your job and you’re hanging your shingle, establishing credibility is tough. Engagements can be long and it takes a while to have reference accounts and build a referral engine filled with clients ready to sing your praises. In a business that is so reliant on trust, the credibility factor is critical.
   
2. Feast or famine. Once you have business, your time is devoted to doing the work. And let’s face it, doing sales and marketing isn’t really that fun for most, so we tend to throw ourselves into the work we have and let business development fall off the table. But then, contracts end, work gets completed, and suddenly…we have to ramp back up on the sales front.
3. Scalability. When you’re good, clients want more of you, but you can only stretch yourself so far before things start falling apart. You’re nostalgic for the days when every day of life wasn’t packed to the brim. You’d like to bring on help, but your clients want you. If only there was a way to generate more revenue that didn’t require cloning.

How can we grow our business from surviving to thriving when there’s only so much of us to go around?

When I created LEAP® the Leadership Acceleration Program it was to fill a gap in leadership development offerings. What I didn’t realize was that having a packaged leadership development offering that targeted high-potential non-executives, also helped me with these three business challenges.

1. Credibility. With a branded, trademarked, systematic program that included more than 30 modules of content and measurable metrics for tracking change, I gained a lot of credibility. I suddenly had a lot more stories and insights to share about what mid-level managers were dealing with—which ended up providing valuable insight to what executives wanted to understand—helping me further build credibility. Having so much valuable content to put my logo on made me look polished and established.
   
2. Feast without famine. Running two LEAP cohorts per year put me on a consistent schedule for marketing and business development AND steadied my revenue. I always have a healthy monthly income base that I get from paying myself to facilitate LEAP. I’m on a regular marketing schedule for promoting LEAP, and I have a leadership development program to plug people into whenever the subject comes up with my executive clients. This added a steadiness to my business that trickled into all areas of my work.
3. Scalability. LEAP is cohort based and there is a lot of value in the peer-to-peer sharing and problem solving that happens. While it includes 1:1 coaching, the bulk of the program is with the cohort (1:many). As one person I can only do so many 1:1 engagements—balancing my workload with group facilitation and team coaching really helped me grow and take on more without taking on too much. And, each LEAP cohort I add I know exactly what I’m getting into in terms of time commitment—it’s a service offering that I can count on and plan around. Additionally, I have 30+ modules and workbooks in my toolkit that I can tap into for any of my engagements—topics like Creating High Performance Teams, Delegating Effectively, Setting Goals for Higher Performance. This makes me a lot more efficient and probably more effective because I’m not re-creating a new wheel every time.

If you’ve been looking for something to help you grow but retain your sanity, LEAP might be the perfect program. We recently added 5 additional LEAP Certified Coaches in Washington (now we’re at 12) and we’re looking to expand the reach of LEAP in new markets outside of the Pacific Northwest. I would love to talk with you!

Our LEAP Coach Certifications happen 2-3 times per year. Learn more about the business model that makes this such an attractive program for coaches and consultants.

Our next webinar about growing your business with LEAP is coming up soon.

Can't wait for the webinar? Schedule a 1:1 call with Lynda Silsbee, Founder of the ALA and Creator of LEAP.

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