Feb. 4, 2024

Thriving Coach Truths: Debunking Four Myths That Hold You Back-Ep.183

Thriving Coach Truths: Debunking Four Myths That Hold You Back-Ep.183

Join your host Candy, as she dispels common myths that often misguide aspiring coaches. In this insightful episode, Candy tackles four prevalent myths about becoming a successful coach, offering clarity and practical insights for coaches at every stage of their careers. From the illusion of guaranteed clients with certification to the crucial balance between coaching skills and effective marketing, this episode provides a roadmap for navigating the intricacies of the coaching profession. 

In this candid episode, Candy shares her experiences and practical advice, highlighting the importance of understanding these myths to thrive in the coaching profession.

**Episode Highlights:**

1. 🎓 **Myth 1: "Certification Guarantees Clients"** - Explore the truth about how certification doesn't automatically attract clients and the importance of a balanced approach to coaching and marketing.

2. 🤝 **Myth 2: "Certification Is All You Need"** - Delve into the misconception that coaching certification alone ensures a successful coaching career, overlooking the importance of business-building skills.

3. 🌱 **Myth 3: "Certification Makes You a Great Coach"** - Understand that coaching greatness is a journey of continuous improvement and practice, extending beyond the boundaries of certification.

4. 🚀 **Myth 4: "Finish Certification Before Marketing"** - Challenge the idea that marketing should wait for certification completion, and discover the power of early marketing for building momentum and securing clients.

5. 💡 **Balancing Certification and Marketing** - Recognize the symbiotic relationship between certification and effective marketing for achieving coaching goals.


Featured on This Show:



Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/candymotzek/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candy-motzek/

Transcript
Unknown:

Hey welcome to she coaches, coaches, I'm your host, Candy Motzek. And I'm going to help you find the clarity, confidence and courage to become the coach that you were meant to be. If you're a new coach, or if you've always wanted to be a life coach, then this is the place for you. We're going to talk all about mindset and strategies and how to, because step by step only works when you have the clarity, courage and confidence to take action. Let's get started. Welcome to the show, if this is your first time tuning in, or if you're a regular listener, I am so pleased that you're here. I want to welcome you. So it's been a while since I've introduced myself and I thought I would take a minute and do just that is Candy Motzek, and I am a coach for coaches. I help new and struggling coaches launch their business and sign clients. My role is to help you go from startup to fully booked and become a thriving coach. And I've helped hundreds of you do just that. I started as a coach myself, because I wanted to change. I had worked successfully in corporate for years, I had kept climbing that ladder, I was getting promotions. And one day, I realized the ladder was on the wrong building. And that what I was doing for a living no longer aligned with who I was as a person. And I was no longer living that fulfilling, meaningful life. That meant so much to me. On the outside, everything looked great. I had money, I had a great salary, bonuses, benefits and a wonderful title. But inside was a different story. Inside, I felt like a round peg in a square hole, always being pushed and shoved and all those things that just didn't fit. And I discovered that that corporate role just no longer was me. So I created an exit plan. I continued to work my job as a senior later and became a coach and I saved money. We lived on less than my full salary for quite a while while I built my business. And then I quit. And now I'm talking to you here from my she shed. This is where I have my business. I coach my amazing clients and I live just outside of Vancouver, Canada. So I hope that this story that I shared with you kind of helps you see me as some things that are similar to you that I'm just a human that I've gone through changes in my life just as you have. And as you will. Now I want to dive into something a little bit different. It is time for the review of the week. I love getting your reviews on Apple podcast, and I've got something new and special. Kind of a thank you to those of you who take the time to rate and review my show. I'll be reading one of your reviews on each of the next few episodes. And if it's yours, you get a prize. Send me a DM or an email at info at Candy Mote sec.com and you'll get to ask me one big question. Your juiciest, most pressing question that you have about becoming a thriving coach. And I'm going to answer your question personally. This is my prize to you just as that special thank you. I know you're busy, and it takes time to leave a review. So I really wanted to reward to reward those of you who made the effort. So today's five star review is entitled, intelligent and clear. Kandi is a wonderful host and interviewer. She is one of the most thoughtful podcasters I've come across so far. You won't get a lot of height, just useful, meaningful insights and interesting conversations. Her Ask the Expert episodes are super valuable too. Thanks, candy. So listen if that is your review, thank you. I am so beyond grateful that you listen to the show and you took time out of your busy day to write me such a kind review. Now if this was you, it's time to collect your prize. Send me a DM on Instagram. You can find me at Candy motsek or email me direct at info at Candy Mote sec.com Let me know the username that you used to leave that review and then you get to choose whatever cool question that you want to ask. And I will send you a nice long recording with your answer. Anybody else who wants to win the prize, all you need to do to enter is write me a review on Apple podcast. Then right away, you're entered in the drawing. And I'd encourage you to listen in next week to find out if I read your review, and there are more prizes to be won. So let's dive into today's episode. Today, we're talking about four super common myths that I hear every day about becoming a coach, I wanted to take a little bit of time and just bust some of those myths. I'm going to share these myths with you. And I'm going to give you some thoughts about them too. I know that becoming a coach, becoming a thriving coach can feel kind of overwhelming. So this episode is designed to help you move through some of that overwhelm and into clarity. Now, before I jump into the exact myths, there is an important point that I want you to know, being a coach becoming a coach is great, it's exciting, it's fun. And for many of you, it's the best career that you can imagine at this time. It has freedom, independence, and money, all while making a positive difference in the world. There is one big distinction, though, that you need to be aware of being a highly skilled coach is only one aspect of becoming a successful coach, a successful business owner, there are countless talented coaches who struggle, they're trained, they're great coaches, but they don't have the business that they want. Because they're only focused on their coaching skills. To become a fully booked coach, you want to be a good coach, and you need to market your services. It may not feel fair, just doesn't feel fair. But you know, there are many highly successful, prosperous people who are making a ton of money, and a ton of impact as a coach, but who are actually not that great at coaching. In fact, some of them are mediocre at best. But they're successful because they prioritized marketing. And then at the same time, there are talented, amazing, well trained coaches out there who always struggle. They're on that struggle bus because they didn't learn how to market their services. No one knows about them, no one hires them, and they go broke. So I wanted to talk about this with you, because some of the myths that I'm going to get into are really directly tied back to this. And I really wanted to share it with you up front. So Myth number one, it sounds like this, if I get certified clients will just show up. So what I want you to know is this certification is not a client attraction system. Certification gives you tools you can use to help your clients get results. But marketing helps coaches get results in the realm of building their own successful business. So you need both. You need the coach training, and you need the marketing this and I've been a coach for over 10 years. And all those years, I've actually only had a few clients care about my ICF credential. I remember when I was taking my coach training, there were lots of questions. We were asking, how much would we charge we would have these group meetings with the leaders. And it felt so exciting. It was kind of like a slam dunk. We thought we would get trained and then voila, magically the clients would appear. I remember feeling kind of confused kind of disappointed and dissolution when I discovered that the genie didn't magically send dream clients my way. The way for you to avoid this myth is to know upfront that both coaching skills and marketing are needed to help you thrive. Be a student of coaching 100% Yes, but also be a student of marketing. Remember, learning how to market means that you're going to be able to help your people. Let me repeat that. Learning how to market means you will be able to help your people because then your dream clients are going to be able to find you and if they can find you. They can work with you. So marketing is part of the past to helping your people. Myth number two, UK coaching certification is all I need to start my career as a coach. Being a coach is about running a business. There are lots of coaches, some are who are super well trained. And then there are people who just decide to call themselves a coach based on their life experience. Now, I am not getting into a whole discussion on this right now, I might do a future episode on it. But regardless for your motivation for becoming a coach, I just want to say I'm a firm believer and get getting training, you don't have to do a huge training, but you do need to learn the skills of a coach, and effective coach. Because when you become that effective coach, you take some training, those are the skills that you're going to use to help your clients grow. It's not just about your opinion, or your own personal experience. Yes, those are important. But coaching skills and coaching tools are what you also need. I myself, I'm certified, I have a couple of credentials. First, I'm a cp cc. And that stands for Certified Professional, co active coach. And I'm also a PCC a professional certified coach with the international coaching Federation, the ICF. And so yeah, that all those letters just sound like a whole alphabet soup. But if you're in the coaching world, some of those letters are going to start to look familiar. Your success as a coach is dependent on both your coaching skills and on your business building skills. So now, what's Myth number three. Myth number three, says this coaching certification will make me a great coach. Now, some of that is true. But it's not 100% True, and it's not quite on the mark. Certification can give a coach a start and obtaining a great skill set. But great coaches grow into their greatness. And they do that when they serve lots of clients, and they coach them and they serve them well. Coaching is kind of like an apprenticeship. Yes, we need training. But to become great. You also need to coach, you need to practice your coaching and you need to improve and hone your skills over time. If coaches don't go through with this experience of lots of coaching, many hours, lots of clients, it's almost impossible to become a great coach. So while your certification gets you started to become great, you've got to keep working at it, you got to keep practicing it and improving, right. All right. Myth number four sounds this way, I should finish my certification before I look at marketing. Now, you could, but I highly recommend that you don't wait. Because it takes time. Learning how to market is not an overnight skill. So start your marketing, start learning how to sign your first clients while you're in training. And in fact, I highly encourage my clients to start working with clients as soon as possible. You don't need to wait to finish your certification before you begin marketing, or before you start working with people. My goal for my clients is to get you coaching early. And I would encourage you to do the same. Start your outreach, start your marketing, sign your first fleet, first few clients as soon as possible, there is power in that momentum. And once you get that ball rolling, everything is going to be so much smoother and easier. Learning how to market is not an overnight skill. So get that marketing training before you finish your certification, do both it's a great move, it's going to get you ready to serve as many clients as quickly as possible. Now, despite all of these myths, I want you to know I'm not saying don't get certified. And in fact, training and certification all play a great parts in you becoming a fully booked thriving coach. But what I am saying is don't rely on that certification as the only thing you need to do to become successful. Certification will help you Oh for sure. It's going to help you in many ways. A couple of them are this first is going to help you feel more confident with your clients. So when you're actually on a call with a client, you're going to feel more confident because you've got a solid skill set. It's also going to give you a far better understanding of what coaching is and what it's not. How does coaching work, and how can you help people, and oftentimes a methodology that you can use. The other reason is oftentimes this, sometimes you might take certification, and you might think you're going to just grow this big coaching business. But maybe you also have an opportunity to work as an internal coach. And that is a coach who works for a company, either as an employee or as a contractor, and your employer is going to want you to have a credential. So that's going to be some of the ways that it's really useful for you. But do know that you need to be a little bit cautious as well. Don't put yourself in that really unfortunate position of selling coaching, as an industry, like just selling that you're a coach, because most people don't know what that is. And they don't want coaching. They don't know how important coaching is and how powerful it can be. Instead, they're after the result. So they don't want coaching, they want the outcome. They want to maybe communicate better with their team. Or maybe they want to have less fights with their spouse. Or maybe they want to learn how to overcome stress, or finally get that promotion. They don't want coaching per se, they want the outcome that coaching will help them get. So some coaches end up trying to convince potential clients of the value of the certification program, or of coaching itself. I'm going to tell you, as soon as you find yourself trying to convince someone, then you know you're fighting a losing battle. Potential clients want that outcome, not the coaching itself. They want the result of your certification and your skills. There don't want those information about the certification itself. We coaches love coaching, because we know what it can do. We know how amazing it is, how powerful it is and what changes can happen in our life, the transformation because of coaching. But our clients don't care. Not at first. And quite frankly, most coaching clients don't even care which program you went to, to become a coach. All right. So let's wrap it up. So we talked about four myths today. And they're all different thoughts that you may have thought or you may have heard somebody say they are things like if I get certified clients will just show up, or miss number two, coaching certification is all I need to start my career as a coach. Myth number three, coaching certification will make me a great coach. And finally, I should finish my certification before I look at any marketing or business building. And I've given you some ideas, some ways of looking at this a little bit different, hopefully to give you some clarity, save you time and energy. So what's your takeaway from this episode? What's your next step? I want to hear from you. I want to help you. Let's turn this into a conversation. DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn. I'm at Candy Motzek. That's at C a n d y M o t z e k, and share what you learned here. What's your biggest aha from this episode? What did you decide? How are you going to take this information and use it. And for those of you who already know that you want some more support, go to the Episode notes. Click the links to find out more ways that you can work more closely with you with me. Thanks so much for joining me this week. Again, it would mean the world to me if you share this episode with your friends and fellow coaches. And don't forget, leave a review and a rating on Apple podcast. I hope to be able to read your review and give you a price next episode.

Unknown:

Thanks again for listening today. Please hop on over to Apple podcasts and leave a review. Also, I would love to hear from you. It's something that I say resonate. What else would you like to learn about? Click the link in the player and leave a comment on the post. This is going to give me great ideas for future episodes so I can help you best. Join me again next week. From our coaching, support and teaching to help you become the confident coach. You are meant to be