Coaching Certification Criteria

Coaching Certification ‘Criteria’: What do You Need to Become a Coach?

May 18, 2009 By Jeffrey T. Sooey Leave a Comment

When You Become a Coach, Do You Need to be Concerned About Coaching Certification ‘Criteria’?

The International Coach Federation (ICF) has certain coaching certification ‘criteria’ if you want to become a coach who has some credentials after your name. The ICF has 3 levels of certification, each with separate coaching certification ‘criteria’. Some people see certification as a valuable requirement to become a coach; others see it as a ‘money pit’. Which is it? Become a coach who makes your own decision.

The Associate Certified Coach… As a Coaching Certification ‘Criteria’, is it a Waste of Time While You Become a Coach?

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How to Get National Coaching Certification: The REAL Way

February 10, 2009 By Jeffrey T. Sooey 1 Comment

What are the most important coaching certification criteria? Here are the coaching certification criteria you should be looking for (in order from most to least important) during your search for the national coaching certification:

1. Coaching Skills

2. Coaching Communication / Leadership Skills

3. Coach Personal Development

4. Coaching Sales Skills

5. Coach Marketing Skills

6. Coach Time management skills

7. Coaching Business management skills

Here’s the logic behind the Coaching Certification Criteria priority order:

The top three coaching certification criteria are the basis of everything. Don’t even bother to pursue national coaching certification without working through a coaching certification that teaches coaching skills (I covered this in another article I wrote on professional coaching certification criteria). Communication and Leadership skills are the bridge between your ability to coach and your ability to run your business, sell, market, and make key alliances in order to maintain your business. Personal development is key for a coach. If you don’t continue to develop yourself, you may loose your confidence. People may see you as a hypocrite. Any coaching certification worth its’ salt will included at least these three areas (at a minimum).

Next, you need coaching sales skills. Why? because if you are going to work for yourself, you’re going to have to be able to sell. I don’t care if you call it leadership, coaching, or a ham sandwich, but you’ve got to get your prospects to make a decision and you’ve got to ‘get the money’ (i.e. get paid) for your coaching. Coach marketing skills are going to be important in the future if you are to expand past having only a few clients. Marketing is sales on paper or over the Internet. Marketing your coaching practice is a great way to find new customers and more leads to get into your coaching. Coach time management skills will help you go from working hard as a coach to running a coaching business. Time management skills are the way to change from one focus to another when you really need to do it. There are times that you’ll need to change direction completely in order to expand your coaching practice. Coaching certifications that are really great will include at least some of the things I mentioned in this paragraph.

Finally, the hope is that you build a certified ‘coaching business empire’, and for that, you need to learn some amazing coaching business management skills. A coaching certification that teaches you this as well for your coaching practice is truly an awesome offering.

The biggest misconception in searching for the Professional Coaching Certification of your dreams is thinking that the best life coaching training courses are the most prestigious coaching certification. Just because a coaching training has a prestigious coaching certification doesn’t mean that it is any good (i.e. a coaching training that will truly help you get more coaching clients and become a highly skilled life coach). Some coaches have a coaching certification criteria that says, ‘I’m going to get more clients because I got certified’. You will get clients as a result of getting certified, but don’t get your certification because of that, or it won’t help you. Coaching Certification will get you skills, but then you have to USE those skills to get coaching clients.

So as you look for the right coaching certification criteria, look for the coaching skills, then the leadership, sales, and marketing skills. Then if you get anything else, that’ll be the icing on the cake.

Jeffrey T. Sooey

CEO JTS Advisors,

Founder, Coaches Training Blog Community

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Think That Professional Coaching Certification is All You Need to Become a Certified Coach? Think Again!

February 8, 2009 By Jeffrey T. Sooey 5 Comments

Are You Going Over Coaching Certification Criteria? STOP Right Now And Read This.

If you are considering different personal coaching trainings and going over different coaching certification ‘criteria’, then you need to rethink your criteria. I’m not saying that coaching certification criteria is not important, it is. If you get certified by the wrong life coaching training courses, or are trying to use coaching training for the wrong thing, then you could waste a lot of money on life coach training fees, as well as set yourself up for a hard road ahead in your coaching practice, or at least, disappointment.

The good news is that if you get the pprofessional coaching certification criteria right, then you can set yourself up for a better way to get coaching clients, or at least, a better situation than if you hadn’t explored doing the professional coaching certification thing the right way.

The Theory Behind Professional Coaching Certification: Volunteers for a Larger Purpose

Originally, professional coaching certification was set up for two reasons:

1. to set up standards for the industry and be able to guarantee a certain minimal level of coaching skill and coaching ethics to coaching clients

2. to position the professional coaching certification entities and the professional coaching certification associations offering the standards as the ‘Pharaohs” in the industry and insure the financial future of the creators of those entities

Assuring the financial future of the ICF or the coach training companies is probably not your concern, so let’s skip that and just concentrate on the first reason.

If all coaches in the industry started accepting certain coaching skills and ethics, then there would be more trust overall concerning all professional coaches, and therefore when you are looking for a coaching client, the market in general would be more open to working with you because they have ‘heard’ that coaches that met certain coaching certification criteria have done good coaching with people they know and trust.

Also, the theory of professional coaching certification was:

1. If I learn how to coach better, then I’ll do a better job with my coaching clients

2. If I get my professional coaching certification, then clients will come to me as soon as I hang out my shingle

3. If I get my professional coaching certification, then I’ll have instant credibility

4. If I get my professional coaching certification, then I’ll have more confidence

5. If I get my certification, then I’ll have job security

6. I’m not allowed to coach if I’m not certified, so I better get certified

A lot of that was valid, and some of it is even more important today than ever. Along with that, coaching certification forces you in to a community of coaches that have certain standards as well, therefore you are more likely to adopt high level coaching skills and standards because it all ‘rubs off’.

However, coach certification can’t do all that for you.

And the most important part of coach certification is the one that most coaches value the least.

The most important coaching certification criteria is whether or not that coaching certification teaches you high level coaching skills and helps you to meet a certain level of coaching standard.

Why?

Because that level of coaching skill that you have can never be taken away from you. Knowledge can be forgotten. A certificate can get lost, or an accreditation can need to be renewed, but skills can be updated and revitalized very quickly, even if they’ve atrophied. Once you learn, practice, and prove yourself in relationship to your new coaching skills, then you’ll never go back to the life or business you had before those skills.

You can always learn to be a better marketer or salesperson, but your reputation and your client reactions are based upon your coaching skills. nothing more, nothing less. So next time you are evaluating coaching trainings, use this is your top coaching certification criteria.

Jeffrey T. Sooey

CEO, JTS Advisors

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