How to Build Your Credibility as a Business Coach

These days it seems every second person I meet is a business coach. Some have studied to become a generalist coach and then fell into the business niche while others have a strong business background, or at least they can spell business.

Now I don’t mean to be flippant here. There are a lot of great business coaches out there, and they garner amazing respect and have success within the industry. There are two common schools of thought when it comes to the skills and experience that business coach needs to have to be able to help other businesses achieve whatever level of success they are after.

The first is that as long as they are trained in the art of coaching, they will be able to work their client through any mindset or personal ‘stuff’ that they have going on that is preventing them from having a successful business.

The second thought is that being involved in business themselves, for example, they have started and successfully grown a business to a level that they are able to share how they did it with others looking for the same results.

Clients ultimately choose to do business with people they like and trust and this is where the whole relationship marketing has exploded over the past few years and as business coaches sell a service not a product in most occasions.

To be successful as a business coach you need to have people willing to engage you for your services and the decision to do that is based on Three Key Criteria.

1. Your Standing in Your Niche. Don’t think for a moment that people wont do their research before hiring you. They will and they will ask others about you. Make sure that everything you do is aligned with your values and personality. Even in your personal space such as Facebook, people can look you up to see if you are authentic. They will ask others who have worked with you and certainly look for success stories and testimonials on your website. I have found that if you have given freely on social media and your website and interact regularly you will already be seen as a leading expert in your field.
2. Your Personal Results. From when I first began as a generalist life coach and was struggling to attract clients I realized that in fact ‘coaching’ doesn’t sell. Once I niched into weight loss coaching after losing my last 10 kilos, which was my tag line people could see very clearly that I had the results that they wanted. My target market were mums, and those younger women that wanted to look good, not really lose weight for health reasons. I had before and after photos around all over the place and I was what my clients wanted. After building that to a multi 6 figure business and then even licensing it to other weight loss coaches, I then had the results on the board in a business. It was then that I was sought out by others wanting to know how I was able to grow my business so fast. I then duplicated my success with another business and then I began to be seen as someone who could achieve the results in business that other business owners wanted.
3. Your Credibility. The number one thing that brought me success in my first business more than anything was writing a book and becoming an author. As soon as my first book was published I was able to fully book my coaching practice and have regular enquiries for my programs. I was suddenly the authority figure and the expert that others wanted to be coached by. I was no different as a person, just more credible as a business owner. I also had a tangible product for my sales funnel and to give to new clients. When you think of an author you immediately have a sense of trust in them and that is what I find now having published 5 books in the past 4 years. I see with my clients that I now help write their own books through my Ultimate 48 Hour Author Program that they get an instant credibility hit as soon as they tell others they are a soon to be published author.

Natasa Denman is a skilled business coach and mentor, author of five best-selling books, and founder of The Ultimate 48 Hour Author. Within her mentoring program she guides time-poor entrepreneurs and business owners through the publishing process so that they can have their own story in print. For more information visit www.natasadenman.com the first two people to email Natasa at [email protected] will also receive a free copy of her latest book, ‘Natasa Denman reveals... 1000 Days to a Million Dollar Coaching Business From Home.’