The following is an excerpt from David’s speech regarding FirstFiftyClients.com.
Now, when I stopped saying “I help people close the gap between where they are and where they want to be” which is accurate, but boring for me, and I started saying “I help women who are not ecstatic in their relationships to get everything they’ve ever wanted in their relationship” then I wanted to get on the phone and tell people about it. And a funny thing happened: when I did, when I got on the phone and I told them that, they could think of names.
When I said “I help people close the gap between where they are and where they want to be’ they went ‘mmmm…okay”, but when I said “women who are not ecstatic in their relationship who are ready to have everything they’ve ever wanted”, they would say “Well, Julie would be great for that, and you could call Betty, and Rhonda, yeah”. So it changed, when I decided I was going to say, (because it changes for me, you know, what I say to people) “I work with people so that when they’re eighty lying on their deathbed they have zero regrets”, I had fun with that. And then people go “Huh? Really? What do you mean?” and I say “Well, if you died tomorrow, what’s one thing you’d regret?” and all of a sudden they know what I do.
The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.
Clients are generally people:
- Wanting to change something in their life
- Wanting more of something
- Tolerating too much
- Wanting to switch careers
- Wanting to improve their career
- Looking for a bigger goal
- Desiring to achieve something faster
- Who are bored
- Who feel something is missing
- Who realize they can be much more successful with outside input.
They include:
- Executives
- Managers
- CEOs
- Housewives
- Professionals
- Creative people
- Entrepreneurs
- Small Business Owners
Below are some solid statistics from a past ICF client survey. While the data is several years old, the general characteristics are still relevant today, although we might expect a trend towards more lower-income and non-professional clients embracing coaching:
- 65 of the respondents were male (31%), and 145 were female (69%).
- Average age was 45 years, with respondents being within the age range of 24-67 years of age.
- Most were employed as professionals.
- Education gained: 82% had gained degrees, with one third gaining a Masters degree or higher.