Introduction
The first time I got interested in online coaching, I met a lot of different people.
A lot of these individuals were well on their way to developing an online coaching business. “So far, so good”, I thought to myself.
It turned out that a lot of the people I was rubbing shoulders with digitally were basically walking the wrong path. They had all the wrong ideas on how to build and run a successful online coaching business.
In fact, for the longest time, I struggled with my own coaching business because I absorbed a lot of their ideas.
One of the most confusing and toxic ideas that I subscribed to be the idea that I should recruit as many clients for one-on-one coaching. In theory, this made a lot of sense because, let’s face it, if you want to learn from somebody, the best way to do so is to have that person right in front of you.
While that person is talking, you can engage that person and ask questions that mean I lot to you.
Maybe there are a lot of materials that don’t make sense to you. Perhaps this person is skipping certain important materials.
Whatever the case may be the fact that they’re in front of you enables you to ask questions in real-time so they can engage with you in such a way that you pick up the information that will take your knowledge to the next level. All this is fairly easy to understand.
However, the problem is people are not going to seek out one-to-one coaches unless that person is worth seeking out. I hope you can understand that. I hope the value proposition is quite clear with the statement I just said.
Think about it. If you are just some random person who keeps saying to himself and to anybody who would bother to listen that you are an expert, do you think you will be viewed as an expert? Chances are you won’t.
You have to pay your dues. You have to write lots of books. You have to get interviewed a lot. You have to become some sort of minor media figure. You have to establish a name in your industry.
A lot of these activities take quite a bit of effort, focus and motivation. Yes, they also take a lot of time, and this is how you build a premium brand.
Once you have reached that stage, then it makes sense to market yourself in terms of one-to-one coaching. Prior to that point, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because people couldn’t care less.
They’d rather read your book. They’ll give you a shot that way. Maybe they’ll watch a video that you shot a long time ago.
However, in terms of paying up to $300 per hour for one hour of Face Time, I don’t think so. Unfortunately, there are so many other people who think like me.
Do yourself a big favor. Develop a premium brand first. There are many ways to do this. Some ways are more disappointing than others. Some ways lead to success.
Qualities Of A Great Coach
When it comes to coaching people, there are a lot of good qualities that many coaches exhibit.
In fact, every coach out there has some good qualities that you could list about them, but if you talk to enough coaches and you get to know the people at the top of the industry, you will notice a pattern starting to emerge.
You will see that the most successful coaches actually share some of the same attributes.
Here are five qualities that the greatest coaches have:
See if you can develop these same attributes so that you’ll be in that elite club of successful coaches who are making a difference with their practice.
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is a big one. You want to know yourself intimately because if you are still struggling with finding out who you are, you are going to have a major problem coaching other people.
Great Communication
The best coaches have great communication. They say the right things at the right times, and even more importantly, they listen.
Listening is a skill that you want to develop, and you want to understand and empathize with the people that you’re listening to so that you can communicate not only what you want to say, but also exactly what they need.
Perceptiveness
Great coaches are perceptive. They notice things. Coaches can tell when someone is not as motivated as they used to be, or when someone is having a bad day.
This perceptiveness comes in handy when getting to the root of a client’s problem and digging down into the beliefs and thoughts that drive a specific behavior.
Organized and Professional
Great coaches are not only professional, dressing the part, and always having the right attitude, they are also very organized. Even if you aren’t naturally an organized person, you should take a class or just learn to do better because organization is vital to running a good coaching business.
You’ll be collecting information about several different clients and helping them each with a different goal, and unless you are organized you are going to get confused and look unprofessional.
Flexible
The best coaches are also very flexible. They can easily bounce back when someone throws them a curve ball.
If a particular style of coaching or method isn’t working with a certain client, they are happy to change things up and allow them to learn from a completely different place, even if it isn’t one that they are most comfortable with.
Specialize: Make Real Money In Coaching
A lot of people are under the impression that if you want to be a successful coach, you just need to talk well.
That’s right. You basically just need to have a nice speaking voice, and you must have the right facial expressions. You have to make the right gestures at the right time with the right people to produce the right results.
A lot of this does seem to make sense. After all, a lot of it is signaling. A lot of it is really all about interpersonal communication and sending out the right message and making sure that you get the message across.
All that is very easy to understand, but the problem is there are many concepts in this world that are easy to understand but hard to implement. This is one of those.
Let me tell you no matter how convinced you are that you are some sort of super genius expert in any area of expertise, that doesn’t automatically translate that you will make real money in online coaching, not in a million years.
A lot of things have to happen between point A and point B for you to achieve the kind of success you’re looking for. I know this is the kind of thing you probably didn’t want to hear. I know too many people this is depressing. I know that to a lot of people, this is discouraging.
Unfortunately, this is also the cold, hard truth. The sooner you wrap your mind around this and the sooner you make peace with this information, the sooner you will actually position yourself for success.
Don’t waste another moment. Wrap your mind around what I’m saying. Focus on specialization. This is the key. You cannot be a jack- of-all-trades. You cannot be everybody’s best friend. Focus on what you know and knock it out of the park.
It’s not rocket science because if you truly know your stuff and you are able to produce results in the lives of people who seek you out for hard answers, you stand out. You’re not that random person spouting out theory and anecdotal garbage. There’s too much of that. People couldn’t care less about that. People are not going to pay real money for that kind of “expertise”.
Become the real deal. How do you do this? Very simple. Specialize in body of knowledge that is an inch wide and drill miles deep. Know everything about it. Know it like the back of your hand.
If you are able to communicate this in clear terms and, most importantly, you are able to deliver results in the lives of people looking for answers within your area of expertise, you become a hero. How come?
Very few people who are trying to achieve success in online coaching don’t even bother to do that. They just focus on hype. They just focus on cheap brands. They just focus on the right connections and other shenanigans. They refuse to do the heavy lifting.
You, on the other hand, do the heavy lifting and the heavy communication. That is what makes the difference. Of course, there are many other moving parts.
This is the best resource you could ever get your hands on when it comes to online coaching success. Build your business the right way the first day.