Coaching Blog

"People who are coaches will be the norm. Other people won't get promoted."- Jack Welch, CEO, General Electric

That's the story in a nutshell. People who work with people and know how to coach effectively will lead more productive teams and improve the company's bottom line. Their team members will report more job satisfaction and  fulfillment. Everybody wins.

However, you need to have a job before you can get promoted.

The current job market is one of the toughest that most of us have ever seen. If you're job has been automated or shipped overseas, or if you just don't fit the ideal employee profile that potential employers are searching for, you're probably wondering how you can reinvent yourself to succeed.

I won't tell you to become a coach.

Coaching as a profession really isn't for everyone, but coaching as a skill set is something everyone should consider, especially if you're looking for a way to make yourself more employable. And I'm guessing you might also prefer to have more fun, money, fulfillment, accomplishment, and job promotions, as well. Who wouldn't?

This article isn't for people who want to become professional coaches, unless you just like knowing that coaching skills will always make you more employable, in case you ever want to get a "regular" job again. I'm writing this for people who would benefit from upgrading their coaching skills, so they're more successful in other careers.

The numbers are impressive. 

At any given time, there are tens of thousands of job openings that require coaching skills.Yes, some of them are for sports coaches, but virtually every other type of position as well, from nurses, to chefs, to managers, to sales professionals, even to engineers! Go online and look for yourself. The problem is that most folks don't really know how to coach their people.

But what if you did? 

What if you used this time to invest in becoming an excellent coach? Not just by sitting in on a weekend course, but by practicing and working at becoming an effective coach? It's just a thought. 

• If you've ever wondered how you could inspire your people to do their very best
• Or how to get the information you need without interrogating people
• Or if you've ever wondered how leading a productive team could be fun, and at the same time help you finish projects on or ahead of schedule and still bring in more money for the company.
• Or maybe you've wondered if it's possible to wake up on Monday morning anticipating another great work week.
• Or maybe you've just wondered how to motivate twenty-somethings to show up for work looking and acting like professionals. A recent episode of 60 Minutes summed it up nicely:

Stop bossing and start coaching!

Coaching is still one of the professions that's growing, despite the economy and for good reason. When done well, it makes a huge difference. And you can do it well, if you learn what to do and practice it in the right environment. Again, it's just a thought.

Are you a coach who writes a great coaching blog?

Want the world to know how great your blog really is? Then the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Contest was designed for you!

Enter your blog for free. This is an awesome way to spread the word about your blog and attract new readers to it. It's also a fantastic way to engage your current readers, by inviting them to vote and give feedback. People love to get involved supporting the folks they believe in and now you can give your readers the opportunity to support you by voting, adding comments (love notes?) to your entry and inviting their friends to come support you, too! 

Who can enter? Any self-described coach (Life coach, business coach, executive coach, corporate coach), coach organization, coaching company or coaching school can enter, as long as the posts in your blog are about coaching related topics. We reserve the right to reject a blog that is not about coaching or coach related topics, is pornographic or offensive, or is just an ecommerce site pretending to be a blog. (No appeals, sorry!) 

Who decides the winners? The people who vote decide! We're using an automated voting system. We do not control who wins, except for one blog, our own. Our blog can be voted on (we want readers and feedback, too!), but it  won't be allowed to win.

What will you get if you win? You'll get a badge for your blog and/or website (similar to the one above) that declares you the winner (1st, 2nd, 3rd Place, Top Ten, or Honorable Mention), plus a write up in this blog that includes a few cool comments left by your fans and a permanent link from this site to yours. Plus bragging rights!

Why are we doing this? Blogs are a great way to reach out to the world and engage in transformative conversations. And isn't that what coaching is all about? We see this as a cool way to spread those conversations wider and wider and exchange more wisdom with great people. Read more about why coaches should be both reading and writing blogs.

When can you start voting? We're targeting May 8th for the date the contest goes live, but nominations start today and will continue through May. Voting ends June 30th and the winners will be announced July 1st! [Update: Vote for your favorite coaching blog here.] Watch for announcements that it's time to vote!

Know someone else who should enter the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Contest?  Send them this link to enter: http://tinyurl.com/coaching-blogs Or, use the links above to share with your friends and colleagues on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. 

People often ask me what makes coaching different from other professions, such as consulting and the like.

There are a number of things that set coaching apart from other professions, but one of the major skills that a coach has, that many other professionals lack, is that a coach knows how to talk with a client in a way that not only leads to successful solutions and strategies, but also leads to the client actually taking action and succeeding with those solutions.

That might sound like a big "Duh" to you, but if you are a professional expert in any field, then you've probably had the following frustrating experience... 

Whether you're a doctor, lawyer, indian chief, financial planner, personal trainer, dental hygienist (or parent); you've probably had client conversations where you:

1. Understood the client's problem perfectly

2. Came up with the best possible solution

3. Instructed the client in how to implement the solution effectively

4. The client agreed that your solution was the answer to their problem

5. The client promised to implement the solution as per your instructions, but...

The client never does what you tell them to do.

Clients can be so frustrating, right? Why do they pay you, if they're not going to follow your directions? Are they just lousy clients? Do they have a secret desire to fail? Are they here to just drive you crazy??

Actually no. The client isn't the problem here.

You are.

Good coaching is so extraordinarily effective, because a good coach knows how to have a conversation with a client that not only leads to the best solution, but - more importantly - leads to the client actually taking action and creating effective solutions in their own life. The majority of professional advisors out there have no idea how to do this.

It's is a genuine art, which other professionals would do well to copy. For now, though, it is essentially the terrain of the professional coach.The tools employed to create these amazing game-changing conversations include, but aren't limited to:

Curiosity, silence, acknowedgement, truth telling, planting seeds, connecting to values, challenging beliefs, being provocative, keeping it light, honing in on what the client really wants (not just what they say they want), clarifying, championing and more.

The right tool at the right moment makes all the difference between an expensive service that doesn't make a difference and a service that is so transformative that clients don't care what it costs. 

Which would you rather pay for?

Whether you want to become a coach, or you're a professional in another field who wants to have game-changing conversations with your clients, we have a program that will give you all the basics in just four weeks, called Coaching Groundwork. We're probably not charging  enough for it, but for now, you can join it for $325.

If you want to know more, visit our Coaching Groundwork page.

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 2009 

It's often said that investing in your business and/or your education is one of the smartest ways to invest your money, because both will pay for themselves many times over. It's especially smart to invest when prices are low.

About ten years ago, when I was becoming a coach, Thomas J Leonard, the founder of the coaching profession said...

Someday, everyone will have a coach.Given the power that great coaching has to transform lives, that was an awe-inspiring vision.

Thomas also said at that time, that in order for everyone to have a coach, coaches would have to get creative about how they deliver coaching to clients, because originally, coaching was just for the rich and famous and that's how it was priced, with most clients paying between $250 - $1000 per month for private coaching.

Coaching is not just for the rich and famous anymore...

Coaching went "mainstream" years ago and today, most people know or at least think they know what a life coach or business coach is. (No one has asked me what sport I coach in years!) That makes it much easier to market to folks who are neither rich nor famous. 

But one-to-one coaching is still pretty pricey.

So to bring quality coaching to the ever-growing coaching market, coaches are discovering more and better ways to leverage the economy of scale that exists for a service that is in very high demand. In other words, coaches are sharing coaching in innovative ways to higher numbers of people, who each pay less for the coaching they receive.

The first tier down from personal coaching is small group coaching, in which a small group of clients, say, 2 - 10 per group, meet with a coach a few times per month, and each client pays a smaller fee ($100-300 per month). The benefits of group coaching are similar to private coaching, because what the clients lose in personal attention from the coach, they make up with the extra value and synergy that's created by the group, itself.

Group coaching requires skills that are not needed in personal coaching, such making sure each client gets value and no one hogs the calls or hides out in a corner. For that reason, School of Coaching Mastery has its own Group Coaching training for our advanced students. Stay tuned for more on that.

A new form of group coaching that leverages economy of scale to an even greater level, is Compass Coaching. Compass was designed to bring low cost life coaching to people who want personal development, but who either can't or won't pay hundreds of dollars per month for it.

Unfortunately, economy of scale often means the client doesn't get the personal attention needed to really make change. That's why most people don't get lasting benefits from reading self-help books or attending workshops, which are also priced for the masses.

That's where Compass differs. Clients get a choice of "self-guided" online coaching via MP3's and workbooks, which brings passive income to the coach, or they can have large group coaching (10-30 clients), where they do get personal attention. The group coaching is priced incredibly low, $39-59 per month, because the passive income from the self-guided coaching makes up the income for the coach.

Long story short: Clients save a lot of money and coaches still earn plenty of money. Win-win.

It took me a while to see the value in Compass, because I'm not in favor of watering down the power of coaching, just to make it cheap. However, I'm highly in favor of bringing good, affordable coaching to virtually everyone on the planet. Compass has one of the best business models for doing that. I started to get that when I watched Compass CEO, Kim Fulcher, talk about her vision for Compass.

If you'd like to attend a live webinar with Kim Fulcher and hear how Compass can provide you with excellent large-group coaching, or how it can help you earn excellent passive income, Click below to register online and attend the live webinar with Kim Fulcher on Wednesday March 18th.

Great conversation in our first Confab! It left me with lots to think about ever since. I'm honored at the amazing group of coaches who have subscribed, so far, and can't wait to get back together with you! I already feel like twice a month isn't often enough, so I decided to set up a blog, so I'd have somewhere to go when the mood strikes. Originally, I'd planned a newsletter for this group, but a blog fits the conversational style far better. With a group of coaches this experienced and talented, the posts are bound to be mind-bending!

So the Tourist idea really struck a chord with a lot of coaches. Here's the first thing that surprised me: I knew pretty much all coaches go through this stage, but even many of the experienced coaches on the line confessed that they'd answered "yes" to most of the questions in my little questionaire. You know what? I can answer "yes" to a lot of them, too! Hmmm....that's pretty telling, isn't it? 

The first question was a biggy: Is your primary criterion for making decisions about your coaching business always 'What's going to be most fun'? Great criterion for a tourist, maybe not so great for a business owner!

You know, I remember Thomas relishing the truth that building a new business can be hell, sometimes. And he did have the framework, Work is for joy. But notice the framework doesn't say, Work is for fun, or Play instead of work. It's Work is for joy. If the work you do is in service of your true calling, there will be great fulfillment and joy in store for you, but that doesn't mean you won't go through hell, sometimes. (This is a variation on the saying, If you're going through hell, keep going!) 

Here's the best analogy I can think of. I've given birth once and thankfully, I was in labor only 7 1/2 hours. Still, through most of that time, I was exhausted, nauseated and in a lot of pain. It was a bizarre experience, because I'm a bit of a commitment-phobe and that's one time in my life that I found myself in the middle of something I really didn't like, but there was no way I could back out! However, if someone had offered me an alternative like, "Do you want to go do somethng fun, right now, or would you rather stay in labor for several more hours?", I would have been out of there in a flash! I'm not kidding. But of course, I would have missed out on the joys of having a daughter, wouldn't I? 

Well, that's the problem with using fun for your criterion. Just when the going gets tough in your business, you can cop out and play Tiddlywinks! And again, that's why focus is so important. Your life purpose, your business plan, whatever you use to guide your days, will carry you through to your goals. Next time fun comes along to tempt you, ask yourself, "Joy and fulfillment or Tiddlywinks?" 

Want to know if you're just a Coaching Tourist?

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 2005 http://www.yourlifepart2.com