sports coaching

Are You Walking It?

8 April 2011 in Guest Post tagged authenticity / business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / congruence / executive coach / Kaizen Training / leadership / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / Richard Nugent / sports coaching

In this week’s Friday guest post successful coach Richard Nugent, who provided a fantastic guest post last year, returns for a second time. This week he shares his thoughts about congruence in coaching.

Are You Walking It?

by Richard Nugent

Ok my wonderful fellow coaches let us start with a question. Do you have a coach?

I hope the answer is a resounding YES! If not how congruent is it for you to ask your clients to fork out their hard earned cash to pay for one? In my view it is a basic requirement for a coach to have a coach. I certainly won’t employ a coach who doesn’t have one themselves.

Reflecting on this got me thinking about the broader context of congruence in coaching. Authenticity is such a key factor in leadership – actually it is the number one thing that most followers want from their leaders – it should also be considered with the same importance in coaching.

For example, while there are many, many wonderful people in the NLP world, I do struggle at the number of people that I experience at events who seem to be coaching from the world view of their own issues.

There is some similarity in the number of coaches looking to develop a business in coaching other coaches to build coaching businesses! That is great with me if you have a continuing track record of making great money and adding huge value for clients as a coach. It is less congruent if your track record is in marketing or internet business building. This suggests you can build a great coaching practice regardless of coaching skill, ability or experience – let us hope not.

I am sure that few of the readers of this wonderful site fall into either of these categories however it is a great chance for us all to check in with our congruence as a coach or as I like to call it our ‘doing-what-we-say-on-the-tin-ness’.

Here are some useful questions I have been considering.

To what degree are you aware of who you are creating yourself as (as a coach)?
To what degree are you congruent with that identity? Consider this from every angle including fees, environment, how you dress, the clients you choose/agree to work with, the results you achieve, and the beliefs and values you operate from.
Do you set your clients’ standards high enough?*Do you set your standards high enough?
To what degree do you love what you do as opposed to being in love with how you imagine it could be ‘if only’?
How much time do you spend in pursuit of ‘should goals’ or ‘recurring goals’? Congruence means knowing when to ‘do’ and when to let go of thinking that you should do.
How much time do you spend working on your business and how much do you spend working in it. All businesses need time energy and focus.

The reflection as you would expect is that I am hitting the spot in some areas and have work to do in others. What I do know, and I am proud of, is that I hold authenticity as more than an aspiration but as a key success factor for me as a coach and for my coaching business.

Indeed as I reflect on many of those that have had successful practices over a prolonged period they were absolutely congruent with the identity they operated from. Whether you like, agree or appreciate the ‘big names’ in the industry, if they were to reflect on the questions above they would undoubtedly be able to give themselves nine or ten out of ten in every one of these areas.

If you think you can do more, achieve more and earn more as a coach then consider this final question, what simple change can you make to ensure that you are more congruent in your coaching identity than ever before.

About the Author/Further Resources

Richard helps successful business leaders to move from being ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’. He challenges clients to change the way they think about work, to focus on what is most important and to stop firefighting for good.

His work is based on three key beliefs:

If you can think it, you can do it
Leaders must be prepared to go first
To perform at the very highest level you must have a passion for what you do

Clients’ return on investment from his energetic and ground breaking work is well into the millions of pounds, dollars and euros. His reputation as one of the UK’s leading transformational leadership coaches has been cemented by outstanding results with an impressive client list including Tesco Bank, EDF Energy, Merlin Entertainments, ASOS and Lego. He also serves as a consultant to a number of colleges, business schools and professional footballers and cricketers.

www.kaizen-training.com

You can read Richards last guest post “The Evolution of a Coach” here.

Who Is Your Ideal Client and Why Do You Need One?

25 March 2011 in Guest Post tagged business coach / business coaching / charging / Cindy Hillsey / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / communication / executive coach / ideal client / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / marketing / niche / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / sports coaching / target market / Virual Partnering

As a coach do you already know who is your ideal client? In this week’s guest post Cindy Hillsey shares her thoughts and expertise about how to identify your ideal client and why that’s important.

Who Is Your Ideal Client and Why Do You Need One?

By Cindy Hillsey

The topic of the Ideal Client is being discussed more and more frequently these days. Look around you. How many times have you read an article, attended a teleseminar, and/or had a conversation with someone where the topic turned to, “Who Is Your Ideal Client?” Why do you suppose this is? In fact, you may have gotten to a point where you’ve heard this question posed so often that you dismiss it with a wave of the hand and think, “of course I know who my Ideal Client is, who doesn’t?!” A truism in business is that if it’s a recurring theme it means that it’s not only important, but that it’s not being done by the majority. If everybody was doing it, there would be no need to discuss it.

If I were to ask you right now, “Who is your Ideal Client and why?” what would you tell me? Would you be able to do it without hesitation and in a crystal clear and concise manner? Would you have to pause before you answered the question? Very few people can answer this question without hesitation and pause. If you can answer without hesitation and pause, I want to congratulate you. Keep doing what you’re doing! For the rest of us, the ability to answer this question could mean the difference between having clients and not having clients.

While this seems like a very simple question, it really is not. It is a question you should spend a significant amount of time thinking about and getting very clear around. Let’s take a moment and review some essential elements of the Ideal Client:

It’s counter-intuitive in the sense that it is most effective when your Ideal Client is highly specific and narrow.
When you try to be everything to everybody, you end being nothing to anybody.
There is a common center of interest and/or lifestyle of your Ideal Client.
Your Ideal Client exists in a sufficient quantity.
Your Ideal Client has the ability to pay you.

What does having an Ideal Client do for you and your business?

An Ideal Client provides you with a clear vision and an obvious focus.
It enhances your credibility and your reputation.
It increases the demand for your services because of the specialized market.
It greatly simplifies marketing and increases your return on investment (ROI).
It provides a firm base from which you can expand your business.

I do want to take a moment to make certain you understand we are not talking about a Target Market or a Niche Market. Your Ideal Client is different from your Target or Niche market. People get stuck in the Target Market/Niche Market terminology. As a matter of fact, many times you will hear someone use Ideal Client, Target Market, and Niche Market all in the same sentence. Talk about confusing! Discovering your Ideal Client goes far beyond the Target Market/Niche Market terminology. Knowing who your Ideal Client is at a deep core level is one of the foundational pieces of your business.

It is important to remember that a Target Market/Niche Market is not your WHO. It’s a classification system. Just because you identify someone as an Ideal Client who is in a particular Target Market/Niche Market, it does NOT mean that ALL members of said Target Market/Niche Market are YOUR Ideal Client! It’s more foundational to identify the qualities and characteristics that you want to work with in a person than it is to identify some broad classification, because ultimately no matter what business you are in you end up dealing with individuals, right?

In fact, Target Markets/Niche Markets are actually derived from the more fundamental Ideal Client piece. For example, here are some of the characteristics I look for in my Ideal Client: Female, age 35-45, Service-Based Entrepreneur, who is positive, energetic, and honest. They respect my knowledge. They are do’ers. (This is not a comprehensive list, but will give you a feel for what I’m talking about.) From my clients who fit this criteria, I can clearly identify two Target Markets: Virtual Assistants and Coaches.

Note that I started with the Ideal Client and their characteristics NOT the Target Market/Niche Market. Conversely, let’s suppose for a moment that I insisted that I wanted to pick a Target Market/Niche Market, and I chose Coaches. It stands to reason that because I’m choosing a classification many of the coaches that come to me would not be my Ideal Client, because my Ideal Client is based on attributes and characteristics.

So, how do you go about determining who your Ideal Client is? I would suggest you write a story about your Ideal Client. Give him/her a name, an education, a family life (single or not), a social life, a business, and a problem they have in their business that you can help them with. Get very detailed. Let me repeat that…get very detailed. I want you to know this person like you know your family!

These questions should help you begin to craft your Ideal Client:

What are the basic characteristics of your Ideal Client? (demographics, age, gender, salary, education, location, etc.)
Who are your clients? Are they business executives, artists, small business owners, micro business owners?
What kind of values does your ideal client have? Do these values match yours?
What exactly do your Ideal Clients do? How do they need your help? (Be very specific in your answers to these two questions.)
How do your Ideal Clients treat you? Do they pay on time? Do they understand you are a business owner and treat you as such?

Whether you know exactly who your Ideal Client is or not, please take the time to answer the above questions so that the next time you are asked, “Who is your Ideal Client? you can answer them without hesitation!

About the Author/Further Resources

As a Business Coach, I work with Service-Based Entrepreneurs, and I specialize in working with Virtual Assistants. Visit http://virtualpartnering.com for my FREE mini e-course on, The Six Basic Keys Every Business Should Have, along with other free resources.

Connect with me:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/VirtualPartnering

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cindyhillsey

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cindyhillsey

Is Your Coaching Business at Risk? 12

4 February 2011 in Guest Post tagged business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / code of conduct / confidentiality / Continuous Professional Development / contracting / CPD / data protetion / Dave Doran / ethics / executive coach / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / regulation / risk / S4P Coaching Ltd / sports coaching

In this week’s guest post Dave Doran discusses some potential risks he sees in running a coaching business.

Is Your Coaching Business at Risk?

by Dave Doran

Recently there has been much debate about the licensing and regulation of Coaching, bringing it into line with similar health-care professions such as Counselling and Psychotherapy. Although there is some regulation of coaching within sport, many coaches working within the business and lifestyle sectors do so without regulation. As a result the majority of coaching literature, especially within coach education, is focused on coaching models and processes, with minimal information about the risks to coaches operating in an unregulated environment.

This, in my opinion, has created a coaching culture where certain coaches operate businesses unaware of the risks created by legislation outside of coaching. But whilst the “regulation of Coaching” debate continues there are still areas where coaches can raise their awareness and minimise the risks to their business. These can be considered as;

1. Contracting.

This is one of the most important areas of coaching. A coaching contract should not only set out the legal and financial elements of the coaching relationship but define the professional and psychological boundaries under which the coaching will take place. Some important issues to consider are;

A clear definition of the coaching to be undertaken.
Referral mechanisms, should issues fall outside the coaching boundaries agreed (e.g. counselling, GP, financial advisor.)
Boundaries of confidentially.
Is the agreed professional level of the contract within the competence of the coach?
Have any potential areas of conflicting interests been identified?

2. Confidentiality/Disclosure and Data Protection.

The premise that everything in the coaching relationship is confidential is untrue. There are certain occasions when a court could order a coach to disclose information about a coaching relationship. Additionally there is a legal basis where coaches would have a duty to disclose information received in a coaching relationship. This includes information about;

Serious harm (or potential of) to the client or others.
Serious crime.
Issues that may affect the protection of a child.

A civil court could also ask for client notes where a client was seeking damages against a coach for malpractice; occurrences of which are now happening in the USA.

These instances highlight the need for coaches to look at what notes they are keeping of coaching interactions, what they are recording and how the data is being stored and protected.

3. Code of Conduct and Ethics.

Another key subject for discussion, but in essence there are two clear areas for deliberation. Firstly does the coach/coaching business have a clear and published Code of Conduct? Secondly, are the ethical boundaries under which the coach/coaching business operates clearly defined?

There are numerous Coaching Associations who have produced Codes of Conduct which cover many of the ethical issues encountered in coaching. Having membership of a reputable Coaching Association and a coaching practice operating within agreed published Codes of Conducts greatly reduce the risks to a business.

4. Continuous Professional Development (CPD).

What constitutes CPD in an unregulated industry? Again this is a dialogue that has been under discussion for some time, only recently receiving attention within coaching literature. How do Coaches know what is relevant to the development of their business or profession? And how would that development/learning stand up if challenged?

The Health Professions Council, who are in the process of regulating Counsellors and Psychotherapists, provide guidance on standards for CPD. These include;

Maintaining an accurate up-to-date record of CPD activities.
Ensuring that CPD has contributed to the quality of practice and service delivery.
That CPD activity benefits the client.
And that CPD activity combines educational/theoretical activities with work based/professional activities.

These are just some of the issues facing Coaches and their businesses in terms of risk management. There are other areas such as Supervision and Coach Education which have not been covered, but can be considered to be of equal importance.

Although Coaching as an industry continues to operate in an unregulated environment there is still legislation in existence that creates inherent risks to the Coaching Industry and more work needs to be done to raise awareness in this area. Ultimately coaches not only have a duty of care towards their clients but one which protects themselves and their business.

Hopefully this article has raised more questions than provided answers. So what are your views about Coaching in an unregulated industry?

The legislation referred to in this article is legislation within the United Kingdom. Readers from areas outside of the UK should check with the legislation of the country in which they are coaching

About the Author/Further Resources

Dave has been involved in the Coaching industry for over 25 years. After gaining a Masters Degree in Coaching, at Brunel University, he spent two years lecturing on ethical issues and risk management for coaches within sport.

Dave now runs his own Performance Coaching Company S4P Coaching Ltd. www.s4pcoaching.com and writes a regular blog about issues around Coaching and Performance at www.s4pblog.com

If you want to speak further contact Dave through the blog or website or at in**@*********ng.com

9 Traits Parents Wish for in Their Kids’ Coaches 4

28 January 2011 in Guest Post tagged Bill McCartney / business coach / business coaching / challenge / charging / child / children / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / communicates / consistent / encourage / enjoy / executive coach / honesty / kid / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / models / nlp coach / parent / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / positive / pushes / sports coaching / traits

In this week’s guest post Janis B. Meredith discusses what she wants from one specific type of coach – how many of these are similar to what the people who use your coaching want?

9 Traits Parents Wish for in Their Kids’ Coaches

by Janis B. Meredith

Parents of athletes are not looking for flawless humans to coach their kids. We realize there is no perfect coach.

But we do have a wish list. As a coach’s wife for 27 year and a sports parent for 17, I know what I want in a coach and I’m pretty sure most sports parents would agree. I appreciate a coach who:

1. Speaks honestly in the pre-season. Kids do not want coaches to make false promises of playing time or of how they are needed, or tickle their ears with words like “You will be a leader on the team”—and then not follow through. Coaches should be up front with players about their role on the team.

As a high school softball coach, my husband has had many honest talks with girls before the season about their role on the team. If they will have a back-up role, he tells them so. They may not like what he says, but at least they know exactly where they stand.

2. Keeps consistent with the rules. Moms, dads, and players want a coach who makes all players—yes, even the team star—abide by the same rules. If the team rule is that two fouls in the first half puts you on the bench, then a coach should not bend those rules just because she desperately needs that player on the court. What kind of message does it send if we let an athlete think that they are above the rules?

3. Clearly communicates to parents. Parents like printed practice, game, and team meal schedules. They like having a team parent who reminds them to work the snack bar. They like a coach who plans ahead and then lets parents know the plans. As parents, we’ve got a lot to remember and when coaches take the time to clearly communicate, it lessens the conflicts and confusion in our homes.

4. Clearly communicates to players. I love it when I see a coach who, when he pulls a player out of the game, take a few seconds to coach him. Kids need to know what they did wrong and what they did right. How else will they improve? Trouble is, many coaches will not take the time to do this during the game. They pull a kid, then keep them guessing as to what they did wrong. Frustrating.

5. Pushes and challenges players. My kids’ favorite coaches were ones who challenged them and pushed them to be better players. Neither parent nor child wants a coach who acts as a babysitter and does not help them improve their performance. As a football and softball coach, my husband says that if an athlete does not leave his team as a better person and player, he has not done his job as a coach.

Bill McCartney, former coach of the Colorado Buffaloes says it this way: “All coaching is, is taking a player where he can’t take himself.”

6. Treats players fairly. There’s nothing more frustrating than a coach who pulls a kid out of the game for one mistake, while leaving another player in the game who commits the very same mistake over and over. As parents, we don’t ask for special treatment for our kids, we ask for fair treatment.

7. Encourages players. Personally, I don’t mind a coach who chews on my kid, as long he balances it out with encouragement.

8. Enjoys the kids. A coach who enjoys kids—not just coaching or not just the sport—will have a greater impact on those kids’ lives. Why? Because kids will seek him out. They will be drawn to him, feel comfortable with him, and never feel like they are bothering him.

My husband is one of the best examples of this that I know. He has always loved high school kids. And the kids know it. They never hesitate to come up and talk; in fact, they often seek him out. Because he taught them how to swing a bat? Or block on the line? Maybe. But more likely because they know he likes them.

9. Models positive traits. Parents like to know their kids are in good hands, that they are spending time with people who exhibit good morals, a caring attitude, integrity, and authenticity.

Are we expecting too much from our kids’ coaches? After all, they are parents and teachers and construction workers and lawyers and doctors and grocery clerks—just like us.

Exactly.

I ask nothing more from my kid’s coach than I ask of myself.

About the Author/Further Resources

As a coach’s wife for 27 years and a sports parent for 17, Janis sees life from both sides of the bench. Follow her blog at http://jbmthinks.com, her tweets at jbmthinks and her facebook page at www.facebook.com/sportsparenting.