No matter how polished or snazzy they appear, corporates do need your help as a coach or consultant – and they are happy to pay 4 and 5 figures for a few hours or days of work too.
In this post, I’ll unpack how to know if larger businesses will buy services from you as a mindset, wellness, messaging, or productivity coach, especially if you don’t think of yourself as the corporate type!
Remember – What you see is not always what you get
Firstly, you must know that unless you have the chance to speak to someone inside an organization, most of what you get to see about them is what they want you to see: the external image they project via their website, their social media and any other public platforms.
And of course, that tends to be very positive: they don’t want their customers, suppliers or potential future recruits to know that:
- Their people feel disengaged because they don’t feel heard,
- Their female leaders are leaving because don’t feel supported and
- Their senior people are missing targets because they don’t know how to communicate effectively.
(This is just a small number of very common challenges in most large businesses).
So corporates pay agencies and experts thousands of dollars to polish their public image – the one you get to see. But that doesn’t mean that there are no challenges inside big organizations that are crying out for your expertise!
And as for all the glitz and glamour, it doesn’t take much digging to establish that most of this is a facade.
Researching problems that corporates face
Type “greatest challenge around [your topic, e.g. leadership mindset, diversity, productivity etc] in corporations” into Google and you will find hundreds of articles on the topic, giving all sorts of advice. Or you could try “coaching on [your topic] in big organizations” and you’ll find tons of advice on how this is helpful, together with the reasons why aka the problems it solves.
The fact that there are a lot of articles shows that people are interested in the topic – and that’s good news for you!
If you want to get stronger proof, look for articles around your coaching niche in news media and respected business publications – journalists don’t tend to write about things that are not an issue!
You can also play the game of extrapolating why certain business failures happen or scandals emerge. There are always signs of a breakdown in areas that your coaching can probably help: bad company culture (candidate for e.g. relationship, communication and emotional intelligence coaching) and poor leadership (again, usually needs communication coaching as well as support to build self-awareness and empathy) normally top the list of reasons.
And you can go even one step further in proving to yourself that corporates buy the type of coaching you offer: check out the blogs and/or online articles by some of the large corporate consultancies!
Their whole business models are based on selling what corporates will buy. Check if the likes of McKinsey, Bain, PwC, Deloitte, KPMG or EY are talking about your topic in relation to large companies – I am quite happy to bet that they are.
Specifics example to apply this research
Let’s make this a bit more tangible with an example.
I typed “mindset” into the search function on the EY.com website and got 390 articles, 22 case studies, and 7 solution offers.
This included “How to reframe your mindset to radically reimagine your future” (article about skills needed by business leaders), “Helping a large corporation behave like a start-up” (a case study about helping a corporate becoming more agile and client-focused through mindset shifts), and “Mindset” in Financial Services Consulting solutions (helping leaders take a more holistic view in their business).
This shows that mindset work is big business for one of the world’s Big 4 companies!
(Now, of course, you might be tempted to worry that maybe big corporations only buy from big consulting companies, because they (the consultancies) also look so snazzy and polished.
But that is falling into the same trap. If you spend 10 minutes googling “Complaints about McKinsey” or “Fines for Big 4”, you will see that those consultancies face the same kind of problems and internal challenges as those of their clients. And guess what: they also buy-in coaching and consulting services!
For example, I have made 6-figures + coaching a Big 20 Financial Services Consultancy for several years on how to increase employee engagement and reading them for the future of work.
Why clients are looking for external support – and need you after all!
This research should also answer the other question that people have about providing coaching services that improve the well-being and productivity of employees: don’t corporates have all the resources and skills they need in-house?
Isn’t that what their big HR departments, and often dedicated Learning & Development functions do? So surely, they must have everything covered?
Well, again, a bit of research is your friend here. Because studies have shown that 75% of managers are not satisfied with the learning programs provided by their in-house functions and 70% of employees say they want further training and development in their job.
The reason why in-house providers are often not able to meet all the needs of their managers are mainly that they are not subject matter experts (e.g. they know a lot about HR policies but little about e.g. diversity and inclusion, empowering emerging female leaders or enabling leaders to communicate well with their teams).
Additionally, most internal training programs follow an annual schedule, which means that the training on e.g. effective communication arrives not at a time when a leader most needs it.
Understanding the gap between the fancy facade and daily reality in organizations lets you see the opportunity you have as a coach or consultant in any of these fields mentioned (and many more) to provide services that corporations are looking for and pay well for.
Seeing how you can fill in the gaps to help and improve the mental, emotional and physical wellbeing of their people, create better leaders, make teams more effective and support individuals to gain a better work/life balance is the basis of any successful corporate offer.
What I can offer you
What exactly you should create as your corporate offer and how to position it, so that large organizations recognize you as an expert they want to work with, (so that you can land those 5-figure contracts) is something I help my 1:1 students achieve in my 3-month intensive program.
I also help you determine which niche is best for you to get started straight away, I work with you on your marketing message so that you attract only those prospects who are right for you, show you how to create and price your offer and guide you on how to leverage your network without ever worrying about being sales-y or desperate so that your diary is always filled with exciting prospects. Finally, I even teach you how to have simple but effective sales conversations and create proposals that convert approximately 80% of the time.
Following my program you should be able to generate 2-3 conversations with prospects per week, typically starting in email/LinkedIn messenger, then moving to discovery calls and close 1-2 new clients per month @$5k-$15k while delivering repeat work at $8k-$25k+.
The investment for this is a respectable 4 figures (but small compared to earning $100k+ from just 5-8 corporate clients) which will go up towards the end of the year.
If you are interested, send me a DM and I will ask you a few simple questions and if you are well placed to get results, we can determine a start date that works for both of us.
