Coaching success requires persistence

So he went around for the first two months telling his friends and colleagues about what he had done and asking them to recommend clients to him. Except for a few "free" coaching he did for some curious people who wanted to know what he had done, nothing much really happens. The two months’ business drought became six months and then a year. Finally, reality sets in that his "fortunes" are much the same like before.

There are many people like Ted who have all the qualities and skills of a good coach but still face huge problems getting into a good coaching business. So what actually goes wrong?

Personally, I have coached many of them and what I see in all these sad cases is a combination of factors: the lack of an appropriate coaching offering, weak marketing and the lack of mental strength to push through when the going gets tough. Let me explain this in a little more detail.

Going around telling people that you are a coach is not good enough. Firstly, many still do not know what a coach is, and more importantly, what exactly they do. So, to start with, having a more defined niche will communicate better; for instance, a Career Success Coach will communicate better than just a coach.

The next important question is whether there is really a demand for such a coaching service. If there is one, then the next important consideration is whether it is sufficient to pay all our bills with decent profits to take back home at the end of the month. It is always prudent to do sufficient research to find out whether a compelling demand exists for this coaching service and whether the right type of market audience exists for it. Often coaches get more excited about what they have to offer than the people they want to reach out to. When this happens, they usually end up at the same point where they were at the beginning. Remember, it is about our customer needs fulfilment rather than our dream fulfilment (of what we think customers want) that makes the difference between success and failure.

Then there is always the very important factor on how the coaching service is being marketed. Just telling our friends, knocking at all the doors, blindly sending out e-mails and giving free talks to anyone who can get our service for free are not going to do the job either. Creativity and smartness have to be embedded into our communication of its features and benefits to not any audience, but the right audience as well. In a world of information overload, using conventional methods is likely to fail as it will bore, and even irritate many people as they would have already been fed by the many common tactics used by most vendors. So, if we cannot make a difference here, then it is likely that our hard work will end up in ashes.

Finally, even after doing all the right things, there will still be many challenges along the way that will test our conviction and self-belief about our actions.

Here is where both our persistence and perseverance are needed to fight them all the way. For the bold-hearted, there will be a prize waiting for you at the end of the journey. If not, quitting the scene is a natural thing to do.

Aren’t all these tips the same when we support our clients? Isn’t this good for us to have a "taste of our own medicine" before we give it to others?

Note: Corporate Coach Academy is a coaching school in Asia to certify leaders of all backgrounds to become manager-coaches or professional certified coaches in this region. Log in www.corporate-coachacademy.com or email [email protected] for details.