Hannah McNamara

Become A Confident Coach 2

 in Guest Post  tagged business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / confdence / contract / executive coach / experience / Hannah McNamara / Karen Williams / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / Michael Neill / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / Self Discovery Coaching / The Secrets of Successful Coaches / toolkit

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.

The secrets of successful coaches 5

 in Guest Post  tagged Allison Marlowe / Blaire Palmer / business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / Dawn Breslin / Duncan Brodie / executive coach / Gladeana McMahon / Hannah McNamara / Karen Williams / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / Marian Way / Michael Neill / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / Self Discovery Coaching / Steve Marriott / success / Suparna Dhar / Suzy Greaves. / The Secrets of Successful Coaches

In this weeks guest post Karen Williams shares her experience and knowledge about running a successful coaching business.

The secrets of successful coaches

what stops coaches from running a successful business?

By Karen Williams

In 2006 I trained to be a coach. After experiencing coaching to help me to refocus my stuck career, I realised that I found my true vocation and started my training with one of the UK’s leading coaching organisations. When I qualified in the November, I set up my business, Self Discovery Coaching. Like many new coaches, I expected clients to come to me as I knew I had a great service to offer to them, but I quickly I realised that I didn’t have a clue about how to run a business.

“The difference between someone who is or is not successful is that total self-belief.” ~ Dawn Breslin

Rolling on a few years, I established a reasonably successful career coaching business, but still felt something was missing. I was also noticing that there were great coaches out there, but many lacked the business know-how to develop a successful business. Many were returning to their previous profession or getting consultancy work to supplement their coaching income.

“Success takes bravery, courage or something. You do things that frighten you; you feel the fear and do it anyway.” ~ Blaire Palmer

I started some research and I found that many coaches were struggling with the same problems:

  • Getting, finding and retaining clients
  • Deciding on a niche
  • Getting the marketing message right
  • Managing their time
  • Being frustrated by lack of funds
  • Demotivation due to lack of clients
  • Taking action rather than waiting for everything to be perfect
  • Having enough self belief and confidence in their skills

So in 2009, when I had to carry out my modelling project for the NLP Master Practitioner qualification, I knew exactly where to start. I decided to model the mindset behind a successful coaching business and had the great opportunity to learn from some coach business owners and model what works for them.

“Success means being the best coach I can be and leading a life that is in balance, in keeping with my values” ~ Suparna Dhar

I realised that I was learning some key principles from each of these people. I had the enormous pleasure of interviewing 11 successful coaches and business owners such as Michael Neill, Gladeana McMahon, Duncan Brodie, Hannah McNamara and many more. So I decided to turn my research into a book, and The Secrets of Successful Coaches was born (out early 2011).

“Success does not require a positive mindset, but enjoying success does. If your coaching business is not a part of your wonderful life, what’s the point?” ~ Michael Neill

So what are their secrets of success?

  • They run a business that they are passionate about, based around their values.
  • They have a strong self belief and a winning mindset, focused on a clear business vision.
  • They have quickly learnt that they have needed the business skills to make their business a success.
  • They have a clear long term vision about their business and take daily steps to make it a success.
  • Most of them have a clear niche that enables them to focus on their ideal customer and how they can help them.
  • For those who don’t have a niche, they create amazing successes with clients that they love to work with.
  • Much of their business is built on referral and recommendation, so they are each great coaches as well as business people.
  • They have great networks that they have developed and many work with other experts in their field to further develop their strengths.
  • They have a good support network, such as a virtual assistant, IT support, a cleaner, associates, and web designer.
  • They have a coach, mentor, supervisor or all three to further develop their business.

“Success is also about being with other people and seeing them grow and develop, and having the satisfaction of having had some part in that, however small.” ~ Gladeana McMahon

So what are you going to do to create your successful business?

In November 2010 I created a mentoring programme for people who are in the early stages of setting up a coaching business. If this is you, you will have a dream, goal or plan, but will find it hard to know where to start. You will probably feel overwhelmed by the volume of information out there and not know where to start. I see creating a business just like baking a cake and you need to know what ingredients you need and in which order to place them in order to make your business a success.

To find out more about the business mentoring programme for new coaches, just email me or call 023 9200 6418 and I am offering a discounted strategy session for the first 5 people who contact me.

About the Author/Further Resources

Karen Williams is a qualified coach and NLP Master Practitioner. She has run a successful career coaching business since 2006 supporting individuals to transform their career and find a job they will love. She also runs a business mentoring programme for new coaches who want to turn their passion into profit.

She is the author of the upcoming book, The Secrets of Successful Coaches and you can find out more about her research and free reports at www.thesecretsofsuccessfulcoaches.com. You can also download free podcasts with people like Michael Neill, Suzy Greaves, Allison Marlowe and other people interviewed for her book which will be available early January.

You can also find Karen on Facebook, follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.