New to Business Financial Coaching? Here’s What to Expect In Your First Session
🕐 Read Time 5 Minutes
In most sessions with a business financial coach, the pattern is predictable: you share your numbers, get a diagnosis of your problems, and receive a prescription for fixes. The session wraps up in 45 minutes, and you’re left with (generic) advice that feels disconnected from the financial realities you’re experiencing, not only in your business but in your personal finances, too.
At Financial Fitness Coaching, we take a fundamentally different approach to business financial coaching.
We believe that business finances and personal finances — as much as they need to be separated — are closely tied together. After all, your business is driving your personal finances, including the decisions you make with your money as well as how you feel about your money.
For that reason, our first session is highly collaborative and involves deep exploration into your business finances, your personal finances, and the big dreams and challenges that drive both. This approach helps us create a personalized roadmap that honors how these areas of your life interconnect.
Our Two-Part Discovery Process
Our first session lasts 75-90 minutes because we cover substantial ground. In this initial conversation, we’ll discuss both your business and personal finances so we get the complete picture needed to create a coaching plan that truly moves the needle.
Part One: Your Business Deep Dive
We start by getting an understanding of your business from the inside out. This goes far beyond looking at your profit and loss statements.
We explore why you started this business, what you love about it, and what challenges are keeping you up at night. We dig into the structure of your business, other financial professionals who may be supporting you, and the day-to-day reality of how your business operates.
We’ll ask you questions like:
Who does what?
How do you handle scheduling and/or orders?
What does your hiring process look like?
These operational details matter because they directly impact your cash flow, efficiency, and profitability opportunities.
And most importantly, we spend time on your big dreams for the company. What do you want this business to become? Are you planning to sell it eventually, pass it to your children, or simply run it and close it when you’re ready to retire? Understanding your long-term vision shapes every financial decision we’ll recommend and make together.
Part Two: Personal Life Integration
After exploring your business, we shift to your personal life. Your business is driving your personal finances, feelings, and decisions. In our opinion, it doesn’t make sense not to integrate the two.
First, we’ll talk about your personal financial dreams.
What does your ideal life look like 10 or 20 years from now?
How much are you currently commingling business and personal money?
What are your immediate personal financial goals, and what savings do you already have in place?
What debts are you carrying, and how do you feel about them?
We also explore your lifestyle and values. Are you someone who loves to travel? Do you have kids approaching college age? Are you more frugal by nature, or do you enjoy a lavish lifestyle?
These are all critical factors that influence how we structure your business finances to support the life you want to live.
What You Walk Away With
Your first session is all about creating clarity and momentum. By the end of our 75-90 minutes together, you’ll have several concrete outcomes that set the foundation for your entire coaching journey.
First, you’ll have a clear picture of where you stand financially, both in your business and personally. You’ll see the connections between your business operations, your personal goals, and your financial reality. Many business owners have never had someone help them see these connections clearly.
While this can feel scary at first, we help you remember that this is just data. It doesn’t say anything about the future success of your business, your value, or your ability to reach your goals.
It simply shows us where things stand and how we can best improve.
Most importantly, you’ll have the foundation for a personalized coaching plan that will guide our work together. This plan honors the unique aspects of your business, your personal situation, and your goals. It becomes our roadmap for the months ahead so that every session and every strategy helps move you forward.
Why Our Approach to Business Financial Coaching Works
When business owners try to optimize their business finances without considering their personal goals, they can make decisions that work on paper but fail in real life. They might implement a cash flow system that maximizes business profit but fails to pay them what they need to cover their expenses. Or they might make strategic tax decisions for their business, but sacrifice their family’s lifestyle needs in the process.
Our integrated approach prevents these misalignments. When we understand that you want to travel extensively in retirement, we may recommend a much different business exit strategy than if you dream of leaving the business to your children. When we know you’re risk-averse in your personal life, we don’t recommend aggressive business expansion strategies that will keep you awake at night.
Your business serves your life, not the other way around. Most business owners have never experienced this level of integration in their financial planning. That’s why our clients often say the first session alone was worth the investment, because finally, someone is helping them understand how all the pieces of their financial life fit together.
Your Ongoing Support System
One of the best parts about working with Financial Fitness Coaching is the comprehensive support system you have access to immediately after your first session. While our bimonthly sessions are absolutely important, we recognize that a lot of the real work happens between sessions.
That’s why we make ourselves available to our clients by phone, email, and Voxer. This means when you have a question about a financial decision, encounter an unexpected business challenge, or need guidance on implementing one of your action steps, you don’t have to wait weeks for your next scheduled session.
This support structure recognizes that financial transformation happens in the daily decisions and ongoing implementation, not just in coaching sessions. Our job is to be there with you through that process, providing guidance, encouragement, and expertise exactly when you need it.
Your first session is just the beginning. It’s where we lay the foundation for a partnership that will transform not just your business finances, but the way your business serves your life.
Ready to work with a business financial coach who understands how your life and business intersect? Let’s talk. Schedule a discovery call with us to see if we’re a good fit.