What do you think new coaches need to be reminded of?
New coaches starting out may forget that once they’ve done fifty sessions, they’re going to be a lot more confident. And once they’ve got ten clients and they’ve got several testimonials under their belt and some really grateful clients, your confidence does increase a lot.
The other thing that I think helps is realizing that you don’t have to be a guru. You really don’t have to be any kind of incredible mystic that has the answers to everything, you’re simply there for support and to coach them as best you know how. It’s up to the client what they do with that.
That’s a major, major shift and all coaches go through it, or need to go through it, at some point.
The following is taken from David’s interview in 10 Super Coaches.
How would you suggest coaches find their niche?
I think there are two ways that you can do it. Firstly I would say – relax. If you don’t find your niche straight away it doesn’t matter. You can coach everybody and anybody for a couple of years and just see how it goes.
Secondly, you can work with a mentor coach, which is a great thing to do. I’ve worked with somewhere between eighty and a hundred coaches and one of the main things we do first is look at who would they like to coach, and what they would like to coach that person on.
Now once you choose your niche, it doesn’t mean that’s the only group you have to work with, but you can focus your website and your business cards and your business name on that niche and still coach other people who might be attracted to you.
The following is taken from David’s interview in 10 Super Coaches.
Do you recommend offering free coaching?
I do recommend offering a free initial session, I think that’s quite smart. This isn’t like the profession of being a doctor where people are looking for you already and they’ve been to a doctor twenty times in their life.
This is a profession that a lot of people don’t know about and they may not trust yet until they’ve experienced it, so I think offering a free session makes a lot of sense. A lot of businesses give a free consultation, so whether or not you call it a free coaching session, or a free consultation, at least have a ten-minute chat to find out what their goals are and to explore ways that coaching could help them.
If you can help them find their goals, if you can help them get clear on what they really want to have in their life, then that’s going to inspire them. They’re going to be excited when they get present to that. The next thing they need to see is that working with you is going to help them get that. So if you get those two things covered – that they get inspred about their goals and the could see how coaching could help, then chances are you’re going to have a client.
