How to tell if your business coach needs a serious upgrade

Make sure you’re getting the coaching advice you deserve on your coaching business plan with this simple reflection exercise.

We hate to say it, but the business coaching model for course creators, online mentors and spiritual teachers is broken.

That’s why, when designing The Digital Navigator, we flipped the old model on its head.

We were simply tired of seeing others waste their money!

To help, today we’re going to look at how you can measure the efficacy of your current business coach (and business coaching model) to determine how effectively you are:

Next, we’ll take some time to explore how to integrate some of your core business values into the process to make the upgrade as authentic and aligned as possible with your overall life goals.

Finally, we’ll leave you with a few tactical strategies to keep the momentum going as you start to adopt this new coaching model into your repertoire.

Let’s get started!

Why doesn’t the old business coaching model work anymore?

Most of my clients and I have spent multiple five figures (and even six figures) only to be underwhelmed by the results with the old model.

Don’t get me wrong, the occasional diamond exists and I had a wonderful experience with my sales coach Jeremy DeMerchant when I broke on my own but he was the exception rather than the rule.

In our opinion then, when you look at the way business coaches online have been delivering their services up to now, you might notice that the old model has some serious kinks that need to be ironed out.

First, these services often allow clients to meet with a coach or participate in a mastermind seminar on what to do with their business…

…but not how to do it.

In other words, there’s not a lot of support when it comes to implementing the knowledge you’ve gained through their coaching business planning sessions.

Not only that, but the old model relies on the kind of marketing tech support that recommends certain tools, but these coaches rarely alleviate the endless headaches that come with onboarding that tech into your business.

This often results in you having to spend countless hours learning and fixing in never ending cycles!

Here are just two more ways in which the coaching business plans of the past are in great need of an upgrade:

1. The coaching model over-promises but under-delivers. Usually that includes an inflated price and fake ‘bonuses’ to help with your business, leaving entrepreneurs with a sense of not fully delivering the promised outcome.
2. The coaching model comes with minimal or zero content support. That means there is no help when it comes to copywriting, content marketing, or ad delivery, thereby reducing the potential reach of your business from the get-go.

So, what can course creators, spiritual teachers, and online mentors do to improve and even upgrade the way they run their business?

How can they get away from the old model and unconscientious business coaches to adopt a new framework for business success?

By aligning your business with your soul’s purpose, and taking a value-driven approach to delivering your own knowledge, guidance, and content!

Using Your Core Values to Guide Your Business Model Upgrade

Here’s a bit of a story for you, from our Founder, Pol Cousineau:

“In the early phases of leaving my job to start my own business, I was more focused on getting clients than the values of the people I worked with.
 
This was likely because, when I started my entrepreneurial journey, I was feeling a lot of anxiety to generate revenue as I had a full-time salary to replace.
 
Basically anything that someone wanted to hire me to do I would do if I had the skill set and it didn’t appear dishonest. I wasn’t selective of who I worked with.
 
This meant doing personal, business and spiritual mentoring for a mastermind group as it was what my expensive coaching program was telling me to do.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I liked leading this mastermind group…but what happened is I had several clients that weren’t a good fit.
 
After several months, many of the participants hadn’t made much progress and I kept working harder to compensate for their lack of effort.
 
What I didn’t realize at the time was that most of my mastermind members were looking for “easy money” rather than how they could be happy, prosperous and make the world a better place.
 
Basically they had the same mindset as the people coaching me, which translated in what I was doing, and ultimately who I was attracting.
 
It wasn’t reflecting why I had left my job to make a bigger impact in the world!
 
So I pivoted and reassessed how to better integrate my values into my business and work, knowing that the rest would follow… and it did!”

 

– Pol Cousineau, Founder The Digital Navigator

Even though our work at The Digital Navigator is in websites, tech, and marketing – which isn’t what naturally comes to mind as soul driven work – Pol likes to emphasize that it is this Spirit that continues to guide how we work, and who we work with.

As he says:

“Today I’m grateful that I only work with people that are aligned with similar values which brings me so much joy.

 

Now I LOVE my clients and I’m so happy because by supporting their work I make a positive difference in the world.

 

Many of them are spiritual teachers while others are determined to shine their light in their communities in their own unique ways.”

 

– Pol Cousineau, Founder The Digital Navigator

So what, exactly, does this story tell us?

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In a sentence, it shows just how impactful it can be to approach the way you build your business in the same way you would serve your customers.

Consider that our own golden rule of a proven business coaching model!

Basically, when you align your own values (your soul’s purpose) with your business model, you’ll naturally develop a model that works, as well as one that your clients will trust.

A new approach to redesigning your online coaching business model

When you start to take this golden approach to developing the way you run your online mentorship, teaching or course creation business, your new business model will start to reflect a new style of offerings.

You’ll also be in a better position to avoid business coaching opportunities that don’t suit the way you run your online training business.

For us at The Digital Navigator, the results included the following:

For you, this list may look a little different, but the approach to creating this new business model is much the same, particularly when it comes to onboarding new clients or evaluating the efficacy of your personal business coach:

1. Get clear on your own values. Meditate, reflect, journal… What goes against our values? For me, the most important thing is the intention behind the actions of the person or business. Once this becomes clear I know right away if it is in alignment or not.
2. Find out what motivates the client/coach you will be working with. Why do they care about what they do? Ask them (or their customer avatar) multiple times “why” to understand their deeper motivations. Understanding the why will help you personally connect with their purpose, and be able to deliver a greater sense of fulfillment.
3. Be aware of how prospective clients/coaches talk about other people, their team and customers. If it doesn’t feel right it’s best to end the relationship like I had to do with a client that wasn’t respecting his remote employees. You and your business deserve more than that!
4. If your prospect/coach is in your niche, make sure they really know their stuff. For lightworkers, for example, there is fantastic spiritual technology available to us but many people also make things up. When I hosted The Spiritual Voice podcast I always asked my guests to provide a practice for listeners to directly experience what was being discussed. If it doesn’t feel right, it is better to distance yourself.
5. Ask whether you’re excited about what your prospective client/coach is doing. This is often a sign from your intuition. I have one client that is an internet provider which doesn’t seem like purpose driven business at first, but I had a big YES when tuning in. After discussing more with them, they are a huge pillar in their local community and are totally aligned with my values.

Find a website and marketing coach and coaching business plan that works for you

As we mentioned earlier, when it came time for The Digital Navigator to adopt the ‘golden rule’ of creating a great business model, we created foundations for the business that match our core values as a team: reliable support, great communication, accessible technology, and the capacity to actually help the people looking to help others.

That’s why, before we close this article, we want to encourage you to reach out if you aren’t exactly sure about your current business model.

You can always schedule a call with someone from our team, who would be happy to walk you through your next steps as you elevate your current business model.

Otherwise, we have a whole host of other free resources to help you streamline your course creation, spiritual teaching, or online mentorship business.

Just click over to our learning center to invigorate your entrepreneurial journey today!