Fellow practitioners are part of this consultant/vendor group. Through their blogs, newsletters, webinars and workshops, they are offering services and activities that are designed to build a more competent and capable set of coaches who can successfully run their businesses, reorganize into larger organizations, and self-organize and collaborate on an ad hoc project basis. Offering comp services is one way to increase awareness, create identity and provide value-adding service (if you are able). Is this something you are able to provide, design and deliver? If so, what marketing efforts are you making to create awareness, interest and appetite for your offerings?
Coaching and Teaming with Ancillary Services
Coaching is a particular solution designed to positively impact a specific set of root causes. Sometimes, other root causes are (also) contributing to performance issues and coaching will have little or no impact. There is value in thinking more broadly and systemically about whether you want to develop partnerships with professionals with other skill sets and aptitudes. This could include teaming with disciplines such as OD/HPT, HR, medical and mental health, accounting, finance, and IT professionals, depending on whether your client focus is organizational/professional or personal development. In both venues, the opportunity of coaching is to sustain and enhance one’s capacity to be active, energetic, alert and effective. Coaching can be viewed as a vehicle for personal sustainability—before, but especially beyond, the age of 65. It can enable vital involvement in one’s senior years and the accumulation of wisdom. Are there particular markets where these ways of configuring services are more relevant and urgent? Are they of interest to you? What kinds of marketing conversations could you have that highlight these potential benefits against clients’ concerns?
Summary
Much has happened in the past eleven years since the original Maher and Pomerantz article was published. The issue of coaching as a ”fad” has been put to rest. However, issues remain concerning the credibility of coaches and their organizations to deliver on their offers. This turns on the claims we make against the background of understanding about our audience and their concerns and aspirations, as well as how well we can build trust about what we can deliver for them. If we model what we practice while coaching, we will first listen well and deeply to our (potential) client’s conversations, understanding their world, with its priorities, challenges and opportunities. Do we have something meaningful and value-adding to offer? Can we create a new view of what’s possible in partnership, the realization of a desired state that reflects the brighter future worth investing in? Our marketing conversations can align to those values and aspirations, setting the stage for new agreements, shared expectations, coordination of action, recovery from breakdowns, work products delivered and benefits achieved. This is a non-discretionary game worth playing and playing masterfully.
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