The Simple Business Plan Every Coach Needs

"Business plan" is one of those terms that gets tossed around a lot, and if you're in the process of getting your business off the ground, it can be tempting to think that your next step is to create a business plan.

There's some truth to that, but what most people envision when they think of a business plan is a massive 100-page document that outlines every last detail of the business. That in-depth type of document is great if you're seeking startup funding or investing, but for most coaches...that's not the case.

In this episode, I talk through the simple one-page business plan that every coach needs, whether they're just getting their business started or are trying to refocus their existing business.

I talk through the key five questions every entrepreneur needs to ask when starting their business, including:

• What are you planning to offer?
• Who are you going to serve?
• How are you going to generate leads?
• How are you going to convert leads into clients?
• What do you need to do to execute these processes?

But not to worry—if you don't immediately have answers to one or more of these questions, all hope is not lost. Working through these five questions helps get you clarity not only on what you already know, but also on what you need to figure out.

So even if you can only answer one or two of these questions right now...it shows you exactly where you need to turn your attention so you can get answers to the remaining ones.

 In today's episode, I am going to be sharing with you the simple one-page business plan that every coach needs. Whether you're just starting your business or are trying to refocus your existing one, one of the things that come up pretty often is “I need to create a business plan.” That's true, to an extent. Most people, when they think, I need to create a business plan, they're not really thinking, I need to get clarity on these key things. They're thinking, I need to create this 50- or 100-page document that outlines every little detail and plans for the business for the next 10 years. The reality is that’s entirely unnecessary. 

Especially if you’re just starting out, it's damn near impossible to plan a business 10 years down the road, much less three years down the road. Really, your focus needs to be on what is going to be happening in the next weeks and months and maybe a year or two of your business. There's no need to think further than that, beyond just knowing what your large five- or 10-year goals are. 

Instead of tasking you with going out and creating a really in-depth business plan, I'm going to share with you the stupid, simple business plan that you can use to get some immediate clarity on your business and where you're headed in your business. It really only consists of five key questions. The good news is that these are really, really simple questions. The bad news is that you might not be able to answer all of them right off the top of your head. But just by completing this exercise, completing this business plan, you will immediately have some pretty immense clarity on what your gaps are and what questions you need to find answers to. 

What I'm going to do today is walk through each of these five questions fairly high level, and what you can do is check the link below to actually download the PDF template of this business plan. You don't have to be taking copious notes if you don't want to because you can easily download that PDF template. The first question is, very simply, what is your offer? What are you offering? How are you packaging it? How are you pricing it? This is, perhaps, the central question that most entrepreneurs have to answer really early on: what are you selling in the first place? 

The second question is about your ideal client and your niche. Who are you serving? And not just who exactly are you serving, but what are the pain points that you're helping them solve? What are the goals, perhaps, that you are helping them achieve? Whereas the first question is really about understanding what you are offering, the next question is about who you are serving, and more specifically, how are you serving them? How are you helping them achieve those goals that they have? 

The third question has to do with your client attraction process, and specifically, your lead generation process. How are you generating leads? How are you getting people coming to you and saying, “Hey, I'm interested in learning more about what it looks like to work with you. Can we have a conversation?” How are you getting those conversations started? This has to do with how you are getting in front of your ideal clients. What content are you putting out? How are you connecting with your ideal clients? How are you starting those conversations? This is all about the lead-generation side of the marketing process. 

Then, the fourth question is about the sales process. Once you generated these leads, once you have people who might be interested, then we move to the sales process, which is “What is your process for converting these leads into actual paying clients?” This is very different than the previous question. Whereas the third question is about generating leads, the sales process question is about how you are turning those leads into clients who are paying to work with you. Those are very different things. If you're generating leads but not converting them, well, you're not going to be in business for very long. 

Then, there is the fifth and final question, which is about your daily drivers. What actions do you need to complete every day or every week so that you can implement these processes? What are the things you actually need to do to generate these leads? What are the things you need to actually do to convert them into clients? This is all around the execution phase. Previously, with the first four questions, what we've done is look at it kind of theoretically. Yeah, I need to post content; I need to start conversations with ideal clients. But this is where the rubber meets the road, and what you have to answer, at this point, is “What do I actually need to do to make all of these things happen, so I can actually get these clients?” 

Now, I'll be 100% honest with you. Each of these questions is a simple question, but they're also big questions. They do take some reflection, some thought, some coaching, some guidance, some mentoring, some research, honestly, in order to get answers to these questions. What I recommend doing is taking a first pass at it, just going through and filling it out, answering these questions, just based on what you already know, and getting a gut check for those answers. 

Then, you can go back and look at it a little bit more critically and start to see, okay, there are some gaps. Here are some gaps where I'm not really sure what I'm doing with this piece of things. That's when you can take the next step, which is to figure out how you can fill those gaps in. Maybe it's a knowledge gap, so you really don't know what needs to go there. Maybe it's a skills gap, so you know what needs to go there, but you don't know how to implement it. Perhaps it's a combination of both. You're saying, “I don't know what needs to go here, and even if I did, I probably don't have the skills to implement it myself.” Identifying those gaps is the next big step so that you can really get this thing going and start taking action to attract clients. 

Go ahead and click below to download this PDF template that’ll walk you step by step through each of these five questions. It's really handy, and I highly recommend it.