When you start out as a business coach, the number of ways forward can be quite overwhelming. There is a lot of support out there, but what works for one person won’t necessarily be right for another. If you’re trying to navigate through the different options, and you’re wondering if being part of a franchise is the right choice for you, we’ve broken down all the pros and cons to help.
Franchising
Pros
With franchising, you plug in to a proven system of delivered results. You also get the added bonus of being part of a community, meaning there should be plenty of support. It’s a turnkey model that you should be able to rely on, giving a great deal of structure.
Cons
Franchises can be very restricted, and you’ll have to follow certain rules for how you can work. It can also be a big investment and you will be tied into it for a set amount of time. This is a massive commitment, especially if you are a new business coach. If you don’t know for sure that this is right for you, there is no way just to dip your toe in. This means it can be risky.
Courses/Training
Pros
This is where you don’t have one to one support, but you take advantage of the many courses and training opportunities out there. It could be videos, online courses or downloadable materials – all of which are incredibly easy to access and much more affordable than franchising. You can also go at your own pace. With so much choice, you can explore different things, giving you the freedom to find out what approach could work best for you.
Cons
As you’re accessing courses that are widely available, the content is often very generic. This means it’s not always clear how you can apply what you’ve learnt to your market. You also won’t get any bespoke support as the courses are most likely to be pre-recorded. It might be a great first step, but ultimately it can be limiting if you want to progress more specifically.
Technology
Pros
There are different online tools that exist to support business coaches – hubbix is a prime example. They have the advantage of offering a streamlined process, but also give you the flexibility to run your business how you want to run it. These tools tend to be lower cost subscription models, meaning they are easy and accessible for new business coaches, and there also tends to be no long term commitment. hubbix, for example, is a month by month subscription.
Cons
As with any new tool, there is a learning curve, and it can take a short while to set things up just as you want them. Also, if you’re not that confident with technology, this can make it a bit harder to use.
Go It Alone
Pros
There is no reason why you have to adopt a structure from anyone else. It is a perfectly viable option for you to make your own decisions and navigate your own way forward with how you want to run your business. With this, no investment is needed and you are in full control.
Cons
It can be very time consuming as you have to start everything from scratch. You also have no guidance at all, so you may be more at risk of making mistakes. You will become dependent on trial and error. This trial and error way of working will also be present with live clients, and this could affect your client retention rates. We don’t know what we don’t know. We can only ever work within our own experience and knowledge, so it’s always best to find a way to increase your experience and gain that knowledge.
One on One Support
Pros
You may be a business coach, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have your own coach supporting you on your own journey. One to one support can give you dedicated guidance from someone who has been there and done it, and that can be very advantageous. While there will be costs involved in this, it will be less of an investment than a franchise, and you will also have the benefit of plugging in to a community and getting peer support.
Cons
The biggest drawback here is the cost. As you’ll know yourself, there is no point in doing this for just a few weeks or on an ad hoc basis. If you want the benefits a one to one coach will be able to give you, you’ll need to commit to a longer time period. A typical contract could be 12 months.
Our Advice
There are advantages to all of these approaches, so we believe the best thing to do is take a blended approach and look more broadly on your journey as a business coach.
As a new business coach just entering the field, you won’t know what is right for you yet. How could you? So try some online courses to get that background information, then use a tool, such as hubbix, to help you through that learning curve. Perhaps then utilise one to one coaching for a while as you build up your confidence, and then, when you know exactly what sort of coach you want to be, you’ll either be in the perfect position to start making your own decisions, or you might realise that a franchise model is just what you need.
We recommend that you give yourself at least a year of trying, learning and building that confidence before you commit to anything with a high cost and time investment to it. Whatever you do, make sure it’s the right decision for you.
hubbix
Many new business coaches leverage the client session structure that hubbix provides so that they don’t have to invest time developing their own process. It also helps to provide credibility as you’ll have a proven process for getting to the heart of matters quickly, providing guidance across all areas of business, whilst also being able to create quick action plans to keep your clients on track and accountable.
If you’d like to see for yourself how hubbix can advance your service offering and how business coaches are saving a great deal of time after only their first session with a client, why not take advantage of a FREE 30 day trial?