How to Start a Coaching Business with Unreasonable Hospitality PDF Free Download
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A Note From Will Guidara
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I know you. You’re a people person. You’re intuitive, caring, and empathetic. You
have an uncanny ability to anticipate people’s needs, perceive the emotions of
others, and you can read a room better than most. Making other people happy is
what you live for.
How do I know this? Because that’s me. And for the longest time, I didn’t know
how to turn that into a career. Human connection is so intangible – yet it’s
something everybody feels and cares deeply about. And you know what I’ve
learned? It’s what sets truly great businesses apart from the rest.
Some of you may know my story and have read my book,
Unreasonable Hospitality. It’s the tale of how we took a brasserie
to the #1 restaurant in the world by getting unreasonably
interested in making people feel extraordinarily cared for. What
I’ve discovered is this: unreasonable hospitality is a movement
that goes way beyond the hospitality industry – it can elevate
any business.
Here’s where you come in. If you’re like most dealers in human
happiness, you’ve spent your career in customer service, sales, marketing, events,
or hospitality. You’ve used your magical people skills to build someone else’s legacy
and pocketbook – but now you’re ready to start building your own. That’s why I’ve
put together this guide. Believe it or not, businesses would be willing to pay money
to learn what you do so effortlessly.
This guide will give you 4 steps to launching your very own coaching business
helping businesses elevate their customer experience. You really can turn your
passion for stellar customer experience into a lucrative coaching business and do
something you love every single day. Let’s dive in!
Warmly,
Will Guidara
Author of Unreasonable Hospitality and Former Co-Owner of Eleven Madison Park
The rst thing you want to do is decide on the products you’ll sell. As my friend
Donald Miller from Coach Builder has pointed out, viewing your services as
products instead of services helps you get more specic about the value and
deliverables you’re offering.
For example, I could offer “Unreasonable Hospitality Coaching Services” – but
chances are, a lot of people wouldn’t know what that means. But when I treat
my services like products and give them names, details, and prices, things
become a lot more tangible. For example, this could be my product list:
Create a product menu
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Keynote Presentation
Team Workshop
1:1 Executive Coaching
Exclusive Mastermind
45 MINUTES
2 HOURS
TWO ONE-HOUR SESSIONS
4 TOTAL GATHERINGS
The Difference Between Service
and Hospitality and Why It Matters
How to Transform Ordinary Customer Interactions
Into Extraordinary Moments of Human Connection
Customer Journey Optimization:
Your Competitive Advantage
Customer Experience Mastermind
$5,000
$2,500
$1,000
$2,000
PRODUCT MENU
PRODUCT ONE
PRODUCT TWO
PRODUCT THREE
PRODUCT FOUR
Now it’s your turn. I would encourage you to think of 4 types of products you
could offer potential clients:
• A keynote
• A workshop
• 1:1 coaching
• Mastermind
PRO TIP
These products could all be relatively the same material, delivered and
named differently to suit the nature of the coaching engagement.
A “client journey” is the complete experience a customer or client has with
a company – from learning about the business to making a purchase (and
everything before, in between and after!).
I’ve coached leading companies across disciplines, helping them implement
unreasonable hospitality with their customers. Sometimes, the best touchpoints
to elevate are the ones that are overlooked! It’s truly amazing how many
touchpoints are overlooked until you really start digging in and teasing out the
customer journey. If you want to start a coaching business using Unreasonable
Hospitality, practice mapping out customer journeys for various companies and
products.
Let’s illustrate. Here’s an example of 20 touchpoints that a customer would
experience with a pest control company (in sequential order):
1. Discovering the pest control company online
2. Reading testimonials or reviews about the company
3. Looking up the company on social media
4. Asking friends if they’ve ever worked with the company before
5. Making the rst phone call or lling out a form online
6. The rst phone call with the company
7. The rst email communication from the company
8. Scheduling a rst visit
9. Receiving a reminder about the rst visit
10. Receiving a text that the technician is on their way
11. Meeting the technician at the door
12. Accompanying the technician as they survey your home
13. Receiving a verbal recommended treatment plan
14. Saying goodbye to the technician
15. Receiving a written recommended treatment plan
16. Receiving a follow-up email or call
17. Purchasing the service and signing the service agreement
18. Accessing the customer portal or downloading an app
19. Securing any pets before the technician arrives to treat your home
20. Referring someone to the company
Most people wouldn’t think of “securing pets” as a touchpoint. But people with
pets LOVE their pets, and having to secure them when a pest control technician
comes is a touchpoint. How amazing would it be if the pest control company
asked about any pets in the home before coming – and then brought an
appropriate treat for the pet? Now that’s elevated service. But you can’t elevate
that touchpoint unless you identify it as an actual touchpoint.
So, if you want to make a career out of elevating customer experience, you need
to get really good at interrogating the customer journey and coming up with
every single touchpoint possible.
Learn How to Map a
Customer Journey
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To create your marketing messaging, you’ll rst want to decide on a business
name. I would recommend going with something very simple. If I were
launching a coaching business, I could call my business…
• Guidara Consulting
• Will Guidara Consulting
• The Customer Experience Coach
… Or something along those lines. The idea is to keep it very simple and
straightforward so people immediately understand the nature of what’s being
offered.
Second, you need to know how to talk about your services in a compelling way. Now
that you’ve decided on a few products, you need to know how to present them to your
ideal audience. Here’s a great framework for effective marketing message from my
friends at Coach Builder:
1. What do your ideal clients want?
2. What’s getting in their way?
3. How does your product help them overcome that obstacle and get what they want?
4. What positive results will they experience after they use your services?
Create your
marketing message
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BUSINESS NAME
NOTE
Consider checking domain availability when deciding on your business
name. For example, if I was going to call myself “Guidara Consulting,” I would
want to see if guidaraconsulting.com is an available domain name. If not, I
might consider something else.
YOUR MARKETING MESSAGE
Following the example of the keynote presentation “The Difference Between Service
and Hospitality and Why It Matters,” the marketing message for that could look
something like…
“You want to provide a stellar customer experience and truly care for your
customers. But in order to do that, you need your entire organization to
shift from a culture of mere service to a culture of big-hearted hospitality.
That’s why I speak at events and present my highly-requested keynote:
“The Difference Between Service and Hospitality and Why it Matters.”
Your team will walk away inspired to embrace a culture of hospitality
and tap into the secret that sets great organizations apart from the rest:
surprising and delighting customers.”
This is probably the most intimidating step, but I want to encourage you to
keep it simple and go for it. You don’t need to hire a web designer or developer,
although you certainly can if you want to. But for most coaches getting started,
you can go to a user-friendly website hosting platform (Wix, SquareSpace, etc),
pick a template, plug in your information, and publish a website. You don’t even
need multiple pages – you can launch your coaching website with a simple,
effective home page that communicates your offer. Here are a few tips to make
this easy for you:
Design Tips
1. Pick a cohesive color scheme or go with the one provided in a ready-made
template. As a general rule of thumb, you want…
• A primary color – this will take up about 60% of your color scheme
• A secondary color – this will take up about 30% of your color scheme
• An accent color (optional) – this can be used as a pop of color, about 10% of
your color scheme
2. Pick 3 fonts and use them consistently across your website. You’ll want to
choose:
• A header font – you’ll use this for all of your headings
• A body text font – you’ll use this for all of the body text
• Accent text font (optional) – use within a paragraph or heading to stress
something or add some style
Layout Tips
1. Header Section: Keep it Simple
• Your header section can simply be an abbreviated version of your marketing
messaging plus a call to action (CTA) button, like “Schedule a Call.” You want
your audience to immediately know what you offer, how it will make their life
better, and what they need to do to get started.
• I would recommend including a photo of yourself in the header. Browse
other coaching websites for ideas on how this could look. Here’s a great
resource from Coach Builder with 27 fantastic website examples from
coaches.
2. Section Two: Talk About the Problem
• In the second section of your website, you really want to expound on the
problem your ideal client is experiencing. Like my friend Donald Miller says,
when you clearly articulate their problem and the pain it’s causing them, it
sets you up to position yourself as the guide who can help them.
Create your website
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3. Section Three: Demonstrate How Your Product Offer Solves That Problem
• Here’s where you transition to your offer. Explain your product offering in
more depth and how it solves the problem your client has.
4. All Sections: Include a Call to Action (CTA) Button
• At the bottom of every section on your website, you want to include a call to
action button (CTA). This is a button that says something like, “SCHEDULE A
CALL” or “SCHEDULE A CONSULTATION,” and links to a form where the visitor
can ll out their information. Website platforms will have buttons and forms
easily integrated and available to add to the page. Always test CTA buttons
and forms to ensure they’re working properly.
A Quick Note on Logos…
Most businesses and their websites have a logo. You can have someone design a
logo for you, or, if you really want to make it fast and affordable, you can use A.I.
to design your logo on a site like design.com. Just make sure your logo goes well
with the fonts and colors you choose for your website.
There are a handful of administrative things you’ll want to have ready to go when
you launch your coaching business:
“Doing Business As” Filing
Check your state requirements for ling a “Doing Business As” (DBA). If you plan
to call your business something like “John Doe Consulting,” you’ll likely need to
le a DBA form with the state to let them know that, for example, John Doe is
doing business as John Doe Consulting.
Employer Identication Number
Unless you want to use your social security number for your business (which I
wouldn’t recommend), you’ll want to apply for an EIN number with the IRS.
This is quick and easy. It gives your business its own identication number and
helps protect your personal information.
Open a business checking account with your bank
This will allow you to keep your business and personal funds completely
separate, which is the rst rule of proper bookkeeping. You’ll always receive
payments from clients into this account, not your personal checking account.
Create a contract
Have a coaching contract drafted and ready to go. You can nd decent contract
templates online and then tweak them to reect your service and terms.
Get invoicing/bookkeeping software
Get invoicing/bookkeeping software
I recommend Wave, which is completely free (unless you need a payroll
function, which you don’t) and allows you to invoice clients and keep up with
basic bookkeeping.
Get ready for business
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Share the exciting news about your coaching business along with the link to
your website on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X… wherever you engage on
social media. You could also send an announcement email to friends, family,
or colleagues. (P.S. Did you know Coach Builder members get emails like this
written for them, plus a free year of email software?)
Remember, this is a quick-start guide to getting a coaching business off the
ground. You can always go back and tweak your website, rene your product
offering, or even change your logo. But in my experience, people who have a
bias toward action are the ones who tend to be the most successful. So don’t
overthink things and get going. It could change your life – and the lives of so
many others!
Cheering you on,
Will
You’re ready to launch your coaching business and
land your rst client.
About Unreasonable Hospitality
& Coach Builder
Surprising Ways to Use
Unreasonable Hospitality
in Your Business
October 29, 2024 at 11am CT
Plus a big reveal about an opportunity
to partner with Will Guidara!
Register FREE
Unreasonable Hospitality is the New York Times
bestselling book by acclaimed restaurateur, Will
Guidara, with praise from high-prole leaders
including Dave Ramsey and Simon Senek. Will’s
retellings of the extravagant service practiced by his
restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, captured the heart
of America and continues to inspire businesses from
all industries to think differently about customer care.
Will has been featured on Late Night with Jimmy
Fallon, FX’s The Bear, and Showtime’s Billions. He
has also been featured in Forbes, Fast Company,
and CNBC and has received Wall Street Journal’s
Innovator Award for his hospitality framework.
Coach Builder (founded by Donald Miller) is the
leading membership for self-employed coaches,
giving coaches a proven 8-step plan and all the tools
they need to hit up to 7 gures in their coaching
business. Donald Miller has helped hundreds of
business professionals leave their 9-5 and to grow a
successful coaching business, so he knows what it
takes to build a lucrative coaching career. Members
get access to done-for-you marketing materials, a
private community of coaches for collaboration and
camaraderie, and a dedicated growth coach during
your rst year of membership.
Masterclass With Will Guidara
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