Jan­ice Lear­mond Criqui CPC

Why are some coach­es fail­ing in their coach­ing busi­ness or not mak­ing mon­ey? List­ed be­low are five pos­si­ble rea­sons:

• They don't go out and seek clients

• They're too busy tak­ing ad­di­tion­al cours­es be­liev­ing that they will be­come a bet­ter coach

• They're too busy net­work­ing with oth­er coach­es

• Lack of self-con­fi­dence

• Not enough mar­ket­ing

Let's take a look at two of the emo­tions be­hind these rea­sons.

Per­fec­tion­ism

Far too many coach­es fail to get off the launch­ing pad be­cause they have an un­der­ly­ing de­sire to be per­fect. This per­fec­tion­ist at­ti­tude can stop a coach from start­ing any­thing if they don't think they can do it flaw­less­ly. This is where the "what ifs" step in. What hap­pens if a coach coach­es some­one and their life does not change? What if while coach­ing some­one, "bad" things hap­pen to them? What if the so­lu­tions the client comes up with on­ly cre­ates more chal­lenges? The "what ifs" can go on and on. One im­por­tant thing to bear in mind is that coach­ing is flu­id and it is not all about the coach. It is about the client. The In­ter­na­tion­al Coach­ing Acad­e­my, Aus­tralia puts it nice­ly-"As a coach, we're a mix of ad­vo­cate, sound­ing board, cheer­leader, ac­count­abil­i­ty part­ner, truth teller, and brain­stormer. We en­gage in con­ver­sa­tion, or di­a­logue; help­ing our clients de­cide what is im­por­tant to them." Good lis­ten­ing skills, en­cour­ag­ing the client to keep talk­ing through their is­sues fol­lowed by pow­er­ful ques­tions will be valu­able to the client. A coach can­not wait un­til things are "per­fect" be­fore get­ting off the launch pad. Coach­ing skills will not im­prove or in­crease and self-con­fi­dence will not be gained un­til coach­es be­gin coach­ing a lot of clients. This is why the say­ing "Prac­tise, Prac­tise, Prac­tise" makes sense.

In­for­ma­tion stag­na­tion

An­oth­er per­fec­tion­ist at­ti­tude from some coach­es is that they can't start mar­ket­ing and do­ing things via the In­ter­net or giv­ing work­shops be­cause they don't have enough train­ing or time to do the work­shops. The above is a trap called "in­for­ma­tion stag­na­tion" which many coach­es fall in­to. The think­ing be­hind in­for­ma­tion stag­na­tion is that one does not have the skills to do some­thing per­fect­ly there­fore, one must take more class­es and learn more be­fore be­gin­ning a coach­ing busi­ness. The best way to learn is to prac­tise coach­ing while get­ting in­for­ma­tion. A coach can get bet­ter at coach­ing by tak­ing cours­es which is rec­om­mend­ed but the down­side is that the coach can al­so get in­to a rut of tak­ing class­es and nev­er coach. Don't let per­fec­tion­ism and in­for­ma­tion stag­na­tion be a hin­drance from hav­ing a suc­cess­ful coach­ing busi­ness. If any coach­es catch them­selves falling in­to this type of think­ing and be­hav­iour, they need to stop and start mar­ket­ing their busi­ness. By start­ing to mar­ket their busi­ness, they will get coach­ing clients and in­vari­ably their coach­ing skills and con­fi­dence will rise dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

For free in­for­ma­tion on life coach­ing, e-mail: coach­ing4ide­al­life@ya­hoo.com