5 Lessons from 20 Years of Running a Consulting & Coaching Business

Are You Setting Up Your Consulting or Coaching Business Up for Long-Term Success?

You’re setting your consulting or coaching business up for long-term success when you stop treating it like a series of client engagements and start building it as a business that is designed to last. That means fully committing to business ownership, developing the mindset and skills of a CEO, building a brand around the work you want to be known for, and creating a consistent marketing system instead of relying on referrals or chasing the next client.

Twenty years ago, I left Disney and started my own consulting business.

My kids were three and five then. Now they’re 23 and 25. Seriously, where does the time go?

As I hit this milestone, I started reflecting on what it really takes to build a business over time, with insights I couldn’t possibly have had when I first started.

Back then, I was in the weeds trying to figure out: Who are my ideal clients? What do I want to offer? How do I consistently get clients to invest in what I offer? And how do I do all of that while keeping the fear and imposter syndrome at bay?

Those are the strategies and tactics of building a consulting or coaching business. They matter. But this isn’t about the tactics.

It’s about the broader journey of leaving a successful career to grow a consulting or coaching business of your own and what creating greater success on your own terms, making the impact you want to make, and earning the income you’re capable of really entails for the long haul.

Inside this episode of the Consulting Matters podcast and below, I share the five biggest lessons I've learned about sustainable success from running my own business now for over 20 years!

Lesson 1: Most of Us Need a Push into Full-Time Consulting or Coaching Business Ownership

A lot of the consultants and coaches I’ve worked with had dreams about becoming their own boss for years before they actually did it.

But the reality is that very few of us act on the dream or vision alone.

Most of us require some sort of push out of our secure nine-to-five nest.

It might be a layoff, an intolerable job redefinition, burnout, or some sort of existential crisis.

For me, it was my dad’s death.

I’d always wanted to be my own boss because I was an entrepreneur before I was an entrepreneur. But losing my dad was what kicked me out of my secure corporate nest. It made me realize I did not want to miss my kids’ childhood in service of 70-hour workweeks.

I wanted control over my career, but mostly, I wanted control over my time because I wanted to be there for my kids.

So if something painful pushed you onto the path of starting your own consulting or coaching business...don’t feel bad about it. While a few of us get here out of vision alone, most of us need those nudges.

Questions to reflect on

• When did you get the vision for becoming your own boss?
• When did you start feeling that discontent that made you feel like there’s more to life than what I’m living?
• And what is pushing you, or what pushed you, to make this move?

Lesson 2: The Pain That Pushed You on the Path Can Become Your Consulting or Coaching Purpose

There’s a choice point in how we handle the pain and discomfort that got us to move.

It can be something we don’t process and want to hide from. Or it can become the very thing that our future success rests on.

For me, “I don’t want to go back to corporate and miss out on my kids’ childhood” became my mantra that drove me to invest in my business development and commit to making my business work.

I’ve seen the same thing play out differently with my clients.

The transition to consulting and coaching business ownership rarely isn’t just about our careers. It’s about our lives and what we want to experience more holistically.

A big part of long-term sustainable success is turning the pain that got you on this path into your purpose in some way. Sometimes the pain becomes the motivation for making business ownership work. Other times, it becomes part of the mission and purpose behind the consulting or coaching itself. 

Questions to reflect on

• What got you on this path?
• How have you converted that pain into what is going to create your next level of success and impact as a consultant, coach, and business owner?

Lesson 3: If You Want to Build a Consulting or Coaching Business That Lasts, Act Like It

If you want to be successful over time, you have to act like it.

That starts with fully committing to business ownership as your career in the same way you committed to your previous career.

You got your degree. Maybe you got a master’s degree. You spent years developing your expertise.

But how often do we resist developing the expertise of business ownership?

This career isn’t just about being a consultant or coach. You’re a business owner who happens to sell consulting or coaching.

That means consciously cultivating the mindset of the CEO of a growing enterprise and developing your competence in running a business, especially marketing and sales. 

It also means building the business foundation that supports where you want your business to go which includes your brand positioning and messaging, your website, your marketing system, and the other pieces that help you move beyond simply finding one client and then wondering where the next one will come from.

I think of a marketing system like laying train tracks. You keep putting the tracks down so the client trains can keep coming to your station.

That’s very different from just going out and trying to find the next client.

Questions to reflect on

• Are you thinking a CEO of your own growing enterprise that happens to sell consulting or coaching services...
• ...Or are you operating in a way that sets you up to go from client to client with gaps in between where you have no idea where your next clients are going to come from? 

Lesson 4: Don’t Settle. Build the Right Business for You.

You want to build a business you actually want to build and that you’ll be excited about.

That sounds obvious, but it’s easy to look at the market and ask, “Where are the gaps? What seems profitable? What seems marketable?”

The problem is that markets change.

I’ve seen people build businesses around what looked like a great market opportunity at the time, only to have the market shift a few years later.

You don’t want to build a business tethered to a fickle market. You want to build a business tethered to your enduring purpose.

And you cannot sustain success by building a business that you tolerate at best or hate at worst.

The right business isn’t simply going to make you happier. It can make you more profitable because clients can feel when you’re genuinely excited about helping them. They can also feel when your heart isn’t in it.

And here’s the kicker: if you’ve been in business for more than a few years, what you love is likely to change and evolve.

Your experience gives you expertise you didn’t have before. You hone strengths you didn’t get a chance to use before. So your business and brand needs to evolve with you.  

Questions to reflect on

• On a scale of one to ten, how much do you love the business you're growing? 
• And if you’re below a ten, what’s going on? What needs to change to get you to a ten?

Lesson 5: Don’t Grow Your Consulting or Coaching Business Alone

I don’t think we’re meant to.

If you’re going to grow and improve, you’re going to have to continually step outside your comfort zone and beyond the limits of your current level of competency.

That means intentionally inviting outside catalysts into your business who can help you see and perform at higher levels.

There are three types of people I think you need.

First, outside experts who can guide and mentor you in the areas where you’re growing.

Second, people you can rely on to help you implement. That might be a virtual assistant, graphic designer, website team, social media support, podcast producer, or someone else who can help you get more done while keeping you focused on what you do best.

And third, don’t forget the people you really need: colleagues who understand the journey you’re on.

When you leave your nine-to-five, you also leave the people you went to lunch with and could talk shop with. As a consultant or coach who is also a business owner, you need people around you who understand the entrepreneurial journey and can push you, encourage you, and be in the trenches with you.

Questions to reflect on

• Who’s in your business tribe?
• Do you have the right people surrounding you and cheering you on?
• And if not, how are you going to go find them?

The Bottom-Line

Your accelerated and sustained consulting or coaching success isn’t the result of luck, chance, or even talent. It’s the consequence of intentionally designing it to last.

That’s a big part of what I do with my clients in my VIP Brand Positioning programs. We step back to identify the right business for you, then build clarity and confidence in the unique value of what you do and craft compelling messages that resonate with the right clients.

If you’re wondering how to set your business up for long-term, sustainable success, click here to book a free strategic clarity call and let's co-create a custom solution that's right for you.