Frequently Asked Questions About Life and Business Coaching
Find Answers To Our Most Frequently Asked Questions Here
Q: What is coaching?
A: A supportive relationship with a trained professional that enhances clients' ability to learn, make desired changes, solve problems, and achieve goals in their career or life. Coaches work with their clients individually or in groups, face-to-face or by telephone, typically in a series of regularly scheduled sessions.
Q: How is coaching different from consulting, teaching, or therapy?
A: Coaching differs from consulting because the coach's primary role is not to give advice or design solutions. Coaches ask questions and suggest alternatives that guide clients to discover their own unique answers and choose their own path. A coach may provide ideas, expertise, and skill-building techniques, but doesn't solve clients' problems for them, nor tell them what to do.
Coaching differs from teaching in that the coach doesn't determine what the client will learn, nor provide a curriculum to be followed. The client decides what he or she needs to know, and the coach facilitates learning by providing accountability, feedback, helpful resources, or useful models.
Coaching differs from therapy because coaching sessions are primarily focused on learning and achievement, rather than healing or resolution. Coaches help clients to make changes in their lives by observing present conditions, visualizing future goals, and determining action steps. Analyzing past events, understanding emotional reactions, or determining the cause of a client's behavior are typically not addressed in coaching.
Q: What do people get out of working with a coach?
A: Coaching clients experience a sense of partnership and support in achieving their personal goals that is often not available elsewhere in their lives. Regular coaching sessions provide clients with dedicated time to focus on what they truly want and what must happen to create it. Coaches help their clients design action steps to meet their goals, then hold them accountable to their own stated desires, providing perspective, feedback, and smart questions along the way. As a result, clients stay motivated, make significant changes, and achieve more than they may have thought possible.
Q: How much does coaching cost?
A: The typical investment for individual coaching is $200 to $600 USD per month for a series of regularly scheduled sessions but it depends on the end goal. You can expect a lower investment for short term goals or career path work. To achieve significant results, most coaches ask that clients commit to work with them for at least three months. The investment for group coaching may be less per person, depending on the program design.
Q: What kinds of people use coaches?
A: A typical coaching client is someone who wants to make changes in his or her life, and is ready to take action. You might hire a coach for yourself when you are looking for a new job, needing to improve your management skills, wanting to increase profits in your business, launching an ambitious new project, planning your retirement, or dissatisfied with some of the conditions in your life and seeking a new direction. You might hire a coach for your organization when you want to improve productivity, increase teamwork, implement new ways of working, or adjust to changing conditions. Coaching clients are men, women, and young people, of all ages, professions, and income brackets. What they have in common is a desire for partnership, support, and strategic guidance in solving problems and achieving goals that are personally important to them.
Q: What are some real-world examples of the results people achieve through coaching?
A: A litigation attorney found a new career as a chef.
An executive improved job satisfaction and productivity in her department by learning to communicate better with team members.
A store clerk found her hobby took her to a profitable new job.
A person in midlife decided to change their career path.
A nurse found the courage and time to write the book she
had always dreamed of writing.
A mechanic decided he wanted to pursue his art interest and opened a gallery.
A teacher decided she wanted to start her own business.
A small business owner tripled his bottom line.
An overworked accountant found a life partner and learned to slow down.
A major corporation merged employees from two different cultures into cooperative work teams.
Any coach can provide examples like these of clients who achieved extraordinary results because they had the guidance, feedback, and support provided by coaching.
Q: How does someone know if he or she is ready to work with a coach?
A: To get the most from a coaching relationship, clients need to be willing to learn new ways of doing things and make changes in their attitudes and behavior. Anyone who is open to hearing new perspectives, willing to question how they are currently acting, and ready to take on new challenges in their life or career can benefit from a working with a coach.
