Use Your Book as the Foundation of a Coaching and Consulting Business

If your book teaches readers how to do something, such as gives them 10 steps to perfect health, 5 ways to train a dog, 7 meditation practices, or 5 rules for better business negotiation, you can take your book content and turn it into consulting services and coaching programs. A book provides a sound foundation for both consulting and coaching.

As a nonfiction writer with a prescriptive nonfiction book, you are an expert. You have authority on your topic. People will pay for your help. You can support them through the process you have created or through the transformation you guarantee in your book. Even if you haven’t written a prescriptive book, most nonfiction lends itself to some sort of authority on a topic.

Yet, if you are a novelist or a memoirist, it’s not impossible to develop a strong client list as well. If you’ve written a memoir based on your experience in a specific area or a novel focused on a particular societal issue or cause, you might find that you, too, are seen as an authority or expert. No matter what types of books you write, hang out your “consultant” or “coach” shingle and enter the expert industry.

How to Become a Consultant

Consultants are experts on a particular topic area or authorities on something. People “rent their brains” to get answers, solutions, support, direction, ideas, or feedback.  Each session is different, because each client’s needs differ.

Consulting can be done in two ways:

1. Individual
2. Group

Many consultants spend their time on the phone or in meetings with clients. However, others are hired by businesses and organizations and get paid large fees to conduct meetings or trainings or to consult for days, weeks, or months with the various levels of employees from customer service and sales reps all the way up to C level execs.

Individual consulting offers a personal touch to your services. Group consulting or consulting for businesses allows you to leverage your time and effort. It’s possible to make quite a bit of money this way, while one-on-one consulting is limited in scope by your time and energy. When you can’t fill your schedule with more clients, your income will reach its limit as well.

How to Become a Coach

Coaching differs from consulting in a subtle way (and some might disagree with my distinction). Coaches don’t just offer one session at a time during which the subject matter could be anything related to their area of expertise. They offer a “package” of sessions on one particular topic with an end goal, or result, as the primary focus of the series of sessions. This tends to be less expensive than the same number of consulting sessions.

Usually coaching programs are run in increments—1, 2, 3, 6, 12 months at a time. That means clients purchase a coaching program with you for a particular period. They commit to meeting with you regularly. Because you can count on their business for a period of time and they pay for what otherwise would be called consulting sessions in “bulk,” you discount your hourly rate. Coaching, therefore, becomes a more affordable way for your readers to pay for your assistance.

You have two options for coaching programs:

1. Individual
2. Group

Individual coaching offers a personal touch to your services. Group coaching allows you to offer a discounted rate for more people to have access to you at one time. This leverages your time and effort. It’s possible to make quite a bit of money with group coaching even though the hourly rate is less than for individual coaching; actually, the possibilities are unlimited while individual coaching is limited by your time and energy. Again, with one-on-one coaching, your income caps when your schedule can’t accommodate any more clients. However, many group coaching programs can have hundreds of members at a time.

How to Create a Coaching Program

To create a coaching business, simply take the information in your book—the steps, ways, tips, rules, or practices, and turn them into “sessions” you conduct with “clients.” Work with your coaching clients on specific aspects of your process, supporting them through until they reach a goal. You can create a curriculum or Q&A sessions. You can find tons of different models, but basically those who have read your book hire you to coach them through the process you created until they reach a specific goal.

You can use teleseminars, webinars, ebooks, reports, and membership sites as part of your coaching programs. You also can use private LinkedIn or Facebook groups as part of your program.

Both coaching and consulting can be done from the comfort of your home in many cases using phones or Internet services like Skype or some form of screen sharing.

Coaching and consulting can prove a lucrative way to build a business around your book. Couple it with all the previoulsy-mentioned tools for becoming an authorpreneur and you will have a thriving business.

If you would like to write a book that inspires the change you’d like to see in the world, don’t wait. Become an Author of Change in 2014. Don’t miss the early bird pricing on the Author of Change Transformational Coaching Program. Prices go up Dec. 15 and spaces are limited. Click here for more information and to register. The 3-month intensive runs Jan.-March.

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