Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 4: Getting Qualified
• Part 2 of 4: Starting a Business
• Part 3 of 4: Working with clients
• Part 4 of 4: Developing Effective Coaching Skills
• Tips
• Warnings

After a few hours of a telephone conversation with a friend, dedicated to discussing possible options for the development of his career, you involuntarily ask yourself: Why am I still not making money from this? As you read this article, you may have already come to the realization that this could be your job. Moreover, this field of activity has long been legalized and is developing at a rapid pace - according to the U.S. News and World Report, personal coaching ranks second in demand among consulting services. Even if you just want to help someone become a personal coach, here are some practical steps you can take towards that goal.

Steps

Part 1 of 4: Getting Qualified

1. 1 Get a college degree. Fifty years ago, you could get by with a high school graduation certificate, but those days are over. The minimum requirement is an undergraduate diploma. Despite the fact that education not necessary to work as a personal coach, however, candidates of sciences, and even professors, can become your competitors, so it is better to get an education at a university.
   • Despite the fact that in itself there is no such specialization as "personal coaching", it is quite possible to get any of the areas of psychology. Moreover, there are a lot of proposals in the field of additional education - in the universities of Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large cities of Russia, not to mention foreign universities.
2. 2 Take coaching courses in one of the accredited programs. If you already have a higher education, and you do not plan to get a second, the right way is to take personal coaching courses at an accredited educational institution or under an accredited training program. The ICF and the IAC (International Association of Coaching, respectively) have partnerships with a number of educational institutions and their graduates have already confirmed the quality of their diplomas.
   • These are two of the most recognized organizations in the personal coaching industry. Whichever institution you choose, make sure it works with one of these organizations. Otherwise, it is either a fake, or just a waste of your money and time, or, most likely, both.
3. 3 Get a certificate. Upon completion of your coaching program, you will be eligible for certification (either through the ICF or through the IAC, depending on who the institution you choose is partnering with). With such a certificate, you will not be afraid to start. Instead of telling people that you are a personal coach, in the hope that they will not go into details, you can always confirm your words.
   • This is your bread and your butter. No coach is successful enough without education. If you have any other education beyond that, so much the better for you. Don't forget to mention it on your business card!
4. 4 Attend seminars. Since this is a young specialization, seminars are a very common form of professional development. To stay on top of professional issues, meet famous personalities and the coaching community. Your school will help you take your first steps in this direction.
   • Make the most of the benefits of such events. You should not only strive to apply what you have learned when you arrive home (and each seminar is devoted to a specific topic), but also use the opportunity to communicate in a professional circle. Mentors (or at least friendly acquaintances in this area) will be invaluable to you if you are faced with a difficult situation for you. Someone needs to bring you up to date!

Part 2 of 4: Starting a Business

1. 1 Maintain a stable part-time job. Let's be clear from the outset: While getting a coach degree doesn't require a huge investment, making a profit is definitely delayed. You will need savings not only for training, but also for the first time, while you are just starting your business. After you've completed the six-month course, people won't line up outside your door for advice. This takes time.
   • It can take years to build a solid and consistent customer base. If you are looking for a way to get rich quick, then this is clearly not the case. While there are some personal coaches who bill an impressive bill for just one short phone call, not everyone is so lucky. The less experience you have, the lower your bids (not to mention the lower the number of your customers). What's more, you may have to start with free services - so take your time to show your boss the cookie.
2. 2 Work for yourself... as far as possible. While some personal coaches are employed by large corporations looking to increase their attractiveness as an employer, most personal coaches are self-employed.This means you will have to deal with all the documentation side of the activity yourself, as well as rake all organizational issues, but it also means that you yourself will be able to form your own schedule.
   • You will need to pay taxes of a private entrepreneur, as well as independently issue invoices to clients and develop a payment system. If you are not sure if you are familiar with all the basic questions of starting a private enterprise, talk to knowledgeable people - or other personal coaches! Great transition to the next step.
3. 3 Find a mentor among established coaches. Just as a practicing psychologist must have many hours of counseling experience as a client, a young personal coach needs an experienced mentor. Mentoring can be done in groups or individually. Perhaps your educational institution provides a similar practice, or maybe you have to look for such a person yourself. But you've already made contacts, haven't you?
   • The other side of the equation is that you need to see what actually doing personal coach. Perhaps you think the point is to come and say, "You are ruining your own life with your own hands - do this and this instead." Only everything is exactly the opposite (at least if you good personal coach!) If you want to understand all the intricacies of what you have to do, you should get your own personal coach.
   • If your school does not provide you with this opportunity (or at least does not provide you with a list of names to contact on this issue), find yourself through friends / classmates / teachers or in a directory - just like in the future your customers will be looking for you.
4. 4 Add your name to several coaching guides. Many clients are looking for assistants exclusively through the Internet, so this is the only way to find them.
   • Most websites charge a fee for posting information. Before leaving your credit card details anywhere or transferring money in any other way, make sure the source is reliable. Online scams are very common, so take these steps with great care.
5. 5 Find your niche. Some personal coaches specialize in helping you define your life vision or ways of self-improvement in general. Some focus on helping their clients choose the professional path. Someone advises managers on business organization, and someone helps clients build competent interpersonal relationships. Decide what area of ​​personal coaching you would like to specialize in (hint: this should be a field you are familiar with). For reflection, below is a list of possible options:
   • Business coaching
   • Environmental coaching (assistance in reducing the negative environmental consequences of any activity)
   • Career coaching
   • Corporate coaching
   • Management coaching
   • Relationship coaching
   • Retirement Coaching
   • Christian and Spiritual Coaching
   • Time Management Coaching
   • Image coaching and weight loss coaching
   • Coaching career-personal balance
6. 6 Advertise yourself. Now that next to your name appears "Certified Personal Coach", it's time to start handing out business cards, posting ads online, in newspapers, on community pages, in magazines, create a page on Facebook and Vkontakte, tweet and even make an inscription on the car. sticker. The more they know your name, the better. People won't come to you if they don't know that you exist!
   • Approach self-promotion professionally.You have already decided on your specialization, right? Think about what your potential customers read, watch or listen to? If you want to work with executives, you will not advertise a magazine for housewives; but this is where you place your ad if your niche is helping new moms find a balance between work and family life.
   • Research has shown that coaching has an equally positive effect on both employees and employers. For every $ 1 spent on employees (be it coaching, voluntary health insurance, etc.), the company receives $ 3 savings by reducing employee turnover and preventing all negative processes associated with it. If you are planning to offer your services to a business, arm yourself with these and similar facts.
7. 7 Find a few penny clients. With a certificate in hand and a complete lack of experience, you will need clients, but they are not easy to find during this period. In exchange for the opportunity to confirm that you have had a real-life counseling experience, offer free coaching services to your friends and family. You will work your hours, and they will have the opportunity to reflect and speak out (and, hopefully, a good dose of reality and a charge for the future).
   • How long you continue this practice is up to you. The correct answer is "until you find it convenient to price your services and feel confident that you can truly enrich the life of another." This can take weeks or months. Fortunately, there are no restrictions in this regard.
8. 8 Find a few real clients. After several months of working with a colleague of a sister or an acquaintance of your friend's acquaintances, sooner or later word of mouth will do its job. You will receive a phone call that will make you jump sky-high for joy. Congratulations! It's time to make money.
   • ... But how much? To be honest, it's up to you to decide. Do you want daily payment? Monthly? And in what size? Reflect on what opportunities you and your customers have? What expenses can they afford? What is the minimum you can afford? What social group do most of your clients belong to? When in doubt, research the market!

Part 3 of 4: Working with clients

1. 1 Start with an in-depth interview. When it comes to personal coaching, you can't judge a book by its cover. When a client comes to you, devote the first session to a detailed and open interview. What does the client want from you? What part of his life is he hoping to change with your help? What are the goals?
   • Most people will come to you with a certain idea - a very specific (and this is one of the reasons why personal coaches specialize in certain topics) thought about what they want to achieve. Whether it's overweight, business problems, or interpersonal difficulties, they know. Give them a chance to get you up to speed from the start and listen carefully.
2. 2 Organize the process. From the very beginning of your customer base, it's very easy to start mentally referring to customers as the-guy-who-has-caffeine-addiction-and-narcolepsy. Do not do that. It will show up in attitude and the client won't like it. Create a portfolio for each client, write down the details and keep the information in order. If you do not organize the process, you will forget to call customer # 14, and the next day you will lose him.
   • It is imperative to make each client feel like your most significant client. In work, you need to remember and take into account every little thing that the client told you about himself. Not only will this make a strong impression and build deep trust in you, but it will also help you make more accurate decisions about where to offer help.
3. 3 Set a feasible schedule. You’ll quickly figure out what’s best for you to work, but most coaches say they meet with each client about 3 times a month. Some of the clients will need a higher intensity of meetings, some less, but 3 meetings a month is an average. The length of the meeting is also at the discretion of you and your client.
   • Sessions do not need to be held in person, although this is considered the most effective option. You can conduct them both by phone and with the help of special programs such as Skype. If you are a corporate or management coach, your clients may spend a lot of time on business trips, in which case, conducting sessions by phone may be the only viable option.
4. 4 Take your time to hand out instructions. A personal coach is not an expensive advisor. It would be awful. Your task is to help others understand the existing options and opportunities and make their own choice. Only a non-professional coach can quickly give advice and hang up. You are working on a change in habits and behavior - which is a million times more valuable than just recommending what the client should do.
   • No one needs a person (especially a stranger) who will tell us what to do with our life - we already have enough of this from our relatives and individual acquaintances, who are sure that they know everything. You are answering the question "how", not what. You are helping to get through the process.
5. 5 Let's do homework. To a certain extent, you are a teacher and mentor. Your work doesn't end the moment you hang up. You must make sure that certain actions result from your conversations. It is necessary to give clients homework. Whether it's exploring business plans or talking to your ex, you should encourage clients to take action that will lead to change. What will be best for them? And how can you be sure that they actually took these actions?
   • You will have intractable customers. You will have naughty clients. You will have clients who think that you are simply wasting their precious time. This happens. You need to accept both good and evil and learn to determine where it is better to stop. If the client doesn't like your style, then so be it.
6. 6 Help them achieve their goals. In the end, for the sake of this everything is started. We all have a difficult relationship with this thing called life at times, and a personal coach is needed to shed light on the dark, frightening tunnel in which we are lost. If you've done everything in your power to help you reach your goal, if you've shown every possible option, you've done your part. Clients should play with you on the same team.

Part 4 of 4: Developing Effective Coaching Skills

1. 1 Be a caring and empathic person. Much of a personal coach's job is to help you set goals and achieve them. This requires friendliness as part of character. If you are an old woman Shapoklyak or a dull donkey Eeyore, clients will run away from you without looking back.
   • Personal contact is not required for personal coaching, as practice shows that many personal coaches work over the phone. However, this type of communication also has its undeniable advantages: fewer obstacles and, accordingly, it is easier to build trusting relationships. In addition, it is the ability to communicate anytime anywhere, which is very convenient.
2. 2 Sincerely wish everyone the best. Some of us (read: 99% of us) are not always friendly and understanding. Even if we consider ourselves to be the owners of these qualities, from time to time there is a hole in the old woman. And it happens to certain people more often than to others.A very attractive colleague can make us feel jealous, and Joe's completely dumb friend annoys us so much that we involuntarily show chill and detachment. It doesn't matter if it's intelligence, looks, or just a weird laugh - you should leave everything aside and show a willingness to help. to each.
   • Perhaps you will have such clients with whom in another life you would not stop and have a cup of tea. And that's okay. We cannot like all people. You don't have to drink tea with them. All that is needed is to help them. Help them and wish them success. Even if you dislike a person with your whole being, put his interests first.
3. 3 Remember, you and the client are not friends. As mentioned above, you are not agreeing to just sit and have tea. Your task is not just to support, as your friends do, but to push you to take concrete steps. And in order to maintain a professional relationship, it is very important to keep this in mind. If you become friends, they will stop paying you.
   • As you move from being a coach to being a friend, clients begin to feel less responsible for doing what you agree on. You, in turn, will be less motivated to speak frankly - one day you will have to be tough, and if they see you as a friend, they will be offended. Maintaining clarity in communication boundaries is a common good and logically correct practice.
4. 4 Be flexible. Life often brings unexpected twists and turns. It is likely that a client will call you on Friday night with a desire to make an appointment for the next day. If possible, please go forward! There is no disrespect in this - perhaps they themselves do not always expect this. Either way, you will never have a standard 9 to 5 office schedule.
   • Beyond scheduling flexibility, be flexible in your mindset. What works for one person may not work for another. In the end, everything is relative in this matter. If the client doesn't want something in principle, respect his desire. You are working with personality. Tailor your program to each one as much as possible, and always leave room for improvement.
5. 5 Get creative. To help people reach their potential, you need thinking outside the box. 100% they have already thought through options A and B, and have not achieved anything with their help (for one reason or another) - you will have to offer them options C, D and D. These options should not be obvious (otherwise the client himself may think of it!); to be successful in personal coaching, you will need a lot of ideas, creativity and a good imagination
   • This does not mean that you can do without logic. No, you need both. On the road to success, you need a healthy balance between assessing reality and multiple choices to help you gain credibility in the eyes of your customers. And if they are happy, so are you, and besides, your reputation grows stronger!

Tips

• You can offer prospective clients a showcase coaching session. This will help them gauge if your coaching style suits their needs and goals. It will also whet their appetite!
• Maintain a list of satisfied customers whose testimonials you can offer as recommendations to future customers.

Warnings

• At the moment, there are no external organizations that regulate the activities of personal coaches, for example, unlike psychologists and psychiatrists.
• A personal coach should work as a partner for his client. The decision in which direction the partnership should develop is always up to the client.