What If I Can’t Afford A Business Coach?
So you’ve found a business coach you really like. You’ve done a discovery call, you’ve learned about their pricing. You really want to work with them, but the big catch is the money. What should you do?
As a business coach and multi award-winning entrepreneur, people ask me about this a lot. Here are my answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about the cost of coaching.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
So let’s get started!
1 What if I can’t afford a business coach?
Firstly, if you genuinely can’t afford a business coach, don’t hire a business coach. It’s that simple.
If you are in debt, or hiring a coach would bring you into debt, quite simply, you should not hire a business coach. When you’re in debt, you need to take your time to maneuvre yourself out of that position. Hiring a business coach may not be the best decision for you right now.
If you’re just starting out with your business, sometimes there are times for action, and other times there are times when you need a helpful voice alongside you.
If you aren’t yet in a position to hire a coach, don’t despair – your time will come. Keep putting in the work and soon you’ll start to see revenue appear.
While you’re in this zone, there are lots of things you can do to educate yourself and to grow as an entrepreneur, and many of them are free. You can read books, listen to podcasts, join networking groups, or take online courses (often cheaper than coaching itself and may even be run by the same coach you can’t yet afford for one-on-one coaching).
Here are some of my own resources that might help:
Sign up to my mailing list (get nuggets of business-building advice in my weekly newsletter. Bonus - you’ll also get my most popular resource to help you accelerate your business faster when you enroll to join the mailing list here.)
Subscribe to the Up Level Project podcast for interviews and other tips to increase profits and freedom to scale (available on Apple, Amazon or Audible).
Supercharge your business results by getting focused and shifting into a growth mindset with my Daily Journaling Practice.
2 When should you not hire a business coach?
No good business coach should ever advocate you going into debt in order to hire them. If you find one that does, run a mile, because they do not have your best interests at heart. It’s that simple.
Some other examples of when you shouldn’t hire a business coach:
If their expertise is not a good match.
If you don’t feel safe around them.
If you don’t think they can help you in your business.
If they can’t produce testimonials from previous clients, or connect you with clients for a short phonecall (different if they are new to coaching).
If having a coach with a qualification is important to you, make sure their qualification is reputable. Don’t be afraid to ask for proof.
If you don’t feel that you can really open up to them.
If you can’t commit to the regular meetings, or are too busy to do the work in between sessions.
Take a look at my checklist of when to hire a coach here: [LINK]
3 What if the coach I really want to work with costs too much?
There will be times you find a coach you want to work with, and you decide not to work with them due to cost.
However, the question of whether or not they cost too much is not the same thing.
This is a question of gauging an appropriate level of investment in your business at that particular moment, and you are the only person in the world who can do that.
It’s perfectly normal and natural to feel some resistance to working with a coach who costs more than your last coach did, or to working with a coach for the first time. This is all part of the growth process. Some people also think of it as a test of your commitment to your business goals. How important is the growth of your business to you, or improvement of your work: life balance?
A coach is not a luxury. It’s a means to achieving your goals, and of growing your business. And so your investment must yield an ROI.
You have to think about what will uplevel your business the most?
Don’t stress out if you can’t afford a business coach right now. Because the chances are, if you take decisive action and keep working on your business, at some point, you will be able to afford to work with them.
Good business coaches will have been working on their own businesses for years. When you are ready to work with them, if they are truly following their calling and are dedicated to their craft, they will still be there.
It may just be that this isn’t the right moment for you to work with them.
From my own experience, there have been lots of people over the years who have wanted to work with me, but whose businesses weren’t yet at a stage that permitted them to hire me. There were times when I really really wanted to work with them because I knew just how much I could help them! They would attend some of my one-off in person events, but couldn’t yet afford one-on-one coaching sessions.
The most dedicated of those are the ones who read everything on my blog, they followed all my social media accounts, and attended all my in-person events. And what do you know? A little further down the line, they were able to hire me, and some of them have now been clients for a long time.
If this is the situation you’re in, there are lots of ways you can work on your personal development before you can hire that dream coach!
If you want to learn more about my coaching business, there are hundreds of blog posts for you to read right here on this site, plus all my podcasts.
You can also read my best-selling book, The Up Level Project, and complete the accompanying workbook.
There are so many free online resources that can help you with your business: practical tools and mindset tools. Just check out the list above for inspiration!
4 How do I know whether a coach is worth their cost?
Business coaches come in all shapes and sizes. Pricing varies hugely, as does skill level and effectiveness.
High ticket coaches will charge more because they have a proven track record and a full client roster, and because they’ve been able to prove the results for their clients time and again. People work with them because they amplify their business by an order of magnitude.
There are some great coaches out there. You just have to find them.
Once you’ve found one, there are plenty of things you can do to research whether or not to invest in working with them (number one should be to go through this checklist), and only you can really decide whether their pricing aligns with where you are in your own business right at that moment, and therefore, whether or not it’s ‘worth’ their cost.
Here’s how a private client came to the decision to invest the money and hire me as their business coach.
There’s often a fine line to be trodden between something feeling unaffordable, and a realisation that it’s actually a hugely important investment in your business. I know because I’ve been there myself many times.
What if your ambition is bigger than you’re currently achieving, and you’ve been spinning the wheels for a while, not going backwards but not moving forwards either?
Will you ever really feel that you’ve fulfilled your ambition?
In that situation, can you afford not to hire this business coach?
5 How do we work together?
Thanks so much for stopping by my website, and taking the time to read to the end. If you liked what you read here and are interested in working with me, here’s how you can get more support from me, and get more freedom and joy in your business.
Accelerate your growth with this free handy download
Read (or listen to) my bestselling book, The Up Level Project
Join my group accountability program: Business Growth Achievers
Work with me: Book a 1:1 consultation with me here.
