Monthly Archives: February 2012

How to start charging for your coaching – part one 1

 in Coaching  tagged beliefs / business coach / business coaching / career coaching / charging / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching content / coaching courses / coaching fees / coaching qualifications / coaching session / coaching skills / coaching techniques / executive coach / fear / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / money / no / performance coaching / personal development / resource / value

One of the common questions asked by those at the start of their coaching journey is a variation of “How do I move from doing pro-bono/free coaching to charging?”

Before I go any further I invite you to consider why I selected the wording of that specific question. For example, one of the variations of that question is “how do you move from …”

I’d really like this post to be useful for you if you found yourself in this situation, not just an interesting piece of information. So before I go any further, let me ask you,

“What’s stopping you from charging for your coaching?”

There are many answers that could have come up for you to that question, each potentially with a different action that you can take. Below I’m going to discuss just a few of those answers.

Beliefs about the value of your coaching

These commonly are voiced as concerns about being good enough, questioning what a client would value about your work and why anyone would choose you etc.

I’ve written before about how to find the confidence to find clients to coach (Read “Finding the confidence to start coaching” for more specific actions you could take) I’ve also written “3 ways to keep your focus on your client and not your own inner critic/ thoughts” if those questions about your value distract you whilst coaching.

I’d certainly encourage anyone to continue to develop their own coaching skills and knowledge and add to that a plea to share that with others rather than keep it to yourself. If it’s beliefs about the value of your coaching, how will you know when you are good enough?

Beliefs around money

Your beliefs around money can be interwoven with your values and perceptions about the world. There are whole books written around the impact of money beliefs upon wealth and I’m certainly not going to try and sum them all up in such a short space.

What I will invite you to do is consider if your beliefs are getting in the way of you starting to charge for your coaching. If so, you have 3 principal options:

1.      Find a way that your money beliefs and charging for your coaching can work together.

2.      Change your beliefs

3.      Do nothing

If you choose number 1, next week’s post may give you some more ideas. For now, what would have to happen for your money beliefs and charging for your coaching to work together?

Not knowing what to charge and how to have that conversation.

There are many ways to decide upon what you want to charge. I suggest that you consider the points I wrote about in the post “How much is your coaching worth?”

It’s not at all uncommon for someone to tell me that they don’t know what to say when talking to someone about charging for their coaching.

One of the pieces of advice I was given when I first started to charge for my coaching was to practice saying my fees in advance. “I charge x for my coaching” The idea is that you become so used to saying the amount that by the time you come to speak to a real client there is no shock, amazement or doubt heard in the tone of your voice.

Practicing that also means that you “ask and then shut up”. It’s not at all unknown for a coach to have talked themselves out of their own coaching fee without the client saying a word. This usually happens after the coach has done a really good job of communicating the value and their offer to a potential client. Yet they just keep talking to try and answer objections that haven’t been raised.

Fear of getting told no

There’s so much that could be written on this topic. For now I’ll ask the following, if you offer someone a cup of tea/coffee and they decline, what would you think?

I suspect you’d probably presume that they weren’t thirsty, perhaps didn’t want a hot drink or maybe didn’t like tea/coffee at all. Immediately interpreting that as meaning they think you are a terrible person etc is probably not high on your list of possible explanations.

Yet, when it comes to inviting someone to experience your coaching service many view a no as meaning something personal about you as an individual. There will be individuals who at this moment in time aren’t “thirsty” for coaching, others who want to try a different approach and some that have tried coaching before and didn’t like it.

I generally find that it is much easier to have a conversation to invite someone to experience your coaching service if you think of it as a service/product and not as selling yourself.

Just to add …

Next Wednesday, I will continue this in part two and discuss when to make a transition to start charging for your coaching.

What else would you add to the question what is stopping you from charging?

About the Author

Jen WallerJen Waller is on a mission to support, nurture and encourage coaching skills and talents from non-coach to coach and beyond.

She has created a free 7 day e-course about how to create your own unique coaching welcome pack that works for you and your clients. Get your copy here.

The self-publicising cat

 in General life improvement  tagged assistance / business coach / business coaching / career coaching / cat / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching content / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching session / coaching skills / coaching techniques / executive coach / goal / invitations / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / networking / other people / performance coaching / personal development / resource / sharing

This was originally published as a bonus article in the Coaching Confidence weekly email during October 2011. To start getting your very own copy each week enter your details under “Don’t miss a thing!” to the right of this page.

The self-publicising cat

One of our cats appears to have developed a love for self-publicity and telling us what she is doing. When she goes for a drink she’ll meow to tell us she’s going, when she’s finished having a drink she’ll meow again.

As I sat down to write this message there was a meow from behind me – apparently to tell me that she had entered the room and now intended to curl up in comfort.

She is very considerate in sharing what she is doing and if she knows we are already watching, and already know what she is doing, she keeps quiet.

The vet says she is very healthy so it really does seem to be her way of attracting our attention, and sometimes getting our assistance so she gets what she wants – which in her case is usually a fuss or rearranging the bedding so it’s comfier!

Now, before you get any ideas that I’m about to suggest that you to take the example of the cat and squeal every time you enter a room, relax! By all means if that’s the approach that you want to take feel free however there is less extreme approaches you can use – or not use, as you see fit!

Last year I attended a training event where there was a mix of businesses represented. The organisers had purposefully included a section of the day to “network”. I got chatting to someone in the queue for lunch prior to the allotted time for networking.

He was busy sharing that he already knew that there was no point him staying to “network.” He only worked with large multinational companies in certain industries. From an exercise earlier in the day he knew that no one currently worked for a company that size and in the industries he wanted.

As it happened later that day I was talking to someone who had previously worked at a multi-national level in the very industry this gentleman would have loved to have connected with. I looked around to introduce the gentleman I had been talking to at lunch there was no sign of him. Presumably, because he knew there was nobody there directly doing what he’d wanted, he’d already gone home!

Does that mean that if that gentleman had stayed and met this second person a connection would certainly have happened? Well I’m certainly no psychic, so who knows what may have happened. I do know that it’s statistically more likely to have happened if that gentleman had stayed and then asked!

It appeared that the gentleman who missed making this new potential connection had ignored the fact, that we may have a friend, family member, former colleague etc who fitted his description.

This week I invite you to think about a goal/project that you are currently working towards/would like.

  • How many people know what you are doing/want to do?

And as a bonus follow-up question:

  • How many people have you shared how they can assist you with your goal/project?

Have a week full of questions, sharing and invites,

Love

Jen

About the Author

Jen WallerJen Waller is on a mission to support, nurture and encourage coaching skills and talents from non-coach to coach and beyond.

She has created a free 7 day e-course about how to create your own unique coaching welcome pack that works for you and your clients. Get your copy here.

 

5 Big Mistakes that Life Coaches make Networking 4

 in Guest Post  tagged business cards / business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching business / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / communications coach / executive coach / Guildford's social media queen / language / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / marketing / networking / Nicky Kriel / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development

Today, coach Nicky Kriel discusses errors she’s seen coaches make attempting one particular marketing approach.

5 Big Mistakes that Life Coaches make Networking

By Nicky Kriel

You may not know this, but Life Coaches have a bad reputation on the networking circuit. Anyone can call themselves a life coach and start a business without any formal training or certifications. So many people feel that because they have undergone a crisis, it qualifies them to be a life coach. The reality is there are more people wanting to be a life coaches than there are people looking for life coaches.

(Using the Google Keyword tool to find out what people are searching for on the internet, shows that each month 368,000 people search for the phrase “How to be a life coach” vs. 2,900 searches for “How to find a life coach”.)

Now let’s assume that you are still reading this and you are serious about earning a living from helping others develop themselves. What can you do to come across more professionally at networking meetings? Well, here are some of the mistakes that give life coaches a bad name.

1. Not realising that you are running a business

You may feel that you have found your purpose in life through what you do, but if you don’t make any money from doing it, it is just a hobby. It is not enough to be a good coach. You also need to be good at marketing and selling your business otherwise you won’t have any clients. If you don’t have the business skill yet, then it is time to make the effort to learn. There are many people at networking meetings who can give you advice.

2. Bad Business Cards

You don’t have to spend a fortune on business cards, but handing out a cheap looking business card won’t do your business any good. Some of the worst business cards have been given to me by life coaches. Some indications that you don’t take your business seriously are:

  • Printed on a flimsy card,
  • obviously home-made,
  • blatant typos,
  • email addresses or numbers crossed out and corrected,
  • “free” business cards from companies such as Vistaprint
  • Email address is obviously a shared family addresses or a Hotmail or yahoo address

 

3. Saying you can help everyone

If someone doesn’t know what type of customers you are looking for, how can they help you? If you can’t be specific about what type of client you want to work with, how do you expect other people to know whether you are a good match for a friend or acquaintance that needs some help? You cannot help everyone with everything. If you are too general, you will end up with no business.

4. Assuming that everyone knows what life coaches do

Most coaches are good at talking in coach talk with other coaches, but most people in a networking meeting don’t know what life coaching is about. Be aware of any jargon you might be using and think about what other people might be interested in. Stop talking about you and start thinking about what your audience might need.

5. Coming across as though you need a life coach yourself

If you want people to trust their inner most feelings with you, don’t air your dirty laundry or share your latest crisis with people you have only just met. People need to be confident that their secrets are safe with you.

If you are passionate about what you do, you need to find a way to make a living from doing it. Be professional and learn the skills you need to grow your business.

About the Author/Further Resources

Nicky Kriel, Guildford’s Social Media Queen, is passionate about empowering small business owners to use Social Media to grow their business. Her background is in Marketing and Sales and she is a Master NLP Practitioner.

As a Communication Coach, she helps people remember the “Social” aspect of Social Networking: It is not all about tools and technology, but about people and human relations.

Aside from her private coaching clients, she runs Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook workshops for business owners and bespoke courses for SMEs. Nicky really enjoys helping business owners to level the playing field by harnessing the power of social media.

You are welcome to follow Nicky on Twitter or like her “social media for newbies” Facebook page