How to Begin a Career in Coaching
To begin a rewarding career in coaching that helps others achieve their personal and professional goals, develop your own skills in key competencies for guiding people. Effective coaches establish trust with their clients, communicate effectively using active listening and open questioning techniques, facilitate learning by creating an action plan to set goals and abide by an ethical code of standards that ensures integrity.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Get certified by an industry-leading organization in your profession. For example, the International Coach Federation offers three credentials: the Associate Certified Coach, the Professional Certified Coach and the Master Certified Coach. It also offers a service to locate Accredited Coach Training Programs. Applicants submit a log of their hours spent providing client coaching, provide reference letters from two certified coaches and pass an exam.
-
2
Create a business plan for a career in coaching. Use the resources provided by the Small Business Administration’s website, located at SBA.gov, to generate an executive summary that provides an overview of the coaching services you intend to provide, a market analysis of the opportunities in your area, a brief description of your coaching methodology, details about how you intend to manage, market and sell your services and details about the amount of funding you need to get started. Find a mentor using the SCORE (SCORE.org) program.
-
-
3
Register with referral service websites, such as the International Coach Federation Coach Referral Service, which is located at Coachfederation.org. Then people can browse through the member directory or use the search function to find you and engage your services. Create a standard contract form using a template from websites such as the Microsoft Office Templates site (Microsoft.com) or develop your own to describe your business relationship with clients. Arrange a mechanism to receive payment, such as PayPal. Pay your taxes according to local, state and federal regulations.
-
4
Advertise your services in local publications. Use social media to promote your coaching services. For example, use a wiki, blog or forum to describe the steps you use to structure a coaching session. Describe how you help clients establish goals and objectives. List ways you help clients assess their current skills and aptitudes. Show examples of how you use probing questions to find out why clients need to make some changes. List some of the options you propose to typical clients, including formal training courses and self-study alternatives. Describe how you encourage your clients to come up with their own suggestions. Show that you help clients achieve their goals by providing inspiration, motivation and guidance. Describe your techniques for dealing with procrastination and setbacks.
-
1
