Business Coaching After 9/11 and COVID-19

by | May 1, 2020 | How to Become a Business Coach

Just months before 9/11 happened, I had left my job as a pastor to become a full-time business coach. 

In June of 2001, I spent $10,000 for a week of business-coach training and in July started spending my last bit of savings (just $5,000) to market myself and land clients.

Where were you sitting on September 11, 2001, as hijacked planes tore through the twin-towers in NYC and the Pentagon?

I was sitting across the table from Richard and Paula, the owners of a struggling family restaurant.

I was doing a “Complimentary Coaching Session” explaining how my business coaching could save their restaurant and give him the freedom to pursue his dream of running for public office.

I can still picture the booth we were sitting in when one of their wait-staff came to our table. Two planes had just ripped through the North and South towers of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan. 

Needless to say, the meeting ended abruptly.

I drove home thinking, “What in the world have I done? I’ve just left my job as a pastor and put my entire financial future on the line to become a business coach and now this!? What will I do to feed my wife and four kids?” 

Just Keep Going

Maybe you’re feeling that way right now as the Coronavirus is raging through the earth, taking out small businesses by the thousands, leaving millions unemployed in its wake?

For me, in September 2001, it was too late to turn back. I had nowhere to go and nothing else to do but rush right into the economic collapse like a first responder. 

And that’s exactly what I did.

I had nowhere to go and nothing else to do but rush right into the economic collapse like a first responder.

It was a brutal street-fight for the next few weeks. Within 48 hours of the 9/11 attack, I had lost my first and only two clients. One was a deli in a nearby mall food court. The other was a small contractor, who made me give back his first $2,000 coaching payment the day after he agreed to start with me.

But, I kept going. I JUST KEPT GOING. 

I was determined to help these business owners who were getting brutalized by the panic and almost instantaneous drop in consumer spending, post 9/11.

As I did so, an amazing and curious thing happened. Business owners began to see the value of my business coaching. And they started paying me! It felt like a miracle.

Amazingly, by the end of September 2001, I had banked $10,000 in coaching revenue — EVEN as the 9/11-induced recession was delivering blow after blow to the economy.

I kept going and in 2002 had my first $25,000 month. 

In 2003 I had my first $40,000 month and added my first associate coach. That year, I banked over $400,000 in revenue AND took a total of 8 weeks off from my coaching business.

In late 2004, I banked my first $85,000 month. By then we had developed a sterling reputation in our community and I had recruited and trained 7 associate business coaches.

Then, in 2005, I sold my business coaching firm for $1 million dollars to four of my seven associate coaches, realizing an 800% return on invested capital and completing the first successful transfer of a business coaching firm in the history of the fledgling business coaching industry.

Now Is the Time to Act

Why do I tell you this? To impress you? 

No! I want to share an important lesson with you.

It’s time to take action!

Like a first-responder, you can run right to the scene of the economic disaster wreaking havoc in the world of small businesses.

If you just serve, give, and pour yourself out, you will be rewarded down the road. 

Are you looking to become a business coach? Don’t miss our FREE ebook, How to Become a Business Coach–and learn the skills and strategies you need to succeed in this business.

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