This week, our amazing coach, Clair Buck, shares with us her remarkable coaching journey since leaving her 30-year hard work entrepreneurial business. Claire has had a great first year of her Coaching business and is working on her plan to launch her online group coaching for Business Owners and Professionals around the world.
We hope you enjoy and find Claire’s coaching top tips useful…
What inspired you to join The Coaching Academy?
Having been involved in Entrepreneurial Business for over 30 years I am no stranger to hard work. Prior to coaching, I had worked with my husband in our Fashion Shoe Business, Moda in Pelle, building up to a national Retailer with over 60 outlets, a strong on-line Store and over 150 wholesale accounts. We took a decision to take in Venture Capital and a new Chief Exec, which gave me the opportunity to exit the business, take a back seat and look after our big family of 6 children.
After about a year at home I started to get “itchy feet”. I came up with the idea of going into other businesses, mentoring helping Business Owners to avoid some of the pitfalls and helping them to grow. The idea was great but I soon realised I needed something more and I was researching when I stumbled across TCA’s Free Life Coaching Webinar.
All I could think during the 2-Days was I’d like to be up there one day speaking with ‘new recruits’, inspiring them and helping them to create a vision. I signed up straight away and devoured my workbooks as soon as they arrived in the post. I figured I could qualify in 9 months ‘a school year’ so that by the following year I would be free to have the summer with my kids before I started working in earnest.
What was the most rewarding part about the course for you?
I began to live and breathe the GROW model, I found each module to be full of insightful information that started to change the way I behaved with everyone around me. I became so much more patient and after many heart-felt lessons, I was able to start to pull back and allow other people the time to think for themselves and come up with their own answers, accessing their own creative thoughts with different ways of looking at problems and issues in their life that might be holding them back.
The live Accelerator Days were always fun, full of interesting new tools and a great opportunity to meet lots of new coaches who were at different stages of their own personal journey, sharing insightful thoughts and ideas helping me along my path.
Every time I started a new module, I couldn’t wait to turn the pages of my latest work-book to learn great new strategies which expanded my thinking and added a new dimension to my own personal growth.
The actual ‘in-session’ coaching was always and still is the most exciting part of my work, creating space for those ‘ah-ha’ moments gives me a huge adrenalin rush of my own. There’s nothing quite like it!
How do you fit coaching into your busy life?
Coaching has slotted brilliantly well into my everyday life. I am able to choose the hours that I want to work, operating mostly from home and have a varied practice of both Skype and face-to-face clients
Where are you now and how are you using coaching skills?
I’m now into my second year of practice, according to the statistics I’ve had a great first year! In the next 2 years I aim to get my online group coaching ‘The ULT Hub” up and running for Business Owners and Professionals around the world where they can come to a weekly online forum for discussion and topics that will be both varied and interesting with a wide variety of guest speakers and collaborations opening the audience. This will be a go-to session that would be unthinkable to miss.
What is your coaching niche and why did you choose it?
My niche is ‘Life Coach for Business Owners and Professionals”. This was an obvious choice for me in the end as I have a huge experience of being in business and working with professionals. I have a huge understanding of their needs both personal and within the Business Arena so I am able to talk to them with an authentic heart, sharing their problems and solving them in definable terms and making end goals achievable. Building a happy authentic life is crucial for my client’s.
Here are my top tips for:
People who are looking at Coaching:
• How could a coaching environment positively enhance my current business/work environment?
• What are the new skills I would learn and how would I use them?
• If I wanted to change profession and become a Coach how would I do that?
• Who inspires me?
• What am I going to learn that will improve my own life and personal well-being?
People are currently a coach in training:
• Soak up every opportunity to learn, the Accelerator Days will form the basis of your client services.
• Step into being a coach and find some great buddies who are fun to work with and inspire your progression.
• Don’t be afraid, it’s a wonderful journey and you will achieve success.
• Explore thinking and ideas around coaching, read as many related books and different schools of thought to form your own ideas and expression.
• Work on your own sense of well-being within the work place and current environment, put the learning into real life situations at every possible opportunity.
Coaches that are about to qualify:
• Start to work on yourself understanding your Unique Selling Proposition (USP):
- Your Mission, Vision and Personal Values
- Your Niche - relate to USP
- What are you going to call yourself?
- Set your business up, secure your domain name and find a way to create invoices and do basic accounts. I recommend Xero
- How are you going to receive client payments? - make it as quick and easy as possible
- Get business cards
- Hold onto every business card you get and start to create lists of contacts
- How you are going to market yourself and find your tribe?
- Blogging and content ideas
- Who is going to create your Website and how is it going to look?
- Local networking group
- Who do you know that can help you create leverage?
• Get your first paying client, that will make you feel incredible!
• Go for it, put your trust in the process
• Consistent daily actions and disciplines are the key to success
• Follow up every single opportunity, don’t let anything pass you by
• Try to secure monthly payments from clients to create consistency and stability
• Set your goals for your first year
• Get organised - if you can’t do it get a VA or Administrative help as soon as you are able
• Look after yourself, practice what you preach and live in flow.
TRANSFORM LIVES THROUGH COACHING
If Claire's words have inspired you and you feel that Coaching could be a potential full or part time opportunity for you, or if you would just like to know a little more about what Coaching is and how it can benefit you and the lives of others, please contact our Specialist Course Advisor, Jamil on 0208 996 4830 or email: Jamil@the-coaching-academy.com
The Coaching Academy was established in 1999, and is now the world's largest coaching school.
In that time we have trained over 14,000 people to become life coaches.
We are accredited by the International Coach Federation and the Association for Coaching, and we're rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot.
