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STARTING YOUR COACHING BUSINESS: WHAT DO I DO FIRST?

January 24, 2012 By Jeannine Yoder Leave a Comment

Starting your coaching business could feel like a far-fetched dream to you. I remember that feeling of wonder and excitement buried under loads of overwhelm, fear and laziness. It is a very slight and distant memory over powered by the best memory of my life. The day I took action and trusted my instincts was the start of a new life for me. If you start your coaching business your fears will vanish too.

It Must be Harder Then Simply Starting my Coaching Business

Ok, lets talk this through. If you interview any successful coach and ask them: “What was it that motivated you into starting your coaching business?” you will notice a few common connections.

  1.  They felt a natural connection, interest and passion toward people and working through challenge most their lives.
  2. They were the go to person for advice from their family, friends and anyone who they encountered interest in supporting.
  3. The research, study and seeking of education in psychology was exciting and easy to invest time in.
  4. They own or have read every self help book and attended many seminars.
  5. They have a passion and zest for living life to the fullest.
  6. They want to experience deep connection and success at the highest potential.
  7.  They have a desire to contribute beyond themselves.
  8. They enjoy helping other sort through their problems.
  9. They find themselves deeply interested and able to listen as other people share their dreams and life experience

Do you recognize some of these same qualities within yourself, drawing you toward starting your coaching business? GREAT! Then you have just initiated the connection to the first step to starting a coaching business that will align you with your life purpose.
It’s as Simple as Confidence And Value

The first step really is as simple as admitting you have a gift that is of value. Recognizing the worth of financial investment your skills could be to those in need of accountability.

The best part is you get to admit to yourself you have special skills. So admit it and start thinking of and referring to yourself as a Coach.

Just Get Started

I accepted that the skills and passion I had for helping people and knowing exactly how to do it was no different then any other service you pay for.

  • Food service
  • Hobbies
  • Clothing
  • Personal trainers
  • Gym memberships
  • Facials
  • Manicures
  • Haircuts
  • Home design
  • Financial consulting
  • Home repair

People pay a lot of money for the luxury of these services. There are many people who can perform these tasks and services for themselves and others who can’t and need to pay for an expert. Just as there are those who have skills in bettering their lives and those who are blinded with no clue as to where to begin. These are the kinds of people you will find sending you thank you notes for starting your coaching business. Once I realized this I was ready to start coaching.

I decided to get coaches training to further develop my knowledge. I found JTS advisors and began calling myself a coach while I was in my 30 day quick start study program. I just started coaching. I didn’t wait for the perfect moment I was starting my coaching business NOW.

Once I began to call myself coach and spread the word of my new business people wanted to be a part of it. I had friends and family interested in my service and wanting to know how I could help them. So I offered them a free session to try it out. At the end of each free session I let them know they were welcome to continue receiving the tools I had to offer them, I provided them with my pricing options and I signed each emailed session recap Coach Jeannine. I did this because I found value in the service I was offering and I trusted I had a gift.

The training helped me with discipline and organization but the first step will be the key to starting your coaching business. Honor your value, trust your instincts, value your service to human kind and start to call yourself a coach. By jump starting your coaching business with confidence, trust in yourself and consistent action you are ready to build a life of your own design.

By the way… you’re invited to claim your FREE step-by-step “Life Coaching Business Blueprint” video toolkit. Just go HERE now to get your life coaching business blueprint videos.

Jeannine Yoder
Life Coach
Writing team, Coaches Training Blog Community

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10 New Year’s Resolutions For Your Career Coach Business

January 5, 2012 By Fred Phillips 2 Comments

It’s the start of another year; 2011 is headed into the history books, and 2012 appears as a brand new opportunity for your career coach business.

Here are 10 New Year’s Resolutions that every coach should think about. These resolutions are designed to grow and expand your career coach business and create a happier, healthier, more prosperous YOU!

Start 2012 off with a bang! Make at least a few of these resolutions and KEEP them! Broken resolutions don’t help.

  1. Your career coach business always needs new clients. Research, create, and implement at least one new marketing or promotional strategy.
  2. Once you have implemented a new marketing strategy, research, create, and implement one more new marketing or promotional strategy.
  3. Get your legal affairs in order. Create a file for all relevant documents – business licenses, tax permits, insurance certificates, and other important information.
  4. Create or update a business plan. EVERY business needs a business plan. If your practice is a one man coaching operation, your business plan doesn’t need to be long and complex, but you definitely do need one.
  5. Get more training. Even if you think you know it all, you don’t! Take a course, go to a professional seminar, sign up for a certification program – anything that provides more training will benefit your career coach business.
  6. Explore niche coaching opportunities within your field. Niche coaching often provides the opportunity for more success. Being a big fish in a small pond is better than a small fish in a big pond.
  7. Do something different, outrageous, and completely off the wall with your clients. Take you session outside to a park, go on a hike, take your client out to a sporting event. Creative ways to hold sessions help relax your clients, and ward off the mundane and routine.
  8. Get out and network with others in the coaching field. This is not only a great way to promote your business, it is also great to get out and mingle with others who have the same interests and passions.
  9. Give to those in need. Offer free coaching to those who may need your services, but cannot afford them. Find ways to use your coaching ability and knowledge to help others in your community.
  10. Take a few minutes to smell the roses. Coaches work hard, but all work and no play not only make you a dull coach, it’s also bad for you. Everyone needs some play time.

1 More Powerful Resolution For Your Career Coach Business

When making resolutions for your business, don’t forget to take care of the coach. Take some time to mentor yourself. That’s right, it doesn’t hurt to offer some of your expertise to yourself. Reflect, analyze, and dissect your own career. If you find weaknesses or areas that are lacking, spend some time creating a roadmap to bolster and boost your own professional life. Even a coach needs a little coaching from time to time.

The Best and Smartest Way to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

If you want to keep your resolutions, make sure they are smart. Smart stands for:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Reasonable
  • Timely

If you make SMART resolutions in your career coach business, chances are you’ll keep them. If you keep your SMART resolutions, chances are your business will grow and prosper. Now that’s the way to bring in the New Year!

Give this strategy a try and see for yourself that it works. If you liked this coaching tip, leave a comment or use the handy bookmark buttons below to share it with others on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. Thanks!

Fred Philips
Business Coach
Writing Team, Coaches Training Blog Community

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Why the Hell Would You Want to Become a Career Coach?

November 1, 2011 By Fred Phillips Leave a Comment

Many people would never think of becoming a coach, but there are plenty of reasons to jump into the executive coaching field. Most people would put money at the top of the why-I-want-to-start-coaching list. Yes, you can earn a good living coaching executives and professionals. The potential to earn a superstar living is one of the most captivating reasons to become a career coach.

Most coaches love their work. As a coach, you get to help people achieve their career dreams. You can be Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy all rolled into one by giving executives the gift of success.

The coaching field is booming and it will continue to grow in the foreseeable future. Yes, coaching gigs will be plentiful, and though it is a highly competitive field, there is plenty of room for you. Become an expert in coaching others and build a laundry list of happy clients, and your bank account will swell like a tsunami. A thriving business, satisfied clients, and a swelling bank account are a few of the measures of business success.

What is the One Word That Makes Coaches Cringe?

Becoming a career coach means you have to sell yourself. Yes, marketing and promotion are necessary evils in the coaching industry. Marketing is the one word that makes great coaches cringe and weep! The horrors of marketing are so great for some coaches that they eventually drop out of the field and go back into the employee pool.

One Way to be a Coach and Avoid Marketing?

If the thought of marketing makes you nauseous, owning your own coaching business is probably not a wise choice. However, there is an option. There are many large coaching conglomerates who hire coaches. They provide training and marketing; you do the coaching. You will have to use their guidelines and systems, but it’s a perfect gig for marketing-phobic coaches.

What are the Requirements for the Coaching Field?

There are no requirements etched in stone needed to hang out a shingle and call yourself an coaching expert. However, there are some basics that will make you more appealing to clients. You should have a degree in business and broad scope of business experience. Working in the HR field or in corporate training is also beneficial to entrepreneurs who want to become a coach. Having a firm grasp of skill development and human behavior comes in handy when teaching executives how to improve and enhance their skills.

Though you can certainly become a career coach without certification, enrolling in and completing a certification program will introduce you to new coaching methods, sharpen your skills, and provide you with more information that can be used to benefit your clients.

Though your personality and satisfied clients are your most prominent selling points, the degrees and certifications you earn will also reflect on your ability to manage and improve the careers of potential clients.

Do You Really Want to Become a Career Coach?

Before you throw away your old career and make the leap into coaching, make a thorough assessment of your qualifications, experience, and abilities. If you are painfully introverted and quiet, it might be best to stay in that cubicle. However, if you are at least somewhat extroverted and enjoy talking one-on-one or in groups, coaching may be in your future. If you truly enjoy helping people achieve their goals, it might be time to use your experience to guide others along the pathway to success and become a career coach.

Special Bonus – Learn 32 ‘Guru’ Transformation Techniques when you fill in the form at the top right and click the “Watch The Videos Now” button. You’ll learn how to become a life coach in 30 days.

Fred Philips
Business Coach
Writing Team, Coaches Training Blog Community

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Career Coach Conference: Benefits And Where to Find Them

October 16, 2011 By Dana Bosley 2 Comments

If you are looking for a career coach conference I hope the following information is helpful to you, as well as other coaches looking for a conference.

Benefits of Career Coaching Conferencing

  • It’s a great place to network and to meet peers, contacts, and overall just to have a great time.
  • Increases your knowledge base giving you new coach tools and techniques you can incorporate into your practice.
  • It energizes you as you interact with coaches from all over the country or world depending on what sort of conference you attend.
  • It is a wonderful place to find new business opportunities, initiate career ideas and to be able to collaborate with other like minded coaches.
  • If you are interested, it could provide a means to find others to partner with in your business.

Where to Find a Career Coach Conference

  • I came across this site called Peer Resources–www.peer.ca/coachevents.html. It has a list of various different conferences, training seminars, workshops and events. If you are looking to find a career coach conference or some other kind of coaching conference, this is a great place to look, as they provide a long list of different conferences taking place on different dates and in different locations. From all I can tell, you can list your event there as well, however, you may have to be a member of the Peer Resources group. I found this site to be a good resource for finding not only career coach conferences but also all sorts of coach conferences.
  • If you are a member of the International Coach Federation they list a number of different conferences you can attend. You can find the schedule for such events on their website
  • If you are looking specifically for a career coach conference then the Career Thought Leaders Conference and Symposium is worth checking out. The last one was held in Baltimore, Maryland, in March 2011. I know this is after the fact, but you may want to plan on attending next year. It seems like a good conference for all those in the career coaching industry including career coaches, resume writers, and any others working in that field.

I highly recommend going to a career coach conference, or any other coaching conference for that matter. The price might be a little invasive but the benefits far out-weigh the cost—they are empowering and if you get the opportunity to go to one, be sure to jump at the chance.

Give this strategy a try and see for yourself that it works. If you liked this coaching tip, leave a comment or use the handy bookmark buttons below to share it with others on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. Thanks!

Dana Bosley
Spiritual Growth Coach
Writing team, Coaches Training Blog Community

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Be a Personal Career Coach – but Don’t Screw Up!

October 12, 2011 By Dave Iuppa Leave a Comment

Being a personal career coach may seem simple, but the stakes are high. You can help your client determine their true calling, or you can set them up for a life of unhappiness. No pressure there. Here are three straightforward steps that a career coach can follow to keep your client on the right course and keep themselves in business.

First, Realize that Your Client’s Career Is Your Client’s Life

When we are talking careers, we are talking more than just a series of jobs that take up the span of one’s years. The easy thing for a personal career coach is to look for skills and match them to the job market. And while skills and job openings need to be addressed, they are only small parts of the puzzle. This is something much more. Some say it is their passion. Some say it is their calling. Think of it as the difference between “Office Space” and “Top Gun”.

Second, Help Your Client Come to Terms with Their Purpose and Passion

Notice that I did not say “discover their purpose and passion.” That is because I believe that if we can just quiet our minds and listen, we will soon discover our purpose, and with it our true passion. The challenge for the vast majority of people is to come to terms with their true purpose. Just like Jonah, we run away from our call to greatness out of fear of the responsibility that it entails.

If perfect faith can literally move mountains, then perfect alignment of purpose and action can change the world. This is a frightening thought for your client – and for you. As the personal career coach, it is your task to help your client to come to embrace the power that comes with the responsibility that comes with the calling.

The Personal Career Coach Must Expand the Possibilities

As their coach with this grander view, you must help them crystallize their goals, and then help them see their lives as a series of projects – sometimes jobs, sometimes entrepreneurial ventures – that will support the realization of their life’s purpose.

Hope you took some great value out of this post today! I’d love to hear your feedback, so make sure you leave a comment with your thoughts or questions. And also, you can click on the Twitter button below to retweet this article… Thank you!

Dave Iuppa
JTS Advisors Strategy and Accountability Coach

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Career Coaching Offers Great Opportunities in Today’s Economy

September 13, 2011 By Dave Iuppa 3 Comments

Career Coaching can help to defuse the “turnover time bomb” that exists in many companies today. According to the May 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review, 25% of top employees intend to change companies as the economy improves. This turnover will cost companies millions of dollars in hard cash. Reducing turnover through effective coaching can mean great opportunities for coaches working in this area.

How Career Coaching Can Reduce Turnover

Employees, who are being career coached, have higher morale and productivity. They feel understood and appreciated. And they feel that their careers are on track. Because of this they are much less likely to look elsewhere for opportunities.

Career coaching involves four steps:

1. getting to know the employee through interviews and assessment instruments,

2. mapping out a career path with the employee,

3. creating a development plan to prepare the employee for each new position,

4. coaching the employee to help them stay on track.

Partner with Supervisors to Greater Efficiency and Effectiveness

Working with supervisors to coach their people has three major benefits for you:

1. It establishes you as the expert.

2. It leverages your time and effort.

3. It gives the supervisors a strong sense of commitment to coaching AND to you.

Establish Yourself as the Expert

Whether we are talking about coaching or algebra, there is something about being the teacher that automatically makes you the expert. As you teach the supervisors how to coach under your guidance, you will establish yourself as the expert. Once this is done, it is difficult for another coach to replace you. Once you are seen as the career coaching expert, you can easily transfer this perception to other areas of coaching. This can help you win additional business within the client company.

Leverage Time and Effort

Obviously, if you are training and coaching the supervisors, and then they are working one-on-one with their people, you are getting more done with less personal effort. This leads to bigger results with less work for you.

Develop Commitment and Create Clients for Life

Once supervisors begin to provide career coaching, they will depend on you to back them up. They will demand that you be there so they don’t make mistakes and look foolish in front of their peers and subordinates. This will help lock you in and make companies where you career coach into clients for life.

To learn more about how to generate an endless wave of high paying coaching clients, get your FREE Instant Access to our “Life Coaching Business Blueprint” video toolkit when you go HERE.

Dave Iuppa
JTS Advisors Strategy and Accountability Coach

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Career Coaching Is a Lot like Being a Button Hook Coach

August 16, 2011 By Dave Iuppa 6 Comments

Sorry if you are the last to hear, but career coaching has joined that long list of nonsense phrases like guillotine tester – nonsense phrases or titles that simply show a loss of insight or consciousness. You might still be able to squeak by as a job coach, but to be a career coach is one of the greatest oxymorons of this age.

Are There no Careers or Is There no such Thing as Coaching?

That is a good question: No career? or No coaching? As a coach, I vote for the “no careers” option. But beyond the selfish aspects of this, I must say that the end of “career” as a concept is beyond dispute and takes the romance from the phrase: career coaching. So if you haven’t been laid off recently, you must have been laid off long ago, and are one of our nation’s chronically unemployed. Congratulations and welcome to the real world of today!

If We Don’t Have Careers, What Do We Have?

If people are smart, they realize that they have themselves and their businesses. Which means that you can still be a coach. But what kind of coach? The answer may be a solopreneur coach. Yes, a solopreneur, which means someone who is scared to death because they are on their own and are not sure if they have what it takes to succeed.

What Does this Mean if You Define Yourself as Being into Career Coaching?

My suggestion is to think positively and have two quick shots of “Jameson’s”. Then stepping back from the edge. I would say that career coaching has not really changed. It is just no longer defined in the context of a series of jobs, particularly in the same company. That’s right. You and I and all of our clients are defined as companies unto themselves. Companies defined unto themselves, and companies scared to death. And if that isn’t a coaching opportunity, then I don’t know what one is!

Would you like an endless stream of new coaching clients? Simply fill out the form to the right with your first name and email and I’ll send you free videos with step-by-step blueprints for generating a massive income from high paying coaching clients.

Dave Iuppa
JTS Advisors Strategy and Accountability Coach

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How to Become a Career Coach: 2 Paths to Choose From

August 15, 2011 By Colette Seymann 8 Comments

How to become a career coach depends on the type of career coaching you want to do. Do you want to learn how to become a coach who works for another company, or do you want to your own career coaching business? There are pros and cons to consider, as well as your own natural tendencies and style.

Creating a Career As An Employed Career Coach

If you’re looking for a job, the answer to how to become a career coach will be to get training and certification. Let’s face it, coaching is a dream job that many people would do for free. In fact, that the average first year salary for coaches is about $12k/ year. To me, that is practically working for free as I believe it’s below the poverty level in the U.S. Unless you have certifications and experience, expect to work for very little pay. But if you are shy, introverted, and not particularly motivated to work on your own without someone watching over your shoulder, this is the path for you.

How To Become a Career Coach Who Creates Your Own Career

It’s more complicated to learn how to become a career coach who has your own business. Unless you have business experience, there is a lot to learn. You will need sales and marketing skills, until you are able to outsource. The key here is to make sure you get as much if not more training on the business aspect of coaching. I know a lot of very good coaches who are not making money coaching, not for lack of coaching skills but for lack of knowledge in how to find and enroll new clients.

If you want to take on this route, you will make more money per hour spend coaching. On average about $100+/hour compared to about $25/hour working for someone else. The downside is that you will spend several hours to get a single hour, and may end up averaging less than $25/hour after all is said and done. Writing emails will not count. We’re talking about good old fashioned getting on the phone and setting free session as well as running the sessions. Or you could take the longer term route of creating an internet marketing solution.

Either way probably sounds dreadful, right? Of course the main ingredient is to make sure you have mentoring along the way. Someone who can take some of the time off the learning curve and help you get success before you want to quit. Someone to not only guide you, but to keep you head above the water when you start feeling like you’re going under. As you look back on your journey, your mentor will help you see that not only have you make an impact on your clients’ lives, but that you have created something to really be proud of in your own life.

By the way… you’re invited to claim your FREE step-by-step “Life Coach Salary Secrets” video toolkit. Just go HERE now to get your Life Coach Salary Secrets.

Colette Seymann
JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

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Become a Certified Career Coach and Help Others Succeed

August 13, 2011 By Fred Phillips 1 Comment

When you become a certified career coach, you can combine your own professional success with the potential to help others. If you enjoy motivating and inspiring others to create a better life, becoming a life and professional coaching expert is the ideal pathway to success. When you become a certified career coach you can teach others to achieve a professional life that provides them with financial security, goal attainment, and personal satisfaction.

The professional coaching field has been growing since the 1980s and will continue to expand. As the world’s economy continues to change and evolve, coaching opportunities will be plentiful, lucrative, and rewarding. The future looks bright for this dynamic and exciting field.

How to Become a Certified Career Coach

People with a several years of work experience in a specific industry can easily transition into the coaching field. Experts can take their knowledge and learn effective ways to impart wisdom and experience to others. Coaching is basically the act of transferring your knowledge to others so that they possess the basic principles needed to create their own career success.

If you lack experience, it is still possible to choose coaching as a vocation. A good certification program will teach you to start and succeed in the coaching business. You will acquire and practice skills that will allow you to counsel people in times of transition and crisis. You will learn marketing, promotional, and sales techniques that will aid others in achieving their professional, business, and financial goals. While becoming certified you will learn tools needed to be a mentor to those who are beginning their professional journey. With proper education and knowledge, you will become proficient in helping those who wish change directions and transition to a new profession.

Important Qualities Needed for Coaching

Becoming a certified career coach is easier if you possess certain skills and attributes. Possessing the following skills and attributes will help you succeed in the field.

* Excellent communication skills.

* Desire to help others achieve their goals.

* Ability to effectively manage people and time.

* A strong entrepreneurial spirit.

Working in the Field

When you become a certified career coach, you have a few options subsequent to the certification process. You can choose to work for yourself, work as part of a small coaching business, or become an employee of a large corporation. Self-employment offers the opportunity to choose the type of work you do, choose who you work with, and call all your own shots. However, self-employment usually demands more time as you also need to manage and promote your business. For some people, working as an employee is the preferable route.

When you become a certified career coach, you have chosen a professional path that combines self-fulfillment and altruism. There is no better professional choice to help others and help yourself. Coaching others to succeed benefits both the coach and the student.

Special Bonus – Learn 3 simple ways to become a life coach with the“30-Days to Become a Coach” video toolkit” when you fill in the form at the top right and click the “Watch The Videos Now” button. You’ll learn how to change your client’s life in 45 minutes.

Fred Philips
Business Coach
Writing Team, Coaches Training Blog Community

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Successful Career Coaching in a No-Jobs World

July 29, 2011 By Dave Iuppa 3 Comments

Career coaching today is helping people make the most of the new world of work, the no-jobs world. Today the idea, that a great career means getting a good job and rising up through the ranks at one corporation, is absolute non-sense. Today, and tomorrow, careers and jobs are not synonymous. And the independent agent is not just king, but may be the last and only one left standing.

Life in the Brave New World outside of the Corporate Womb

At first glance this might seem like an impossible shift, but let’s remember that less than a hundred years ago, the vast majority of people were entrepreneurs, and very few Americans worked for corporations. So in a sense, this is just a large career course correction. But with true entrepreneurialism all but bred out of Americans and without the support of corporate structures, today’s worker desperately needs guidance and structure that career coaching can provide.

Career Coaching Can Guide Us back to the New, Old World of Work

The problem is that most workers are too busy panicking to put this all in perspective. That is exactly where career coaching comes in. Today, career coaches are desperately needed to help re-inject hope into our society. Hope and courage. That is because only by helping people manage their fear and overcome their own self doubts, can we reestablish sanity to our society and our economy.

The Critical Role of the Career Coach Today

The new role of the career coach is a combination of business coach, strategy coach and accountability coach. The career coach’s traditional skills of helping people determine what work they are most likely to be happy doing, must be combined with coaching on solorepreneurship, time and project management, and accountability. In addition, totally new skills in forming dynamic project driven organizations will be critical for anyone wanting to do the kind of work that used to be the realm of the corporation. So you can see that the success of our new, no-job economy lies squarely in the hands of career coaches.

Would you like an endless stream of new coaching clients? Simply fill out the form to the right with your first name and email and I’ll send you free videos with step-by-step blueprints for generating a massive income from high paying coaching clients.

Dave Iuppa
JTS Advisors Strategy and Accountability Coach

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