Full disclosure: BJ O’Neal and I were introduced through a mutual friend and have also become good friends. It’s the success of his coaching business that compelled me to share his story for other business coaches to learn from.
There’s a lot of buzz about hiring business coaches to increase sales, cut expenses, motivate staff, increase the bottom line, and more. Becoming a business coach is something probably anyone who’s ever thought of entering business consulting has considered. But where do aspiring the would-be coaches go to learn how to be coaches?
I’ve taken advantage of business coaching in the past myself and have thought of that as a revenue niche all its own.
That’s a niche being filled by BJ O’Neal out of Nashville, Tennessee. He uses a strategy to help wannabe coaches become accomplished coaches and earn $10,000 to $30,000 or more per month.
What is that strategy, and how can it help you become a successful business coach?
Who is BJ O’Neal?
50 years old, married for 29 years, and the proud father of three children, BJ O’Neal grew up with “no real roots.” “Because of my father’s job, we moved every four years, so I have no real roots,” O’Neal recounts. “Nashville is now home and has been for many years. The interesting thing about my childhood is moving around a lot while growing up taught me how to develop authentic relationships and meet new people from all walks of life and cultures.”
In his adult life, O’Neal uses that background in both business and the ministry. He started his first business back in 1994, the month before he and his wife married. “What a great idea!” he recalls. “Start two things I knew nothing about at the very same time!”
Fortunately, his early business experience – in combination with his ministry background and experience as a chief revenue officer in the media industry – helped to build the foundation that benefits him now in his coaching business.
As so often happens with business and career choices, the plunge into coaching was somewhat accidental. It even started as a 10-year long side hustle before being turned into this primary occupation.
“I backed into coaching when we owned two businesses,” O’Neal reports. “Someone approached me – another business owner – and said, ‘If I pay you, would you show me how you are doing some things?’ That’s where the journey began. It opened my eyes to helping others while getting paid. Slowly over the years, I would consult on the side, always keeping multiple clients.”
One resource BJ O’Neal found to be influential was 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. This is hardly surprising, given that the book is described by its authors as showing readers how to “effectively lead themselves, influence, engage and collaborate with others and continuously improve and renew their capabilities”. Those are principles that get to the very heart of business coaching.
Business Coach Mastery
BJ O’Neal eventually transformed his side hustle into a full-time business – becoming a coach for business coaches – with the establishment of Business Coach Mastery. He emphasizes helping Christian men with a “Done-For-You” six-figure business coaching practice, though it is also open to non-Christians. In the process, he has coached dozens of businesses, from startups to $55 million in annual revenue.
Even though BJ O’Neal started the business as a side hustle, there were some hurdles to overcome in transitioning the operation to full-time.
“Early on when trying to get clients I went about it the wrong way,” O’Neal confessed. “I’d overly sell them on ideas, never realizing that I spent zero time to discover their actual pain points. Today, our coaching team has a complete assessment of pain points. These pan out so the conversations are only about the client’s needs. From there, we can develop a roadmap that’s customized to solving their problems.”
Through Business Coach Mastery, O’Neal has created a team of business coaches who join him in training new business coaches. In the process, Business Coach Mastery provides trainees with scripts to present before network groups and high-level software, as well as a coaches portal providing participants with a step-by-step process for helping their coaching clients.”
The Business Coach Mastery addresses the following fundamental issues:
- Where am I going to get leads and prospects?
- How do I convert those prospects into ongoing, high-paying monthly clients?
- How do I coach them in a simple, step-by-step manner that gets results, without overwhelming the client?
The program doesn’t focus on any specific industry group for coaching purposes. That’s because the background of coaches in the organization is highly diverse. O’Neal currently has more than 50 business coaches nationwide and is adding more every month.
“We have CPAs who bring coaching and into their business models and marketing agencies who do the same,” O’Neal reveals. “We also get business owners who want to create a new revenue stream and eventually sell their businesses. Our model is working, because only about 15% or so of new enrollees don’t succeed.”
O’Neal promotes his business through his YouTube channel and his Business Coach Mastery podcast.
The Business Coach Mastery Business Strategy
Through Business Coach Mastery O’Neal uses an overall strategy he refers to as profit acceleration.
“Business growth itself is relatively simple,” O’Neal advises. “Actual profit growth comes from small, incremental adjustments using multiple business strategies compounded on top of one another. It works just like compound interest.”
Business Coach Mastery is designed specifically to create business coaches.
O’Neal stresses four characteristics a new business coach needs to be successful:
- A strong mindset.
- Willingness to follow a plan.
- The ability to take imperfect action and adjust going forward.
- A willingness to commit to the process.
O’Neal adds another intangible quality: “You have to be who you are – your coaching emulates everything about you. One of my biggest inspirations was John Maxwell. I’m honored to be a founding partner with Maxwell Leadership. Through his teachings, I embraced how to bring value into the business relationship.”
“Coaching as a business has been a very viable business for me and there seems to be a high demand whether the economy is up or down,” advises Val Nelson, Business and Career Coach for Introverts and HSPs. “Career transition is becoming the norm and more people understand the value of coaching, so I believe there is still growth potential. Plus it’s very fulfilling to help people in this powerful way.”
The coaching strategy emphasizes having a systematic plan as to how you’re going to coach a business owner to succeed. BJ O’Neal believes the biggest obstacle for a new coach is either having no plan or changing the plan every few weeks with no or little strategy.
That plan starts with asking the question “how am I going to add value, and where am I going to spend my time to build solid relationships?” The money will follow.
“Business coaches will give you honest and unbiased feedback about your weaknesses without personal biases or emotional attachments that your friends, family, or colleagues may have,” says Nathan Brunner, CEO of Switzerland-based Salarship. “In addition to identifying your weaknesses, coaches will also offer you the resources to fill your skill gaps and improve your professional situation.”
Developing a Business Coaching Client Base
Next is deciding how to connect with people to build a client base.
O’Neal recommends the following:
- Setting up workshops to provide businesses with valuable information for free, as a means of getting out before people.
- Connecting with your sphere of influence. That means letting everyone in your circle know that you are now a business coach and strategist.
- Presenting before networking groups, which requires having a plan for before, during, and after the event.
- Working joint ventures with accountants, the Chamber of Commerce, and other business groups. Your presentation must add value to their clients and members.
O’Neal recommends using one or more of the above strategies to generate business coaching clients. To help new coaches implement those strategies, Business Coach Mastery coaches their coaches on using high-level software and recommends using presentations (that are done for you) to make an impact. Says O’Neal, “You must convince prospects that you are the guide in helping them solve their problems”.
To help find a solution, the company uses an assessment where coaches can show any business owner how to find $100,000 in additional revenue – in just 45 minutes – without spending any additional money on marketing or advertising.
The assessment looks at all angles of the business to find areas of potential improvement or opportunity. Is the website a mess? Are they doing any digital marketing online? Can they even be found online? Are they spending too much money? From there, a plan is developed to help the client deal with these problems, implementing just one strategy at a time, and one step at a time.
“Often, we start by reviewing costs,” O’Neal reveals. “That’s because each dollar saved increases profit immediately. We work on the premise that revenue feeds the ego, but profit feeds the family. It’s also a simpler process, since increasing sales is generally a more involved process.
How Much Career Coaches Can Earn and How BJ O’Neal Helps Them Get There
Business Coach Mastery sets a target range and goal on coaches’ earnings of between $10,000 and $30,000 per month. While the range of monthly fees charged for one-on-one coaching ranges between $1,000 and $5,000 per client, per month, the average is more in the range of $2,000 to $2,500. However, BJ claims high-performance coaches can earn as much as $5,000 – $10,000 per client, per month.
To get started, new coaches in many cases are advised to start at the lower end of the scale. O’Neal recommends between $1,000 and $1,500 per client, per month, until coaches gain more experience and develop a pattern of referrals.
To help new coaches develop an income stream, Business Coach Mastery uses what BJ O’Neal refers to as Key Performance Indicators, or KPI’s. It is based on the concept that what gets measured, gets achieved. That means putting numbers behind your action plan.
“KPIs are important because they help align the business to achieve strategic goals such as profit, growth, performance, sales levels,” writes Forbes Contributor, Melissa Houston. “Numbers don’t lie, and if you can quantify your key measurements, they provide objective feedback on business performance.”
For example, if you want to earn $10,000 per month, and you expect to charge $2,000 per client, you’ll need five clients. O’Neal maintains that new coaches can expect a 30% conversion target rate at the beginning, eventually rising to the 60% goal or even more.
If a coach wants five new clients, he or she will need to get out in front of at least 15 prospects over a pre-defined time frame, converting approximately one-third of them.
A larger income becomes possible with the combination of a higher conversion rate and a higher fee per client. O’Neal warns that will only happen when the coach becomes more confident, competent, and experienced.
“We have one high performer who was booking 60% of prospects,” O’Neal explains. “He’s holding meetings with 10 prospects and converting six into new clients.”
The Future of The Business Coach Mastery
When I asked BJ O’Neal about his plans for the future of Business Coach Mastery, he became visibly excited.
“We’re building a tribe!” he raved. “It’s not been easy, and we’ve learned a lot. But our first major goal is having 100 coaches on our team. Right now, we’re about halfway there. Once we hit the 100 mark, we’ll need to create some additional structure to hit 250, and then 500. That’s the B-HAG (Big Harry Audacious Goal).”
O’Neal was quick to point out that coaching provides an amazing amount of flexibility. “We can be anywhere, and as long as we have an Internet connection, we’re good to go,” he adds.
In the meantime, BJ O’Neal is enjoying connecting with amazing people all over the world. “It’s amazing the people you can meet and build strategy with, even when they are worlds apart. When you have the right system and team, anything is possible.”
Final Thoughts
Business coaching can be a flexible, rewarding, and highly profitable business. It’s well-suited to candidates who are either at the mid-career level or younger individuals who hit the ground running early and became masters in their fields.
Coaching can also be the perfect choice if you’re looking to shift gears within the same career field, or even downshift for early retirement.
If you’ve ever considered business coaching as a career choice, BJ O’Neal and Business Coach Mastery are available to help you reach that goal.