The Guiding Matrix
Your C² Assessment result
Your operating system runs. Your remaining gaps decide what comes next.
Your score shows a business you manage with intention across most activities. The gaps that remain now set the pace of your next stage.
Your results are also on their way to your inbox.
What your score means
Where you stand
You built most of your business on purpose: a clear offer, a plan, processes you follow.
The questions you face now are sharper than the ones most coaches ask.
What it costs you
At this level, one weak activity holds back the return on everything else.
A price you have not revisited or a channel you never measured caps the growth the rest of your business could deliver.
Where to start
Test your strongest assumptions with people who look at your business from the outside.
Then close the two or three gaps that hold back your next stage.
Testing your decisions and sharpening the gaps that hold back your next stage, with a board that challenges each one, is the work of the Business Foundation Sprint.
Twelve weeks, one-to-one, done with you. Here is how it works.
Every month you wait has a price.
Take one decision most coaches postpone: the price. You know your rate sits too low. You plan to change it after this client, after this quarter, after the summer.
The cost goes further than money. In a slow month, you say yes to the client who drains you. You give the discount you promised yourself you would never give. You push the work on your business to next month, and next month brings a new reason to wait.
Three years later, you run the same business at the same revenue, and you feel more tired than when you started.
One postponed decision, an example
Illustrative figures. Your numbers differ, and we work with yours.
You tried to fix this before. Here is why it did not stick.
The course
It gave you information, and you already had most of it. Nobody helped you apply it to your business.
The template
It had no deadline and nobody checking on it. It sits in your downloads folder.
The planning day
It ended at five o'clock. On Monday, client work took over again.
More income streams
You added a course, a group and a workshop. You ended up with four streams and no reliable one.
New software
The tool sat there, because nobody defined the process it was supposed to hold.
Discipline was never the problem. Two things were missing every time.
Someone working on your business with you, applying every decision to your clients, your prices and your numbers. And someone who expects your decision and checks you followed through.
The Business Foundation Sprint gives you both.
Done with you. Not handed to you.
Built around your business
No fixed curriculum. In week 1, we sit down for an extended design session and map the twelve weeks around where your business stands today and where you want it to go.
Done with you
This is not a course and not advice from the sidelines. We work on your business with you, session by session. Some weeks we take on a new topic. Other weeks we build the pieces together.
Your personal board
Every serious business has a board. Yours challenges your thinking, tests your decisions, and accepts them only when they hold up. An accepted decision becomes the foundation you build on.
You stop carrying every business decision alone. Your board sits with you for twelve weeks.
Seven decisions, chosen with you
Most coaches never make the core decisions of their business on purpose. Below is the path we recommend, built on what we see holding coaching businesses back.
In week 1, you and your board agree on the seven topics for your sprint and the order you take them. You bring what you know about your business from the inside. Your board brings what it sees from the outside. When the board spots a gap holding your business back, it tells you, and makes the case for giving it a place in your sprint. You leave week 1 with a plan you and your board stand behind.
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Your strategic position
The life your business exists to support, a vision with a number and a date, and the one number that tells you whether the business works.
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Your offer, in one sentence
Who you serve, what changes for them, how you deliver it, and the price. One sentence you say without hesitation, and the right prospects recognise themselves in it.
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Your pricing
Your price floor, your value ceiling and your market position. A price you hold with confidence, because you know the logic behind it.
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Your client acquisition system
One positioning statement, one main channel, a documented path from first conversation to signed agreement, and a way to stay in touch with past clients. When a client finishes, you know what to do next.
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Your revenue structure
A plan to build monthly recurring income under your business, so one slow month no longer pushes you into bad decisions.
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Your business infrastructure
Documented processes for onboarding clients, invoicing, scheduling, and a monthly review of your numbers. The business keeps running when you step away.
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Your growth plan
A three-year direction, a plan for each quarter, and a 90-day plan with weekly tracking. Your working document from week 1, and the plan you keep using after the sprint.
How the twelve weeks run
Week 1
Design session
An extended one-to-one session. We review your business, agree on your seven topics and their order, and set the rhythm for the next eleven weeks.
Weeks 2 to 12
Topic sessions and working sessions
We work through your seven topics in the order we agreed. Your growth plan stays on the table the whole time.
Topic sessionWorking sessionExample rhythm. We set yours together in week 1.
Before each topic
A reading and a worksheet, so you arrive with your thinking done and we spend the session on decisions.
Between sessions
Email and WhatsApp access, with a reply within 24 hours on business days.
Your toolkit
Readings, worksheets, a business dashboard, and a 90-day planning template you reuse every quarter.
Is this sprint for you?
Apply if
- You are starting your coaching business and want to build it right from day one, instead of fixing it later.
- You have coached for years, you have clients, and the business side never got the attention your coaching did.
- You treat $5,000 as an investment in your business, and the amount puts no pressure on your finances.
- You do the work between sessions and follow a structure, even when it asks you to change how you operate.
Do not apply if
- Investing $5,000 in your business would stretch your finances.
- You want ideas and inspiration, without implementing or following a process.
- You are looking for a quick fix or a single tactic to try this week.
What changed for coaches who did the sprint
[Lori's words, pending permission. After the sprint, Lori signed government contracts and now has more business than capacity.]
[Evelyn's words, pending permission. Evelyn found the reason behind her coaching business: her legacy. Add what changed in her business after that.]
[Third client's words, pending permission.]
Your board
Two people who look at your coaching business from the outside, ask the questions you skip, and stay with you for all twelve weeks.
Erwin de Grave
Chairs your board
Erwin has advised, built and bought businesses across Europe and North America since 1997. He works as a strategic advisor and M&A investor. When you buy businesses, you learn fast what makes one worth owning, and what makes one fall apart without its founder.
He also knows the coaching industry from the inside. He runs The Coaching Tools Company, leads Your Coaching Community, and hosts The Coaching Edge Podcast, where coaches talk about how they built their businesses.
You get an operator's view of your business, from someone who has sat on both sides of the table.
Dr. Steve Jeffs
Sits on your board
Steve is an ICF Master Certified Coach, business psychologist, author and supervisor, with more than two decades inside the coaching profession. He is Director of Coaching at The Coaching Tools Company and co-founder of The Guiding Matrix.
He has trained, mentored and supervised practitioners across coaching schools and methodologies, and worked with leaders and coaches around the world.
He sees the uniqueness of your work, and what will help it survive you.
$5,000
The full twelve-week sprint, one-to-one.
An investment your business earns back
Back to the example from earlier. A coach who raises a session rate by $50 across 15 sessions a week recovers $5,000 in under seven weeks. Pricing is one of seven decisions you make in the sprint.
How to apply
Apply
Complete a short application about you and your business. We read every one.
Talk for 20 minutes
If we see a fit, we invite you to a 20-minute call. We learn about your business and tell you whether the sprint makes sense for you.
Start
We take on a limited number of coaches at a time, because every sprint is one-to-one. Once you join, we schedule your design session.
Questions coaches ask
I am just starting out. Is this too early?
No. Starting with clear decisions saves you years of building by trial and error. You set your offer, your price and your client system before bad habits form.
I have coached for years. Will I benefit?
Yes. Experienced coaches often carry their offer, pricing and plans in their heads. The sprint puts every decision on paper, tests it, and turns it into a structure you work from.
I coach in a specific niche. Does this apply to me?
Yes. The sprint works on business decisions, and every coaching business needs the same seven. We apply each one to your niche, your clients and your numbers.
How much time do I need each week?
[Hours per week for sessions, reading and worksheets.]
Is this a group program?
No. Every session is one-to-one. You get our full attention on your business for twelve weeks.
What happens after the twelve weeks?
You leave with your seven decisions documented and your 90-day growth plan in hand, ready to run. If you want to keep building, we talk about the next stage of growth at the end of the sprint.
Your business should support your coaching, not drain it.
In twelve weeks, you go from a practice that depends on you to a business you designed on purpose, with a board that held you to every decision.
Apply for the sprintEvery application gets a personal review. If we see a fit, we invite you to a 20-minute call.