The great thing about coaching is you don’t need a formal education to become an awesome coach and make a good living.
But this gray area can also confuse people about what qualifications you need to be a coach.
I'm going to clear up some of the confusion in this article, and show you things you'll need to become a great coach.
#1 Coach trainings and certifications
Let's start with the most obvious here…coach training and certifications.
Do you need them?
The short answer is, no. However, having some training and coach specific certifications will help you sharpen your skills and give you the tools you need to coach people. There are traditional options out there through colleges, and universities.
But, I don’t recommend turning to those options first.
I recommend getting coach training from an expert with “boots-on-the-ground” experience. They can tell you what works and what doesn't work when you have to coach people in the real world.
If you decide to go that route, I have a coach training called, Rapid Coaching Academy: The Coach Training and Certification Program. With this program, you'll master the 5 step client breakthrough system to help clients get results fast.
#2 Real world experience
We all have natural gifts, skills, or experiences that can help other people. These things serve as qualifications in and of themselves.
But unfortunately, most people don’t value their natural gifts enough and overlook their true value.
So the key here is to realize you have natural gifts that can help a lot of people. Your task is to identify what those gifts are. Then you need to be able to package it in a way that's perceived as highly valuable to your prospects.
Examples of skills people underestimate:
- You found a hack that made a once tedious process easier
- You cracked the code to something a lot of people have tried to figure out
- You've travelled and have an ability to relate to people from all over the world
- You have a natural ability to network and connect people (thus creating new business opportunities for people)
That said, putting your experiences into a coaching session, webinar, or a book are all good ways of taking your real work experience, and packaging them so people can benefit from what you already know.
Just be sure not to shy away from things you think are easy or simple…
Because what might be easy for you, might be difficult for a lot of people and can potentially make you a lot of money.
#3 The desire to learn and invest in yourself
The best coaches understand that even though you don’t have to attend “coaching school” that investing in yourself results in real dollars in your pocket.
Many of the most successful business people will tell you that you need to be constantly learning and sharpening the tools in your toolbox.
That means investing in books on success and key mindsets, courses, programs – and even getting coaching for yourself from other coaches more experienced than you and that can help you grow your business bigger.
There’s no limit here, but investing in yourself will separate you from the pack and help put you in the top percentage of coaches out there extremely fast.
#4 Great listening skills
I once had a big coaching client where I pulled out all my best coaching tactics. I thought everything went amazingly well so at the end of the session I asked him what he found most valuable…
Can you guess what he said?
He said… “Just hearing myself think!”
This confused me at first, but after a bit of time I 100% got it.
Clients really need someone they can talk to on a regular basis and it’s your job as a coach to be there to listen and give valuable real-time feedback.
- Giving valuable solutions to business problems
- Going over ideas on how they can grow their business
- Or even helping them navigate a conflict they might have with someone in their business
Again, there's no limit to what you can help with as a coach, but it all starts with great listening as a first step.
This is actually one of the most valuable parts of coaching and why people will pay you money to coach them.
#5 Ability to provide an organized environment (organizational skills)
One of the things that makes coaching so value is that it gives your clients structure. And structure helps lead to real results.
So whether you meet with your client once a week, or once a month, being able to provide a structured environment will help you provide high quality coaching and help your clients achieve measurable results.
This works wonders because it's built on the premise of habit. And when you tap into the power of habit you and your clients become virtually unstoppable.
In fact, there's even a New York Times Best-Selling book called “The Power of Habit” because this concept is THAT important.
The key thing to remember here is to build an organized and structured environment, so that your clients can automatically make measurable progress.
This alone does a lot of heavy lifting for your sessions and will free you up to provide the best quality coaching possible.
In conclusion…
Remember that being a great coach doesn’t require you to go to a fancy school, have a PhD, or have a big track record.
But it does require that have a skill sets that can help your clients truly succeed.
If you bring that to the table not only will you be a great coach, you’ll also get paid handsomely to do something you enjoy.
Here’s to your success!
Big Love,
Christian
ps. I want to hear what you think. Leave a comment below!
