Creating the Coach’s Business Plan

Success doesn’t come easy; it is a lot of hard work and determination. That being said it can be easier with a great strategy. A solid and effective business plan will assist you in reaching your goals, creating your mission and vision statements, providing you with a clear vision of where your new coaching business is heading.

All businesses, big or small, should have a business plan. Sounds daunting, I know, and it kind of is, but a business plan is basically a written description of your business’s future. If you create a business plan, whether you are just starting out or have been in business a while and looking to grow, it will give you direction and help you on your path to success.

Online Coach's Business Planning Masterclass

You have an amazing dream to make your business succeed with a clear goal in mind; however after some time, due to so many things you are required to do to run a small business, that goal may be put on the back burner in order to complete other tasks needed. Having a business plan will give you an all-in-one document that tells you what you plan to do and how you plan to do it.

If you want to download the program & workbook, you can do so here: Creating the Coach’s Business Plan

So, let’s get started!


When you start to create your business plan, it is important to start at the beginning and have a greater understanding of your business. You will do that by taking a step back and reintroducing yourself to your business. I know, sounds silly but it will put you in the right mindset straight away.

I know when I started my first business I was so caught up in finding clients, getting and fulfilling orders, keeping customers happy, so on and so forth that I completely lost track of what my business was really about.

I don’t want this to happen to you, so please do not skip this step, it is easy to jump forward but this reintroduction is a great way to get the wheels turning on your reason for working so hard on your own business.

  • Company Name:
  • Tag Line:
  • Your Title:
  • Business Structure:
  • Website:
  • Company Values:
  • “I help” Statement:

The human element is the most forgotten part of a business. Most new coaches get overwhelmed with marketing, bookkeeping, social media, product, tech, etc. But when you think about it, every part of your business boils down to people. By understanding the human element, you will be more profitable, create brand loyalty, close more deals, and ultimately be more successful.

The first and most important person, on your people list, is you. You cannot start building a dream business and build relationships until you are working at maximum capacity. If you aren’t at your best, your entire business could eventually collapse. In the workbook fill out the page about you, be honest about what you do best and where you are not 100%. Knowing these will help you move the business forward, giving you the opportunity to realize where you will need to outsource, educate yourself, or seek help from your network. Having this in your business plan will assist you in reaching all of your goals!

  • Your Small Bio:
  • Your Strengths:
  • Your Skills:
  • Your Values:
  • Your Goals:

Now, the S.W.O.T Analysis… SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats and is a structured planning method that helps you evaluate these things for your business.

Completing a SWOT Analysis is a simple but useful way to help you focus on your strengths, minimize threats, and take the greatest possible advantage of opportunities available to you.

When you are filling out the S.W.O.T Analysis, keep both your personal strengths and your business’s strengths in mind. For example, a strength you have is to be able to locate any item your client is searching for; you are the caretaker and just take care of all their needs. Pretty great strength, if you ask me. A business weakness could be shipping those items may take longer time than your clients are willing to accept. Having it all written down will help you to strengthen those weaknesses and grow your business along the way.

You will learn more strengths and weaknesses along the way, which is great! It is all a part of growing with your business.

Strengths: Your strengths describe what you excel at and what separates you from the competition.

  • What is your competitive advantage?
  • What resources do you have?

Weaknesses: Your weaknesses are what stop you from performing at your optimum level. They are the areas that need improvement in order to stay competitive.

  • Where can you improve?
  • what resources are you lacking?

Opportunities: Opportunities refer to external factors that are in your favour and give you a competitive advantage.

  • What technology are you familiar with and able to use to improve your business?
  • What new markets areas can you explore?

Threats: Threats are anything that could potentially do harm.

  • What do your competitors do well?
  • What consumer trends can potentially harm your new business?

To determine who your ideal client is you need to merge both who you want to help and who you are really excited to work with and don’t forget who can actually buy your products or services. Fill out your ideal client demographics in the workbook and get a good understanding of exactly who they are.

Just remember, in the beginning, you may want to help everyone with your programs or services and be less focused on your ideal client. Over time it may become clearer exactly who your target audience is and where to find them. So, be sure to revisit this every few months.

  • Ideal client demographics: (age, career, income, etc.)
  • Ideal client’s fears and frustrations.
  • Ideal client’s hopes and desires.
  • How will you ease the fears and provide the desires?

Whether you want to admit it or not, they are out there and they are hungry for your customers. Just as hungry as you are hungry for theirs! While it might seem unfair given everything else you need to keep on top of while building your business, you need to consider dedicating some time and energy to keeping tabs on or at least checking out your competition.

When you do this, on a regular basis, you get to know their behaviour and start to anticipate what they may be likely to do next. This will help you gain what is called competitive intelligence. The idea is to plan your own strategies so that you keep your customers and maybe win (not steal) new customers. So, keeping tabs on your competition is an important strategy for growing your business and gaining success.

  • CompanyName:
  • Website:
  • What they Offer:
  • Their strengths:
  • Their Weaknesses:
  • Social Media:
  • What are they doing well?:
  • What could they improve on?:
  • How will you be different?:

Just as a side note, and this is not part of building your business plan, but important.

Please remember the importance of taking care of yourself.  When I first started out I did not always put myself first and it bit me in the butt – believe me.  I was constantly racing the clock to meet deadlines and let things go crazy.  To be honest, I had at least one complete meltdown per year – it was not pretty. I didn’t take care of myself and eventually just wore me down. I don’t want you to go through the same thing as you are building your business. Remember, you are your most important asset, treat yourself with kindness, love, and care.

Discovering the purpose of your business is an important step on the path to creating a business plan for your company. Why do you want to be a coach? Why are you starting a business? I want you to seriously reflect here, “to make money” or “to be my own boss” is not the true answer. Yes, these may be a part of your reason but they are not your “why”.

Reflect, go deep, why are you or did you start this business? If it was just to make money – you could be a life model and pose for sculpting students at the local art college. If it was just to be your own boss – I need to ask you why, when you were a kid, would you yell “You are not the boss of me!” but not as an adult? Are you not the boss of you already?

Jonathan Fields once said:

“We do not exist for the sole purpose of paying our bills, grooming our kids to be able to do the same, and, maybe, someday, retiring to finally enjoy life, should we ever reach that point. We are here to let our lights shine as brightly as possible, to drink in the joy of friendship and family, to serve and better the greater community, and to tap into and inspire passion in everything we do. We are here to come alive.”

Take the time to reflect, come alive and take a moment to determine your true purpose. Why did you decide that the business you are going to start is a coaching business? To find your answer, look to your core values.

What are core values, exactly? They are best explained as the guiding principles that dictate behaviour and action. Essentially, core values are the fundamental beliefs of you and your business. No business is too small to have a strong set of values. What are yours? Honesty, discovery, investment, kindness, leadership?

Here at the virtual studio, they are Integrity, Connection, Commitment, Empowerment, and Creativity.

Once you have your purpose and your core values it is time to summarize them with your goals and objectives and create your mission and vision statements. With all of the hard work you have put into your business plan already, this will be a piece of cake! Each of these serves a different purpose but is often confused with each other.

A mission statement describes what your company wants to do now. What is wrong with the world and how you intend to fix it.  (What is the problem you are going to solve and how you are going to solve it?)

While a vision statement defines the business’ vision for the future. (What the world will look like AFTER you have finished fixing it.)

My mission statement for Joelene Mills Co. is:

To connect with women and empower them to build the confidence and creativity they have within to start, succeed, and grow with their dream coaching business.

My vision statement is:

To continually provide the tools and confidence to thousands of female coaches. Coaches who can, and will, achieve business success, make an impact on the lives they touch and accomplish the incredible.

Now, keep in mind, your mission and vision statements are not set in stone. It may take some time to nail down exactly what you want them to say. These statements are short representations of your business and they should be revisited at least once a year but for now, take a moment to reflect on it all.

  • Come alive and determine your purpose. Why did you choose this specific business?
  • No business is too small to have a strong set of values. What do you believe in? What guides you, what will guide your business?
  • What is your Mission Statement?
  • What is your Vision Statement?

Now, let’s talk about your product or services. It should be very clear on what you are going to provide and how you are going to provide it, especially now that you have a vision and mission statement. When filling out this portion of the workbook, think about your customers. Selling your product or services is not about what you need, like, or want. It is about your client’s likes, wants, and needs and how are you going to fulfill these for them.

Remember the first portion of your business plan, what problem are you going to solve and how are you going to solve it with these products or services?

What is truly important is what product or services you offer and how you will deliver.

  • Products or Services:
  • Mode of Delivery:
  • You will ensure customer service by:
  • You will WOW your customers/clients by:

When you are pushing your business, people can tell. It just does not work. Gone are the days of just shameless promotion, because it is transparent and people tend to feel they are being conned. So, today you really have to love your work and what you offer. Being 100% authentic when sharing your message will allow your purpose to shine through and be able to sell a product or service without being sales-y. (Is that even a word?)

When I first started in the photography business, I was working with my mentor and was able to sell him like he was going out of style. I believed in him, his work, and his values. I knew his clients were getting the best of the best in both product and service.  When it came time for me to leave the nest and go out on my own – the struggle was real. I didn’t believe in my capabilities as much as I did his. My lack of confidence shone through, my inexperience was obvious and my sales were horrible!

It wasn’t until I really started to love my own work, have confidence in my own strengths, and start to build my weaknesses into assets that my business started to skyrocket. My point is, the more you love and know what you are offering is going to help your clients, and the more real and honest you are, with yourself and your customers, the more people will trust you and want to work with you.

So, complete your business model and your marketing message with confidence, authenticity, and honesty because that is exactly what your customers are looking for.

  • Will you offer a free product or service?
  • How will you promote it?
  • The offer you want customers to buy is:
  • The price of the offer:
  • Will you have an “upsell”? If so, what is it?

When I first started in the photography business, I was working with my mentor and was able to sell him like he was going out of style. I believed in him, his work, and his values. I knew his clients were getting the best of the best in both product and service. When it came time for me to leave the nest and go out on my own – the struggle was real. I didn’t believe in my capabilities as much as I did his. My lack of confidence shone through, my inexperience was obvious and my sales were horrible! It wasn’t until I really started to love my own work, have confidence in my own strengths and start to build my weaknesses into assets that my business started to skyrocket. My point is, the more you love and know what you are offering is going to help your clients, and the more real and honest you are, with yourself and your customers, the more people will trust you and want to work with you.

So, complete your business model and your marketing message with confidence, authenticity, and honesty because that is exactly what your customers are looking for.

Use the template below or rewrite your marketing message in your own words and authentic style.

I work with ______________________________ (Ideal Customer) who struggle with ______________________________ (The problem) and would like to be/have ______________________________. (Hopes & Desires Fulfilled) What makes me different is ______________________________, (Your Uniqueness) because of this, my customers get ______________________________(Benefit/Solution)

This may sound like the fun part, but really it is the part everyone doesn’t like because it starts with budgeting. This section should contain any and all financial information that is relevant to your business.

You will be using your business plan as a written description of your business’s future, so we need to look at how you will be investing in your business, expenses as well as profits.

You should track any ongoing business expenses you anticipate such as supplies, professional fees, marketing, insurance, and any others that may be required. What is the budget for this item and, of course, how much did you actually spend? This will help determine if you are under-budgeting certain aspects of your business, as well as help you see if there is any critical overspending.

Your budget should detail the money that’s going out, but you also cannot neglect to keep on top of money coming in. How much and where is it coming from? Are you able to diversify your products or services? What are your sales goals for each month?

Finally, I suggest you outline your plans for investing back into your business. Will you be looking at more advertising, taking courses, hiring a Virtual Assistant? What are the future goals going to cost and is there a budget for it?

I do not doubt, this section will involve some frustrating number crunching. But, whip out that calculator and tackle it head-on!

The numbers you need to focus on

  • Monthly revenue targets:
  • Monthly expenses:
  • Yearly revenue targets:
  • Yearly expenses:

Your Coaching Business Plan is complete!

You are spectacular for making it through this process. Doesn’t it feel amazing knowing that now you have a solid plan for your business? This is one of the hardest parts of starting your own business, and you did it! I am so excited for you and extremely proud! Now go and celebrate this accomplishment!

Don’t forget to download the PDF Workbook to go with this guide!

Remember:

A Plan is only good if you take ACTION on it.

Creating your first plan is a LOT of work and may seem like a chore but updating your plan is much easier and a lot more fun!

I suggest that you take a peek at your plan every season or quarter, just as a reminder of where you are heading and to make sure you are staying on track to accomplishing your goals.


Become the Coach you know you are meant to be!
It’s time to make a living helping others.

GET ON-DEMAND TRAINING AND LIVE COACHING ON HOW TO CREATE, DESIGN, AND LAUNCH YOUR COACHING BUSINESS WITH EASE!

The Business Suite was created to help you stop imagining and start taking action. Because the time is now, it is YOUR time. Time to create, design, and launch a successful online coaching business, so you can maximize profits, spend more time with your loved ones and start living the life you know you deserve.

Similar programs are $47-$97 per month for their programs. That just isn’t affordable for new business owners, which is why the Business Suite is just $7/month.

YES, I WANT TO START MY COACHING BUSINESS NOW!

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