Business Management

The Truth about Business and Executive Coaching
People from all walks of life are jumping onto the coaching bandwagon, lured by stories of £100,000 salaries, many with little or zero experience are fighting for their piece of the pie. Let’s get down to facts and demolish a few myths, mostly generated by the coaching industry itself.
Myth One; you can earn at least £5000 a week/month as a life/business/executive coachFact: 40% of coaches earn less than 10k a year, and the majority struggle to remain in the profession for more than a year. The reality is in the majority of cases it’s the coach training organisations that are raking in the money.
Myth Two; Coaching is officially recognisedFact; There is not one official coach training orgainisation or body that is recognised by any government anywhere in the world. The reality is that some of the larger "international" coaching associations were privately founded by commercial training companies for the purpose of externally ‘legitimising’ their training courses. These types of associations typically have a private business agenda that concentrates on adding large numbers of members to their database for revenue generating purposes.
Myth Three; Clients are crying out for coachesFact; The industry has more coaches than clients, during a survey over 50% of ICF coaches said it took them over two years to obtain their first coaching assignment. Every week a new coaching company springs up offering “certification”, the industry is already saturated with ill equipped, “coaches” with little or no actual practical experience, coaches are crying out for clients.
Myth Four; You need a ICF (international coach federation) diploma to be recognised as a legitimate coach Fact; The ICF was formed in the mid 1990’s by Coach U, a USA based online coach provider for the purpose of certifying their own life coaching courses.
Myth Five; Certification adds credibility and confirms level of experience Fact: Certification means absolutely zilch and does not qualify someone as having the best skills and experience as a business/executive coach.
Myth Six; Coaching organisations are selective in who they admit on to a coach training programme. Fact: They couldn’t care less as long as you can cough up the cash.
Myth; Coaching can be done over the phone Fact: Hmm really? How can a coach possibly offer expert advice without meeting the individual face to face? Can a Doctor diagnose an Illness over the phone? No he wants to examine you first. The same applies to coaching, a one on one meeting is essential in the first instance for the effective implementation of a coaching protocol. Then and only then can coaching assignments be carried out at a distance.
So what is important about selecting a coach for your business?Experience in business! Theo Paphitis on a recent edition of BBC2’s Dragons Den was approached by a prospective entrepreneur to set up a coaching project. When questioned about how many years she had studied, she replied none, I trained with a master over two months (NLP master in this case), the only masters are school masters or as they are more commonly known head teachers or head masters or ships masters. If anyone calls themselves a master run a mile. She was then questioned what practical business experience she had. Answer none. Theo quite rightly then questioned how anyone could set them selves up as a business coach/trainer/mentor/consultant with out actually having experience in business!. As was expected all Dragons, quickly dismissed the business model as impractical.
Lets face it if you need your car serviced you get a qualified mechanic who has had many years experience working on cars, preferably on your make. If you want your plumbing fixed you get a qualified plumber who has served his/her time as an apprentice fixing many sinks etc, if you have gynacologist problems you go to a qualified gynaecologist not a plumber!
The same rule of thumb applies to taking on a coach, if you want to get your sales team motivated, hire a coach that has worked in sales, if you want a coach to help your grow your business get one that has either run his own business for at least five years or who has worked at a senior level for a major blue chip company. If you want a coach to motivate and inspire your staff to overcome obstacles, setbacks and problems get one that has started a business, or preferably several, gone bust, lost everything and started again.
Trust me on this he will offer more value and practical experience to your company than anyone who has a “certificate”.
The coaches’ role is to improve results and performance, coaches don’t know everything and should hold their hand up and say I don’t know rather than trying to be all things to all men. Executives don’t want yet another course, they need unbiased support and constructive input and criticism, the same approach does not work with every client. If you have a suite tailor made in saville row, it wont fit others. Coaching is the same, individual and bespoke taking the needs of the individual balanced with the needs of the client into account.
Ian Broadmore is a leading motivational speaker, personal development consultant, coach and mentor.Founder ofIan Broadmore Changing Lives and The Abintra Clinic. Ian is featured regular in the media as an expert on personal development and strategy management. Working with both individuals who seek a better quality of life or corporations that require change management, he is based in Londons Harley Street