What works for Successful Coaches? What works for the most successful coaches?
By Charlie Lang
When I started my coaching business in late 2002, I thought that I was well prepared to develop a successful practice as an Executive Coach. I had approximately 13 years of corporate experience, out of which about 10 years in senior management positions. I had a strong background in sales and marketing and had helped my previous employer to start up a handful of subsidiaries in different countries worldwide, 3 of which were in Asia. Last but not the least, I graduated from a dedicated coaching course with over 150 hours training in both personal and executive coaching. And, of course, I was highly motivated to get my business started: I developed a comprehensive business plan, got myself a mentor coach and thought that I could hit it off right away.
Well, there were a few things which I did not consider sufficiently, or worse, not at all… I had to learn the rather hard way that I had a number of wrong assumptions which simply stood in my way:
a) I saw a huge untapped market for coaching in Hong Kong - the potential seemed endless and in fact it almost is - the problem is that the market doesn't know it.
b) I misunderstood that starting up a subsidiary of an established company has only little in common with starting up a business right from scratch.
c) I thought that my income as a senior manager could be a measure for the fees I could claim in coaching - and unfortunately, my coach training supported this belief. Little did I understand that I actually was a beginner again and hence I needed to adjust my fees according to my skills and knowledge in coaching.
d) Even though I already realized in the beginning that I should try to focus on some areas of coaching - despite the teaching that coaching is a process which can be applied to literally anyone - I learned that l was by no means rigorous enough in the establishment of my focus.
You can already guess that my business did not develop according to my business plan and that I struggled quite a bit figuring out what went wrong. Approximately one year ago, I decided to start researching on what very successful coaches have in common in order to get clues as to what I needed to change or improve. I had the luck to talk to some of the most successful coaches in the past months and I also studied some literature like the e-book "10 Super Coaches Reveal Their Secrets" (which recently got extended to 17 interviews) or the very recommendable book "Getting Started in Personal and Executive Coaching" by Stephen G. Fairley and Chris E. Stout.
Studying these outstanding coaches I figured out a few key success factors which I would like to share with you:
1. Focus! Focus! Focus!
I could write a whole book about the benefits of focusing. The funny thing is, I always knew of the benefits of focusing and yet, when I started my own business, my fear was stronger than my knowledge. I thought, oh my God, if I exclude this or that industry or this type of client or whatever, I will limit my chances. Theoretically true, but practically the opposite happens due to many reasons.
By the way, one of the most successful coaches worldwide is extremely focused on only one industry: property management companies. Huh! Property management companies, such a small industry, and yet he is the world's specialized coach for property management companies. He coaches - exclusively by phone - hundreds of people in that industry every year and makes 1.4 Mio USD per annum.
2. Collaboration - interdependent relationships
One of the reasons I was excited about starting my own business was that I could finally be really independent; I would be my own boss and so on. And yes, these are indeed benefits of being an entrepreneur. However, being independent also means that you need to do everything all by yourself. And, let's be honest, are we good - or say, excellent - in everything? Of course not, so I learned again to delegate work at which I am not really good at. Subcontracting is such an easy thing to do today.
More than that, I realized that if I started collaborating with other coaches and service providers who work with similar target clients, I could speed up my business. Some of the very successful coaches do exactly that: collaborating, allying and thus creating synergetic win-win constellations for them and their partners.
3. Getting your name out
Most coaches start by using their existing network. Depending on their networking skills and network structure, they become more or less successful. There's nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, for me that was - at least initially - not a very powerful option since my business network was mostly in the region (Japan, Korea, Europe …) whereas I wanted to first build a local business in Hong Kong. Hence, I had a network which was basically useless for my new purpose.
Nevertheless, I started networking but found that it takes a long time until people believe enough in someone to engage or recommend him as a coach. Hence, I was forced to look at other options such as PR, public speaking, writing, etc. The beauty of these approaches is that you reach a larger number of people at once and not only that, you have a chance to show your competence as a coach.
Marshall Goldsmith, rated by FORBES as one of the top 5 Executive Coaches in the US, told me a few weeks ago that you need to expose yourself as much as possible if you want to become a well-known coach and want to get beyond your limited network.
Even though I started only two years ago, I have learned a lot of important lessons and I see the first positive results rolling in:
a) I am much more focused than before - my focus is on leadership coaching for senior executives in the technology and finance industry. Additionally, I offer mentor coaching since I realize that I attract quite a lot of coaches who look for assistance in getting started or developing their coaching business.
b) I started some alliances, some of which are more formal such as the Master Coach Alliance and others which are more informal.
c) I made PR and Public Speaking part of my marketing strategy. Additionally, I started authoring a book on my key focus area, leadership coaching.
Last but not least, outstandingly successful coaches continue to enhance their skills. They don't stop learning as they know that this is crucial for becoming a more effective coach. I love to study different coaching related aspects such as psychology, NLP, etc. which help me in my daily coaching practice. Also, most successful coaches believe so much in the benefits of coaching that they have a mentor coach themselves.
Summary: Learning from the most successful coaches can help to avoid or at least minimize expensive and time-consuming mistakes. The top success factors I discovered in coaching are focus (absolute number 1!), collaboration, branding and self-improvement.
Do you want to understand better how to put these principles to work for you? Then contact
Charlie.Lang@progressu.com.hk
