A business development coach for coaches works on the revenue side of your practice: positioning, pipeline, pricing, packaging and capacity. Not how you coach. How you get clients, what you charge, and how you grow without burning out.
That's the whole answer, and it takes a minute to say. The reason it's worth a post is that most coaches don't learn those are two different skill sets until they've already paid for the wrong one.
I spent twenty years in Fortune 100 risk management, ending as chief product officer of a $4 billion insurer. Then I got certified, hung out a shingle, and found that being good at coaching had taught me nothing about selling it.
Great coaching doesn't produce a great coaching business. They're different skill sets, and only one of them came with your training.
What does a business development coach for coaches do?
Five things, and they're the five nobody taught you.
Positioning. Who you serve, what problem you solve, what changes because you were there. Said in one sentence you can use at a dinner party without flinching.
Pipeline. Where the next ten conversations come from, and what you do in the eleven months of the year when nobody is searching for you.
Pricing. What you charge, why that number, and how you hold it when someone asks for a discount in the first call.
Packaging. What you sell. A single session is not an offer, it's a unit. An offer has a start, an end, and something the client can point at when it's over.
Capacity. How many clients you can carry at full quality, and what happens to the business in the weeks you're delivering rather than selling.
Notice what's missing. Nothing here is about your coaching. That's not an oversight. It's the point.
How is business development coaching different from coach training and supervision?
All three sit in the same profession and none of them does the others' job.
Coach training teaches the methodology: how to hold a session, how to work with what the client brings, how to meet a standard. Supervision refines the quality of the practice once you're in it, usually with a case in hand.
Business development coaching starts after both, at the part where you need someone to pay you.
| Coach training | Coaching supervision | Business development coaching | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Works on | How you coach | The quality of your practice | How the practice earns |
| Typical trigger | You want to become a coach | You have clients and want to coach them better | You have a credential and an empty calendar |
| You leave with | A methodology and, eventually, a credential | Sharper judgment on live cases | Positioning, pricing, a pipeline and an offer |
| Counts toward a credential | Yes | Often, as CCEs | Only when the program is ICF accredited |
Here's the structural version, and you can check it yourself in about two minutes. ICF's eight core competencies are the standard the whole profession credentials against. Not one of them covers finding a client, naming a price or building an offer.
That isn't a criticism of the model. The model is about the coaching relationship, which is exactly what it should be about. It just means the business half was never anybody's job to teach you, and the empty calendar in year two is not a verdict on your ability.
It's data. It tells you which half you skipped.
What is executive coaching for entrepreneurs, and who does it fit?
It's coaching for the person who owns the business and also delivers the work, which describes almost every coach reading this.
The distinction worth holding is strategic business building rather than venture scaling. Nobody here is raising a round or hiring a team of forty. The work is a profitable solo practice: revenue per hour, capacity, and systems that hold up without staff behind them.
In corporate, you grew by adding headcount. As a solopreneur, you grow by getting more out of the hours you already have, and that changes every decision underneath it. What you automate. What you stop selling. What you charge so that fewer clients still clears the number.
It fits the coach who has the craft and doesn't have the commercial muscle. It doesn't fit the coach who hasn't finished training yet, and I'd tell you that before taking your money.
How do you choose a business development coach for coaches?
Four questions, and the first one eliminates most of the field.
Have they run a business themselves? Not coached people who run businesses. Run one. Signed the lease, made payroll, priced something wrong and lived with it. A coach who has only ever coached is teaching you the theory of a thing they haven't done, and you'll feel the difference in week three when you ask a question the framework doesn't cover.
Do they work with your stage? Year zero to three is a different problem than year eight. Early, you need positioning and first clients. Later, you need a model that scales without adding hours you don't have. Someone selling one answer to both is selling a curriculum, not advice.
Will they tell you when the answer is cheaper? This is the honest test. If everything you ask routes to their most expensive offer, you're in a sales conversation.
What do you leave with? Ask for the artifact. A written plan, a service menu, a pricing model you can defend. Insight is real and it doesn't invoice anybody.
Before you spend a dollar on any program, mine included, you should be able to say who you serve, what you charge and where the next three conversations come from. If you can answer all three, you probably don't need this yet. If you can't answer any of them, you have an information problem, and the cheapest fix is almost never one-to-one.
Where Corporate to Coach® Private Advisory fits
Corporate to Coach® Private Advisory is where one-to-one business development work happens here. Eight private sessions, by application, built around your business rather than the category you belong to.
You come out with positioning, a service menu, a pricing strategy, a pipeline plan and a 90-day launch plan. It includes the full Corporate to Coach® curriculum with lifetime access, six months in the Solopreneur Insider Circle™ and the 25 ICF CCEs.
What it isn't: a faster version of the curriculum. If your questions are the ones a module answers, you'll pay a premium to hear them answered out loud.
Most coaches in their first year don't need one-to-one work. They need the material, a room of people at the same stage, and a date on the calendar. That's the Insider Circle™, at $99 a month, and it carries the same curriculum self-paced. It's the membership, not the cohort: no live cohort facilitation and no cohort peer group.
Start there. If the general answer doesn't fit your market after you've done the work, that's when the one-to-one conversation is worth having, and I'll still be here.
One decision this week. Write the three answers down, and see which one you can't finish.
Watch the free 20-minute business building training →
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does a business development coach for coaches do?
A business development coach for coaches works on the revenue side of a coaching practice: positioning, pipeline, pricing, packaging and capacity planning. It is not about how you coach. It is about how you get clients, what you charge, and how you grow without burning out.
How is business development coaching different from coach training?
Coach training teaches the methodology and leads to a credential. Coaching supervision refines the quality of your practice once you have clients. Business development coaching starts after both and works on the commercial side: the offer, the price and the pipeline. ICF's eight core competencies cover the coaching relationship and none of them covers building the business behind it.
What is executive coaching for entrepreneurs?
Coaching for someone who both owns the business and delivers the work. For coaches and consultants it emphasizes strategic business building rather than venture scaling, which means revenue per hour, capacity and systems that hold up without a team, instead of headcount and funding.
Do I need a business development coach in my first year?
Usually not one-to-one. In year one most coaches have an information problem rather than a situation problem, and self-paced material with a peer group solves it for a fraction of the cost. One-to-one work earns its price when you have done the general work correctly and it still does not fit your market, your credential or your network.
What is the Solopreneur Insider Circle™?
A monthly membership for coaches in years zero to three of building a practice, most of them ICF certified or in process and most coming out of a senior corporate role. Membership carries the full Corporate to Coach® curriculum self-paced, the Coach Business Building Kit™, a members-only forum, and two live Build and Grow Sessions a month with Elissa on the first and third Tuesdays. It is $99 a month, or $990 a year. It is the membership, not the cohort: no live cohort facilitation and no cohort peer group.
