Five Lessons I Learned From My Business Coach
And how coaching changed my business
Running a business all by yourself means freedom but also… solitude. As I was approaching my fifth year running Applet Studio, a web design agency and Squarespace template shop, I realized that I desperately needed business advice. We were doing fine financially, but I was drowning in client work, constantly overloaded with tasks. I was wondering: Where am I going? What am I doing? How do I keep growing Applet without burnout and exhaustion?
So, in late 2023, I finally hired a business consultant to confide all my problems in. As someone who consumes a lot of business-related content online, I was quite skeptical about the whole coaching thing. But the experience turned out to be not what I expected – and much better than I thought!
Here are my top five business lessons, which I hope will be useful for you too if you’re running a small shop.
Treating Clients as Partners
This one’s big. Here’s what I used to do with my custom design clients: I would take them by the hand, guide them, and “babysit” them until they sent me the materials needed to move the project forward. The biggest challenge in the design business is the endless loop of client edits and waiting on incomplete content. Clients fail to send materials on time, which delays project timelines and payments.
My coach suggested that I communicate my project terms from a standpoint of partnership. The client is responsible for their part of the project, and we rely on them to provide content on time. We explain how sending things on time benefits the client, and we’re treating them as responsible partners. This also allows us to set more enforceable boundaries with clients.
If 80% of projects go smoothly, there’s still 20% that don’t go according to plan, but we’re now more confident in navigating those after working with a business coach.
If you are a designer and in need of more advice on client work management check out my course Client Work Remastered where I share my complete client work process.
Experimentation and Pivots
You can’t create new results in business if you keep doing things the old way. If you want to 2X or 5X your income, you have to pivot, experiment, and explore new business models.
Growing your revenue means three things:
1. More traffic and more projects
2. Scalable products that consume less time
3. Re-engaging the existing client base with new products and services
Scaling means changing the business model from a management perspective. Here at Applet Studio, we keep launching new products and services – it’s part of our marketing strategy. I was intuitively doing this before working with a coach, but actually discussing all my plans with her helped me solidify my strategy.
As our main products have always been Premium Squarespace Templates we soon understood that we needed to add more types of products. We had a solid base of existing clients who, however, wouldn’t need a new Squarespace Template for another few years. On the other hand, they would be happy to buy from us again. Now we add more mini-courses on design and business that we can sell to our audience.
Delegation
Delegating and hiring is scary if you don’t know how to do it right. Here’s a lesson from my coach.
There are 4 stages of delegation:
1. Explain and document the process
2. Ask them to repeat back what they need to do
3. Watch them do it
4. Explain why doing it a certain way is important
It takes a whole month to delegate just one business process. Treat onboarding and training employees as real work – you can’t just throw tasks at people and expect results. At the same time, you want to hire people who know what they’re doing, so it’s easier to sync with them.
Creating Systems and Processes
In a small company like ours, everyone is doing a little bit of everything, and tasks overlap. The result is a creative mess that I, as the business owner, sometimes have to sort out.
The coach helped us talk through the organizational changes we later implemented. For example, as the amount of information grew, we created an all-in-one knowledge base so everyone could quickly find what they needed. This seems obvious, but when you’re swamped, organizing feels like one more draining task.
We now have weekly meetings to discuss plans and assign tasks. We keep a calendar of events and future promotions. We divided areas of expertise among team members, similar to how big organizations have divisions. Each of us is responsible for a specific area and manages all ongoing work in that area.
We’re far more organized than we were a couple of years ago, and the result is more peace of mind.
Risk Management
Risk management means taking on fewer risky projects and focusing on those that will bring in income, on time, guaranteed. For example, instead of launching a completely new course, I might re-launch an existing one that I know will generate revenue. Instead of working with a client who is likely to delay feedback, we’ll work with clients who communicate promptly. We now categorize projects into green, yellow, and red. This represents a major mindset shift for us. Instead of trying to make every project work, we move swiftly and have a greater opportunity to make a meaningful impact. My coach taught me to appreciate myself and my skills as an entrepreneur and designer much more.
Closing Thoughts
Are you thinking about hiring your own coach? I highly recommend it! You can read business books all you want, but having someone to actually discuss your business with is invaluable.
I hope this was helpful, and if something resonated with you, please let me know. Let’s hang out on Instagram!