Starting your own NLP coaching business can be overwhelming, a lot of work needs to be done, on often a limited budget. And for each question we get answered, a few more pop up. The amount of research, decisions, time, passion and talent required is never to be underestimated.
I find it interesting, that though many new business owners focus on creating the product, and figuring out how to market, and how to sell, how to finance, consideration for the legal elements. Some may even a create a vision and a mission, which often ends up being more of a marketing pitch exercise than anything else.
Ultimately, we build our own business for many reasons, but in one way or the other it is to do something that relates to our own happiness. This is why it is mindboggling, that we spend more time on our logo’s and marketing blurb, than we do in thinking of the foundation our company stands on. One that can function as a guideline as to how you will create a business that will make you happy. So many for instance, escape from a corporate environment, to create a business coaching company that ends up operating in the same environment they wished to escape. Or a relationship coach, that finds herself more being a conflict manager than in the business of “relating.”
In our NLP Master Practitioner we teach how to elicit your values that are unconscious to us, yet the foundation we stand on. Following those values, are a determining factor to our happiness, and well being.
Lets assume for now, you are a Master Practitioner, and you have been trained well at eliciting values from clients as well as yourself. You know your own top 10 values.
Ask yourself questions like:
- Am I creating the kind of product for my company that is fully and completely in line with my values? Since you will be delivering this project on a daily basis, I suggest it does. Especially if you are considering borrowing someone else’s product without their permission. Does the readiness of your product of a quality that should and can be sold to your clients? If you think about your and your clients values?
- How do I align my business in a way that I start leading a life closer to my values?
- How can I build my company values based?
- Am I engaging with my clients in a way that is inline with my values?
- How about the values of the client?
- The way I market and sell my business, are these in line with my values?
- Are there certain clients, I should not take? As they for instance, operate against my values. And if I do take them, how will I align myself still in a way that I don’t go against my own values?
- You may want to consider, if publically stating your values, may actually help you market your business.
- 9. How many hours do I expect to work in order to start and maintain the business? Will you be able to live a life true to your values, given how these work hours affect other areas in your life? For instance your family, friends and your health!
- How does my time and money investment to start the business affect my values? And how does that affect the people around me?
- How do you manage my employees or consultants in a way that is inline with your values? Do their values match yours? Would you do business with them, if they operated against your values? Have you communicated this clearly and set expectations?
- If you are planning on having a business partner, does he or she have the same values as you do? Is there a values conflict? How does he/she answer the above questions? How do your values align or compliment?
I recommend doing a values check every 3 months, we you answer questions like these once more. Then you can do it from a perspective of an evaluation of the past 3 months. To re-align, make the next steps, and push on forward. Most importantly, let go off those elements that are against your values or conflict with them. Always keep in mind the ecology of work versus life in this process. I also recommend rating the “happiness” you have with your business in the present, and what actions you are going to take to get a higher rate in the next 3 months.
