Tweet

The Business Coaching Perspective

Guest post by: Dave Ferguson

Article Overview: Often I am asked general questions around coaching, so I thought I would be a good idea to commit a few columns to some general education about Business & Life coaching, from my perspective. As you may remember from some of my prior columns, I define marketing as “the constant education of your target audience.” I remind you of this, so you understand that I am not deliberately marketing to you through this educational piece.

The Business Coaching Perspective

I get many calls and emails from readers and enjoy corresponding with those of you who enjoy my writings. THANK YOU! Often I am asked general questions around coaching, so I thought I would be a good idea to commit a few columns to some general education about Business & Life coaching, from my perspective.

As you may remember from some of my prior columns, I define marketing as “the constant education of your target audience.” I remind you of this, so you understand that I am not deliberately marketing to you through this educational piece.

Let’s start off with what coaching is:

1. Coaching is a professional service that is intangible. Those that decide to commit to using a coach can’t actually see or touch the service, but they can see and hear the coach. In essence the product/service you are contracting is the coach.

2. Coaching is a lot about the relationship between the coach and the client. This relationship is critical to the process and overall success the client attains through coaching. I always suggest at least one consultation with a prospective client before we decide to start working together. This allows us both to ask questions of each other. From my perspective, it allows me to establish the needs of the prospective client and start thinking of some possible solutions. For the prospective client, they get to interview me. It’s important that they are comfortable with me, and I with them. Over time, I have built some great long-term relationships with my clients. You see, I value them as much as they value me. If you are interviewing coaches, it’s important you try to get a read on this.

3. Coaching requires passion from both the coach and the client. I always tell people if you don’t love what you’re doing, find something you love and start working at it. Passion from a good coach should bleed out of him/her; but be sure you don’t confuse it with aggressive or manipulative sales techniques. I have run into a few folks out there that can give the coaching profession a bad name. If you are interviewing a coach, be sure to ask him/her how and why they became a professional business coach. Also, ask them what qualifies them to be a coach. After these questions, you should know if you have a passionate coach that is in the business to help people or a salesperson who is in it for the money.

4. Coaching is future driven. Very little time is spent in the past, except for brief “visits” to ascertain specific information needed to make improvements. It’s important to understand the past while creating the plans for the future. A good coach spends little time digging through the past. Most of the time should be spent designing plans for the future with the client.

5. Coaching is educational. Through coaching, clients learn new skills and tools to build a more satisfying successful future. Together, the client and coach identify challenges and partner together to turn these challenges into victories.

I hope this begins to help you understand the Business & Life coaching world. I will continue next week. Until then, stay focused on your goals, keeping in mind that to carry on a successful business and life, we must have imaginations, vision, drive, dreams…and a support system.

Related Articles
  The Top Ten Myths And Realities About Business Coaching According To Your Strategic Thinking Coach
  Does Life/Business Coaching Really Work
  What Is That? Great Executive Coaches Add Perspective
  Is Coaching About Getting Things Done?
  Achieve Inside Out Results through an Executive Business Coach
  It's Lonely at the Top
  Building a Practice On Purpose Series Part #2 - When Life Purpose is About More than What You Do
  “Seven More Reasons Why You Need Business Coaching - From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”
  Secrets to Filling your Coaching Practice
  Benefits of Receiving Coaching
  How By Being in the Bottle Is Keeping You From Reading The Label and Growing Your Sales
  So what differentiates a Life Coach from a Business Coach from an Executive Coach?
  Sales Leader’s Job in Perspective
  How To Keep Growing
  8 Things that can lead you to start a Coaching Business
  Get The Most Out Of Coaching
  Sales Team Transformation thru Coaching
  Do You Ever Give Up Coaching Employees
  Pick Up A Positive Perspective
  Executive Business Coaches Help You to See the Big Picture in Business and Yourself

Article Tags: business coaching, business life, coaching, economy, educational piece, general education, leadership, life coaching, perspective, success, target audience



Related Forum Posts
Exclusive: Interview with Results - Hi Forum Members, I'm helping start up a Business Coaching and Consulting company here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a Subsidiary of RSC Business in Los Angeles). As a Research and Development Intern I am required to practice my listening and interview skills by surveying Small and Medium Businesses on thier Business. This Survey is designed by RSC Business to also assist the Business being interviewed more insight into their own business. I am looking to interview about 30 businesses across North America over the span of 3 months. At the end of these interviews I will be publishing a report of the results and they will be made available for free to the Interviewees. The Report data will include responses from a minimum of 100 interviews. I would like to extend this opportunity to members of the Forum. If you would like to have this short 20-30 minute interview conducted on your Business and you reside in North America please send me an email or PM. Please contact me at andy[at]jvprosperity[dot]com to arrange our interview and to get free access to the results when they are published.
Business Coaching Internship Review - I joined in during the first phase of the internship and at this point we are committed to doing research and development of RSC Business Group operating in Toronto. RSC Business Group already has products and services in Coaching Small businesses in Los Angeles but we didn't want to assume that the same products were wanted and needed in the Toronto market. Our goal at this point is to commit to interviewing 1000 business owners to capture this data. Through the teleconference internship I've been involved in we've been focusing on Communication Skills and on active listening which are practiced when we conduct our interviews and Coach our clients when they come on board. This is a lot harder than it sounds! Part of the internship is also creating the Toronto RSC Business Group's departments, job descriptions, Marketing and Communication plans etc that a business owner would create for their own company. This trains us in the way we would coach a company as well. The internship is phased in two parts and there is compensation plan involved as well for the clients you personally bring in. These clients are coached directly by Robert Chun as you begin but you are given a chance to learn his techniques. I haven't gone through this experience yet though. It's hard to explain Robert Chun's method of Coaching as it happens at a psychological level in his ability to listen and question the person being coached into the next steps they need to take. The Teleconferences are 2 hours long but it's very interactive. If you have a desire to explore this area of Business I'd recommend contacting Vwodek listed above and get invited to a Coaching Conference call. You can decided then if it's for you. Note: it is a commitment but the skills you walk away with whether you plan on working with RSC Business Group or not is invaluable.
New Small Business Topic - Hello everyone, I'm on the lookout for new topics to add to my site. We just launched a Franchising section and are planning Human Resources section. Do you have any thoughts for a new section? Here's a list of what we currently have: Angel Investors Branding Bank Loans Business Coaching Business Plan Franchises (New) Insurance Legal Marketing Public Relations Sales Small Biz Loans Venture Capital
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: Business Women Peer Mentoring Spotlight - That is a great idea, David. This is what I had in mind for the Women's section, but it makes sense to post in on the main site. Of course, I'm waiting for some women to step up to the plate and share how they could use some support on taking the next step with their business! If you are a Business Woman reading this, I invite you to consider that this is not displaying weakness in any form. Peer mentoring and Coaching is incredibly valuable. You get to bounce your ideas off others, hear perspectives from outside your own box, and feel the power of others cheering you on. To me, it's wisdom to use all of our available resources to move towards business success. That's why I have my own Coach and my own Mentor Coaching Group. I also offer that to my clients. These are services one usually has to pay for and you could enjoy some of it free right here! So who wants to start? Can you tell I'm excited about the possibilities for you even before you begin? Warmly, Tami


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Work at home Opportunities for the Disabled

WHAT IS MANAGEMENT CONSULTING

How Promotional Caps became a Fashion Trend

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.