In this week’s guest post, Karen Williams shares her thoughts and expertise about becoming a confident coach.

Become A Confident Coach

By Karen Williams

As an experienced coach, mentor and the author of The Secrets of Successful Coaches, I often work with new coaches who struggle to have the confidence to become known and get clients.

They may believe they lack the confidence to coach. They may be scared of their abilities or lack of experience, worried they will get stuck or are not yet ready to tell people what they actually do.

I had a session with a new coach a few weeks ago and one thing she said to me was that she was expecting an inquisition and it didn’t come. We were just having a conversation – although, a constructive one at that. You don’t have to be formulaic, following the GROW model (although the principles are great), you just need to be or do what your client wants at that particular time.

When I interviewed Hannah McNamara for The Secrets of Successful Coaches, she said to me:

“It’s actually got nothing to do with you and your abilities; it’s what that client needs at that given time. Sometimes they need to be coached, sometimes they need to be taught, and sometimes they just need to offload. And they don’t want someone saying, ‘So what are you going to do about it?’ They just want to hear ‘Oh God, that sounds awful.’”

I love this philosophy. It is not about enforcing our thoughts or ideals onto our clients but being there for them. But on the other hand, I also advocate that sometimes we need to be tough too. If a client wants to achieve an objective but is putting up barriers in the way or is not doing what they say they will do, we have the right to challenge them supportively, to help them to achieve it or to check that this really is their goal.

When I talked to Michael Neill about running a coaching business, this was his advice:

“Be an amazing coach. It starts with your ability to make a difference. If you can’t do that very well, work on your coaching, not on your business. One problem is that a lot of coaches don’t get that coaching is a business, but there are also a number of coaches who don’t seem to get that effective coaching is at the heart of the business. They put all their energy into marketing and getting a website, building their newsletter, raising their profile, but they are not very good coaches yet. First, learn how to change lives – then you can figure out the marketing.”

Very pertinent, I’m sure you will agree. Many coaches, when they qualify, will concentrate on the business skills; but they need to become great coaches too.

So if you want to become a confident coach, here are my six top tips:

1. Learn how to be a great coach

This is more than getting a coaching qualification. Get practice in asking questions, listening to others and building rapport. This can be in a coaching situation with a client, or it can be just in day to day conversations with other people.

2. Get experience

When I qualified, I didn’t have a clue how to market myself as a business. So to become a great coach, I asked in a forum whether anyone wanted pro bono coaching and got 2 clients this way. This gave me the opportunity to further my experience and as one of these became a paying client, this kick-started my business too.

3. Develop your toolkit

You don’t have to attend all the different types of training available, but having a toolkit of resources will help you and your clients greatly. This starts from you and your own skills, and you can build on these with the knowledge you have, the information you can share and the resources you have at your finger tips.

4. Don’t be afraid to get it wrong

Sometimes you just need to put yourself out there and go for it. And don’t worry if you think that you will get something wrong. To be honest, your client won’t know what you were going to say and if you mess up, they probably won’t notice. And if they do, what is the worst that can happen? Learn from it, get it out of your system, and then move on.

5. Contract with your clients

One piece of advice that I give my mentoring clients is the importance of contracting with your client in the first place. Get their permission and find out how they want you to bring them back on track, whether they want you to make suggestions and explore your mutual expectations too.

6. Just do it!

Whether you want to visualise a great coaching session, use affirmations, act ‘as-if’ you are a confident coach, or just get on with it, this is the next step.

Here’s to being a confident coach!

About the Author/Further Resources

Karen Williams is a qualified coach and NLP Master Practitioner. She has been running Self Discovery Coaching since 2006, specialising in helping career changers and those facing redundancy to find a job they will love. She also works with new coaches to enable them to create a successful business and turn their passion into profit.

She is the author of The Secrets of Successful Coaches, which is based on spending time with 11 inspirational performance coaches and sharing their strategies for success. Her book was published by Matador this spring and is available on Amazon or via her website www.thesecretsofsuccessfulcoaches.com.

Karen has also created a great toolkit for coaches with the Self Discovery Success Club to enable them to have the best techniques for both themselves and their clients. You can get a month’s free membership when you buy a copy of her book.