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5 Questions To Ask Before Hiring A Coach
| Guest post by: Meridith Elliott Powell |
Article Overview: More and more companies are turning to external coaching and coaching programs to develop their executives and next level leaders. With increasing demands on business, and the need for executive development programs growing, the field of coaching is fast becoming a billion dollar industry.
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Free Download - Make Your Networking Count! Relationship First, Business Second By Meridith Elliott Powell |
5 Questions To Ask Before Hiring A Coach
More and more companies are turning to external coaching and coaching programs to develop their executives and next level leaders. With increasing demands on business, and the need for executive development programs growing, the field of coaching is fast becoming a billion dollar industry.
Like many new and growing industries, coaching is suffering from its share of growing pains. Low barrier to entry, abundance of coaching titles and lack of regulation are creating natural questions for those inside and outside of the field.
So how do you know if you need or could benefit from a coach? How should you go about finding a coach? How do you know if spending your time and hard earned money on a coach will yield a return on investment?
Before your invest your time and money in working with a coach do your homework. Hiring a coach, is just like hiring any other professional. You need to know what you want and what you expect to gain from the investment. Use these questions as a guide to determine if coaching is right for you, how to go about hiring the right coach, and how to get the most from your coaching relationship.
1. What is coaching – it is important, before you invest in a coach, that you are very clear as to what coaching is and what is isn’t. A coach is different from a mentor, a trainer or a therapist. You hire a coach to help you gain clarity and focus about what you want and desire to accomplish. A coach supports you in your effort to determine your goals, creates a structured path for achieving them, and provides accountability and motivation to ensure you reach or surpass those goals. A coach can help you figure out what you want – what you need to do to get it – and then helps you stay focused on the journey to achieving it.
2. Are you coachable? Coaching is a growing business because it works. However, while a coach can provide amazing insight, increased self awareness, and help you make tremendous progress, he or she can’t do that unless you want to be coached. You have to be sure you have the desire to change, and the commitment to do the work. It is not easy, as it requires changing habits, moving through obstacles and at times doing things that are uncomfortable. Coaching is not for everyone, and unfortunately the one thing a coach can not do for you is the actual work to help you achieve your goals!
3. Why do you want a coach? Be very clear about why you are looking to hire a coach. Is it to help you increase performance in your current position? Do you ultimately want to change careers? Perhaps you need help with work life balance? Maybe it is just to figure out what it is you do want. Coaches can help and support you in a variety of ways, and the better information you can provide them at the beginning of the relationship, the more benefit you will receive from the relationship.
4. What do you expect from a coaching relationship? You need to define your expectations and express them right up front. Coaching styles, coaching experience and coaching personalities are very different, and getting the right match for you is critical to your success. Coaching is about trust and communication; setting expectations up front will build trust early on and open the door for meaningful communication.
5. How will you measure your return on investment? Measuring return on investment is not easy with coaching as it is more values based than numbers based. However, you need to require your coach to determine a baseline and a starting point with you. Hiring a coach that begins with an assessment process is critical in your efforts to make progress and receive quality feedback. Understanding where you are at the beginning of the relationship will help you establish milestones so you ensure that the time you invest in coaching yields a high return.
Follow these guidelines and ask yourself these questions, before you commit to a coaching program or a coach. Getting prepared to be coached and hiring the right coach will ensure you yield a high rate of return on your investment.
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Article Tags: business coachexecutive development programs, coach, coaching
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About the Author: Meridith Elliott Powell RSS for Meridith's articles - Visit Meridith's website Click here to visit Meridith's website   Are You Giving Customer Reasons Not To Do Business With You 5 Questions To Ask Before Hiring A Coach Change 1 Thing To Move From Hating To Loving Sales Attitude Atttitude Attitude Turn Your Prospects Into Customers Invest In Yourself To Turn Your Prospects Into Customers |
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Re: looking for experienced affiliate feedback
- Hi Nancy,
Hiring an experienced firm to market and sell your products is certainly a viable option. It all depends on whether you want to spend more of your time or money. Hiring a firm is going to cost a good bit I imagine. On the flip side, to do most of the work yourself and attract affiliates to sell your products for you will require much less money but a lot more time and effort.
Do you have a budget to work within? Or perhaps maybe you have a loan to get things moving?
Re: Search Engine Optimization
- Hi Thomas,
So what would you recommend? Hiring an SEO expert or simply trying your hand at doing it yourself?
Re: Business Coaching Resources
- You're fortunate when you can find a Business Coach who has experience beyond where you've been and even where you are going. When your budget is slim and even after, it's good to have a mentor. Several of various backgrounds are very useful. They can be teachers, professors, pastors, business people, family members, bosses and former bosses.
You have to be clear on what you want and what you desire to achieve, be able to convey it as simply as possible. Stop and listen and don't over tax their time.
You should always expect results whether from a Business Coach or Mentors. If you're not gtting results, you're either not focused or you need to upgrade the quality of your mentors/coaches. Always surround yourself by people smarter than you.
Post subject: Too successful for a mate?
- That was an interesting article, Shri!
Most of the women I know who continue to be single have some type of self limiting behavior which interferes with them either meeting or attracting the perfect mate for them.
They are incredible and talented women, they just haven't set themselves up for relationship success. I know there are men who may be intimidated, but there are also men who aren't. Some men are attracted to smart women!
My advice to these women would be to focus on creating the right environment for a relationship to happen. This would be a great time to hire a Life Coach or Relationship Coach.
Taking action to get ready for a relationship doesn't mean having to be aggressive in finding a man. It's more subtle. If you don't make room for a man in your life, you might just squeeze out the opportunity before he gets to you. As well, you may be sending off all the wrong signals without realizing it.
Seriously, I don't think successful women are off the proverbial "good wife material list". However, if you think yourself off of it then don't be surprised if you fulfill your own prophecy.
Re: Want to be a published author?
- Thanks for sharing some options out there for us, Ladies!
I'm one of those people who have a number of books in the works, but haven't quite finished them yet... I think I need to bring this up with my own Coach, but that's another story! *LOL*
Anyhow, it's nice to know what I can do about it all when I'm ready. Shri, I'll keep you in mind when the time comes!
Thanks again,
Tami
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