A Lean Business Plan for Career Coach Firms

What is a lean business plan for career coach firms? Lean business plans for career coaches are concise and to-the-point documents. All unnecessary details are trimmed off from a detailed business plan so that the document only contains the most crucial elements of success.

A lean business plan for career coach firms revolves around the popular business plan strategy “plan, do, check, adjust (PDCA)” propounded by Eric Ries in his book “The Lean Startup.” It focuses on the key drivers of your business and find a strategy that will truly bring success.

A career coach should use a lean business plan not only to save time but also revise and readjust it as you try and learn new things. Continuous amendments of a business plan can give a business a better chance of succeeding.

How to write a lean business plan for career coach firms
A lean business plan consists of the following elements. These are extremely important ingredients of a lean business plan that you must include.

Identity
In this section, include a one-sentence overview of your career coaching business. Highlight the purpose of your career coaching business.

Problem
What problems are you solving for your clients? Are they having difficulty in finding the right career? Are they unhappy at work? Are they planning for a career transition?

Solution
What’s your solution to the problem? Describe your products and services here. You can also briefly describe how you will use different methods and career coaching techniques to help people transform their careers.

Business type and description
In this section, your plan should clearly indicate what type of business you are intending to set up. Sole proprietorship, partnership, or a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) are three major forms of business. It is important to state your business type because tax and other financial implications are different for different business types.

Revenue Streams
How are you going to make money? There are several niches you can choose from if you don’t want to be a generalist career coach, for example, career coaching for women executives, career coaching for the retired, and so on. Next is to figure out how you’d package your products or services. Is it through face-to-face classes, one-off workshops or online sessions?

Market analysis and target market
You will provide a thorough analysis of the career coaching market in this section. You can highlight key aspects like growth potential, new trends in the market, and potential new opportunities presented by the market. You can also illustrate the target market that your career coaching business should focus on and capitalize on new opportunities.

Unique selling point
This section indicates what makes you stand out among hundreds of career coaches. It should explain why your target audience chooses you over your competitors. You can conduct a SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis to determine your key strengths and draw on your findings to fine unique selling point(s).

Marketing
In the marketing strategies section, focus on how you will deploy different marketing strategies to draw more clients to your business by presenting different offers and enticing proposals.

Competition
Your business plan should also contain information about your main competitors, their strengths, fees, and most importantly, what makes you better than all of your competitors.

Finances
Financial planning focuses on how to generate revenue and capital to achieve your goals and objectives. You can describe all types of expenses and resources required for operating your business and how to afford them by generating enough revenue or capital.

The main difference between a traditional business plan and a lean one is that you’re not supposed to spend days, weeks, or months to come up with a lean business plan. Try and finish your first draft in under one hour. Write bullet points or short sentences on a sheet of paper. Then take a step back and see if the plan makes sense. Once you’re done, update and tweak the plan as you go along!

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Jeannie Cotter
Editor/Writer
Writer, Coaches Training Blog community