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Where Do I Start? Ep: 025


 

Hey Friends, How are you? I’m so glad you’re here and welcome to this episode. In this episode I ask one of the most common questions I get from new coaches. Where do I start? Like what exactly do I do?

I know this question comes from a genuine place. It’s a place where you’re looking for the right answer, and here’s the thing….becoming a coach is not a cookie cutter event. There is no one right answer.  And I’m pretty sure you know this already, and if you don’t know it you probably suspect it.  And that’s ok, this is completely different from anything you’ve ever done before.

Now, I realize lots of people are offering you different right answers…you’re probably scared to decide because you don’t want to slow down your progress, and you sure don’t want to make a mistake.

You only need to go on FB or IG and scroll for 2 minutes to see all the choices; There are people who will tell you their “way” is the best (or only) way…gotta do group coaching, gotta create a mastermind, gotta create a high ticket offer….. 

There’s plenty of advice, and don’t get me wrong, many of those ways do work.  But they may not work for you…and I think that might be where your question originates.

Often new coaches sign up for a program that’s going to give them the step-by-step perfect approach for becoming a coach.  We’re used to thinking there is a right way and we believe that way will work…sometimes it does and sometimes not.

You might faced with all the possibilities and now you’re nervous about which is the “right” choice.

If you’ve been successful in your career, you followed the rules, followed the protocol had exact standards that you were measured against. When you went to school, you knew what you needed to do to get an A.

It’s not that way as a coach. There are no “official” success rules. 

This may be the first time in your life where you are in this situation. While there aren’t exact rules that work for everyone, there are some basics. 

Basics are great, let’s talk about these. This way when you feel at loose ends and you don’t know what to do next you can always fall back on these basics.

These are the four basics for new coaches:

  1. Learn how to coach
  2. Coach and be coached
  3. Have something to offer
  4. Talk to people, then when you see a genuine need that you know you can help with offer to help them

If you don’t know where to start or what to do, start with one these.  Choose one and get to work. I’m going to talk about each of these in turn

1. Learn how to coach

Coaches need coaching skills. Sounds pretty obvious, right? That may be, but there are people who do not have any coaching skills hanging up a shingle and calling themselves a coach.

There is a very low bar of entry to being a professional coach, anyone can do it. Anyone can call themselves a coach. But you’re not like “anyone” I know that if you’re listening, you feel drawn to be a coach, you probably want to make a positive impact and you like to help people. plus my guess is you’re the kind of person who like to do it right.

Some of most common coaching skills that you will want to hone are the ability to listen (someone told me the other that’s right listen you’ve two ears and one mouth 😊 ), ask powerful questions and hold space so that you support your client to grow. The aim of coaching is to help your clients get more of what they want and less of what they don’t want. 

Back in Episode 21 I explained there are still many people who don’t really know what a coach is. I’ll pop the link to this episode in the show notes and you can check it out.

Some assume you should be like a football coach. An expert who tells you what to do and then expects you to follow their instructions exactly. Others think being a coach is being an advice giver.  While some coaches include a portion of this in their coaching, pure coaching encourages the client to get clarity, change their perspective and then take steps from this new perspective.

New coaches need to learn how to coach. It’s an actual skill set that you can learn. Learning how to coach will also include practicing your coaching with others. So you can learn some of the basics and get started as a coach right away.

 2. Coach and be coached 

I’ll put it simply, if you want to be a coach you need to coach and be coached.

First, you need to coach, lots. You can have long or short coaching sessions, it only takes one shift in perspective, one thought for the client to change the entire trajectory of their life. 

To become masterful you need to practice, evaluate and improve. 

Think of a professional ballet dancer,  they started dancing as a young child and then they practiced.  

Over and over. 

For years, always fine tuning, always gaining awareness and building skill and artistry.

Did you know that every ballet class goes through the same order. Every junior class, senior class and professional open class always approaches it in the same order.

No matter how long you’ve been doing ballet, you always start with the plies. The plies, if you don’t know are a knee bend, A dancer uses their plie in jumps and turns to provide spring and bounce. A plie helps you absorb shock, and it’s an exercise to loosen muscles and to develop balance. The plie is the foundation and it’s importance to every dance move, cannot be over emphasized. 

I remember listening to a ballet examiner, she was watching and evaluating a group of young and aspiring dancers. And she said “I can always tell how the dancer will be based on their plies” Can you imagine? This examiner knew based on the most fundamental move of ballet how that dancer would perform in every other situation.

Coaches are similar, every coach needs to listen deeply, hold space, and ask powerful questions.  You will practice these skills over and over throughout your career as a coach.  As an experienced coach, I watch the coaches that I work with and can see their growth, just in how they do these 3 basics. 

So yes, if you don’t know what to do, if you’re feeling stuck. Practice your coaching.

The second part of “coach and be coached” is the “be coached” part.  Every coach needs coaching. It can be your own individual coach, you can participate in group coaching or a mastermind and you can also learn how to coach yourself. Self coaching is great, and helpful, and  you will still have some blind spots because you can’t see what you can’t see. 

When you experience coaching for yourself, and start to create amazing results you will know the power and impact of coaching.

Knowing this will help you show up as a coach and offer to help others because you’ll be motivated by feeling so empowered yourself.

3. Have something to offer

What would you do if someone called you today and said “Hey, I want you to be my coach. How can I hire you?”

Would you fumble around or do you at least have a starter package that you can offer them, a way to schedule calls and way to take payment. 

Will you know what to do with them on those first few calls?

If your palms are sweaty right because you’re nervous and I’ve hit a nerve, it’s time to decide on an initial offer.

It doesn’t need to be perfect.  If you have NO idea here’s what I recommend.  

Begin with 6 weekly sessions and charge $100 per session. 

6 sessions is enough that your clients will have some positive results, and it’s also long enough for you to feel more comfortable being the coach.

If this feels like too much money you can charge less. It’s whatever makes you most comfortable so you can get started! 

How much to charge, how to feel comfortable asking for money and what to offer are all areas that I commonly address with my clients during our coaching sessions. 

4. Talk to people, then when you see a genuine need (that you know you can help with) offer to help them

Decide the kind of people you enjoy spending time with and spend more time around them.  Speak with them, listen to what’s happening in their life and when appropriate offer to help them. You can offer to help them as a coach, or just offer to help them as a person who cares. 

I’m not recommending that you cold call everyone that you know, nor that you try to sell coaching to your entire network. 

Listen there are lots of ways to make this your own, you can speak to them. Literally face to face at a coffee shop, you can speak with them by doing live video, picking up the phone and calling someone, making a valuable social media post, sending an email or a text. You get to choose what feels best for you, and then do it.

As a new coach I recommend you begin with 1:1 coaching, you really only need a handful of people to get started. Most coaches who work privately can only manage about 20 people at a time. This isn’t a numbers game, it’s a quality approach.

So that’s it,

If you’re a new coach and you feel stumped and you’re wondering “what should I do?” or “where should I start?” this episode is everything you need.

If you’re stuck do one of those four and you’ll know that you’re using your time well. To wrap it up the four basics are:

  1. Learn how to coach.
  2. Coach and be coached.
  3. Have something to offer.
  4. Talk to people, then when you see a genuine need that you know you can help with offer to help them. 

Hey, If you’re listening to these episodes and you’re a new coach, I can help you. Maybe you want to be a coach or you’re new and you’re not quite sure where to start or exactly what to do next. You might be feeling overwhelmed stuck or confused about how to start getting your first (or your next) clients. If you’re thinking of hiring a coach, we should chat. Let’s see if it’s time for us to work together.

There’s a link in the episode notes about how to schedule a consult with me.  I’d love to hear from you.

Oh, and one more thing before you leave! I want to tell you about a gift I offer to all my listeners. It’s my free resource library, and it’s filled with content I created to help you grow and become a coach.  I call it The Coaches Online Business Academy and here’s how it works.

Sign up for your free account and you get immediate access to all my free resources and yeah there’s a lot of them 

All you have to do, is go to the episode description or the show notes and click on the link to sign up today. And that’s it. 

I’m happy to share this with you. It’s one of the ways I support my community and support the growth of coaching.

So that’s it for today friends. Come listen again next week, I can’t wait to chat with you then.

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