The following is an excerpt from Top Coaching Techniques.
1. DON’T
Give your client all the answers.
DO
Draw your client out. Help them to come up with the answers themselves by asking questions.
2. DON’T
Allow your client to set “negative” goals. (I want to lose weight. I want to get rid of my spouse.)
DO
Help your client to set uplifting goals that feel good when they say them. (I love my healthy, energetic body! I am thrilled to be in this loving relationship!)
3. DON’T
Stick to a session plan no matter what comes up during the session.
DO
Be flexible and willing to help a client explore issues as they arise. Issues can affect many areas and be the very thing blocking their success.
4. DON’T
Be afraid of feedback as a coach.
DO
Ask for and use any feedback you can get to improve your coaching skills. This will keep you clear on how you are reaching your clients.
5. DON’T
Wait until the end to ask for a referral or testimonial.
DO
Have your client write a testimonial AS IF they have achieved all their goals with your help. This will get your client clear on how they expect you to help them.
How can you clone yourself so you can help a limitless amount of people learn your valuable information, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – and get paid for it?
The secret is to create information products and sell them on your website. Products will enable you to get a passive income – to make money while you sleep or go on vacation.
If you create products that can be delivered electronically over the internet (e-Books, downloadable audio, downloadable software, etc.) then you can have a fully automated system.
Picture this… A person visits my website featuring one of my products. I “talk” to them through the audio message on my website underneath my photo, and in the text on the page. They decide to request more information. Three weeks later after reading three autoresponder messages containing valuable information, they come back to my website and purchase the product online. The download link to the product arrives in their inbox minutes after their credit card is processed – automatically.
What do I have to do to sell that product to that customer? I just build the automated system once (and tweak it to improve it occasionally). Now imagine 100 customers – or 1,000 customers, or 10,000 customers doing the same thing as the first customer. How much more time and effort did I have to exert to sell to the extra 9,999 customers? Zero. How much did delivery of the product by sending out a download link cost me? Only the small cost of the automated system to run.
Can you see the potential? I do. Sometimes I get so excited I have to hook myself up to a chamomile tea drip to calm myself down. 😉
The following is taken from David’s interview with Jim Earley in 10 Super Coaches.
What advice would you give coaches about charging clients?
Even though it is a competitive market place, even though people are paying for stuff all the time, most people expect you to set your own rate and won’t argue it. Decide on your rate and go for it. If you’re uncomfortable with it, people will pick up on that and question you. If you’re not uncomfortable, they won’t question it.
Don’t ever expect to raise your rate to an existing client over any short period of time. By definition, they ARE getting less value. Maybe after years and years, you can raise it, but not over a couple. I charge corporations more than small businesses and I charge small businesses more than I charge individuals.
The following is taken from David’s interview with Bobette Reeder in 10 Super Coaches.
What top methods, in order, did you use to get your clients in the first 2 years?
I was totally involved in my community… did a lot of leadership activities and social activities and visible activities.. this led to lots of credibility with a large number of people. I also was heavily involved in the coaching community (my training school and IFC).
What method did you find most effective in getting your initial clients?
I talked about coaching whenever the opening presented itself… and then I dropped the subject unless I was pressed to discuss it. I made it seem almost mysterious… and people wanted to know more. And my life was visibly changing too… always attractive. And I was VERY excited about it… very enthusiastic… people wanted some of that!
The following is taken from David’s interview with Rachel Pryor in 10 Super Coaches.
What was most disheartening for you while building your practice?
When I first realized that I was going to be a coach, I was afraid that my friends would tease me, so I assumed a pen name (I knew I would be quite public). For 3 years I worked as a corporate training, counselor and healer, all the time coaching, though calling it something else. Though I contacted many media outlets, none of them were interested in my business.
Then I decided to use my real name – and gained instant success. But boy, those first 3 years were dreadful – I was unable to be my best, and was uncomfortable with many of the ways that I was forced to train my clients.
The following is an excerpt from Top Coaching Techniques.
Client: Well, I just get asked it 500 times a day.
David: Asked what?
Client: Well, ‘Have you got a job? Have you got job? What are you doing?’
David: Yeah, so society helps you. Society is supporting your judge. All I want you to notice for now is that you’ve got a judge that came to me on this call and said, ‘I feel like I’m not doing enough.’ We could look at it and we could check with another judge higher up, like God, and God would probably say, ‘You’re doing great. You don’t even need to do all this flyer stuff and all this business stuff.’ Even on that basis, even if we were going to judge you against everything you’ve done, even that stacks up. You’ve done a whole bunch of stuff.
I want you to take on something; I just want you to consider something for yourself, so we’ll plant a little seed here. I want you to consider the possibility that every single thing you did in the last seven days was actually what you should have done, even where you set a target and you didn’t make it. I want you to just consider, like what if you actually had, for you, at this stage in your life, the perfect week. Now there’s only one way that you could decide it wasn’t a perfect week. There’s only one way that you could decide, ‘Now that bit there, on the Thursday when my car broke down, that wasn’t perfect.’ There’s only one way you could decide that. Do you know what that is?
Client: If I decide it.
