The following is taken from David’s interview with Marcia Reynolds in 10 Super Coaches.
Would you advice coaches to pursue certification?
Absolutely!! Certification is what distinguishes you from anyone who just calls themselves a coach with no training or experience. We have to uphold certification to keep our profession strong. It is important to join the International Coach Federation and become certified to help keep the integrity of our profession strong in the eyes of our customers.
The International Coach Federation is the only non-profit professional association that is recognized world-wide as credible and sound. It is not aligned with one school, so it is also seen by regulating organizations as a credibile representative of all coaches, regardless of their schooling and background.
The following is taken from David’s interview with Andrea Molloy in 10 Super Coaches.
What were the biggest doubts you had in your early months?
My biggest fear was not getting enough clients to make a living – I focused on my business plan and kept positive! Sure, it was a process, I didn’t launch my practice and then immediately get inundated with clients on day one, it was a process of carefully building up public awareness and trust.
What was most disheartening for you while building your practice?
Often I met people who were cynical and disinterested in coaching, dismissing it as a new-age warm fuzzies fad. I had to consciously hold my head high and be confident abou the power of coaching and remind myself that these people were not my ideal clients, while not judging them in return.
What was the most interesting or exciting thing for you about building your practice?
The success stories! It’s an incredibly rewarding career (especially when you partner with a client on their road to success), and it also allows you a flexible, autonomous work environment. This has enabled me to write my first book, whereas if I had been in a regular full time ‘day job’ I doubt I would have progressed so quickly in my own creative goals.
The following is an excerpt of David’s interview in Top Coaching Techniques.
Ingrid: So that is the case for some people – it does require a great deal of study or skill development before they can move into their actual career – so it’s not as simple as just switching from one to the other. What do you say to those people?
David: That’s a good point. What I would say is, see if you can stick your big toe in the water. So, if for example, with medicine, it takes a long time to become a qualified doctor, instead of going and studying to be a doctor for many years to see if you like it, see if you can get a job as an assistant somewhere in a hospital or around a doctor’s surgery. That way you can start getting involved with it. Get videos out, start kind of immersing yourself in that area to see if it feels good for you. Then maybe there’s an interim step.
The following is taken from David’s interview with Philip Cohen in 10 Super Coaches.
What was most disheartening for you while building your practice?
Going through the training and having a coach of my own let me see the power of coaching. I expected everyone would see what I saw and would immediately want to be coached.
I needed to learn two important lessons: some people will take longer to see the benefits of coaching and some people never will. Once I understood this, I learned to be more patient with prospects. I also learned to spend my time with qualified prospects instead of everyone I met.
What was the most interesting or exciting thing for you about building your practice?
As a CPA, I worked closely with clients. But there were certain parts of their lives that weren’t part of our conversations. As a coach, I began working more holistically with clients and the results were great to see.
The following is taken from David’s interview with Ernest F. Oriente in 10 Super Coaches.
What do you feel is the biggest key to your success?
Far and away, getting so very clear that I wanted to identify my perfect clients and live in their world. The clarity I had on that has been unwavering. It just got better and I got better at doing it, and building better alliances.
I never have lost that focus, I’ve never changed that which is to say ‘here’s who I want to serve, how deep can I live in their world’, and the deeper I did, the more business that came and the more services we provided for them. And the more referrals that came from that. That success has been a formula.
The following is taken from David’s interview with Jim Earley in 10 Super Coaches.
What method did you find most effective in getting your initial clients?
My initial method involved a lot of stumbling around, occasionally getting in front of people, and being of service. What worked was facing my fear, meeting people, and being of service (although I didn’t understand that was what I was doing).
I think it’s more important that you find out if you have the courage to keep going than it is to know the best and easiest way to find business. If you don’t overcome your fears and limitations, what good will you be as a coach?
If I could give my younger self my best advice it would be this: When you meet with people, worry less about what you hope to get, don’t think at all about how desperate you are for a new client. Just serve them. Keep honing your understanding of how you best serve.
