Before becoming a coach full-time, I spent years in senior leadership roles, most recently leading and growing Stackline’s European business to over £15 million in revenue. I loved building the business, developing people and working through the challenges that came with growth.

Looking back, some of the parts of my job I enjoyed most were the conversations with people. The ones where someone was wrestling with a difficult decision, questioning themselves or trying to figure out what to do next. I found those conversations fascinating, and coaching gave me an opportunity to do much more of that. Eventually, I decided to leave Stackline and build my own business and leadership coaching practice, working with established business owners and senior leaders.

As for what makes me different, I think it’s the combination of having spent years on the other side of the table and now being trained as a coach. I bring two quite different perspectives into the room. I’ve experienced the pressures and challenges of running a business first-hand, but that doesn’t mean I assume what worked for me will work for someone else. My role is to help people find their own answers, not hand them mine.

What really interests me is what’s happening behind the decisions. Why does an experienced business owner still struggle to delegate? Why does someone who has built a successful company feel they have to be involved in everything? Why do intelligent, capable leaders sometimes find themselves making the same decisions over and over again?

That’s where I think the most valuable work happens. I’m interested in the business challenge, of course, but just as much in the person who’s trying to solve it. And because I’ve been in their position, I’m comfortable challenging them when something doesn’t add up, rather than simply agreeing with what they say.

My first clients came through putting myself out there, having conversations and giving people a chance to experience what coaching with me was actually like. When you’re starting out, you don’t have a long list of testimonials or a reputation as a coach to fall back on, so those early conversations really matter.

These days, people find me through a mixture of word of mouth, LinkedIn and online searches. I also share real coaching conversations on my website and YouTube, which gives people a chance to see how I work before deciding whether to get in touch.

One thing I’ve learnt is that coaching is a very personal decision. Someone can have all the qualifications and experience in the world, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the right coach for you. People need to feel comfortable being open, but also trust that you’ll challenge them when it’s needed. That’s why I offer a 90-minute consultation rather than a quick introductory call. It gives us both the chance to have a meaningful conversation and decide whether we’d work well together.

One of the biggest decisions was to focus my coaching business on established business owners and senior leaders. When I first started coaching, I worked with people facing all sorts of challenges, both personal and professional. I enjoyed the work, but I gradually realised I was overlooking something quite important: the experience I’d built up over years of leading and growing businesses.

For a while, I’d almost been treating that experience as separate from my coaching. I didn’t want to become someone who simply gave business advice, so I probably went too far in the other direction. Eventually, I realised the two weren’t mutually exclusive. I could bring everything I’d learnt from running a business into the conversation without assuming I had the answers. That changed how I thought about my coaching, who I wanted to work with and how I positioned the business.

And I think that also answers the question about my biggest mistake. I spent too long trying to appeal to everyone. When you’re building a business, particularly one where you’re selling your own expertise, there’s a temptation to keep your options open. You don’t want to turn away potential clients, so you talk about all the different things you can help with, but the result is that nobody really knows what you’re known for.

I’ve learnt that being clearer about who I work with doesn’t mean I can’t help other people. It just makes it much easier for the right people to recognise why they might want to work with me.

I think one of the biggest changes is just how much advice is available now. Between Google, YouTube, LinkedIn and increasingly AI, you can find an answer to almost any business question in seconds (and some of that advice is good!). But having access to more information doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to make a difficult decision or change something you’ve been doing for years.

A business owner might know perfectly well that they need to give their management team more responsibility. They can probably find a hundred articles explaining how to do it, but that doesn’t necessarily help them understand why they keep stepping back in every time something goes wrong.

I think that’s where coaching has become particularly valuable. It’s less about having someone tell you what to do and more about having someone who will listen, question your assumptions and challenge you in ways you might not challenge yourself.

Something else I’ve noticed is that people understandably want to know who they’re going to be working with before making a commitment. Coaching can feel quite abstract if you’ve never experienced it, and there’s a lot of similar-sounding language across the industry. So I’ve started sharing real business strategy coaching conversations on my website and YouTube, with the permission of the business owners involved. We work through actual challenges they’re facing in their businesses, from growth and delegation to difficult leadership decisions. Rather than just describing my approach or making promises about what coaching might achieve, people can watch me work and decide for themselves whether it’s something they’d find valuable.

I’d say start by coaching real people, as much as you possibly can. You can spend months studying different coaching models, building a beautiful website and trying to work out exactly how you’re going to position yourself, but none of that teaches you as much as sitting opposite someone and actually coaching them.

I’d also encourage anyone coming into business coaching to be clear about what they’re bringing to the table. Having run a business doesn’t automatically make you a good coach, just as having a coaching qualification doesn’t mean you understand what it’s like to run one. Both take work, and I think it’s important to recognise that.

As for what to ignore, I’d be wary of anyone promising a shortcut to building a successful coaching business. There’s an entire industry selling coaches the idea that if they just find the right niche, create an irresistible offer or follow a particular sales formula, the clients will come flooding in. I think the reality is much less glamorous! Get good at what you do, have plenty of conversations, let people experience your work and build your reputation over time. And don’t get so caught up in looking like a successful coach that you forget to become one.