5 Crucial Considerations for Becoming a Career Coach
Mary has been in her industry for several years and has enjoyed a fulfilling career. Now, she hopes to set up a career coaching business and help others benefit from her experience and advice. How does she get started? What is the most important first step?
1. Consider your career experience
You’ve decided to share your experience and career strategies with others to help them move forward in their career. Good for you! Before spreading the news and looking for clients, take a few minutes to think about what type of coaching you would like to do. What does your experience support? Finding a clever niche in your expertise sets you apart from other career coaches. You might decide to focus on leadership, transition, management, or executive coaching, or something else entirely. Find the coaching theme that resonates with you and make that your specialty.
2. Consider who you would like to coach
The type of career coaching you decide to focus on may also include the type of people you would like to work with. You may want to help women move forward in a technical field, immigrants set up their own business, executives to be better leaders, or perhaps you have an idea from your own experience. If you feel strongly about helping a specific group, develop your career coaching plan around those types of people. Including this in your mission will make your niche and strategy stronger, and help make career coaching more meaningful for you and your clients.
3. Consider coaching certification
Becoming a well-respected and effective career coach takes empathy to listen and understand your client’s needs and concerns, and to help them find the right solution for their situation. A career coach with successful prior management and team-building skills can draw on these experiences to help point a client in the right direction, but more training may be necessary. Getting certified as a career coach is a helpful step and can fill in the blanks on skills you may need to be a better coach. Also, consider a continuing education course in your community, or find an online course or webinar to strengthen your empathy and listening skills. Clients will be grateful when they feel understood and their strategy works for their life.
4. Consider your online presence
When setting up an online presence, there are many pieces to take into consideration. A professional website and email, payment system, a remote coaching app and being found among millions of web search results are necessary to project a professional image for your business. These can be expensive, require specialized skills and be time-consuming to implement. Koachee offers an all-inclusive platform that connects coaches and clients in one simple interface. Everything is under one roof so you can manage your profile, be found in our search results, organize messages, accept credit card payments AND use the built-in option to coach remotely with one website and one login.
5. Consider promotion
You’ve thought about the type of coaching you would like to specialize in, considered who you would like to coach, filled in the blanks with a little extra education and set up your Koachee.com profile… what’s next? Let people know you are open for business! Social media can be a good way to connect with clients, but continually creating content can be overwhelming for some. Do only what you can maintain, it’s not necessary to be on every social media platform available. A simple option is to reach out weekly to your LinkedIn network with helpful career tips and a link to your Koachee profile. Become a thought-leader and publish an article on LinkedIn that showcases your knowledge and expertise, and how your experience can lead clients to the right career path. Be sure to link to your Koachee profile so prospective clients can find you when they are ready. Another great platform for publishing is Medium. Tell your story and how you hope to help those searching for career answers. Be visible online and demonstrate your coaching style through posts and articles to develop trust and a rapport with prospective clients.
