The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.
There are a multitude of specific coaching niches, with more being identified every day. The major areas of specialization at present include: Life Skills, Business Coaching, Executive Coaching, Corporate Coaching, Career Coaching, Relationship Coaching, Financial Coaching, Study Skills, Fitness and Weight Control, and overall Personal Development.
A typical life skills program may look at clarifying values and visions, setting goals and new actions so that an individual may lead a more satisfying, successful, and fulfilling life.
Business coaching can be useful in any type of business, small or large, and may range from individual skill development to overall team coaching in larger corporations. Areas that often benefit from coaching include communication skills, time management, strategic planning, increasing market share, improving workplace efficiency and productivity and dealing with specific conflicts within the workplace.
If you were working with small business owners and possibly their staff, you would normally call it Business Coaching. If you were working with staff within a corporation, usually paid for by the corporation, or working with the board or leadership team, you would call it Corporate Coaching. Working with individuals in executive positions is of course Executive Coaching, but clearly there can be a lot of overlap between this and Corporate Coaching.
The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.
a) Challenge to expand the thinking process and make bold new decisions.
Someone daring you to go further than you ever have before is also an extremely powerful way to break old habits and forge new boundaries.
b) Direction in times of confusion, opinion and if necessary, advice.
Once again, the power of a fresh set of eyes to interpret a new perspective on a situation is often invaluable during the coaching process.
c) Brainstorming to flesh out new ideas.
d) Acknowledgement and validation
This cannot be stressed enough. The coach who only focuses with the client on what is missing and what needs to be done, deserves to lose the client.
Here are some interesting statistics from a past ICF client survey:
* Role of the Coach: 84% believed that the major role of the coach was as a sounding board, whilst 78% focused on motivational aspects. 56% viewed their coach as a friend, 50% as a mentor. 46% viewed their coach as a business consultant, with 41% as a teacher.
The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.
A coach will provide many things during this process, such as:
a) Access to ideas the client may already hold, but is not yet aware of.
By viewing the situation from a different perspective, the coach is able to lead the client in an exploration of ideas that he/she may not have previously considered.
b) Clarity around what the client actually wants.
What does it look like? In which country? How many? How often? How would you feel?
c) A sounding board for new ideas.
Providing a safe place to suggest new ideas is an essential aspect of the coach’s role, in that this encourages the client to step beyond their current situation, unlocking a world of new, unexplored potential.
d) Support in big decision making.
Encouragement in walking new paths is essential to build the courage to continue beyond the safety of what is known. The coach can help the client grow and develop their own individual strategies and solutions.
Put what you most want people on the planet to know into a 30-minute speech. Call your local Rotary, Lions and Apex Clubs – in fact any clubs in your area – and offer to speak at their regular meetings. While it can be very scary at first, get five of these under your belt, and you’ll start to worry less about how you look and more about what kind of impact you can make. Plus – it’s great for getting clients.
The following is taken from David’s interview with Michael O. Cooper in 10 Super Coaches.
What was most disheartening for you while building your practice?
I barely survived my first year as a full-time coach – and sank over $40,000 of my own money into the business and on living expenses. That was a real slap in the face. After all, I was helping my clients achieve success in their businesses and I had succeeded in other businesses before, why couldn’t I do it on my own now?
I felt like a fraud. But I also knew dozens of other coaches experiencing the same situation; some even left coaching for more security. Underneath, my fears of failing, attachment to the outcome of marketing efforts (the antithesis of attraction marketing), and stubborn resistance to positioning myself as an expert within a niche, nearly contributed to catastrophe.
Within one month of allowing success – by providing value for the joy of it, establishing a clear nice where demand already existed and trusting that I could succeed – my business quadrupled in revenue. More importantly, other coaches started sending me endorsed referrals out of the blue!
The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.
Here is a list of things you might consider including in your biography:
- Your passion to help people
- The way in which you have already been helping people (e.g., unofficial coaching, mentoring, shoulder to lean on, teaching, training, managing)
- Specifically WHAT you provide for people
- Your successes (e.g., promotion, career, financially, health, relationship/marriage)
- Your adventures (e.g., climbing a mountain, travel to different countries)
- Challenges that you have overcome (e.g. divorce, a death, bankruptcy, health issue)
- Anything unique or interesting (e.g., scuba dive)
- What you love; what you hate (e.g., kids, flowery e-mail signatures, poetry)
- Your training (e.g., communication, corporate experience, people skills, self-study such as books and courses, business, any diplomas or degrees or certificates that are relevant or show you have accomplished something, or on-the-job training)
- Membership of any relevant associations e.g., National Speakers Association, International Coach Federation, Toastmasters, Chamber of Commerce, any volunteer positions on industry committees
- Any current coach training course you are undertaking.
Two to three paragraphs should suffice. Don’t include anything that does not give you credibility or a reason why you might be a good coach for them i.e., keep every word relevant. Two powerful lines are better than half a page of waffle. Oh – and of course keep it honest! For example, no saying “Gina coaches executives from major organisations” until you have at least one, or “Bill is a professional speaker” if you’re not yet. As always, you decide what is authentic and what isn’t.