Completing training was a buzz - but what next?! It can feel overwhelming completing your training & moving from thinking about yourself as a trainee coach to all of a sudden being a "real" coach who needs to get out there and find real clients. Here the author shares her top 7 steps to make the transition as smooth as possible into your future coaching career.

Get out there and get coaching

As soon as you have completed your coach training I'd recommend getting out there and setting up as much coaching as you can. This means you need to start talking to people - everyone you know - about the fact you have qualified as a coach. Can you coach them? Can you coach people they know? Who do they know who would like to work with a coach? Even if you think you are too close to coach them yourself, maybe you could set up a buddy arrangement to swap coaching with someone else's "buddies" It's all about getting comfortable and confident with your coaching style.

Get a professional coach

At the very least, you need a co-coach arrangement so you are regularly being coached yourself. At best, you want a professional coach who is the best you can afford. Many coaches offer a free consultation or coaching arrangement, or a voucher off full coaching if you sign up with them, so you can work out who the best coach for you is. It's good to at least get coaching with someone further down the route of professional coach than you are, so you can experience what coaching at the next level looks like, and to help you continue to feel challenged.

Get a supervisor or mentor coach

Look at the main coaching bodies and increasingly there is discussion about mentor coaching & supervision, how you work on strengthening your coaching skills. Having experienced coaching supervision it's definitely something I'd recommend to help give you that safe space to explore how you coach, how can you work on issues that come up in coaching & to help you spot trends or issues in the coaching you do.

Create a vision & powerful goals

Knowing where you want to get to as a coach, and as a business person, helps you create a more powerful practice. So, who are you standing up to be as a coach? What question is at the heart of the work you do? If you aren't yet ready to state your niche, being clear about what you bring to coaching that makes you a unique coach, and what values your coaching business has, is a great start. Turning these into measurable goals helps you ensure that you take the intangible dreams and turn those that are important to you into a real business plan, that you regularly sit down and review.

Have an ongoing plan

The next step on from knowing your goals is putting into action a plan to go out there and get them. After all, if you don't have a roadmap, how do you know where you want to get or when you have got there? You could be headed anywhere! Your plan & goals should consider all the things you want to work on & specifically which ones you are working on right now. Being clear about this helps you avoid overwhelm which can feel likely in the early days when you are thinking about things as diverse as how you get more clients, whether you should have a blog, website, what prices you should charge etc...you can only work on one thing at a time! Having a plan gets you clear about what that first step is and where you take that next step when you've done with action one.

Start connecting & having conversations straight away about what you do

Shhh....this is called Marketing! Marketing shouldn't feel scary, or like it is rocket science. At it's simplest level it is all about connecting with your market place. Understanding who you want to talk to, who you'd like your clients to be, and then taking actions that will get you connecting with them & keeping in contact with them regularly.

One step at a time

I know I mentioned it under planning, but it's so important I am going to mention it again! It's all about one step at a time.

One step towards growing your coaching skills now you are qualified

One step towards understanding who specifically you want to work with & what offer you give to them

One step towards understanding how you can connect with your target marked

One step towards growing different elements of your business such as one to one coaching, programs & more.

If you are stuck on where to start, either start where you'd like to or create yourself a prioritisation guide by considering what will have the most impact on your business, and start there. If you are stuck, it may be because you need to identify an action before the one you have listed to get you started.

And - most of all - do TAKE action. It's like starting off with a blank piece of paper. Even if it's as simple as getting a book out, or taking notes, to work on your CPD, it's that first step that makes it likely you can go on and take the next step. Add all those steps together & it's you working on your business.