Coaching Blog

Can new college grads find work this year, or should they just go home and live with Mom & Dad?

With the unemployment rate still hovering near 10%, new college graduates are having an awful time finding jobs this year. Transitioning from college to adult life is tough enough even when the economy is good. There's getting the job, learning to budget, pay the school loans and still buy the stuff you need, all while navigating your social and love life. That's overwhelming, right there.

But this year? For millions it's easier to just delay the whole process and move back in with the parents. Or maybe apply for graduate school and hope things get better in two more years.

Things are so bad, one frustrated NYC mother started her own website called, Get My Kid Off My Couch, with links to resume, blog, social sites, etc., showing off her daughter's skills, because both of them are desperate to get on with their lives and all it will take is just one little job.

Well here's an alternative. If your son or daughter has good communication skills (Check their cell phone bill, if you're not sure), they may want to upgrade what they already have with coaching skills for a couple of reasons.

1. There are still jobs for people who can coach. I just did a search on Indeed.com for 'coach, coaching or coaches' (and I filtered OUT  sports references like tennis, lacrosse, cheer, football, baseball, softball, basketball, etc., etc.). I got back nearly 75,000 available jobs that require coaching skills. Not bad.

2. Coaching can be a lucrative business. Some college grads are skipping the job treadmill all together and just starting their own businesses. Few businesses are as inexpensive to start up as coaching. There's no inventory, no store front, no staff needed, just a computer and a phone. And good coaching skills.

And by the way, that major transition that students go through from high school to college to first job and beyond? That's a huge coaching niche. Who better to coach young people through these major life stages a than those who have just navigated all that, themselves?

However, a very young coach needs coach training to be credible. Happily, new college grads are already good at being students and coach training costs a lot less than graduate school. And it trains them in something they can actually do, too.

For more info on how to become a coach, visit our Become a Coach Hub

  A major right of passage for any professional coach is getting your very first paid coaching client.

Some coaches feel a little anxious until they get their first client, especially if it doesn't happen quickly. But it doesn't have to be that way. My first client volunteered to work with me. In so doing, he inspired me to attract several new clients in my first year of coaching by following the following simple rules. It can be this easy for you, too. These principles can help you stop chasing and let your clients find you, instead.

Your 1st steps are really about setting the foundation for your coaching success. It's almost impossible to show up as a great coach if doubt, fear and anxiety are causing you to feel a little desperate. Here are several things you can do to make the whole process easy as silk and still maintain your enthusiasm.

1. Develop crystal clear goals. Both short term and long term goals need to be clarified. And you might be interested to know that according to the Wall Street Journal, the single variable that is most likely to predict how profitable a business will be is how big the original goal was. Just be sure you have a plan and can see how you will fulfill your really big goals. In the meantime, have smaller, doable goals, so you know you're on track. My 1st year goal for my coaching business was to break even each month, so that my coaching income at least equaled what I was paying for coach training and for my mentor coach. I achieved it. My 2nd year goal was to pay myself back for everything I had invested upfront in my coaching business, so I could make a genuine profit. I achieved that too. By the beginning of my 3rd year, I had a full coaching practice and what I was earning was virtually all profit. Sane goals like these will keep you on track while you're creating the business of your dreams.

2. Simplify everything, including your life and your business. Relationships, jobs, family, volunteer work, etc. can all derail your business plans, if you're not careful. Beware the 'Super Coach' mentality that says you just have to do it all. Nobody can do it all. Since in the beginning, filling your coaching business takes more energy than merely keeping it full, and since early on is when your coach marketing skills are likely at their weakest, plan on putting in lots of hours and energy into your business at least for the first year or two until it's full, with a waiting list, and you have a reliable marketing engine. That may mean learning to say, 'No', a lot more often. Resign from demanding volunteer positions. Explain to the kids that you may miss a soccer game or two. Delegate at work. If coaching is your calling, you owe it to yourself and the world to clear the decks to get your business set up successfully.

3. Make sure all stake holders are on the same page. Speaking of family, friends, etc. Guilt can make building your coaching business more challenging. But your loved ones can also assist you and make it easier. Rather than feel bad that you're not doing as much for everyone else, use your coaching skills to fully communicate what you're really up to. When you share your inspiration and how much this means to you with them, the people who care most about you will whole-heartedly join your team and they may even help you find clients. This is different than trying to convince someone of the value of coaching, by the way. See #6 in tomorrow's post.

4. Get the money handled. When you know you have enough money coming in already, you can afford to trust the process of attracting clients. Starting a business is not like starting a new job. You won't get a paycheck in two weeks. But your time investment will payoff handsomely, if you go the distance. This is a good time to simplify your financial life, along with everything else. Reduce debts by negotiating for lower interest rates. Stop paying for things you aren't using. If you're not confident you have enough money coming in already, consider getting a part-time job. Some of the most successful coaches I've known took service jobs before they became successful. That way, they could focus on what they wanted to create instead of worrying about the money.

5. Tell everybody what you're up to. This is technically known as marketing, a.k.a. telling people how you can help. In your first year of coaching, even if your coaching skills aren't fully honed, yet, share your excitement and inspiration about coaching with pretty much everybody. Don't be attached to getting them to understand coaching the way you do. They probably won't. Do share your energy. That's naturally attractive and even contagious. My first client volunteered to work with me (and paid me) because I shared my excitement with him about what coaching can do. That's all it took! And he continued coaching with me for 7 years. You don't  need to convince people that you can help them. Convincing never works. See below.

Come back tomorrow for the last five secrets of finding your first coaching clients.

Are the first five secrets helpful to you? Do you have secrets of your own to share with other coaches? Please post them in the comments section.

Download the free Coach 100 eBook for more ideas on how to find your first coaching clients.

One of the many hurdles that a new coach might struggle with is getting up that first website.

Honestly, most coaches make this harder than it has to be. And if you're waiting to fill your business with clients until after the website is up, you're giving yourself an unnecessary delay. Why?

• Unless you're an marketing genius, most of your clients won't find you through your site, anyway. At least not at first.
• In fact, most of your clients don't care if you even have a website.
• There are so many other ways to to be found on the web besides a traditional website (social networking, directories, blogs, portals, etc.) that are probably juicier ways to attract clients, anyway. 

But a site's a good thing to have, so if you're struggling with it, here's a great way to get a site up in less than an hour. Buy a URL (web address) and point it to your 'personal web portal' (Bribe your 13 year old nephew to handle the web address, or pay a webmaster, if you must. GoDaddy and HostGator are 2 sites where you can get the address for a few bucks.)

Where do you get a 'personal web portal'? Here are 3 possibilities: flavors.me, chi.mp, and unhub. Watch the demo below to see how flavors works. Easy enough that even you can do it (Let's face it, your nephew's taste in graphics just won't work for your coaching site, anyway.)

Once your portal is up, add links to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MCX, Flickr & YouTube accounts. Then remember to add a link TO your portal from all the social sites and directories that you belong to, so people can find you on the web. You can add your new web address to your business card and Voila! your website problem is solved.

Flavors.me from Jack Zerby on Vimeo.

Get the free Coach 100 eBook for a better way to attract coaching clients.

Artifact From the Future:

On April 1st, 2014, the International Association of Coaching released its new IAC Coaching Supremacies^TM, the intellectual property on which its elite IAC Certified Coach designation will be based, going forward.

Reached for comment, current IAC President, Thomas J Leonard, often called the ‘Father of Coaching' and recently brought back to life via advancements in cryogenics said, ‘I'm pleased with the improvements in coaching during my absence, except for all The Secret hoohah... With the release of the new coaching supremacies, I'd say coaching has reached about 13% of its full potential.' Mr. Leonard founded the IAC in 2003 with the mission to ‘Improve the Quality of Coaching Worldwide'.

Here are the Five IAC Coaching Supremacies^TM:

1. Is Completely Transparent: The Certified Coach is so honest, straightforward and highly evolved that in many cases, he/she has  achieved complete invisibility. This negates the need for pajamas while coaching by phone. The advantage of transparency is that the supreme coach gains complete trust from the client, who often is unaware that the coach is even there. It also aides in Supremacy #2.

2. Really Sees the Client: The Certified Coach doesn't rely on client truthfulness. That can come in short supply. Rather, the supreme coach can view everything the clients says and does, electronically, physically or metaphysically, 168 hours per week and coaches the Truth, not some story about the truth. For the geographically or metaphysically challenged coach, a new iShadow App for iPad can be purchased from iTunes for 99 cents. A copycat version for droidPad is also available for free from Google.

3. Is Utterly Silent: The Certified Coach has mastered the skill of silence so completely, he/she doesn't have to say anything. Ever. And the client is then coached, well, supremely. Supreme coaches say this advanced skill set speeds up the coaching process by at least 10 fold. When contacted for comment, Coach Mattison Grey had no comment.

4. Creates Outcomes by Thinking: The Certified Coach has mastered the Law of Attraction (or Principles of Attraction, if you prefer) so thoroughly that he/she merely has to think and feeeel what the client really wants and the client gets it, pronto. This is casually known as the genie-in-the-bottle skill. No need for poky structures, systems or environments to do the work. That's so 2010.

5. Coaches Beyond Enlightenment: The Certified Coach knows that every level of advanced consciousness carries with it its own peculiar dysfunction. Whether it's complacency, absence of boundaries, severe financial woes, or how to feng shui a cave, even enlightened clients, now estimated to make up at least 50% of all coaching clients, need their own version of a kick in the pants now and then and the supreme coach knows how to deliver it.

IAC Eurasia Chapter President, B. K. Ramalamabananananda, who lives in Mumbai, the current epicenter of professional coaching, and who specializes in coaching Bollywood starlets said, ‘These coaching supremacies are really nothing new. Indian saints have been performing such feats for centuries, so why not coaches?'

Want to stay abreast on the future of coaching? Join our IAC virtual chapter and get this free white paper, plus more goodies. No joke.

Coach Natalie Tucker Miller just returned with some amazing insights from last week's Shanghai Coaching Conference.

School of Coaching Mastery's own Dean of Students, Natalie Tucker Miller, IAC-CC, just returned from her visit to China as keynote speaker for the 2010 Shanghai Coaching Conference. As former President of the IAC and the current Lead Certifier for the IAC, Natalie was a natural choice to keynote for this first ever live IAC coaching conference.

But more than that, Natalie is one of the best examples of a great coach that I know. I'm sure coaches in Asia loved just being in the room with her!

It wasn't easy catching up with Natalie to do an interview, but I knew that our readers from around the globe would be curious to hear about the enthusiasm and desire to embrace coaching mastery that Natalie encountered in Shanghai.

Here's what she told me:

JS: Natalie, thanks for doing this interview. What surprised you most about Asian coaches and the Asian coaching industry?

NTM: Asian coaches are so very interested to be on the leading edge of coaching! It's very inspiring to recognize how much we can learn from one another and that coaching opens those doors of sharing and possibility. The very nature of coaching encourages this as no other profession ever has, and it allows coaching's trademark "win-win".

Coaches around the globe see coaching as a way to bring about positive change for humanity, and there may be no place where that is more evident than in Asia. There is a great desire to help others, and improve the conditions of people's lives and work. There do not seem to be borders for the coaches who recognize these possibilities.

JS: Wow, that's truly inspiring! What stood out for you in terms of the attitudes of Asian coaches toward certification and training?

NTM: There is a powerful desire to achieve high levels of mastery in coaching. The coaches I spoke with in Asia want to know what the requirements for coaching mastery are and what needs to be done in order to fulfill those requirements. They seemed very interested in understanding the nuances of transformative coaching outcomes and learning what it takes to coach at that level.

JS: They sounds like high achievers! No wonder there is so much happening in the Asian coaching world. Describe the people who attended this coaching conference. What were they curious about? What kinds of questions did they ask and what did you tell them?

NTM: It was truly an international conference, with Asian representation as well as coaches from Europe, Australia and North America. There were certified coaches, coaches curious about certification, owners of coach training programs and representatives from companies who either shared their coaching success stories, or wanted to know what to expect by including coaching in their employee support programs.

Since this was based in China, there was a lot of interest in how and even if coaching skills could be applied cross culturally. What was concluded was that, when applying high coaching standards, cultural differences do not inhibit the process. There is great interest and support for the IAC Coaching Masteries® as a model for global standards.

JS: What do you see as the future of coaching in Asia and elsewhere?

NTM: I believe we will see a unifying of global coaching standards and a continued trajectory of professionalism in coaching. And as a huge success for the IAC, I think we'll see more live conferences hosted by the IAC.

Also, there are many Asian corporations bringing a coaching culture into their companies and this will continue to grow to all sectors of business, large and small. As China continues to grow as an economic and business center, there is great potential for coaching to grow there as well as all around the world. There are far more similarities than differences among people and this conference reinforced that for me in a big way!

JS: Thanks again, Natalie, for being the great leader that you are. I know our coaching students feel blessed to get to work with you!

If you have a pasion for coaching mastery and want to train with one of the very best, you can do so very affordably and from where ever you are in the world. Natalie with be teaching IAC Coaching Mastery 7 starting April 6th via live tele-webinar. Join Mastery 7 here.

We also have a limited-time special opportunity for new members of our Full Coach Training Program and Certified Coach Training Program where they can work with a certified mentor coach for three months at no extra charge and Natalie is one of our mentor coaches!

Want to know more about how you can work with Natalie? Call 1-877-224-2680 or email here to make an appointment with one of our enrollment advisors.

Last year's Best Coaching Blogs 2009 was hugely popular.

Over 30,000 visitors read and voted on their favorite blogs and the winners, from all over the world, ranged from big coaching organizations to new coaching students.

We're getting ready to do it again. After reviewing a variety of approaches to help us upgrade security and fairness, we realized we already have eveything we need to run another great contest.

Who can enter Best Coaching Blogs 2010? Any self-described coach who already has a blog. Please don't enter if you aren't at least a coaching student and obviously don't enter this year if you don't already have a blog.

What's the benefit of entering Best Coaching Blogs 2010? Hundreds, if not thousands of new readers, potentially getting picked up by lists of top blogs, connecting with other thought leaders in the coaching world, prizes and bragging rights (including a badge for your site) if you win. Oh yeah, and it's fun!

Right now, we're looking for sponsors to help kick in some prizes in exchange for a little promotion on our site. If you offer a product or service that coaches would be interested in and want to be a contest sponsor, let me know here. (Sorry, contestants can't be sponsors, so you have to choose how you want to play.)

The contest last year ran from May through June, but we'll be accepting entries earlier this year. Watch this blog for upcoming announcements. I recommend you subscribe by email or RSS.

Why do we hold a Best Coaching Blogs Contest every year? Lots of reasons, including:

• Reading blogs is one of the best free ways to learn about this business.
• Participating in the blogosphere is a super way to establish yourelf as a thought leader, even if you don't have your own blog.
• Connecting with bloggers and readers can bring you ideas, opportunities, collaborators and clients.
• Much, much more. 

Subscribe to the Coaching Blog above right, to keep informed about this exciting coaching contest.

We're adding some major upgrades to our students' experiences at School of Coaching Mastery.

One new change is that Dean of Students, Natalie Tucker Miller, IAC-CC, is taking a more active role in orientation of new students, as well as answering questions for ongoing students and helping them stay on track with goals like IAC Coach Certification. Natalie of course, is an amazing coach and master instructor (She's leading our Mastery 6 Clarifying module, this month.). She's also past President and current Lead Certifier for the IAC. This month, she's speaking at the Shanghai Coaching Conference, too. Busy lady! But not too busy to meet personally with new coaching students to help them get off to a fantastic start with their coaching careers.

The second change is one that Curriculum Coordinator, Dee Taviner, has been hard at work on for months. It's a new membership and content management system that is really slick. We are SO excited about the possibilities that this new system adds for our students. Plus, we're adding a whole new way to play for coaches who want inside coaching knowledge, but don't need or aren't ready for a full-service coach training school. We're almost ready for a few beta testers. Please stand by...

And speaking of Dee Taviner, I can't help but mention our ongoing Study Groups. There are so many ways a study group can enhance your career (just ask Natalie), but that topic deserves its own blog post. I DO want you to know that in addition to Dee's Seven Secrets of Certification Student Group, talented SCM coach/student, Heidi Courtney, is now leading the Coaching Co-op Study Group.

Join a free Coaching Study Group here.

I've written a lot lately about how to build a successful coaching business without complex marketing systems or pricing structures.

Here are a few high points on how to give successful complimentary coaching sessions:

• Focus on the client, not on yourself. Your nerves and even your desire to do a good job are all about you. Coaching is all about them.
• Focus on expanding the client's possibilities instead of solving the client's problems. Every great coach knows that problem solving is the least of your gifts.
• Focus on the relationship and the potential relationship. Help the client see what's possible with your coaching.
• Give the client an experience. Of themselves, the value of the coaching relationship and the potential outcomes of working with you.
• Notice all the information that your client and your intuition are sending you. This is how you recognize a good client fit.
• If you and the client are a great fit, invite them to work with you.