Create Your Consulting or Coaching Business Plan for 2025
One of the most misunderstood things about business plans is that they are only useful when thinking about starting a coaching business. But they are actually an invaluable resource for any coach or consultant, no matter how long you’ve been in business. In fact, creating a forward-looking coaching business plan may be the single greatest thing you can do to set your business up for success in 2025.
Sometimes when I mention business plans, people imagine a 20-page document that is about as useful as a doorstop. But that’s not what I’m suggesting here. What I’m recommending is an outline of your goals for 2025, and a flexible plan for getting there that you can update throughout the year. If you set aside at least 3-4 hours to complete the Coaching Business Plan Template 2025, and the return on your time investment will include:
- Less overwhelm and reduced decision fatigue
- More focus around your plan to attract clients (so you don’t get distracted by shiny objects)
- A clear reminder of your personal and professional intentions for the year ahead
Why Your Coaching Business Needs a 2025 Plan
As I explain in this video about building your revenue engine, your business has 4 components that drive sales:
- Programs and services
- Business design (financial strategy, program delivery and innovation)
- Messaging
- Marketing
If these pieces aren’t all connecting and working together, running your business is going to be chaotic, inefficient, and frankly, a lot less fun. Setting time aside to focus on high-level strategy at a minimum of once a year and preferably quarterly will help you:
- Set and track achievable goals
- Prioritize your efforts
- Make your business more profitable
- Make adjustments
- Plan for changes and trends in your niche or focus area
Key Components of a Winning Consulting or Coaching Strategic Plan
GOAL SETTING
I believe that your business needs to support you financially and emotionally so the first step is setting countable goals for both of these areas. The first goal you set will be an annual revenue goal based around how much money you want your business to bring in this year. The second goal should outline a guardrail for what you need to stay energized in your business. Examples might be take 5 weeks of vacation, not answering emails on weekends or implementing a 4-day workweek.
THE PLAN
In this part of the business plan you will outline exactly what you’ll need to do to get to each of those goals. This is where you get real about how many clients you’ll need or how many projects you’ll need to sell. It’s also where you’ll identify any pieces of your business that need extra attention. For instance, this is where you identify that you need to launch a new product or that you need to dramatically increase your conversion rate.
THE PRIORITIES
In this section, you’ll identify and prioritize the projects that are needed to make your plan a reality. Some of your projects might be simple – like deciding to raise your prices, and some of them might be complex like launching a new product. And you will likely have more projects than you actually have time to complete. So it’s important not to neglect the prioritization part of the process, where you determine which projects will have the greatest impact on your goals.
THE PROCESS
Finally, you’ll need to figure out how to fit both planning and executing these projects into your schedule because they’re usually in addition to your regular marketing, operations and client services activities. This is one of the most important parts of the plan because planning alone isn’t enough. You need to follow through and take action.
How to Create Your Plan (Step-by-Step)
- Set your revenue and business design goals
- Look at each business component – programs, business design, messaging and marketing and decide what projects you could initiate to in that area to help you reach your goals
- Decide the relative impact of each project and prioritize them
- Estimate how much time you think each project will take (be generous and include the time it will take you to plan the project in addition to doing it)
- Decide which project(s) you will take on in each quarter of 2025 (you may need to push some projects into 2026 and beyond if you’re in growth mode)
- Make a plan to set aside time each week to make sure you make progress
2025 Coaching Business Plan Template and Example
[DOWNLOAD] 2025 Coaching Business Plan Template with Examples. This is an editable Google document.
This business plan template will walk you through the 2025 planning process for your coaching or consulting business and includes examples for each section. It’s important to remember that there are no wrong answers. One thing people get wrong about business is believing there is only one way to accomplish your goals. In reality, running a business is a creative process, and there are many paths to success.
