Enroll — $449
The Practitioner Series

Coaching Business Course: Run Your Practice Like an Operator

Learn the operating side of a coaching practice in a disciplined sequence: niche, offer, demand, sales, B2B contracts, delivery operations, ethics, and sustainable growth. This course begins after formation. For entity, banking, taxes, and insurance, start with the Coaching Practice Setup Course.

40 hours, self-paced 14 modules, 86 lessons Lifetime access
Enroll — $449 Watch the first lesson
Running a Coaching Business - Coach as Operator
Alex Kudinov, MCC
Alex Kudinov, MCC
Course author and instructor
ICF Continuing Coach Education (CCE) Approved Program seal
ICF CCE-Approved Program 40.0 hours - 9 Core Competency + 31 Resource Development
The first lesson

Working IN vs working ON the business

The opening lesson. It's the distinction the rest of the course turns on.

Lesson 1.1.1 · 7 minutes · Module 1, Unit 1: Working IN vs Working ON. Or browse the Tandem Coaching channel.

How this is different

Not another six-figure-coach mastermind

Most "business of coaching" programs sell scarcity, push you up an upsell ladder, and quote income figures that don't hold up to scrutiny. This one doesn't.

A typical guru program

Promised income, fake scarcity, upsell ladder.

  • "Six-figure" testimonials, no methodology you can audit
  • Marketing-only - no contracting, agreements, or ethics
  • Closes into a $5K-15K mastermind tier
  • No competency mapping you can show a credentialing panel
This course

Fourteen modules, honest numbers, no upsell ladder.

  • Tandem's anonymized operating data + dated ICF/IRS/FTC sources
  • Discovery-as-coaching, three-party contracting, ethics of marketing
  • The price of the course is the price of the course
  • Per-segment ICF Core Competency mapping (9 CC hrs documented)
What you'll be able to do

What changes in your practice after this course

Six practical shifts. Each is something you'll do differently in your own coaching business the week after you finish.

01

Adopt the operator identity

Distinguish operator work from coaching work, name the five operator decisions you've been avoiding, and place yourself realistically on the 10-year arc.

02

Treat your niche as a hypothesis

Pick a defensible niche from a single sheet of paper, run it through three falsification tests, and decide when to re-niche instead of grinding harder.

03

Design an offer and price you can defend

Build a one-page offer with packaging, tiers, and a price you can quote without flinching - tied to client outcome, not hours sold.

04

Run discovery as a coaching conversation

The discovery call IS a coaching conversation. Run it with presence, contracting, and the discernment that converts without compromising the work.

05

Hold a three-party contract well

The B2B move: sponsor, client, and coach in the room together. Confidentiality, scope, success criteria, and the line that keeps the coaching protected.

06

Walk away with a one-page practice operating plan

The capstone artifact: your offer, your pricing, your channel mix, your discovery-call script, your year-1 numbers. One page, defensible, yours to revise as the practice changes.

What's inside

Fourteen modules, in the order a practice actually builds

From naming a niche through pricing, sales, B2B contracting, operations, ethics, AI, and growth - ending with a one-page Practice Operating Plan you'll keep using as your practice changes.

40h
Approved ICF CCE
86
Video lessons
3
Suggested paths
3h
Of documented ethics instruction
Hours shown are the totals ICF accredited for this course: 40.0 CCE hours, 9 Core Competency and 31 Resource Development.
00
Diagnostic Intake - Where Are You Now?
Path A / B / C router - everyone starts here
15 min · 1 lesson + self-assessment
A short pre-course module that names the IN-vs-ON insight and routes you to a starting path - pre-revenue (A), early-revenue under $50k (B), or plateaued at $80-150k (C). Same content, three honest starting points.
  • 0.1.1 - Where Are You Now? (the IN-vs-ON insight, cold open)
  • Practice-Stage Self-Diagnostic (12-question router)
01
The Coach as Operator
The identity shift the rest of the course pivots on
2.5h · 5 lessons · RD 2.5
The Gerber E-Myth applied to coaches. The wordplay back to ICF Embodies a Coaching Mindset - bring the same presence and discernment to your practice that you bring to the client. Plus the honest numbers the coaching industry doesn't put on its homepage.
  • 1.1.1 - The IN-vs-ON Distinction
  • 1.1.2 - The Coach as Operator (the identity shift)
  • 1.1.3 - The Operator's Five Decisions
  • 1.2.1 - The Numbers No One Wants to Show You
  • 1.2.2 - The Ten-Year View
1.5
Audit & Reposition
Path C entry - optional Year-2/3 audit for A/B
1.5h · 4 lessons · RD 1.5
Path C primary For coaches who got to revenue but stopped growing. Audit the four plateau patterns, name the reposition, build the next 12-month plan.
  • 1.5.1.1 - The Four Plateaus (under-niched, under-priced, under-channeled, under-offered)
  • 1.5.1.2 - Reading Your Own Numbers
  • 1.5.2.1 - The Reposition Math
  • 1.5.2.2 - Carrying Existing Clients Across
02
Niche as Hypothesis
Niche on one page, then test it
3.0h · 7 lessons · CC 1.5 / RD 1.5
Most coaches confuse "specialty" with "niche." A niche is a falsifiable hypothesis about who you serve, what shift they're paying for, and why you. Run it through three falsification tests; re-niche when the evidence calls for it, not when you're bored.
  • What a niche actually is (and what most coaches sell instead)
  • The one-page niche statement
  • The three falsification tests - language, payment, repeat
  • Niche economics - TAM, willingness to pay, sales cycle
  • When to re-niche, when to grind
03
Offer Design & Pricing Architecture
A one-page offer with a price you can defend
3.0h · 7 lessons · CC 1.5 / RD 1.5
Packaging, tiers, and pricing tied to client outcome instead of hours sold. With dated industry pricing tables and the math that turns "what should I charge" into a defensible answer.
  • Offers built around outcomes (not hour bundles)
  • Pricing math - cost floor, market band, value ceiling
  • Tier architecture - single offer vs. ladder vs. menu
  • Pricing psychology without manipulation
  • Repricing existing clients without the panic
04
Demand Generation - Channel Honesty
Which channels actually work, which are noise
3.0h · 8 lessons · RD 3.0
Paid ads almost never work for new coaches. Cold outreach works for B2B and almost never for B2C. Most content-marketing advice is rubbish for coaches. Stated, with reasons. Then the channels that do work, by buyer path.
  • Channel economics for coaches (what converts, what doesn't)
  • Network & referral as the only Year-1 channel that scales
  • Content marketing - the discipline, not the volume
  • Paid ads - the narrow conditions they work under
  • Cold outreach - the B2B-only channel, done well
05
Sales as a Practice - Discovery Done Well
The discovery call IS a coaching conversation
3.0h · 7 lessons · CC 3.0
The primary CC vector. Run discovery with presence, agreements, and the discernment that converts without compromising the work. Includes the discovery-call script you build and defend.
  • Discovery as coaching - the four ICF competencies that show up
  • Contracting the conversation before it starts
  • The discovery script - structure without theatre
  • Reading fit honestly (and saying no when it isn't there)
  • Pricing conversations without the flinch
06
B2B / Sponsored Coaching Track
Three-party contracting - the white-space play
4.5h · 10 lessons · CC 1.0 / RD 3.5
Sponsor, client, and coach in the room together. Confidentiality, scope, success criteria, and the line that keeps the coaching protected. Tandem's anonymized B2B operating data; flow-down liability checkpoint.
  • The B2B economic case (why companies buy coaching)
  • Three-party contracting - the canonical setup
  • The sponsor conversation - what they hear vs. what we mean
  • Master Services Agreements - the flow-down clauses that matter
  • Confidentiality boundaries (what stays in the room, what doesn't)
  • Pricing B2B engagements - retainer vs. cohort vs. assessment-led
07
Operations, Finance, and the Business Backbone
The operator stack that lets you focus on the coaching
4.0h · 8 lessons · RD 4.0
Legal structure, bookkeeping, contracts, scheduling, insurance, S-corp election math. With Tandem's actual carrier choices and the two-tier insurance landscape (vanilla solo vs. sub-prime contractor). Honest where verifiable; methodology where it isn't.
  • Legal structure - LLC / S-corp / sole prop, with the math
  • Bookkeeping that survives a tax audit
  • Contracts that protect both sides
  • Professional liability - the two-tier coverage landscape
  • Operations as leverage (the under-discussed Year-3 multiplier)
08
Ethics & Professional Practice
Documents 3 hours of ethics instruction inside Core
3.0h · 7 lessons · CC 3.0 (3 hours of ethics instruction inside Core)
The ICF Code of Ethics 2025 walked through with business-specific cases - marketing claims, scarcity tactics, scope of practice, sponsor confidentiality. The ethics of running a coaching business, not the abstract ethics module.
  • ICF Code of Ethics 2025 - the standards that actually constrain business decisions
  • Marketing ethics - claims, testimonials, results language
  • Scope of practice - the lines you don't cross (therapy, consulting, financial advice)
  • Conflicts of interest in three-party contracts
  • AI disclosure - Standard 2.5 in practice
09
AI and the Coaching Business in 2026
A standards walkthrough, not a gap-fill
2.0h · 5 lessons · RD 2.0
ICF's AI Coaching Framework (Nov 2024, binding April 2025) walked through against the actual back-office decisions - note-takers, summarization, automation, disclosure. The line presence shouldn't cross, and the chores AI does well.
  • The ICF AI Coaching Framework in practice
  • Note-takers and the confidentiality conversation
  • AI in back-office work (vs. AI in the room)
  • Disclosure language that holds up under scrutiny
  • The AI-exclusion risk now emerging in E&O policies
10
Growth and Evolution
Year 3+ - without the guru trap
3.0h · 7 lessons · RD 3.0
The choices that show up at Year 3 - raise prices, niche down, add an associate, build a product, write a book, go upmarket. The trade-offs honestly named, the math each one needs.
  • The Year-3 reckoning - what changes about the work
  • Associate models - economics, ethics, when to and when not to
  • Going upmarket vs. going downmarket
  • Products, books, courses - the realistic role they play
  • The guru trap - and the cost of avoiding it
11
Sustaining the Practice - The Inner Game
No woo. The discipline that keeps you in the work.
2.0h · 5 lessons · CC 1.0 / RD 1.0
The Year-3 attrition curve is real and the cause is rarely market - it's loss of meaning, isolation, and untreated overwork. The disciplines that keep an operator in the work for a decade.
  • The attrition pattern that ends most coaching practices
  • Supervision and peer practice as a non-negotiable
  • Pricing your time when your time is the product
  • The discipline of saying no to the next thing
  • What sustained practice looks like at Year 10
12
Capstone - Build Your Practice Plan
The one-page artifact you keep using
2.5h · 5 lessons · CC 2.0 / RD 0.5
Synthesize the build into a one-page operating plan you can defend. Niche statement, offer, pricing, channel mix, discovery script, Year-1 numbers. Yours to revise as the practice changes.
  • The one-page practice operating plan template
  • The discovery-call script you can run from
  • The Year-1 numbers that hold you accountable
  • The 90-day review cycle you keep using
ICF Core Competencies

Which competencies this course goes deep on

If you're claiming these hours toward a credential, here's how each of the eight ICF Core Competencies shows up in the course - the ones we go deep on, and the ones we touch in passing.

Ethical Practice
Deepened
Embodies a Coaching Mindset
Deepened
Establishes & Maintains Agreements
Deepened
Cultivates Trust & Safety
Touched
Maintains Presence
Deepened
Listens Actively
Deepened
Evokes Awareness
Deepened
Facilitates Client Growth
Touched

Deepened means at least one full lesson teaches the competency directly. Touched means it shows up in a scenario or example. A detailed lesson-by-competency map is included in your learner workspace once you enroll.

Is this course for you?

Who this course is for, and who it isn't

Two quick lists so you can self-select before you enroll.

For you if
  • You're newly credentialed (ACC or working toward it) and want to skip the avoidable years
  • You're 1 to 2 years in, under $50k, and you've been improvising the business side
  • You've been at $80 to $150k for three or four years and need a real reposition, not another marketing hack
  • You want a course that teaches sales conversations and three-party contracting, not funnels and DM scripts
  • You prefer honest numbers and named sources over testimonial reels
Not the right fit if
  • You haven't done coach-specific training yet - start with our Coaching Foundations course first
  • You haven't founded the practice yet - entity, taxes, contracts and the rest of the setup are the founding work, covered in Setting Up Your Coaching Practice. This course starts once the practice exists and asks how you run it.
  • You want a six-figures-in-six-months promise - the course doesn't sell that, and we tell you why no honest one can
  • You want someone to build the business for you while you coach - this teaches you to operate it yourself
  • You're past year 7 with a thriving practice - most of this will already be familiar
  • You're looking for live cohort sessions - this one is fully self-paced
Your instructor

Authored end-to-end by an MCC who runs the practice.

Not "led by" - written, recorded, and reviewed by an active Master Certified Coach who is also the co-founder of the firm. The numbers come from inside the business, not from outside the industry.

Alex Kudinov, MCC
Alex Kudinov, MCC
Co-founder & Managing Partner, Tandem Coaching
ICF MCC

Alex co-founded Tandem Coaching and built the operator side of the practice from zero - the contracts, the B2B sponsorship work, the pricing architecture, the AI back-office, the carrier choices. Direct, pragmatic, candid about numbers. The course teaches what an MCC-credentialed operator actually does to run a coaching practice that survives Year 3 and grows past Year 7, with the receipts to back the methodology.

About Alex
Format and certificate

What you get when you enroll

Self-paced, on your schedule

86 short video lessons (5 to 9 minutes each). Watch on any device. Three suggested paths through the material so you can start where your practice is right now.

Lifetime access

No 30-day, 90-day, or one-year limit. Come back to a module when your practice shifts - a new niche, a first corporate sponsor, a reposition.

Certificate of completion

Finish the verification checks and submit the one-page Practice Operating Plan capstone. You'll get a shareable certificate of completion suitable for LinkedIn and L&D reimbursement.

Working tools to keep

Niche statement, one-page offer, pricing architecture, discovery-call script, three-party contracting template, channel mix worksheet, Year-1 numbers, and the one-page Practice Operating Plan. Yours to revise as the practice changes.

ICF Continuing Coach Education (CCE) Approved Program seal
ICF CCE-Approved Program
ICF has accredited this course for 40.0 CCE hours: 9 Core Competency and 31 Resource Development. Module 8 provides 3 hours of ethics instruction inside the Core Competency total; keep the course documentation because ICF makes the final renewal determination. Renewal allows a maximum of 16 Resource Development hours per three-year cycle, so up to 25 hours from this course apply to any single renewal and the balance is yours as depth. Your certificate carries the ICF CCE-Approved Program badge.

Start operating your coaching business

40 accredited ICF CCE hours, structured around the operator discipline: niche, offer, sales, B2B contracting, operations, ethics, AI, and growth.

ICF has accredited this course for 40.0 CCE hours: 9 Core Competency and 31 Resource Development. The course documentation identifies 3 hours of ethics instruction inside the Core Competency total; ICF makes the final renewal determination.

Lifetime access 7-day money-back guarantee Also in All-Access ($597/yr)
Running a Coaching Business
Self-paced · 40 CCE hours · Lifetime access
$449
One-time · USD · Lifetime access included
Enroll — $449
7-day free trial available with All-Access ($597/yr)
7-day money-back guarantee, void once your certificate of completion has been issued.
Frequently Asked Questions

Before you enroll

What does this course cost?

$449 one-time, with lifetime access. Three ways to enroll: standalone at $449, All-Access at $597/yr (7-day free trial available, includes every Practitioner Series course), or the bundle at $949.

There’s a 7-day money-back guarantee, void once your certificate of completion has been issued. No upsell, no mastermind tier, no high-pressure sales call.

Will the hours count toward my ACC, PCC, or MCC renewal?

Yes. ICF has accredited this course for 40.0 instructional hours - 9 Core Competency, 31 Resource Development. Worth knowing how the counting works: ICF allows a maximum of 16 Resource Development hours per three-year renewal, so up to 25 hours from this course (the 9 Core Competency plus 16 Resource Development) apply to any single renewal. The rest is depth you keep rather than credit you claim.

Module 8 documents 3 hours of ethics instruction inside the approved Core Competency total through an ICF Code of Ethics 2025 walkthrough anchored in business cases. Keep the course documentation because ICF makes the final renewal determination.

What's the framework, in plain English?

Coach as Operator. The identity shift from a coach who happens to have a business to an operator who runs a coaching practice. The wordplay back to ICF Embodies a Coaching Mindset is real: bring the same presence and discernment to your practice that you bring to the client.

The course follows a deliberate build sequence - niche → offer → demand → sales → B2B → operations → ethics → AI → growth → sustaining → capstone - because the gap is doing the operator work in a disciplined order.

What are the three buyer paths?

The Module 0 diagnostic places you on one of three honest starting paths:

Path A - Pre-revenue / newly credentialed: full sequence, Module 1 → 12 in order.

Path B - Early revenue (under $50k or under 2 years): Module 1 → 3 (re-evaluate offer) → 5 (sales as discipline) → 6+.

Path C - Plateaued (3-5 years, $80-150k stuck): Module 1 → 1.5 Audit & Reposition → 3 (reprice) + 6 (B2B entry) → selected from 7-11.

Same content, three reading orders. You can change paths at any time.

I'm not credentialed yet. Can I take this?

You can enroll, but the course assumes you can coach. If you haven't trained in the ICF Core Competencies yet, start with our free Coaching Foundations module on the ACC certification page - that gives you the grounding this course builds on.

If you're pre-credential building toward Portfolio Path and have coaching foundations from elsewhere, you'll be fine.

How long does it take?

40 hours of structured instructional content, claimed for CCE. With the build-your-own-deliverables workbooks (niche statement, offer page, discovery script, three-party contract template, capstone plan), most coaches spend 50-60 hours total across 8-12 weeks.

Your path affects total time - Path C learners typically need 15-20 hours by skipping foundational modules and going deep on reposition + B2B.

There is no current completion deadline while the course remains available under the Lifetime Access terms.

What do I actually walk away with?

The deliverables you build during the course and keep using:

1. A one-page Practice Operating Plan - niche, offer, pricing, channel mix, discovery script, Year-1 numbers, 90-day review cycle.

2. A discovery-call script you can run from - structured, coaching-grade, no theatre.

3. A three-party contracting template for B2B engagements with sponsor, client, and coach in the room together.

4. A certificate of completion carrying the ICF CCE-Approved Program badge - shareable on LinkedIn, suitable for L&D reimbursement, and the record you keep for your renewal.

Why no six-figure income promise?

Because no honest course can make it. The ICF Global Coaching Study 2023 shows median coach income at approximately $30k/year in the US; less than half of credentialed coaches sustain a full-time coaching practice past Year 3. Promising six figures by Month X requires fabricating a curve that doesn't exist.

What we promise: an operator discipline that gives you a real shot at a Year-3 practice you can sustain, with the numbers and methodology to defend your decisions to yourself, your accountant, and your credentialing panel.

How is this different from other Tandem programs?

Tandem's flagship programs are ICF Level 1 (ACC) and Level 2 (PCC) - credential-earning programs that take you from no coaching credential to ACC or PCC. Months long, instructor-led, with practice sessions and mentor coaching.

This course is a specialization for coaches who already have foundations. It's narrower in scope (the operator side of the practice), self-paced, and complements - rather than replaces - credential training.

Can I verify this course’s ICF CCE approval?

Yes. ICF lists this course as The Practitioner Series: Running a Coaching Business. View the official ICF Education Search Service record →

The Practitioner Series

Stop improvising the business side. Start operating it.

$449 — 40 ICF CCE-approved hours, lifetime access. The deepest course in the Series.

Enroll — $449 See the whole pathway

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