Starting Your Practice

Below is a working document with items I’ve been working on to start my practice. Let me know if these help you and if you have any suggestions.

  • Pick your name - Figure out the name of your company and then check to see if the domain is available. I used https://www.whois.com/whois/ to check on my name.

  • Pick your website hosting company. I’m using https://www.squarespace.com/, other people like Wix, Wordpress.org, Wordpress.com, or Kajabi

  • Pick your mail client - I use Google Workspace for my mail, calendar, and files (Docs, Sheets, and Slides).

  • Figure out where you want to run your sessions. Mine are virtual on Zoom - I bought the Zoom Pro license.

  • Figure out how you want people to contact you. I ended up renting a small box at our local UPS store to have a physical address other than where I live. I recently bought a Google Voice account. I include my phone number on my contracts for people to text me if they need to reschedule. I now list my new business number instead of my personal number.

  • Decide if you want to incorporate. I chose to create an LLC and used LegalZoom with the help of a lawyer. LegalZoom can do everything, however, there were a lot of decisions and I wanted help making them.

  • Figure out your business model - how much money do you need to make over what period of time. Create a spreadsheet to manage your expenses.

  • Figure out how you want to be paid. I am starting to use Stripe with Authy and just opened a business bank account.

  • I use TidyCal for calendaring (lifetime charge of $29). Others like Calendly.

  • Figure out what social media you want to use if any.

Other purchases

  • 2T hard drive to store recordings. I bought a Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield 2T drive.

  • Multiple coaching books! I buy some new, some used, some on Audible, and I also take books out of the library.

  • Training courses.

  • Procreate for my iPad (for my drawings) and Adobe products. Others love Canva.

I do not have a social media scheduler, CRM (other than a Google Sheet), project management system, or sales page.

Credentials, Training, and Assessments

  • Board Certified Coach (BCC) through Center for Credentialing & Education: must have a BA or higher, 30 hours of coaching endorsed by a professional, 120 hours of training, professional endorsement, challenging exam (requirements based on my PhD not counting since it’s in a science field)

  • International Coaching Federation (ACC, PCC, MCC): I am working towards my ACC: 60+ hours of coaching education, 100+ hours of coaching experience, 10 hours of Mentor Coaching with an eligible mentor coach, Successful completion (passing score) of a performance evaluation, Successful completion (passing score) of the ICF Credentialing Exam

  • Positive Intelligence: Many coaches participate in free PQ training. I liked most of the training but found some of it to be too negative and I was concerned about sharing it with anyone who has experienced trauma. I chose not to pay for the next steps.

  • Emotional & Social Competency Inventory (ESCI) From their website: “Become confident in the concepts of emotional and social intelligence”

  • Harrison: I like the reports generated and am planning to become certified. From their website: “Predictive Analytics to Acquire, Develop, Lead & Engage Talent” and “Harrison is a two-way assessment because it measures the degree to which the employer and employee will meet each other's mutual needs and expectations.”

  • THE KOLB EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PROFILE (KELP): I like this assessment for helping people better understand their work styles. From their website: “based on experiential learning theory and is designed to help individuals identify the way they learn from experience.” They are $35 each.