How can you overcome challenges and reap rewards as an executive coach? --- --- --- --- ---?

Defining a niche and establishing a compelling value proposition is a cornerstone of success as an executive coach. In my experience, specializing in a specific industry or coaching niche provides a clear focus and deep expertise. Clients are drawn to coaches who can offer tailored solutions to their unique challenges. Crafting a compelling value proposition involves articulating the distinct benefits clients will gain from your coaching services. It's about communicating the transformative impact and showcasing a track record of success. By clearly defining your niche and value proposition, you position yourself as an indispensable partner, making it easier to attract and retain clients seeking specialized, impactful coaching experiences.

In my practice, I think about why my coaching philosophy and style is different than others. I also think about the challenges I have personally overcome and who I have helped in the past. By building on a foundation that I already have this value proposition gets clearer and I am able to speak as an authority on it rather than just someone who has coached others through it. My background as a female leader in male dominated spaces lends itself to ideal clients that are dealing with similar circumstances who want to build lasting confidence and create belong.

In my practice I’ve established that personality of an executive coach plays a major role. I would even say that your personality as a magnet defines the type of clients you will attract. Yes, of course, marketing plays an important role. Meanwhile, your core, standing and standards are the ones that at the level of intuition (=experience) of your potential clients defines their interest in your services. And, yes, also your previous experience is contributing too – your experience before becoming an executive coach, your experience in coaching executives, as well as your experience in creating and impact.

When I start my cooperation with my clients, I offer 2 services – executive coaching and executive mentoring in negotiations, conflict resolution and certain aspects of leadership. To my initial surprise, all my clients’ responses were – I do not care how it is called, as far as I get exactly what I want. Executives are very good at defining their goals and identifying obstacles. They have already used their skills and applied their previous experience to the certain issue. Therefore, mere SWOT & GROW techniques will not help; but only synergies and derivatives of all possible techniques – and here comes your expertise.

Just like any leader or business owner, it is important to not just do work or task but to think strategically about the outcome you are looking to create. I like revenue goals for this reason. I think coaches and sometimes spend too much time on their own education or certification instead of meeting people in the world and making offers to help them. Sales is a huge part of building a coaching practice unless you are working for a big organization. I believe its important to learn sales skills and to find the right coach to help you.

As the CEO of your own coaching practice, it is important to put on a CEO hat and not just your coaching hat. As a coach, we may want to help everyone with everything instead of discerning what is going to work for you as a CEO. By consciously choosing when to where the CEO vs. the Coach's hat, you can make discerning decisions for how you want your business to be vs. getting the two mixed up and feeling lost and confused. For example, my CEO wants my payment plans to be simple and executable. Instead of offering whatever payment plans my clients wants, I use my CEO energy to say what is available instead, which keeps my business simple to manage so I can have more time to focus my energy on coaching - what I love to do.

I have held a strong belief in my purpose. As a coach, I am here to catalyze a better future for my clients. To do so, I need to ensure that my engagement is not set to a pre-agreed input process and outcome. The human mind works with elasticity. As a coach, one needs to converse without any judgment or perception. The deeper issues that hinder success can happen with paradigm shifts. I look forward to this state in my coachee. The rest of the journey is more about inner peace. It is liberating for the coachee and as a coach, I feel happy about this outcome. Given the stress, it is important for executives to feel emotionally stable to increase the longevity of their careers.