To be a coach and make an impact, one must have clients, to have a coaching business those clients must be ones who pay.
Coaches Care
I have never met a coach who doesn’t want to make a difference.
Every coach does.
We know the transformational nature of coaching and we want to use our coaching skills to help others move forward in life. To help them get where they want to be as simply and easily as possible.
We know we can really help people, but to help them, we have to find people who want to be helped – and that’s the rub, isn’t it?
It’s so easy to get caught up in the process of coaching. It’s a fabulous process and it involves us trusting our client, trusting ourselves and trusting the process. And it works.
Coaching is wonderful!
Coaches’ Frustration
The frustration comes when we finish our coaching programme. Then we discover that people aren’t anywhere near as excited about the coaching process as we are. How can they not be?
We struggle to articulate what the coaching process involves and can result in, and end up knowing that we fell short of describing the life-changing experience we know it to be.
How can you possibly articulate the impact of coaching when it can be so profound? It’s so hard to do.
I was talking to a coach recently who, having taken a coaching qualification and become evangelical about the benefits of coaching, spent the next 6 months having appointments with his corporate contacts and, despite speaking to dozens of people, was dismayed to find that not a single one of them was interested in engaging him to coach their senior people.
He knew that he could offer tremendous value to the organisations, but somehow found himself lacking when it came to articulating the benefits of coaching to them.
How Can You Transform Lives If No One Wants To Engage With You As A Coach?
The skills required to articulate a value proposition are completely different to those that are required to coach. The are marketing and sales skills – and yes, I know that those words make lots of coaches squirm.
Having an executive coaching qualification that means you can coach C-suite and senior executives isn’t enough on its own. Just because you can charge £500+ for a coaching session doesn’t mean anyone will pay you that. Sticking to your pricing guns “because my qualification was expensive and this is what they told me I should price myself at” is all very well, but unless someone understands your value proposition and how they and their organisation will benefit from your coaching, they won’t pay it.
I know several coaches who returned to employment whilst sticking to their £500+ per session guns….
You Can Charge Corporate Rates And Still Make An Impact
Here’s the thing. You can charge corporate rates if you are able to articulate value. Teaching coaches how to articulate the value of their coaching is a particular skill and it’s one in which The Coaching Revolution excels.
Unless you can help the organisations you want to work with to understand why they should work with you, to understand what’s in it for them, you will remain on the outside looking in.
Those who want to make an impact, to actually begin to make the difference that changes cultures and to leave that legacy of positive change, they need to polish their marketing skills.
Marketing, like coaching is a process. Once you understand the process, you can – like you do with your coaching – trust the process.
It’s that simple.
Want to talk? Here’s my diary.