What’s The Prosperous Coach by Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin about? Do you want to become a professional coach?
In The Prosperous Coach, Chandler and Litvin explain how to take on the mindset of a successful coach and market yourself to potential clients. They also describe their process for building a client base for a thriving coaching business through deep, meaningful conversations.
Read below for a brief The Prosperous Coach book overview.
Overview of The Prosperous Coach
Many coaches spend time honing their coaching skills through hard work and training—but find this isn’t enough to bring in clients. In their book The Prosperous Coach, coaching experts Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin argue that coaches struggle because they overlook building a necessary skill: acquiring clients. The authors challenge conventional means of acquiring clients such as using manipulative sales tactics or waiting for clients to come to you. Instead, they say that a thriving coaching business comes from making genuine connections through deep, meaningful coaching conversations with potential clients. The approach aligns financial success with authentic, impactful coaching.
Chandler and Litvin bring decades of combined experience to this work, having coached numerous successful individuals and trained countless coaches themselves. Chandler is the creator of the Coaching Prosperity School, which teaches coaches how to build a thriving practice. He’s also the author of best-selling books such as Time Warrior and 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself. Litvin runs a leadership consultancy and has coached high-profile figures such as presidential candidates, members of the Special Forces, and Olympic athletes. He also founded 4PC, a community of the top 4% of leaders and coaches.
Part 1: Cultivate a Coaching Mindset
In order to attract clients and build your coaching business, you must adopt the mindset of a successful coach, explain Chandler and Litvin. This mindset comprises numerous traits, including self-assuredness, authenticity, focus, courage, and authority. Let’s explore what each looks like in the coaching context.
Trait #1: Self-Assuredness
The authors explain that good coaches are self-assured and have high regard for themselves. The service you’re providing to your clients is the experience of interacting with you, so you have to show them that this experience is unique, life-changing, and worth their time and money. No one’s going to pay a high price to be coached by someone who doesn’t believe in themself.
To cultivate self-assuredness, keep track of all the professional compliments you receive. Save them in a specific place, such as a folder on your computer desktop, and whenever you’re feeling down on yourself, read through those compliments to boost your confidence.
Trait #2: Authenticity
Good coaches are true to themselves, explain the authors. Clients need to see from their first interaction with you that you offer them something no one else offers: you. This means you should avoid imitating other coaches and do what you think is best and most in line with who you are. Being true to yourself will make your job more enjoyable, allow you to attract the right clients, and make your clients willing to pay more for the experience of working with you.
Trait #3: Focus
Good coaches stay focused on their purpose, which is to help others. Avoid taking on unnecessary work or occupying yourself with distracting tasks that don’t provide you with income. According to the authors, one reason many coaches get distracted is because they’re trying too hard to please others. This not only distracts you from actually helping people, but can also cause clients to lose respect for you as they see you spreading yourself too thin—something you would explicitly coach them not to do.
Trait #4: Courage
The authors explain that good coaches are willing to make courageous, daring recommendations that push clients out of their comfort zone. You may find yourself tempted to just listen to and sympathize with your client’s struggles, but that’s not helpful to them. People seek out coaching to make powerful improvements to their lives and careers—not to find someone to merely commiserate with about their current situation. Courageous coaches are those who can handle the inherent discomfort of challenging their clients. This ability allows them to challenge their clients meaningfully.
Trait #5: Authority
Finally, the authors explain that good coaches are those whom clients see as strong authorities. Clients need to feel like you’re someone worth listening to and that you know what you’re talking about. This is particularly important when you’re guiding your potential client to commit to working with you—confident guidance lets them know what they can expect from you in future sessions.
Part 2: Market Your Services
Armed with the mindset of a successful coach, you’re now ready to market your services to potential clients. Chandler and Litvin’s advice includes three main marketing tips: 1) Look to your existing network to find clients, 2) research your potential clients, and 3) get started right away.
Tip #1: Look to Your Existing Network
The first step in building a client base is to brainstorm who could be your potential clients. Think of people you know or people others have referred to you. This will prevent you from seeking clients by cold calling, which the authors advise against. Calling someone out of the blue and trying to sell your services without knowing anything about them fails to convey what you can do for them—it’s essentially telemarketing.
Tip #2: Research Your Potential Clients
Before connecting with a potential client, do your research. The authors recommend looking your prospects up online and learning everything you can about their business, career, or whatever it is they might be looking for help with.
Then get in touch with them, focusing on getting to know them rather than pitching your services. Ask them about what’s going on in their life, their career, and so on. Don’t try to prod them into signing on with you yet; this part of the process is about establishing a foundational relationship—not necessarily a professional one. Ask them what kind of assistance they could use and offer to put them in contact with someone who could help them with the obstacle they’re facing.
Tip #3: Start Right Now
The authors also advise that you start coaching right now. Even if you don’t have a client yet, you can offer free or discounted sessions to get people interested enough to invest in a paid session with you. However, avoid going overboard with this—your time and services are valuable, and you don’t want to seem needy to potential clients. Additionally, because your services are valuable, avoid doing free coaching work for friends.
This process of establishing a foundational relationship may take months and will require you to stay in close contact with potential clients.
Part 3: Hold a “Showcase” Meeting
Once you’ve established a relationship with a potential client and confirmed that they’d like assistance, schedule a time to have a “showcase” meeting with them. According to Chandler and Litvin, this meeting should be like a mini-coaching session. This initial encounter should be long—no less than two hours, according to the authors—and you should spend this time showcasing all the traits of a successful coach. You’re essentially letting them sample what it would be like to work with you so they can decide if they want more.
During this meeting, say the authors, make sure that you’re the one directing the conversation. This conversation isn’t only about your client’s needs—it’s largely about whether you want to coach them, and it should give the impression that your services are a limited commodity that your potential client should be seeking.
Chandler and Litvin share several guidelines for driving these conversations: 1) Meet in a professional place, 2) be honest with the client, 3) uncover the client’s true goal, and 4) showcase your work.
Guideline #1: Meet in a Professional Environment
According to the authors, your preliminary meeting is not a social engagement, so have it in a professional—not social—environment. You should talk in a space that’s conducive to clear communication and free from distractions—for example, your office or a quiet public space. Don’t take them to an extravagant restaurant or bustling coffee shop, or they’ll leave with the impression that your services are about socializing and not actually coaching.
Guideline #2: Be Honest With the Client
Start by being completely honest with the potential client about their current situation, advise the authors. Don’t beat around the bush or understate their problems to try to endear yourself to them; you need to paint them a clear picture of what they’re facing. This will make them feel seen and heard because you’re showing them you understand where they’re coming from and what they need—a taste of what they’ll get from you in future coaching sessions.
Guideline #3: Uncover the Client’s True Goal
Within those two hours, explain Chandler and Litvin, you need to find what the client’s true goal is. This may not be obvious at first, and the client themself may not even know it until you uncover it together. It must be something they’re excited about, but it shouldn’t be something they’ll easily accomplish without your help. If their goal is to become CEO of a business and they’re already well on track to doing that, they don’t need your services.
Finding a client’s true goal happens in two steps: First, ask them what their goal is. Then, ask them why they want to achieve that goal or how it will improve their life. The life improvement they’re seeking is their true goal. And once you know it, you can assess whether their current plan is the best way to reach that goal. If they want to become CEO, your questioning might reveal that their true goal is to earn their colleagues’ respect. Together, you examine their current path to see if it’s the best way to earn that respect. For example, you might determine that they’ll have more success more quickly by maximizing their performance in their current position or by being more willing to admit their shortcomings and mistakes.
Guideline #4: Highlight Your Successes
Once you’ve found your client’s goal, show them what you can offer by discussing your success stories, giving them a sense of what you can accomplish for them. Chandler and Litvin explain that this isn’t the time to be modest: Be clear and confident in showing off your work because that’s what they’ll be paying for.
Part 4: Offer the Opportunity to Commit
After you’ve engaged in this initial conversation, the next step is to gauge the potential client’s interest in your services. To do this, once your conversation reveals what your client’s true goal is and what they need to achieve it, ask them if they need help.
Chandler and Litvin emphasize the importance of pausing here to let them think. This might be uncomfortable, but it’s important to let them process so they can make the right decision. You also don’t want to seem needy by immediately pressing them for an answer.
If They Say No
Even if you have a great “showcase” meeting, it’s possible that your potential client will decide they don’t need your help at this time. Accept the rejection gracefully, and end the conversation on a positive note—and, Chandler and Litvin stress, don’t bring up cost as a possible reason for their “no.” The client should leave the interaction thinking about what they could achieve if they worked with you, not how much it would cost to work with you.
Additionally, keep the door open: Let them know you’re open to a future relationship if their needs change, and ask them if they have anyone they’d like to refer to you.
If They Say Yes
According to Chandler and Litvin, there are four things to keep in mind once a potential client expresses that they’d like to work with you. First, don’t immediately dive into formal coaching. You may be tempted to start giving them advice right away, but you need to wait until your first official session to do this. Second, set up a time and date for that first real session. Third, don’t discuss price just yet. Instead, when they ask how much it will cost, explain that your services are customized for every client and that your focus will be on results, not cost. The fee will depend on what specific plan the two of you work out together based on their needs, which you’ll decide in the final stage: closing the deal.
Fourth, even after they’ve expressed interest, continue to convey that your services are in high demand. The authors recommend giving a specific time and date for the first official session, instead of offering wide windows of availability. If the client asks you to schedule a time based on their availability, let them know that this won’t work for you. This shows them that your time is valuable and limited, reinforcing the idea that there’s high demand for your coaching.
Part 5: Close the Deal
The final step in transforming your “potential client” into your “client,” is making a firm offer for your services, explain Chandler and Litvin.
This is where you’ll give them a roadmap for what your relationship would look like. Based on the needs they’ve expressed to you, you’ll explain how often you’ll meet and for how long, what the cost will be, and what exactly they can expect from you. And importantly, tell them what you’ll need from them: namely, that they need to be willing to make daring moves, get out of their comfort zone, be completely honest with you, and make all the agreed payments.
Once your client commits to your offer, you can both courageously move forward in making their goals a reality.
Practical Tips to Maximize Your Coaching Abilities
Chandler and Litvin also offer some more actionable tips to improve and maximize your skills and what you offer to your clients. Here, we’ll explore six tips: taking joy in the process, devoting yourself to one client at a time, taking a client-centered approach to your work, getting your own coach, constantly building your client base, and reframing rejections positively.
Tip #1: Take Joy in the Whole Process
The authors explain that many coaches adore the coaching aspect of their job, but they dread the client-building aspect. A good coach takes equal joy in both of these activities because they’re both essential to their job. After all, you can’t coach if you don’t have clients, and there’s no reason someone would want to be your client if you’re not an effective coach.
Tip #2: Devote Yourself to One Client at a Time
Chandler and Litvin also recommend that you focus on one client at a time. Don’t set a goal of getting a certain number of clients; instead, think about acquiring clients as a one-at-a-time process. Your goal is to wholly devote yourself to one client, sharing in that person’s every desire, until your work with them is done. This doesn’t necessarily mean you should only have one client at any given time, but in the moments when you’re working with them, they should be the only thing that matters.
Tip #3: Take a Client-Centered Approach
Remember that coaching is about your client, not about you. Chandler and Litvin explain that everything you do should be centered on helping your client and drastically improving their life. What matters is what the client wants and how they’re going to get there. What doesn’t matter is what you want or need. In fact, clients shouldn’t feel like you need them at all; they should feel like they need you.
Tip #4: Get Your Own Coach
Additionally, Chandler and Litvin recommend that you invest in coaching services for yourself. As a coach, you already know how valuable and important the work is. And since your coaching is devoted wholly to your clients, you can’t coach yourself. This means you need to work with someone else who will devote all of their attention to drastically improving your life. This will not only bring you greater success as a coach, but it will improve your coaching skills as well.
Tip #5: Constantly Build Your Client Base
Chandler and Litvin explain that many coaches fall into the trap of vacillating between a full client list and a nearly empty one. Such coaches build a strong client base, but then over the course of a few months they complete their contracts with those clients and return to having no clients. This can make you fearful of your job security and reduce your income. To counter this, the authors say that once you find yourself with a full client list, you shouldn’t get complacent. Continue to look for potential clients everywhere you go so you always have new ones coming in.
Tip #6: Reframe Rejections Positively
Finally, Chandler and Litvin explain that you need to get comfortable with rejection. While it can be discouraging when a potential client passes on your services, failure is a necessary part of success. Failing a lot shows that you’ve made many attempts—and many attempts will also lead to many successes. Additionally, even if someone says no to you at first, your interactions with them may open the door to a future professional relationship or lead to a referral.
