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TOP TEN PERSONAL BELIEFS AND PRACTICES

OF A SUCCESSFUL COACH

By Kathleen Spike, Master Certified Coach

www.coachingworksinc.com

Tip #1 - This is the hottest insider tip I can give you. Hire a coach, keep a coach 100% of the time, and get the best coach for the results you want to create. Enlist them to prop you up, move you off start, be your alter courage when you are down and request they challenge you and celebrate you 100% of the time. It is the number one answer to my success. I was smart enough to know my best habits and results would not emerge alone. I have had the same coach for 10 years, plus many other coaches in addition to her over that time. She is part of why I am a success today. Without her (particularly) I wouldn't have been able to stay the course in tough times. I trusted her to help me get me where I wanted to go. And she did. Coaching works!!!

Tip #2 - Get the best education at an institute that you can be proud of and who is in the forefront of the coaching world. Get all the credentials you can muster because you will have to prove (we did back in 1995 and I still do) that this industry has credibility and you are qualified. I trained at CTI and still do. However I use all of Thomas Leonard's works, joined him in the million dollar coaching program in 1997, and was part of his research and developments group and the Graduate School of Coaching startup at Coachville. Read every book in your niche you can get your hands on. Get involved with coaches from your institute, local group, and volunteer and get involved with peers that are creating something. Join ICF and model after the top coaches there. Stay hooked into what they are producing. Go to conferences. The best investment you will ever make will be in yourself.

Tip #3 - Get into coaching to make money and produce meaning, to quote Andrea Lee's new book. Money is just energy, not good or bad. Making money doing something you love is perfectly o.k. Some coaches feel service and clients must come before money, well I think they go together neck and neck. I sat out to build a business not a movement or a crusade. Although in the process I became part of a movement that is changing the world, could change the world given the opportunity. My success was built on pragmatic business concepts, operations, marketing, sales, closing, policies and procedures of the same kind at Microsoft, just on a smaller scale. I used this business to do what I am already interested in...business startups, building service, making money. It was very self serving, self motivating. It was what I wanted to do. I wanted to make a job for myself. Now I want to build assets in my coaching practice. Think, look and act like a business. It is what the culture expects you to be doing, and if you want to make money, get smart and give the culture what they want.

Tip #4 - Follow your inner interests only, what you love, how you love to "be" in the world. Build the coaching practice from the inside out. Be your values and your potential clients will find that very attractive. For me, I am a catalyst, a fire lighter for people to take charge of their lives and manifest a life worth living. I can coach from this place because I am what I sell. I was already a success, I am the President of my own destiny and life, I am 100% taking responsibility for what I create, I am determined to do life and work my way. People love that, want that, the culture built us to want it. What do you have to sell that will attract others in this way so they will pay...YOU!

Tip #5 - Coach for a fee not for free. I never coached anyone for free. I "believed" (key word) in my value, what I brought to the table and I was not going to give it away even for practice. If something in life is "not" an option, notice how that manifests for you. If you are convicted about something, deeply, like pay me or I won't work, then you can create from there. If you do not believe you are worth the value, you will stumble. Question: How can you build more skills so you will "own" your value then you can charge for it? I believed, even as a novice coach, I could do the job for the client. I started out charging $35 an hour and in three months raised it to $75 (I passed certification, I was more confidant). Soon after it was $100 an hour, after 10 years it is a sliding scale for corporate, business and individuals. Do I sound hard, tough? I am as soft as the inside of an M & M, however business is business, which is how I run my company.

Tip #6 - Find people smarter, more skilled and ahead of you in coaching to emulate. Let go of you (for now) and emulate how they are doing it. Stop being in "I know" what coaching is and how to build a business out of it and instead switch gears into "I don't know", show me. Absorb their best skills, habits, mannerisms until you can stand in your own and get paid to do so. The principles at CTI were my trainers back in 1994 and 1995. I did NOT know what I was doing, however I signed up to be in there presence, help them with everything; I became the Oregon liaison for the CIT professional organization. Everything they came to Portland I picked them up, went to companies with them and learned how to do this thing called coaching. It was all very "messy". I was messy. In fact, they recommended I get messy, fail, get back up and succeed. It was very painful. Thank goodness I had a strong personal coach who was experienced in the business world; otherwise I may not have been able to transition so successfully.

Tip #7 - Get your dreams for coaching and your results on paper. You have to deeply and with ever cell of your body believe in them. One stray cell saying this isn't possible can derail your attraction process momentarily or forever. Sit down and write what you would really LOVE in your business and life, be specific, make it measurable, make it in present time, the now. Do not say "I want", instead write I am making $100,000 a year, I am coaching 20 clients, they pay me $500 each, I am in an office with this and that, and I am working with an assistant. See, it is the "I am" of it not the "I want" of it. Want says you lack, it is over there. "I am" brings it right in here, in you, in your consciousness. Then LOVE the feeling you feel when you think of these dreams you have written down. The more you LOVE your dreams the more power to manifest they will have. They may alter here and there, there may be changes. So what. ALLOW the changes, scratch them off. As you awaken to your real self dreams do change in business and life. Check them off as they are accomplished. It may take you longer or a shorter time to reach the dream. Who knows? It is HOLDING the dream in you at a cellular level that has the power. I have been doing this since 1972. I just knew someplace in me dreams could be planned and attracted. Thank you to the Universal energy from somewhere.

Tip #8 - What is your BS? BS can keep you stuck or propel you forward. Your belief system is either your friend or foe. Take a look at yours. If you believe you have the inner drive and magic to build a coaching business, then you can achieve it. If you don't have that BS, you can build it if you hire the right people to advise you and coach you. However, you have to have some kind of fire in the belly to get to the Olympics. So, what is it you believe right now that has you stuck in fear, lack, and a fog? I invite you to step out of that default of your human operating system and into a new place called guts, courage, fortitude, imagination and magic. The sky is the limit for each of you if you are willing to get on the flight.

Tip #9 - Manifest success form the essence of your dreams, intentions, and goals. For you or the client, if you find the essence of any result, dream or goal it has a better likelihood of manifesting. Lay down intentions then goals on paper; however be aware of what the essence is of them. The essence of my coaching practice is to create freedom to work at home, work on my own hours, and be in control of my life, my health and my family life. The essence of flexibility, quality of days drives my passion to make money at home doing what I love to do, get people where they want to go and what they want to be. The essence of my niche is to vicariously be in businesses of all kinds and experience results from all walks of productive people, because I love the whole idea of entrepreneurship, risk, problem solving, strategies, new ideas, communication, and people. It is my natural interest.

Tip #10 - Let people know you, experience you, see how you are as a coach. Show up and "be" happy, confidant (even when you may not be), determined, gutsy, strong, connected. GET VISIBLE. Let people know. Be like the town crier; tell it to the mountain tops. If you don't, who will? Send post cards. They are the best marketing tool you will ever use. Cheaper, colorful and people keep them around sometimes for years. Have a web site with at least something easy and free and a copyright letter on the home page to live for! I created a TV presentation on AMNW which launched my business. They always want unique new topics..coaching worked. It captured 40 people into a seminar and five of the best clients plus referrals for years to come to this day. Tell people who you are, where you are and how you can meet there needs. Everyone wants to get a head, get a meaningful life, and get results. This is what I sell and it is very clearly stated in my advertising.

A few more tips.

Tip #10 a - Follow the money. My niche will spend money to make money. I am a coach to decision makers, business owners, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs. They are risk takers, they will spend and they know they need to to get results. I weave all the personal coaching I love into every business coaching process. It is what gives it all meaning. I am really a mystic in business drag. They mysticism of success and the people involved is what really fills my heart. And, I get paid for this????

Tip #10 b - Share the prosperity no matter how small the receiving of or the giving. It shows you believe there is enough and that is a beautiful place to play. For every new client I receive, I give money away to someone who can use more.

Note:

My secret attraction factor is my age, my gray hair (gray matters), having raised two children who are my best friends, traveled to every state in the US and all English speaking countries during the home-based business movement telling my story of how to work at home and make money. This created a rolodex to build a business with. I had a ready audience waiting for more information on how to be more successful. People also believe I can handle complicated things as I have so much life and business experience. They are right, I can.

Thank you and my very best to you in building your own successful practice.

Kathleen