Ten challenges you’ll face when you launch your brand new coaching business

Let’s get one thing straight. Building a business is hard. If you’re doing it for the first time, it’s even harder. As I’ve built my own business, I find myself wishing I knew about a few challenges that I would face in order to get a great start. Here are ten common challenges that service business owners (such as coaches) have to face while launching their business. 

A little bit about me: I’m a professional photographer and have built my business over the last 5 years. Before that, I was a software engineer in San Francisco. I did the Somatica Core Training in 2017. Since then, I’ve been very involved in the Somatica community. Starting in January, I’ll also be teaching the brand-new business mastery course: Jumpstart your Somatica coaching business.

Let’s get back to the ten common business challenges you might face, and a quick tip for how you can get working on each of them. 

1. Overcome your limiting beliefs around business and money

Death, sex and money are society’s biggest taboos, things that we’re not allowed to talk about openly and freely. Fortunately, by taking Somatica, you’ve gone a long way to overcome that issue in the sex domain. But money? 

Money comes with many of the same issues as sex. Our parents or schools don’t know how to talk to us or teach us about it. Sometimes we learn beliefs about money that don’t serve us when we are adults. We tie our money to self-worth and get caught up in shame, because we don’t have enough or aren’t making enough money. Sometimes we are taught that money is evil and wanting more of it makes us bad people.

We often find that new coaches are held back by internal scripts and limiting beliefs around money, beliefs that sometimes get in the way of even taking the first steps in creating a business. If that connects with you, ask yourself: What kind of beliefs around money do I hold and how do they serve me today (or not)?

Your Somatica training has taught you many tools that you’ve used in the context of sex and intimacy. Can you use them for money and business too?

2. Find your target audience (niche)

A business is a relationship between a provider and customers. This is particularly true for a service business such as coaching. Like any relationship, there are some people who you connect with more than others. 

Imagine you had a client come in seeking help with dating. You ask them, “What kind of people are you interested in?” and they respond, “Oh, anyone!” or “Anyone who’s interested in me.” You’d probably want to help them get a little more specific, won’t you?

It’s the same in business. Even if it seems scary that you might have to turn some people away, it’s important to be clear about the people you truly want to work with, the clients that turn you on, and those that don’t. It makes your message clearer and draws the right clients to you like a magnet.

If you’re struggling to identify your niche, start noticing how you react to different kinds of clients – even the free ones you’re starting out with. Who turns you on and gets you all excited? Who doesn’t? What’s common across them? Your body might be giving you a hint here. 

3. Craft your offer: Services, packages and pricing

When I started out with my business, I thought it would be enough to say, “I’m a photographer.” But soon enough, I realized that didn’t convey much to my potential clients. I had to be specific about what kind of photography I do, who I do it for, what my prices are, what kind of process I’d have to take my client through. All of that falls under the heading of your “offer”.

Sex and relationship coaches have an even more difficult task. At least, people have some idea what a photographer does (“you take fancy pictures with a nice camera?”), but most people have no clue what a sex coach does. You’ll have to be very, very clear about exactly what your sessions involve, and what the outcome will be. 

You’ll also have to create some packages and price them. At the simplest, you can just charge by the hour, but many practitioners find it easier to create packages of multiple sessions. The idea of picking a price can bring up many of our triggers around money, so it can feel like a huge challenge for some.

Start simple at the beginning! Pick a per-session rate that you feel comfortable with, and create one bundle or package e.g. a 10% discount for a package of six sessions. Once you have that going, adjust as you go along for whatever feels right for you. 

4. Mission and Bio: your unique message and story

What makes YOU the perfect coach for your ideal client? It’s not just your credentials, degrees, or your technical proficiency. When a client chooses to work with you, they’re not just buying a service, they’re also getting a piece of you as a human. So how do you convey to them who you are specifically and what makes you the right coach for them?

Think of it as reading a profile of someone you might be interested in dating. You’re looking at a combination of traits: how they look, how they speak, what their life story is, what their interests are – everything adds up for you to feel that spark, or not. Business isn’t that different.

In addition to your formal qualifications, your potential client wants to understand why you do the work that you do, what drives you, how your personal experiences impact what you bring to your work. All of that goes into creating an effective business mission statement and bio.

Feeling stuck on writing your bio? We all do. It’s really hard to write about ourselves. Try having a short Zoom call with a friend or a fellow Somaticat about why you’re excited about your work. Record it and go over it! I guarantee you’ll find ideas to put in your bio. 

5. Design your brand materials

Your brand is the relationship between you and your audience. Your core offer, message and story are part of that relationship. However, you also have to convey all of those elements visually to stand out to your audience.

For most practitioners, a website is the focal point of their brand. Even a simple website needs a few elements: a solid design, choices of logo, fonts and layout, photos, videos and written copy. All of these elements together add up to your visual identity. Outside of that, you might need branding materials for other purposes: headshots, event flyers, podcasts and so on. 

Your brand design keeps evolving as you and your business evolve, becoming ever more sophisticated. However, at the start of your business, you can keep it very cheap and simple, using some of the many easy-to-use tools out there. Most practitioners start by creating their own brand materials, and then as their practices grow, hire professionals for different aspects of their branding.

As you’re starting out, stick with simple tools that are cheap or free, and come with great built-in templates. Canva for visuals, Wix or Squarespace for websites are some good examples.

6. Create simple business systems that work for you

As a solo business owner, you have to keep track of a TON of stuff: incoming enquiries, scheduling, sales calls, client sessions, money, taxes, marketing campaigns, networking. If you’re hiring other people, you have to pay them on time. It sounds overwhelming and stressful, and it can be at the beginning!

Using the right systems and tools can help you make sense of the mess. We’re fortunate to live in a time where there are many cheap (or free) tools available in the market that can help you manage different aspects of your business. Take the time to set up a few tools in ways that work for you and require minimum maintenance. 

You might be seeing a pattern here – when you’re starting out, keep things simple! There are plenty of free/cheap tools out there to help run your business smoothly: a business bank account, a business credit card, Google docs and spreadsheets for tracking, Zoom for calls, Cal.com for scheduling. You don’t need a bunch of expensive, complicated tools to call yourself a business owner. Those will come with time!

7. Craft a welcoming client experience

How do you take your client through the journey of working with you? Put yourself in the shoes of a client who has decided to reach out to you for the first time. Is it easy to get in touch with you? What exactly do they do: fill out a form, book a consultation?

Do they know what to expect before the first session, or in between sessions? How do they pay you? Is it easy for them to keep track of sessions and payments? Do they know when their next session is? What happens after they decide to stop working with you?

In my experience, client experience is often an aspect of business that practitioners don’t emphasize enough, because we tend to create experiences that WE like for ourselves, not the ones that our clients need. However, as Somatica practitioners, empathy is one of our foundational principles, so it’s important to bring that empathy to the client experience. 

I’ve found that having good business systems (#6) is often essential for a great client experience. The more you can create repeatable processes and systems, the more consistent and smooth your clients will perceive working with you to be. Besides that, collect detailed feedback from your clients not just about the outcome, but how they felt during the entire process. 

8. Get the word out about your business – marketing

Let’s make a quick distinction between marketing and sales. Marketing is the process of getting the word out about your work – getting people who might not know about you at all to actually reach out to you with some interest in working with you. Sales is what happens after – getting them from that interest to becoming actual clients.

In other words, marketing is like flirting, sales is like a first date. 

There are many, many ways to do marketing, and none of them are right or wrong: social media content, networking, referrals, SEO, direct outreach, and many, many more.

You’ll be bombarded constantly by people who are trying to sell you the perfect marketing strategy or a three-point formula that works for everyone. It’s easy to assume that a strategy or technique or platform that worked for someone you know will also work for you.

Here’s a secret: There’s no perfect marketing strategy. The only marketing strategy that’ll work for you is the one you’ll do consistently. This also means that your specific marketing strategy will depend on who you are as a person and how you show up in the world. It will take some time and testing to figure that out, regardless of what you start with. 

9. Ask people to pay you for your service – sales

Sales can feel terrifying! It can bring up rejection trauma, lack of self-worth and many other triggering feelings. It can feel extremely vulnerable to put yourself out there and ask a potential client to actually pay you money for your service. What if they turn me down? Does that mean I suck as a practitioner?

Selling can also bring up all of the money misbeliefs we carry. Most of us are doing this work out of a genuine desire to serve and help our clients, and we might carry a belief that money “cheapens” that sense of service, or that wanting to charge money makes you a “sellout”.

We also have very negative associations with sales. Every one of us has had a time where we’ve encountered a pushy salesperson who wouldn’t take no for an answer, or tried to manipulate us into buying something. We don’t want to be that person.

Instead, I like to think of a sales call as a first date. It’s an opportunity for you and your client to connect and evaluate if you’re a good fit for each other. And if there is a spark, it’s an opportunity for you to invite them to work with you, if they so choose. 

Once you think of sales this way, you’ll find that everything you’ve learned about flirting, seduction, and consent actually translates to sales. Who knows, you might even start enjoying and being turned on by the idea of a sales call!

10. Keep yourself safe and protected – legally, online and in person

I won’t sugarcoat it. Sex and relationship professionals can face some unwanted attention from society. Some of that comes from legal liabilities and local laws. Some of that comes from harassment, online or in person. And there’s always censorship to deal with on various platforms. If you’re a female (or female-appearing) sexuality practitioner, you have some particular challenges when it comes to personal and professional safety.

There are various ways to make sure your business and you are safe and protected. Having solid contracts, knowing and following the laws that apply to you, business insurance, using online safety and privacy measures — all of these are critical to ensure that your business gets off the ground and you stay out of trouble.

And remember…

You’re not alone in facing these challenges! Every coach who has ever started out has encountered some variation of these problems. Of course, some people bring skills and life experiences that make some of these challenges easier or harder than others. But no matter where you start from, you have to overcome these problems to launch a successful business. 

Keep it simple and start small. No matter what challenge you run into, I recommend quick, simple action. It’s ok to have your first solution be ridiculously simple. Just get started with something. If there’s a cheap/free solution, try it first. As you go along and grow your business, you’ll figure out where you need to invest more resources.

Your business is yours, and doesn’t need to look like anyone else’s.  Just like a relationship, you get to create a business that works with who you are. If it’s working for you, it’s a successful business. Throw that ‘my business should …’ out of the window.

Jumpstart your Somatica coaching business – a new mastery course from Somatica

There are many, many business resources out there that are targeted to first-time entrepreneurs. There is no one course, book or resource that’s a magic bullet. However, we’ve found that Somatica-trained coaches find many of these resources out there particularly challenging.

Most business coaching is taught in a very intellectual, heady way: thinking of the people you work with as dehumanized leads to push through a funnel and convert to clients. This language and approach can feel alienating to many of us, who are inclined to be more embodied, human, and heart-centered. 

If you’re looking for a different approach to learning about business, check out our new mastery course, Jumpstart Your Somatica Coaching Business. We teach business differently, prioritizing embodiment and Somatica techniques to help you build a business that, first and foremost, feels good in your body. Come and feel the Somatica difference now!