When it comes to the question of why some business coaches fail, the most common answer is a lack of attention to sales and marketing. A coaching practice is a business, and like any other business, it needs to invest in sales and marketing to win customers. While some coaches go bankrupt, others run out of strength due to the difficulty of scaling their customer base. The more customers they have, the less time they have to negotiate long-term contracts. At WJM Associates, we have been providing executive training for 18 years and have seen both positive and negative results from coaching.
To understand why coaching sometimes falls short, it's important to consider that it can be difficult to know if coaching is helping an executive achieve their goals if those goals are ill-defined or change frequently. An effective training process starts with the coach and client working together to identify a limited list of development goals (ideally two) and then working hard to achieve them. It's essential for the boss to weigh in on the selection of these goals, but the client must also passionately accept them in order for the effort to be successful. Findings in neuroscience suggest that continuous and repeated attention to desired changes strengthens the wiring of newly created habits, leading to new behaviors over time. Unfortunately, many coaches fail due to premature focus on systems, branding, and complicated content marketing funnels.
It's important for coaches to understand that it takes 11 organ systems to keep a human body alive - and without five systems, your business is dead too. There are many excellent training certification programs that teach skills and best practices and provide a safe and supportive environment for testing service delivery. It's understandable that new coaches or consultants don't want to be too aggressive, but sending a personal, low-pressure note (not an explosive email) can go a long way in letting your network know about your new business. There are also several exercises that can help increase confidence in new coaches or consultants. In some cases, reassignment may be necessary and require the services of a professional or relocation counselor rather than an executive coach. Ultimately, a successful coaching commitment depends more on the quality of the client's effort than on the coach. From the start, every new coach or consultant has to separate themselves from the crowd - with an estimated 53,000 coaches worldwide and a growth rate of 7-10% of new applicants per year - by using social media, personal notes, and other tactics.
It's also important for coaches to demonstrate that they live the advice they sell so they can be an example of their training paying off. Using coaching as a last effort to save a derailed executive usually results in a case of “too little, too late”. For the relationship between the coach and executive to be effective, the executive must be able to openly discuss their personal feelings and concerns regarding their job, leaders and colleagues, organization, strategy, and more.
