Coaching in India: Part IV (Final)

Talking to early stage coaches is extremely insightful. They are curious and have a lot of meaningful questions, often highlighting the way the coaching market in India has changed over the last few years.

First, before you go through this article, and especially if you are an early stage coach, you may like to read through the first three part of this series on coaching (if you have not seen those). Here are the links..

I'd be very happy to get comments and views on each of the 4 parts (including this article).

Here is a list of questions I get most often when conversing with relatively newer coaches, and my perspectives.

What are some tips and tricks for selling myself better? You will need to develop your own style of coaching (and selling yourselves). Like any other set of skills, selling oneself is part science, part art. What I have learnt from experience is this--it's more about the mindset:

• Understand your own value and never be defensive about what you offer. In any case, not everyone is going to be your customer. Do not try to be everything to everyone.
• Focus on what you cannot deliver, along with what you can. Transparency always works. Very often coaches make the mistake of promising the moon, or being a panacea for all problems.

Be prepared to be rejected and to say no if there is misalignment at early stages of engagement in the coaching process, or at the 'sales' stage.

What should I charge? Again, no black and white answer. But here is what appears to work for me.

• Scoping is critical--clearly agree on what is included in the assignment and what is not. Scope creep is very common. e.g. periodic check in calls with the coachee's manager, additional calls/meetings with stakeholders, presentations to senior management, specific reports etc. They all require effort and time from you as a coach--are you getting paid for these--directly or indirectly?
• Have a range of fees for your services rather than a single figure--based on inclusions and exclusions in the assignment. Many Indian (coaching) clients tend to pay for effort rather than for outcomes and value. So effort estimation and pricing for that is essential.
• Understand that India is a 'cost' market. Rarely will the buyer be willing to pay a premium price based on 'value'. In this case, value is linked to the fact that as an early stage coach, you may not have enough credibility or a strong reference base which can indicate value. So be clear on boundaries and mentally open to negotiating.

At what stage will you be willing to walk away from a potential client for commercials reasons: that is a key question.

How do I leverage my past experience? In two ways. Sometimes industry background or educational qualifications/certifications help, as they can be used as filters by clients. So positioning those upfront is useful.

The second way though is to focus on examples and experiences in mentoring, leading people, what you have seen succeed and fail and actual coaching cases. These could be in past roles and not necessarily as an executive coach.

It is important to be able to show that you understand the nature of issues and will be able to bring insights and techniques to help individuals. Some element of showcasing your own uniqueness helps.

Do I need additional certifications or training to sell myself better? If the focus is on your personal learning and honing skills as a coach, almost certainly the answer is yes.

If the focus is selling yourselves, then it helps in a limited way. Collecting certificates is perhaps the easiest way to showcase your 'apparent' competence. By itself though, does not really help. The focus has to be on making sure that there is enough real life experience as a coach.

These questions are the most common ones which I have experienced, and a few more. As I close this piece, one last learning which is worth sharing. If as an aspiring coach, acceptance (read quick client deals) does not come early, do not give up. Try getting a mentor, build skills and look deeply inwards.

The deep inward look should also be able to provide an answer to this question at some stage " Am I really meant to be a coach?".

Some of us may never really become a professional coach and the world around us may be giving us feedback on this aspect. Being humble to accept the feedback (after having tried enough) is a sign of growth. Maybe one is cut out for a different purpose...

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Bimal Rath is a Talent Management and Leadership Development professional with deep interest in All Things Human. He is the author of "The Middle Muddle--Helping Managers Navigate Careers".