Not All Coaches are Created Equal

Category: Strong Opinion

With dozens of coaching schools and hundreds of new coaches graduating every few months, I've been concerned about the kinds of coaches we're going to be seeing in years to come.

I truly believe that not everyone is born to be a coach, and that it takes certain personality traits to be a good one.

I am in touch with hundreds of coaches on a regular basis, through my writing, teleclasses, coaching, consulting, joint ventures, etc. and there are certain things that bother me when I spot them in coaches. Here they are:

- Talking just for the sake of talking. It seems to me they like hearing themselves talk, without providing insightful information to the client.

- Overlapping with and interrupting a client. This is beyond a lack of listening skills. When a client is talking and trying to express their concerns, I think it's incredibly rude to interrupt. Or, if a coach is talking and a client is trying to say something, the coach just won't stop talking and makes the client feel ignored.

- Asking ambiguous questions. Questions that mean nothing to the client, and so the answers they give are even more ambiguous.

- Coaching clients on issues the coach is struggling with herself. If you're a relationship coach without a relationship, please send your clients away to another coach. It's hypocritical and goes against being authentic.

I was curious about what it really takes for a coach to be a good coach, and after Larina Kase developed 20 coaching assessments for me, I asked her to develop another one - "Are You a Natural Born Coach?", which I think really makes you look at your being a coach from a different perspective.

Every coach has a different style, and some may talk more than listen, but as long as they say things that inspire and motivate, and ask questions that really make a light bulb go "on" in a client's head, I am happy. No...the CLIENT is happy!

Mission: not to add to the existing amount of crap on the 'Net.

Category: Strong Opinion

You know how, when you buy a car, you start noticing other people driving the same car? And before that, you'd never actually paid attention to how many people drive that car? All of a sudden you think to yourself, wow, my car is popular! Everyone is driving it!

Well, now that I've started a blog, I am noticing other people's blogs popping up, too... They're everywhere, everyone's got a blog! Or so it seems...

After my initial shock and excitement, I realized that most of them are of really low quality. Of course, for many of the blogs I came across, I am just not in their target audience, so it was completely irrelevant to me. But it's just mind-boggling to think that 'Net is filling up with these reality-TV-like web sites.

There is so much crap out there!

The purpose of this post is to state my mission:

I promise NOT to contribute to this growing amount of crap on the 'Net, and provide interesting, relevant, quality, candid information that can help my readers grow and improve their businesses and lives.

BradDenham.com - another coach is launched into cyberspace!

Category: Practice Building

After a couple of months and a few stumbling blocks, I am finally proud to present Brad Denham, Freedom from Depression Coach.

The logo took a lot of work, because we were trying to reflect the word "Freedom" in it, so all kinds of boxes and circles I like using in logos wouldn't work here. We ended up giving it a light free-hand design with light colors to create exactly the mood Brad was looking for his web site.

Several coaching programs had to be created, so Brad decided to focus on 2 main packages - for people with depression, and for people who take care of their loved ones with depression. I think he also did a great job coming up with a list of "Freedoms" on his home page, which came truly from his heart and experience, and that's why turned out so specific and heartfelt.

Overlapping Brad's web site design with organizing and hosting the coaching tele-summit wasn't the best idea, but now I will plan better and not take any new clients during planning of this event, so I could continue delivering great customer service to clients who trusted me with their projects.

Check out Brad's web site at http://www.braddenham.com.

Cold weather spoils my Friday off plans...

Category: Lifestyle

It's hard to stay outside my office when the snow is blowing hard outside, and the kids are napping...So it's Friday and I am back in my office.

- 120 emails this morning - only 40 are legit.

- An assistant came over to help package the CDs, nice. My "yuck" bucket is one item lighter.

- Decided to re-design ACCPOW's home page. I've been going back and forth between the magazine-like layout and a personal letter layout, but numbers speak for themselves. Sales copy wins ten times over. Maybe I can combine both, am I dreaming? We'll see next week.

- 8 orders online, all recurring billing, no new customers at 2pm in the afternoon yet.

- Printed out an article from Fast Company magazine, The Best Things in Life Are Free, by Seth Godin. Turns out, you don't need a "space farming" idea to make your product remarkable. If customers are happy enough to tell others about you, you or your product are remarkable!

- Updated my Virtual Assistant, Kathy Sparks of www.yourvirtualresource.com about discontinuing my newsletter and switching to blog. What a blessing she is! Thanks, Kathy, for making my life more enjoyable - as I said at the tele-summit, we need to nurture our VAs and keep them happy!

- The coaching tele-summit was fun, can't wait to start planning it for 2006. As many coaches noticed, you can tell an experienced presenter from someone who stumbles easily or asks "housekeeping" questions during the presentation. Will do better next year!

Well, the napping is obviously over, as I hear my kids - 5 and 10 year old arguing across the hall - off to save the day!

Rejecting a client is sometimes a blessing...

Category: Practice Management

After a few days of debating with myself, I decided not to take a client. I can't tell how much better I felt...the weight just lifted off my shoulders!

I wrote an article a while ago for ACCPOW members, called Don't Work with Jerks: How to Recognize a Difficult Client Early and Make Your Life Easier, and this gal just passed all the criteria I outlined there!

• She called me without scheduling a consultation
• She kept wanting to speak with me (translation: "pick my brain") without paying a penny
• She kept sending me long e-mails requiring instant replies
• She kept negotiating, even though I already gave her the best pricing I possibly could
• I felt like I am being put on the defensive when talking with her

...And overall, I just felt like this was a project right out of a "yuck" bucket, as Sylva Leduc (my friend from http://www.clientcompass.com/) likes to call anything that makes you cringe.

Well, the thought of working with this client made me cringe! So, despite my desire to never leave money on the table, I said "no."

Going out to celebrate!

I am the photographer of the coaching tele-summit's cover!

Category: Lifestyle

When I visited New York City last year, I was thrilled when I got a chance to take a photo of Hudson river.

The person who was supposed to be my guide couldn't accompany me, and I ended up alone in the cold and "scary" city. I walked for, what seemed liked, miles and miles in Central park, freezing in my thin spring jacket, when I saw an amazing sight...

With my icy-cold hands, I took out my digital camera, and took a picture across Hudson, and for a moment I felt like a professional photographer getting lucky with a gorgeous view:

If you got the CDs from the ACCPOW Coaching Tele-Summit 2005, you will see this actual photograph on the cover...Isn't it breath-taking?

Please, make me look older

Category: Lifestyle

I clearly remember the call that followed my classified ad in 1995 about piano lessons.

I was in my early twenties, but already had a 4-year degree in music education from Kiev, Ukraine. There, it's considered to be an Associate's degree, because I went to college at 14, but in the U.S., its level is way beyond Bachelor's in music (one of my best kept secrets of how I got my "Bachelor's in Music Education" at 19).

As I picked up the phone, I was just finishing laughing at my husband's joke, so my voice sounded a little squeeky when I answered. I tried sounding serious, but the lady still said, "Can I speak to your mom?"

I asked her what it was in regards to, to which she replied "It's about piano lessons." When I introduced myself and said that I was the piano teacher, she hung up the phone in disbelief.

So now, in my early 30s, I ask myself, do I look old enough to people to take me seriously? Do I sound old enough to be the CEO of a world-wide coaching organization?

Please, make me look older, I said to my hairdresser. I need to look older for my photograph. (You can see that photo at the top left corner of this web site).

How ironic...in a few years, I'll beg her to make me look younger.

"Momentum" is how I stay ahead in business

Category: Lifestyle

Whether it's a good quality to have or not, so far it's gotten me further than any of my other wonderful qualities :-) Taking advantage of being excited by an idea, a concept, a book, an event, a person, etc. and implemeting it WHILE I am still in momentum.

I've seen this dozens of times...I sign up for a seminar with a couple of buddies, or get the same e-book as they do, the next day I come out with something new, and they just file their materials away.

It's crucial for me to be excited about it, in the peak of excitement, in the "moment" to take any kind of action. Can't say that it doesn't interfere with my priority setting, but that's how I've been able to launch many successful products and ideas.

Busy Marketing Thursday

Category: Lifestyle

Today, after teaching my 5-year old how to say "Microsoft," I recorded an audio CD about coaching assessments with my business partner, Larina Kase. A big "Oops!" happened about 4 minutes into the recording, when I realized my headset was plugged directly into the telephone instead of the recording device...

"Oops! Can we start over, Larina?" That was very embarassing, and a lesson learned - never record a CD at 10 AM in the morning! Yeah, I know some coaches wake up at 5 AM, but I am actually enjoying my sweet dreams, in spite of the loud garbage collection going on outside.

• Affiliate commissions sent - check!
• Notice about CD shipping date delay sent - check!
• An idea for a brand new live coaching program came - check!
• Received 5 new orders online - check!
• A 29-item action list laminated - check!

As I was creating my blog this week, I asked myself, why would people want to take the time and read my rambling...Why do people read ANY blog? Then I remembered how excited I was when I found a blog of an American student who just moved to Israel, and was sharing his experience with his readers. I could never understand such a brave and weird gesture - moving to a country in the middle of a war - so I got consumed in reading his blog for hours!

The funniest thing is that I wasn't even looking for this kind of information. I was simply doing some research for www.MyBusinessCapsule.com I was working on last year, and typed "what happens to my business when I die" into Google.

This guy actually wrote a will in his blog - here is what I want to be done to my stuff if I die: archive articles, turn my blog into a book, have 2 famous people write a foreword, etc. Creepy stuff, but certainly needs to be considered if you're working alone.

It's Friday tomorrow - yipee!!!! - actually, I think I may catch up on my e-mail. My gym buddy has flu, so I've got a perfect excuse to stay home. Pleasures of life...

Welcome to Milana on Tap!

I am so excited to have you here!

Here I will let you peek inside my business, and share with you what worked and what didn't work out; which actions brought me business this week; which strategies failed; what I discovered about marketing or coaching this week, and anything else that I do in my business that will help YOUR business grow!

Warmly,
Milana Leshinsky