No One Gets Coached Until You Make a Sale

Coaching

But if you are like most people in the helping professions, you HATE the notion of selling. Well, if you want to have a successful coaching business, you’ll have to get over it. The ideas in this blog post will take most of the pain out of the process. Give yourself, and selling, a chance. Recall from the previous post that selling can be defined as a negotiation process in which you and your client organization agree to “Terms of Engagement” that are mutually agreeable and beneficial. Keep that definition in mind as we work through your sales issues. Attitude: Stop looking down your nose at sales people! (It’s discriminatory at best.) Are there some bad-apple sales people? Sleazy, unethical, greedy, emotionally manipulative? Yes. Are there bad-apple coaches? Sleazy, unethical, greedy, emotionally manipulative? Yes. That said, we need to recognize that both sales and coaching are essential functions in our…

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Building a Successful Coaching Business

Coaching, ,

So, you want to be in the coaching business. Excellent! The world needs more coaches. You’ve probably been working at building your coaching chops – reading, taking training, joining professional associations, etc. You’ve been building your SME (subject matter expertise). It’s not enough. Why do 50% of businesses fail within their first five years? it’s not because the owners didn’t have SME. It’s because they didn’t know the business part. Among other things, coaches need to learn to market and sell their services. Remember, no one gets coached until you make a sale! But wait! Most people who like to coach hate marketing, and are terrified of selling. Fortunately, these barriers can be overcome. It just takes some learning, a plan, and perspective. Let’s get that done. We’ll begin by defining marketing and sales: Marketing is simply letting the right people (your target markets) know that your business exists, and…

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Making the Jump

Coaching,

Let me introduce you to a therapist who is taking my current webinar series Introduction to Workplace Coaching – From Therapist to Coach: Broaden Your Skill Set/Create Options – 4 Sessions – Zur Institute. Let’s call her Anne. Near the end of our second session last Thursday, Anne raised an excellent issue. Like many people who want to build a coaching business, Anne was having trouble envisioning how she could turn the skills and experiences she had spent her career building into something organizations would value and pay for. By raising this issue, she did everyone in our workshop a favor. An American by birth, Anne has spent the last 20+ years living and working in Africa. Her life and professional background have naturally exposed her to many expats who work where she lives. While she didn’t say so specifically, it seemed clear that she had talked with many expat…

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Grass Roots! Let’s Make It Happen!

Announcements, Coaching, , , , , , ,

American democracy is under assault. The perpetrator? Toxic divisiveness. I’m not taking political sides here. There are various elements of the political spectrum that have discovered the power of misusing EQ. They use empathy skills to figure out what will frighten people. Then they play on those fears for personal or political gain without regard to the long-term damage that is done. “A country divided against itself cannot stand.” Research done by a Columbia University psychologist found that: 86% of Americans are sick to death of these tactics. But there is no organized voice for them. Outrage is addictive. It lights up the same parts of the pleasure center of the brain as does heroin. Many people seek out their daily fix. In my community of Roanoke, Virginia, some of us have formed a group which seeks to give voice to the 86%. We call ourselves The Roanoke Collaboration Project.…

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Thought Experiment: Imagine that you are . . .

Coaching, Organizations, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thought experiment: Imagine that you are Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s (yes, there are two y’s at the end of his name) executive coach.  How might you approach this assignment? What are the issues that you would have to think through? What emotions might you experience? And finally, how might your thinking about this assignment inform the way you approach your real-life coaching assignments? For myself, I’d first have to get past the awe I have for Zelenskyy’s courage and accomplishments to date, even before the invasion. Being in awe of our clients rarely serves them well. Emotional Self-Awareness with regard to what we feel for our clients is essential. If we’re not tuned into those emotions, unhelpful ones could lead us astray. My own conceptualization of the problem goes this way: President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people seem to have experienced an initial galvanizing adrenalin rush in responding to being…

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Coaching for Resilience

Coaching, , , , , , , , ,

Thanks to COVID, pretty much every organization a coach visits these days has more stress than it did two years ago. Want data? The demand for mental health services is at an all time high. People are acting out their fear and anger in unsocialized ways, including more violence, parents yelling at school boards, political hysteria, alienation based on COVID attitudes, increased traffic accidents, you name it. It is a rising tide floating all boats into treacherous waters. The impact on organizations has been immense, with leaders having to face near impossible questions. “Will we be able to stay in business?” “Should we work at the office or at home?” “When should we go back to the office?” “What policies should we have about vaccinations? Masks? Social distancing?” “Should we fire employees who won’t get vaccinated?” “Do we really have to reconstruct our entire ventilation system?” While case counts are…

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