Hey coaches! Are you sick of all the “make more money” talk not grounded in your experience or the reality of business?

I believe that we, the coaching industry, are creating anxiety and misperception about the earning capabilities of coaches. How many of our conversations are about money? I’m proposing we change that.

Here is a sample of the e-mails I receive from other coaches touting their wares, “Join the Six Figure Club”, “Are You an Underearner?”, “Special Issue on Money”. You would think that all coaches are starving or close to it.

I’m a bit concerned and irritated, quite frankly, when the industry that puts itself out there to help people with problems like money can’t come up with a better money story. It just doesn’t add up.

So I’m asking myself and you readers, “What is the story with the coaching industry and money?!”

Here’s where I think our ability to be effective about money in our coaching business fails:

1. Shallow Cheerleading. We are overly enthusiastic about the flocks of folks becoming coaches that we don’t want to “burst their bubble” and address realistic earnings and business planning.
2. LoA Confusion. The concepts and behavior of money, energy, and LoA are inseparable (check out GoodVibe blog to get up to speed on this topic). Once we are a coach, we fear that if we’re not making lots of money our vibration is “off”. It becomes a dirty little secret. We fail to look at where we spend our time and energy in the real world, which is what ultimately determines our degree of success.
3. Lack of Consistent Business Tools. Established industries have consistent tools to run the business (P&L, performance metrics, risk analysis), regardless of the company. Coaching has lots of different tools.
4. Practice Variations. Most coaches earn money from training other coaches, or selling to coaches. There are few proven models out there because few coaches are truly flourishing financially, and fewer are doing it the same way.
5. Remedial Business Skills. This may be the biggest gap. With the low barrier to entry for coaching, many enter with zero business experience. Are we doing them a disservice to not provide that as part of training?

This month’s issue of Choice magazine focuses on money, and making more of it. It’s the second time in about two years that Choice has dedicated an all-money issue. I looked up several coaches who specialize in business management; all of their tools are on-line, for a price.

I’m on fire about this one because the basic coaching model is simple: Xhours x $Y per hour = cash. And just like any business, it can be diagnosed for specific problems (lack of hours, no clear business plan) and consistent, effective solutions applied.

So if it’s so simple, what trips us up?

1. Action Paralysis. We don’t know what NOT to focus on. From add-on software, ad-words and websites to everything in between, we are constantly bombarded with products and training to purchase and use without any idea which is effective.
2. Zero Financial Planning. Lack of a template to map out projected monthly income and expenses. This is a business basic, but most coaches haven’t a clue.
3. Wasting Time. No correlation between the quality of effort and the income generated.

So here’s the bottom-line. I got so excited that I committed to Jeannette that I would have some truly useful tools for coaches soon. I don’t know what this will look like or how the heck it will happen.

Tell me coaches, what do you want to see? What would help you the most in your practice now, regardless of how long you’ve been in the biz?

Be the first to hear it,  join Jeannette’s open course on Manifesting Money, starting July 8. Check it out here .  I’m going to be there drinking in the smart sense Jeannette always comes through with and leading a session on “How Would Animals Behave Around Money”.

I had. I was scanning the gray and brown toned jungle floor around me. I heard something. I ran up the trail, crunching leaf-litter under my thick boots to catch up with him. When I’m in the jungle in Laos,  or anywhere, I listen to the guide. That’s why I’ve hired him.

“Why?”

“Snakes.”

Snakes, cobras specifically, are a good reason to keep moving. Cobras use vibrations to locate friend, foe and prey. What my guide was conveying with those two words was that cobras use their bodies to determine how near or far a creature is by the strength and frequency of the vibrations it feels through the ground. The cobra would know when I stopped and be able to pinpoint my location.

“Don’t worry. You are faster.”

Really? OK. Good. That’s very good! Humans can outrun a cobra strike because we are about 4x faster. It’s the shock that slows us down. The shock of seeing a large cobra raise its body and look right at you. Um yes. I’d say that’s shocking!

I’m working with many clients who have lost their jobs and are shocked. Shocked by the lay-off, shocked by the loss of colleagues, shocked by the job market. Who wouldn’t be? I’ll tell you though, those who are getting the interview and the new job are the ones who get moving.  They get a plan. Like cobras, they use vibrations to create a picture of what they want. In a nod to one of my influences, Law of Attraction (LOA), it’s worth saying that the first to determine how they want to feel during their job search and new job, are the first to feel it, create the vibration, and achieve success.