Coaching For RESULTS: Recent Episodes
Allan N. Mulholland
Hello and welcome to “Coaching for RESULTS”, a weekly Podcast and Video Blog created and narrated by Master Results Coach and Perception Expert Allan Mulholland. Every week Allan will bring you tips, strategies and techniques on “how to” create the RESULTS your clients are looking for and “how to” deliver those RESULTS so that they’ll pay you high-end coaching fees! Just remember that “Clients Don’t Pay for Coaching. They Pay for RESULTS!”
If you want to deliver RESULTS with your coaching, you must use emotions as the driving force! Think for a moment of the driving force behind our solar system. The sun! Now think of the sun as an enormous fiery ball of fragmented emotions that are like the liquid gasses bubbling to the surface. Once they reach the surface, they radiate heat and deliver energy to give light and power to the earth. When your client releases raw and fragmented emotions, they are captured by a Persona that acts as a giant “mask” behind which these emotions are hidden.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that is true then creating a genuine Persona is the sincerest form of self-imagery.
Definitive Leadership originates from within and then transcends all barriers and boundaries of physical limitations. Where the Follower says “I cannot do this”, the Definitive Leader asks “How can I do this?”
To be a successful coach, you need a demonstrable level of expertise! But credentials or degrees by themselves do not demonstrate competence as a coach. You need to be able to deliver results! It is results that your clients are after!
The Results Coach Formula for Success is based on a set of values that must be a true, genuine, honest and accurate representation of the “person who would be successful”. The person you and your client must become!
One of my favorite pastimes as a child was to open a puzzle book and flip to the page that showed what appeared to be a collection of randomly strewn dots on top of a partly drawn picture, with each dot having an assigned number adjacent to it. Connect the dots in their numerical sequence 'et voilà', the full picture emerges!
For your clients, the picture that emerges represents the connections they have with people who plays a significant role in their life. In other words, their INFLUENCERS!
We all wear different masks for different tasks! The mask is our Persona. What lies behind the mask and gives it its unique characteristics, is our Personality.
The value of the RESULTS that your client achieves with your coaching program must be in direct proportion to the value of the investment your client makes in your coaching program.
To be successful as a coach, you must carve out your own brand of coaching that will allow your clients to immediately draw important distinctions between your coaching method and that of your competitors. I have identified ten qualities that are essential to the branding of your coaching practice.
There are two essentials for entering into a coaching relationship with a client: 1.You must have a compelling reason for wanting to work with the client. 2.The client must have a compelling reason for wanting to work with you!
Coaching can be complex and a professional coach understands that the whole of coaching is always greater than the sum of its parts that are outlined in the Coaching Agreement.
If you don’t have your own unique and proprietary Signature Program, you’re a coach who still offers the same old coaching methods of ‘listening, empathizing, asking questions, inspiring and motivating’.
In today’s episode, we’ll look at the COST of not delivering RESULTS for your coaching clients and how to measure the impact of this COST in terms of “Loss of VALUE”. The COST of not delivering RESULTS is often easy to identify. It is a COST closely associated with your client’s current personal or professional situation. And while this COST may be of an emotional nature, it often has a significant impact on the quality of life for your client. As a coach, you must know how to quantify this emotional COST by re-labeling it as “Loss of Value”.
The role of a coach is to facilitate the achievement of a Desired Outcome. Pure and simple! For those of you who know me well, I strongly believe that coaches should be held accountable for the ultimate success of their clients. A coach’s job is to deliver RESULTS!
A Coaching Climax is the ‘mental trigger’ that validates and authenticates a pivotal point in a coaching session.
In this episode, we’ll look at creating a Coaching Timeline to estimate the time it will take for your client to achieve a Desired Outcome.
Today I’m going to show you how to to justify your coaching fees. But before we get into ‘price objections’, I want to make some general observations about charging professional coaching fees.
I am always amazed at how many coaches work without some type of comprehensive business plan. These coaches seem to ignore the first and most important rule of professional coaching: Coaching is a business!
Suddenly Singles are lonely and fragmented souls who exist from day to day without clarity of vision, without a solid foundation, without a well-defined sense of purpose. They simply drift in an enigma. The purgatory of lost relationships.
“We must first ignite the pyre of our Past, before we can see our future rise from its ashes”
“Today’s threat to the concept of family and relationships lies not in its composition, but more in its broader sense of commitment. If there is one traditional value that is under constant siege, it is the value of commitment.”
Our society and our social structure is based on the notion that there are two types of people: Leaders and Followers. So, why do some people turn out to be Leaders, while the vast majority become Followers?
If your client’s Persona does not match that of the person who would be the successful candidate, it doesn’t matter how well rehearsed their speech is about their strengths and qualifications. If their eye contact signals a lack of confidence, it doesn’t matter how ambitious they claim to be. If their body language conveys an unintentional warning for others to keep their distance, it doesn’t matter how people-oriented they claim to be. Your client’s Persona must be that of an achiever, not a deceiver!
The “American Dream” that made everything possible, the mantra of capitalism and the virtue of selfishness became morally defensible doctrines for me. I was ready to taste the forbidden fruit that I had previously considered the cause of social and moral decadence.
Your coaching clients can use the power of a persona by creating a profile that is focused on achieving the RESULTS they want you to deliver. Once your client developed a profile for such a person, they can internalize that persona and become that person. And that makes your client’s new persona so powerful.
The Robinson Crusoe story illustrates in dramatic fashion two of the essential elements of creating a “Perceived Identity”: a. In order for there to be a “Perceived Identity”, one must first be created, and b. Before a “Perceived Identity” can exist, it must first be projected onto someone else.
One of the unique elements of perception is its dependency on interpretation. While we cannot create our own perceived identity, we certainly project it onto others. And just as our personal perceptions about relationships are unique, so are the qualities that we use to validate them. And it is in these qualities that we find the answer to the question: “Do opposites attract?”
The genetic blueprint for Leadership is in your clients DNA! But many of them were conditioned to act as “followers”. This conditioning comes from the people who influenced them, the environment that surrounded them and the events that shaped them. Leaders are perceived to be risk takers and for many of your clients, risk equates to the possibility of failure.
One of the primary benefits of Results Coaching is that it raises the bar on your client’s level of incompetence. Whatever the desired outcome of your client, it must be greater than the level of incompetence that the client has achieved to date. Why else would they invest in the services of a coach?
FAILURE is the unintended outcome of an objective that was meant to be achieved. While the desired outcome to accomplish something is real, the FAILURE to achieve the desired outcome is interpretive and therefore subjective. FAILURE is in fact an illusion.
There is an interesting side benefit to delivering RESULTS for your coaching clients. Once your client achieves a certain desired outcome, that RESULT will invariably lead to other outcomes. In fact, one positive result can sow the seeds for a multitude of outcomes that will create a long-term bond and coaching relationship between you and your client. I call this the “Domino Effect of the Results Multiplier”.
Many people think of EGO as a narcissistic and inflated assessment of self-worth. Yet a balanced EGO is a healthy and essential element of your clients’ personality, and an existential assertion of “Who They Are”!
Whenever I talk about the role of perception in the context of coaching, I make some coaches very uncomfortable. There is just something about the word “perception” that makes people feel uneasy. Perception seems to imply that it is not real!
The most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself! And the reason is very self-evident! Your relationship with yourself starts the day you're born and ends on the day you die
The “Mirror of Perception” is the way in which others see you. It is the way in which others define and characterize you.
If you want to deliver the RESULTS your clients will pay you high-end coaching fees for, you must first change your clients’ “Perception of Who They Are”!
In this episode, I will show you how to remove the 3rd veil which reveals any of the sociological issues that may have led, or contributed to your client’s current problems or challenges.
In this episode, I will show you how to remove the 4th 'veil' that strips away the language & communication barriers that are an impediment to solving a problem or achieving a Desired Outcome.
The 6th ‘veil’ is perhaps the most important of the “Seven Veils” because it bares your client’s psychological imprint.
The 7th 'veil' hides your client’s physiology that so often is in conflict with the perception they wish to portray! If your client’s body language is ‘out of alignment’ with the perception they want to create, it’s time to sit up straight and take notice!
My mother always knew the secret of coaching. When I first started coaching, she told me that “to be an effective life coach, life must be your coach!” By passing this secret on, she imparted in me the greatest coaching virtue imaginable.
In this episode, I will show you how to remove the 5th 'veil' that covers up the environmental influences that your client is subjected to!
There are 5 ways to raising the level of expectation that your coaching program will create the RESULTS your clients are looking for! And with each step, your clients become more “invested” in you as a coach! With each step, you will raise the level of expectancy to the point where your clients will begin to expect the unexpected!
Today, we look at the transformation that take place when a client achieves a Desired Outcome. The seven incremental steps to “Coaching for RESULTS”! If you use the word “RESULTS” as an acronym for these seven steps, you will be able to deliver the results for which your clients will pay you high-end coaching fees. And when you implement these steps, you will create a replicable system to lead your clients to their Desired Outcome!
Your clients are the custodians of a lifetime of personal experiences. Some of these experiences will be positive, while others are negative. All these experiences are now a part of your client’s history. Today, your clients possess the equity of their actions from the past . . . the residual of all the investments they have made in a lifetime.
In this episode, I will show you how to remove the 1st veil that conceals your client’s emotions and perceptions.
In this episode, I will show you how to remove the 2nd veil that covers your client’s behavioral elements and character traits. These are the elements that can create an unfavorable impression about your client and prevent them from achieving a Desired Outcome.
One of the challenges coaches face is dealing with a client who is ambivalent about the outcome. In previous episodes, I alluded to the fact that clients need to perceive that the achievement of a RESULT is directly contributable to working with you as a coach! If they don’t perceive this correlation, the value of your coaching program is summarily diminished . . . and so are your coaching fees!
I have identified seven dark chambers that can prevent your clients from achieving their goals and objectives. These chambers are hidden behind veils to conceal your client’s uttermost fears or greatest desires. I call these veils the “Seven Veils of Success”.
If the objective of a coach is to facilitate a result for the client, to what extent should the delivery of that result be the responsibility of the coach? In other words, when you enter into a Coaching Agreement with a client, are you then responsible for the client’s Desired Outcome?
No matter what, the path to achieving a Desired Outcome is a “trajectory” for the client. But instead of chasing rainbows in search of an illusive “pot-of-gold”, you will have a “Coaching Trajectory” that will deliver the results your clients hired you for!
“Coaching for RESULTS” fuses the concepts of performance, accountability and achievement by helping the client change their perception of a desired result, thereby facilitating an outcome that is aligned with their expectations. And is your client’s expectations (or perception) of a result that will ultimately lead them to pay your high-end coaching fees!
We all have experienced moments of ‘awkward silence’. It often happens when there is disagreement on an issue and the silent party stops articulating its point of view. When that happens, the other party starts to panic. Nature abhors a vacuum, so we feel compelled to break the silence! We start to speak!
Every coaching program must follow a certain “trajectory”. In today’s episode, I want to focus on the three main components of any coaching program. They are: 1. Objective 2. Odyssey 3. Outcome
There are 3 compelling reasons why you should be “Coaching for RESULTS”! 1.RESULTS = High-End Coaching Fees 2.RESULTS = Long-Term Client Relationships 3.RESULTS = Constant Client Referrals
In order for you to coach a client to effect meaningful and measurable change, you must first discover which personas are affecting your client’s current situation and then help your client to develop the personas that will be instrumental in creating the results your client wants to achieve.
If you cannot describe your role as a coach in clear and concise terms, or if you cannot articulate the specific benefits you provide for your clients, you will not be able to build a successful and profitable coaching practice! This episode is not about re-defining the role of a coach. This episode is about re-purposing the role of a coach!
If you want to be successful as a coach, you must have a Signature Program that you can use as the template for your Coaching Program. But here’s an important distinction! While your Coaching Program is based on your Signature Program . . . THEY ARE NOT THE SAME!
In the next seven episodes of “Coaching For RESULTS”, I will give you 7 strategies for charging high-end coaching fees. When fully implemented, these seven strategies will result in the high-end coaching fees your clients will be eager to pay you. Each one of these seven strategies contains a piece of the puzzle that, when put together, becomes the framework for a results-driven coaching practice!
A “Perception Makeover”™ is an alignment of the perceptions your client has in three key areas: 1. The perception of who they are! (Their self-perception) 2. The perception they desire! (The perception they wish to project onto others) 3. How to project this perception so that others will perceive them in a way that is aligned to their True Identity!
One of the major challenges many coaches face is finding a proper balance between delivering results in the short-term while maintaining a solid coach-client relationship over the long-run. But here’s the good news!
You must be recognized as a coach who can deliver RESULTS, if you want to attract high paying clients and charge high-end coaching fees! Therefore, you must have a “Unique Coaching Proposition” (UCP).
Your Coaching Proposal consists of 5 parts that are all designed to accomplish one thing - To confirm to the client that you are the Results Coach who can facilitate their Desired Outcome!
By itself, your clients' dreams have no accountability! They carry no responsibility. And they offer no stability! You can’t coach a dream! The first thing you need to do as a coach is to convert a dream or desire into a genuine vision!
There is much more to coaching than simply picking up the phone at a pre-arranged time and connecting with your client for a 30-minute chat! The old axiom “You only get out of it, what you put into it” was never more true than for your coaching session. The client must receive maximum value from the session, while the coach receives reciprocal fees.
To be an effective coach, it is critical that you understand the difference between your client’s “Persona” and “Personality”. While at first blush these two terms may seem interchangeable, there are significant differences between the two! And your ability to coach your clients depends in large measure on how each affects and influences the other!
A true coach is both charged with facilitating the achievement of a Desired Outcome and entrusted with the successful realization of the client’s goal or objective. A true coach is therefore someone who is both a leader and a servant. A true coach leads his clients to a Desired Outcome, while at the same time serving his clients in their quest to achieve their Desired Outcome.
Rather than just focusing on how to get clients, coaches need to highlight some of the ways in which they can differentiate themselves in order to attract high paying clients. I call this the “Unique Coaching Proposition” (UCP).
Many coaches struggle with the question “How much should I charge for my services?” In this episode, I will attempt to put some relevance behind the term “High-End Coaching Fees” and put it into context. And I’m going to give you a formula with which you can determine your fees!
In this first episode, I describe the qualities and skills a Results Coach must possess in order to deliver the RESULTS your clients are looking for and will pay you high-end coaching fees!
A “Catch 22” is a paradoxical predicament based on a set of contradictory rules. It is the predicament many coaches find themselves in when trying to apply the fundamentals of traditional coaching as taught by coaching trainers and institutes.
Most coaches understand that a successful practice begins by identifying a specific niche that the coach can relate to. This can be in relationships, business, health & wellness, personal development, spiritual growth . . . . the list is endless! But a step that many coaches overlook is the creation of an actual profile for their niche clientele. In this episode, I cover the seven profile criteria that you must understand about your niche if that niche is going to become the foundation for your coaching practice:
In this episode I dispel the myth that professional life & business coaching is NOT a job! Professional coaching is a J.O.B! Whoever thinks that it isn’t is in for a rude awakening! We can argue about semantics by calling it a profession or a business, but if we don’t treat it as a job, it becomes a hobby! And hobbies very seldom create income!
If your coaching practice is out of alignment with your personal values, it will not produce the results your clients are looking for. Nor will it generate the financial rewards you are entitled to. Perhaps it’s time to select a “Restore Point” for your coaching practice!
Your Initial Coaching Session is a skillfully crafted and structured first encounter with a client that has only one purpose in mind! It is designed to take your clients to the next step.
Your Coaching Proposal consists of 5 parts that are all designed to accomplish one thing - To confirm to the client that you are the coach who can lead them to their Desired Outcome! Each of these 5 elements of the Coaching Proposal adds a unique value and authenticity to your ability to help the client achieve a Desired Outcome.
In this episode I will show you how to create the “ultimate coaching experience” that is always about VALUE and never about FEES! There are 8 value-items that will make your “ultimate coaching experience” both unique and existential to your client’s success!