It's well known that starting your own business is a daunting task, and building a NLP coaching business is no exception. There are questions of finance, legal issues, and marketing, let alone the amount of time you will need to invest simply to get your business off the ground! This post will help you keep all this in perspective and remind you of the most important reason for starting any business: It should make you happy!

Usually, new business owners focus mainly on production, marketing, and financing. Some new owners will even draw up a mission statement, which usually turns out more like a marketing pitch that a statement of vision, goals, and method. Before all these important details are ironed out, 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 truly understand, increased creative control, etc. However all these reasons are at their core one and the same - to increase happiness. This is the foundation that a truly successful business needs to stand on.

If we don't begin with this end in mind, we can easily get lost and not "see the forest for all the trees." I have heard many stories of people striking out on their own in order to rid themselves of a overly corporate environment, but a few years later, find themselves operating in exactly the kind of situation they originally intended to escape! An additional NLP-specific example are the relationship coaches who spend almost all of their time as a conflict manager, instead of focusing on "relating," the supposed purpose of their career.

Our Master Practitioner Course can help you to identify your core values and begin to build a new foundation based on these values. Once you do this, the road to creating increased happiness will be clear, both in your daily life and the creation of your business.

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

1. Is my product completely consistent with my values? You will be delivering this product on a daily basis, so any contradiction to your truest values will create a big problem.
2. Are my relationships with my clients in-line with my values? This entails 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 inner compass?
4. Would publicly stating my values help in marketing my business?
5. What are the values of my clients? Are the services I am providing catering to their values?
6. What if there is a contradiction between my values and those of a client? Will I continue to serve these clients?
7. If I do continue to serve these clients, how can I be relate to them in a way that doesn't compromise my own values?
8. How many hours do I expect to work, both in terms of starting my business and in maintaining it? Given these hours, how can I maintain my personal values, including family, friends and personal health?
9. What about my role as a manager of employees. What do I do if their values conflict with mine? Are my personal values and those of the business stated clearly and unequivocally?
10. If you are planning on having a business partner, does he or she have the same values as me? Your partner needs to answer these questions as well. Is there a conflict in basic in our values? How can it be resolved?

Author's Bio: 

Nicole Schneider is the owner and senior trainer at Global NLP Training, the world leader in cutting edge NLP and Life Coach training courses and seminars.