It is well known that starting your own business is a daunting task, and building an NLP coaching business is no exception. There are finances, legal issues, and marketing, let alone the amount of time you’ll need to invest just to get your business off the ground. This post will help you keep all of this in perspective and will remind you of the most important reason to start any business – it should make you happy!

Typically, new entrepreneurs focus primarily on production, marketing, and financing. Some new owners will even write a mission statement, which is often more like a marketing pitch than a statement of vision, goals, and method. Before we iron out all these important details, we owe it to ourselves to think about a more important goal: our own happiness.

People create businesses for a multitude of reasons. Examples include freedom from a boss, financial independence, a unique vision that no one else can really understand, greater creative control, etc. However, all of these reasons are basically one and the same: to increase happiness. This is the foundation on which a truly successful company must be built.

If we do not start with this end in mind, we can easily get lost and not “see the forest for all the trees.” I’ve heard many stories of people doing their own thing to extricate themselves from an overly corporate environment, but a few years later, they find themselves operating in exactly the kind of situation they originally intended to escape! An additional NLP-specific example is relationship coaches who spend almost all of their time as conflict managers, rather than focusing on “relating,” their supposed career purpose.

Our Master Practitioner course can help you identify your core values ​​and start building a new foundation based on these values. Once you do this, the path to creating greater happiness will be clear, both in your daily life and in building your business.

For the purposes of this article, let’s assume that you have completed the Master Practitioner course and know how to identify and derive value from both yourself and your clients. In other words, you know your top 10 values. From this point, you will have to ask yourself questions like:

1. Is my product fully consistent with my values? You will deliver this product on a daily basis, so any contradiction with your true values ​​will create a big problem.

2. Is my relationship with my clients in line with my values? This involves more than just giving people what they want.

3. What about my marketing plan? Am I presenting myself in an authentic way that is true to my internal compass?

4. Would publicly stating my values ​​help in marketing my business?

5. What are the values ​​of my clients? Do the services I provide align with your values?

6. What if there is a contradiction between my values ​​and those of a client? Will I continue to serve these customers?

7. If I continue to serve these clients, how can I engage with them in a way that doesn’t compromise my own values?

8. How many hours do I expect to work, both to start my business and to maintain it? Given these hours, how can I maintain my personal values, including family, friends, and personal health?

9. What about my role as employee manager? What do I do if your values ​​conflict with mine? Are my personal and business values ​​clearly and unequivocally expressed?

10. If you are thinking of having a business partner, do you have the same values ​​as me? Your partner also needs to answer these questions. Is there a basic conflict in our values? How can it be solved?