Using your professional membership with ANZI Coaching to win clients

I sometimes refer to this as the ‘Credibility Script’. When I work with new coaches to help them to get established they are often in the catch 22 situation where they need clients to get experience and need experience to get clients. A lot of Coaches get stuck, worrying that they are not experienced or qualified enough to be able to win clients and in fact this lack of confidence will actually hinder them to get clients.

The big worry they all have, is ‘What if the Client asks me…..when I finished my training? How many clients I have? How long I have been doing this for?

In my entire coaching career I have only ever had ONE client ask me what my qualifications are. And although I had a folder full of certificates and testimonials that I always took along ready to produce, I was really taken back by the client requesting this info. It was usually me doing the telling in this area rather than the client asking!

Taken aback, I smiled sweetly and said ‘Wow, you are the first client who has ever asked me that’ (really pleased that I had been invited to share my qualifications). ‘Oh’, she said, ‘I just don’t know what I should be asking you’.

Then it dawned on me. Clients have no idea how to hire a Coach or what questions to ask or how to evaluate coaching services. So it’s our job to tell them! And that is when I came up with the ‘Credibility Script’. Really it’s just a small part of the setting up but really makes a difference as to whether or not you get hired (or accepted in the case of workplace coaching).

Please use your own words. Those of you who have listened in to one of my webinars will know that I am from South London and have a UK accent with a bit of an Aussie twang. Having been married to a Kiwi for a few years, I also have a bit of a Kiwi twang too. So whilst these words flow beautifully for me, please use your own words and style.

The structure is to explain to the client about the industry and explain to them how to hire a coach. My script goes something along the lines of…

“The coaching industry is not regulated and anyone can call themselves a ‘coach’. It’s in a bit of a boom now. Lots of people seem to be giving up their day jobs and throwing themselves into coaching careers. It is a great industry to be in and I am not surprised that so many people want to be part of it.

The problem we have is that there are no set standards in the industry. No two coach-training programs are the same. Some ‘Coaches’ are getting trained by doing online courses from the US and the like. In fact, some ‘Coaches’ haven’t actually done any training at all. They just go decide one day that is what they will call themselves and then they start looking for clients.

It’s a shame really, because between you and me, some of them are not very good. And that causes a problem for the rest of us in the industry because it brings down the overall level of satisfaction that clients experience.

This is the type of industry where we need referrals to survive so they don’t tend to stick around for very long. We see a really high turnover, about 30-40% of Coaches who come and go again within the space of about a year.

Those of us who are committed to this industry have an association that we subscribe to. It’s called the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Coaching or ‘ANZI Coaching’. We have to agree to abide by a voluntary coaching code of conduct and to commit to our ongoing professional development and supervision to be accepted by the association.

ANZI Coaching’s role is to help professional coaches differentiate themselves from these Coaches who are not committed. They do this by providing us with certificates and logos to use and then also give us access to coaching tools and resources so that we can continue to develop our skills and widen that gap.

So here is my certificate and this is a mark of my professional commitment to what I do. You can see here, that I am also permitted to use this professional coach logo on my business card. There is also an online Directory, so feel free to check that I am listed!

So that’s how you choose whether a coach is credible, lets now talk about what it is that you want to achieve through coaching and see whether the coaching services/solutions that I offer will be a good fit for that.

From here you take your client into the issues or challenges that they face and you focus on the solutions that you can provide.

Seems strange that we can build our credibility by being so negative but this really does work if you put the right language behind it.

Let go of all that ‘not x enough’ stuff. When you let it go it opens up the space for you to focus on the client and their pain and that’s how you get to demonstrate the value of what you do.