The Prosperous Coach will show you how to:
• Access a set of tools you can use to begin creating your own clients immediately
• Sign clients you love while maintaining your integrity
• Match your unique skills and talents with the clients you serve
• Develop a system that works for you for referrals and new clients, time after time
• Make bold, life-changing proposals
• Move beyond the deep-seated beliefs that hold most coaches back from success for themselves and their clients
• Overcome—forever—the two levels of fear that coaches face
• Move from people-pleasing to powerful service
• Be a world-class coach with highly committed clients
A coach once asked me, “What’s the secret to being an extraordinary coach?”
“Extraordinary clients,” I replied.
“That’s easy to say,” he retorted, “but how do you get extraordinary clients?”
What I said to that coach is what I will now say to you: Be fearless in your coaching. And be fearless in how you create clients. Show your clients what they cannot see. Say to your clients what no one else would dare to say. And you will have all the clients you ever desire.
Set your bar high
The coaching profession has a problem that is two-fold: there is a low bar for entry and a high bar for success. The barrier to entry for coaching is now so low that literally anyone can become a coach. There are companies that will certify you for free, and almost every “coach training company” promises immediate wealth and success if you will just sign up for their coach training. This means that many people experience coaching at the lowest end of the skill spectrum. Coaches who have trained online, coaches who have done a weekend workshop, and coaches who have simply read a book about coaching are hanging out their shingles and offering free sessions to tempt potential clients.
It’s no wonder that despite the incredible results that real coaching can generate for clients, many people will have a poor experience of coaching. But you don’t have to be one of those coaches. You can be extraordinary if you are willing to put in the time, educate yourself, and turn pro. Use that high bar for success to your advantage. Be one of the committed coaches willing to clear that bar.
Choose your level of engagement
We have worked through the years with many coaches who have entered our seminars and schools, or who have studied the art of coaching with us. We know from experience that all these coaches will end up as one of three distinct practitioners: Pro coach Part-time coach Personal Growth Coach
A Pro coach makes her primary living through coaching. And it is a good living—with a yearly income comparable to the income of other professionals in private practice (lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc.).
A Part-time coach is professional in the sense that he charges a good, strong fee for his work, but he has another primary vocation or source of income that sustains him, and he therefore does not rely on coaching for his livelihood. He simply has clients on the side.
A Personal Growth Coach has received training in the profession and “knows how to coach,” but does not do so professionally. Their skills still remain valuable tools for whatever work they do, especially in leadership roles, because good coaching always brings out the best in another person and can be applied almost everywhere people interact. None of these levels is better or more honorable than another.
We’ve trained many coaches who have created a great living from their coaching income. Some now make high six-and even seven-figure incomes as coaches. Several coaches from the Coaching Prosperity School have discovered the joy of coaching part-time. One went back to his first career as a computer programmer, another sold real estate and another led travel adventures around the world. They created an income with their day jobs that freed them from any neediness around signing clients. From that place, they were able to create a wonderful second income doing what they love. A woman in our first Coaching Prosperity School, years ago, fully intended to leave her company and go out on her own as a coach.
But in the course of acquiring the enrollment skills at the school and applying them inside her existing company she was offered a major promotion into a senior leadership position. She loved it and never looked back. She remains today, happily, at the Private level of coaching. For a coach to fully turn Pro, a lot of time and energy must be invested in achieving a mastery level of effectiveness. For coaches there is no law school or medical school to force them into a Pro. They must take it upon themselves to self-educate and make the journey. But that’s the fun part. So hang on and see where this takes you.
Love the hard part
The biggest problem most coaches face is that they think they are entitled to a career. “I’m a really good coach. Therefore I should be able to succeed as a coach.” The problem is that only fifty percent of becoming a successful coach is about your coaching. It’s the other fifty percent that will determine whether you thrive or even survive as a coach. The other fifty percent of what you need to do to become a prosperous coach is what we call Creating Clients. Others call this “Getting Clients” or even worse, “Attracting Clients.” And most coaches call this the “hard” part. But as long as it remains the “hard” part you are not going to succeed. Our motive in writing this book is to have you love this part of your coaching practice. Our dream is to have you master the art of creating clients. Our dream is for you to make the “hard” part easy.
Imagine two boxes. The box on the left is what you do. The box on the right is the business of what you do. The business of what you do includes sales and accounting and making proposals and bookkeeping and paying taxes. Most coaches put all their attention on the box on the left. They do more and more coach training. They invest more and more money in becoming a better and better coach. They love this box and spend money, time and energy over here. But they detest the box on the right. They hate the business of coaching. To them it means selling and asking for money. If you want to be successful you need to learn to love the business of coaching as much as you love coaching itself. And the simplest way to do this is to make the box on the right as similar to the box on the left as possible.
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