You’ve learned how to coach, and now it’s time to set up your business.

It’s easy! Just print this checklist and you’ve got a practice-in-a-box:

Marketing

Help prospective clients find you.

• Landing page: Make this first. A landing page is your virtual storefront. It’s where your clients learn about you and purchase your offerings.

  • To get started, some easy options we like are Squarespace, Wix, Wordpress

  • Bio: Share your story. Who are you and why are you doing this work?

  • Information about offerings: Make it easy for potential clients, make sure to have a clear call-to-action.

• 1 main social: Use social media to help your people find you.

  • Once social media algorithms figure out who your target demographic is, it will help surface your content to those people). It’s also a great place to have casual conversations with people interested in your work before they become clients.

  • Which channel depends on your demographic & your preferences, but I’ve found that Instagram is a good channel for health-related coaching and Twitter is a good channel for business-related coaching.

• Google business: this is an easy, free step that just helps boost your SEO a bit. Set up here: https://www.google.com/business/

• Email marketing: You’ll want a way to manage leads, helping people move from just intrigued to ready to begin coaching.

  • Some of our favorite CRM/ Email marketing tools: Mailchimp, Squarespace, Hubspot

Business Admin

Operate an efficient practice.

• Scheduling: Help your clients out by making scheduling easy.

  • Once you settle on a time with your client, remember to send a Google Calendar invite and appointment reminders.

  • You can begin with manual scheduling, but soon you’ll likely want to move to something more automated.

  • Our favorite scheduling tools: Calendly, Acuity (Acuity is included in Squarespace scheduling)

• Web-conferencing: This is pretty straight forward, you need a way to conduct virtual sessions with clients!

  • Zoom, Doxy, Google Meet

  • Zoom is still the tool of choice for most people, but Doxy is a good option if you need to be HIPAA-compliant but don’t want to pay for the HIPAA-compliant version of Zoom just yet.

• Billing: Stripe, Square

• Insurance: If relevant, purchase necessary business insurance.

• Incorporation: You’ll want to set up a corporation separate from yourself, which will help manage liability and make lots of business functions a lot easier.

• Accounting: This is not the most exciting task, but a necessary one for understanding how your business is functioning. You’ll also want clean books when tax season comes around.

  • [Quickbooks][quickbooks, Wave

• Taxes (Payroll, Corporate): Another un-exciting task, but you’ll need to find an accountant to help with corporate taxes. Payroll taxes can be handled automatically by payroll vendors such as Wave. (You can use Wave for payroll.)

Session Admin

Run effective sessions.

• Consents: Make sure your clients are consenting to a defined coaching relationship.

  • You can paper, or use the signature function on your pdf tool.

  • Use Docusign if you want to streamline the process

• Intake form

• In-between session communication: This could be just email, but make sure you and your client are aligned on expectations on how / how often you communicate.

• In-between session tracking: This is relevant if your practice includes tracking certain client data points in between sessions. Usually, these are custom-built tools, but we’ve seen some people start with a shared Google spreadsheet.

• Session notes: Just make sure your notes are secure. To start, you can just use Google docs.

• Consultation group: You need a consultation group to help you manage the tricky cases that are certain to arise. You’ll also want a community that can support you in your entrepreneurship journey. For example, apply and participate in the Virtual Coach Collective.

Office

Design a beautiful environment.

• High quality wi-fi: This is sometimes forgotten, but essential to good communication with your client.

• Headset

• Computer with webcam

• Private space

• Comfortable chair

• Comfortable desk

• Tea

• Anything else to make you feel comfortable!

That’s it! Download this checklist and you’ll have yourself a coaching practice in no time.