Monthly Archives: June 2011

I “Sell” Coaching! 1

 in Guest Post  tagged belief / Billy Moyer / business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / decision makers / executive coach / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / needs urgent / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / products services / selling / SOS Coaching Network

In this week’s guest post Billy Moyer shares his thoughts and experience about what he thinks is the most important thing that we do as coaches …

I “Sell” Coaching!

By Billy Moyer

One of the biggest misconceptions in the coaching industry is that we are coaches first. We are sales people first and that is the most important thing we do. That is not to take away from the power of our coaching, but it is impossible to coach someone if you do not first sell them on working with you.

I work with a lot of coaches as part of my company, the SOS Coaching Network. I ask coaches what their biggest challenges are and I always get the same answers: Business development and sales.

Why are business development and sales the biggest challenge? Most coaches focus too much on everything else. They want to create their own content, when they could easily use someone else’s.

The SOS Coaching Network offers great content that is customized for the coach to make it look like it is theirs. We do this to get the coach to focus not on creating content, but on selling that content! Coaches are the masters at “I will make those calls later”, “I have to finish writing this article” or “I have to go speak to a group of non-prospects.”

The key to success in coaching is the same as every other industry, SELLING!

We just hired a new associate and eventually he will do coaching himself. But he has no background in it. He was simply a client who really took a liking to the business and decided he wanted to be a part of it. His background is in sales. He is the perfect person to bring on. His focus for his first six months will be to sell our services. He will not do any coaching. After six months of selling this business he will be more ready to build a successful coaching business than 90 percent of people who come into the business.

Here are some reasons people fail at sales:

  • Inadequate Preparation
  • Working with the wrong decision makers
  • Talking products and services too early
  • Failure to make needs urgent
  • Failure to uncover and influence decision criteria
  • Key concerns not addressed
  • Lack of belief

Lack of belief is really an important one to focus on. I can always tell when a “coach” does not believe in coaching. How do I know? They do no invest in coaching themselves. How can you sell someone else on coaching when you do not believe enough in it to have a coach?

The keys to success in selling coaching are simply belief and accountability. You can get both of those by investing in your own coach. If you want to grow your coaching business then commit to it. Get out there and find prospects. Get on the phone. Make sales! Hire a coach to hold you to these things. If you do all of this, you will be successful in this business.

Remember you are not a coach. You “sell” coaching!

About the Author/Further Resources

Billy Moyer is the co-founder and president of the SOS Coaching Network, which unites an elite group of coaches, trainers, and consultants from around the world, providing them with personalized programs, one-on-one and group coaching, and tools to help them succeed in the rapidly growing coaching industry. He is a Coach to Coaches. Learn more at www.soscoachingnetwork.com.

Do coaches need to be confident? 6

 in Coaching  tagged business coach / business coaching / career coaching / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching content / coaching courses / coaching model / coaching preparation / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / confidence / confident / executive coach / explaining coaching / fake / focus / Free resource / inner critic / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / listening / negative thinking / negative thought / performance coaching / personal development / questions / selling / thinking / thoughts

I’m often interested to see the searches that people do that lead to this blog for coaches. Some are quite frankly mystifying but one recently attracted my attention as it was the simple question, “do coaches need to be confident?”

So my coaching related post today is going to give my own personal answer, with reasons. I invite you to consider your own answer, as well as how that fits into how you are currently coaching.

Now considering one of the programs I offer to support coaches is “From feeling a fake to confident coach” my actual answer may surprise some. No, I personally do not think that coaches need to be confident. I think that it is perfectly possible to run a coaching session without feeling confident.

Confidence is one of those things that we cannot nip down to the local supermarket and pick up a tin of – it means something slightly different to each person. Just so that I am perfectly clear, I’m talking about feeling confident. I’m not talking about someone’s competence with my previous statement.

For some it may be true that a reason for them feeling a lack of confidence is genuinely because their skill levels have not been developed – it’s not always the case, hence my statement that you do not need to be confident to run a coaching session.

I do think that there are many benefits to being a confident coach. Here are just 7 of my initial thoughts:

It’s often makes coaching easier

How does your lack of confidence effect your coaching? If you are not confident then it’s easy for your client to start questioning the coaching and shift their focus off what they want etc.

It feels better and is more enjoyable!

Whilst your client may or may not have a suspicion about how you are feeling there are two of you involved in this coaching conversation. There is nothing to say that, as a coach, you can’t enjoy your work – in fact I personally encourage you to enjoy your work. 🙂

It’s easier to focus on your client if you’re not afraid someone is about to discover that you’re a fake etc

Coaching is much easier when you are listening and focusing upon your client and not any negative thoughts in your own head. I wrote last week about 3 ways to keep your focus on your client and not on your inner critic or negative thoughts etc.

If you trust your skills and coaching instincts you will ask the questions/give the feedback that you think will make the difference.

Often if a coach is not confident they can question yourself about what they will think about you, if that’s the right question etc and hold back from asking a question or giving certain feedback.

You will allow yourself to take the coaching in a different direction if the first one isn’t going anywhere

Coaching conversations are like any other conversations, they can take a turn in a different direction at any time depending upon the response the other person gives. Sometimes I see coaches/trainee coaches think negatively of themselves because they either haven’t got a plan about how a session is going to go or any plan they had alters as the session progresses.

You don’t hold yourself back from taking action just because you don’t feel confident

To run a coaching session you need a client. I’ve often seen coaches who share that they don’t feel confident reluctant to take action to actually get a client – either paid or unpaid. What action would you take if you were more confident about your coaching?

If you are “selling” the idea of working with you, a potential client is more likely to say yes if you appear confident in your own service and skills.

I’ve already mentioned that to run a coaching session you need a client. There are many strategies that you can use for marketing and sales and this isn’t a post about the numerous approaches that could work for you.

Even if you are not asking for an exchange of money you are asking a potential client to invest their time and effort. If you don’t appear confident and appear to be questioning if it will work etc how likely are they to say yes?

At the start of this post I said that coaches do not need to be confident to run a coaching session. What do you think? Feel free to share your comments below.