Building up Your Coaching Experience

Building your experience of 100 hours of coaching can be daunting.  Getting creative in finding practice subjects and being ruthless in documenting your activities are two ways to ensure you are maximizing every opportunity.

ACC Experience Requirements – Coaching Hours.

• Coaching experience PRIOR to the start of your coach-specific training (Fast Track) DOES NOT count.
• Coaching hours that occur in-class DO NOT count.
• Coaching obtained with your assigned Coaching Partner outside of class DOES count.
• Up to twenty-five of the 100 hours can be unpaid (pro-bono).
• Peer to peer coaching (within Reciprocal Peer Coaching outside the class) can be claimed as paid hours and is not pro-bono, but only the time you are being the coach counts.
• Coaching done outside of class with an actual client DOES count.
• Candidates for an ICF Credential will be required to complete an attestation of coaching experience as part of the application and will be required to keep but not submit a coaching log with client identification and contact information.
• At least 25 of the recorded hours (paid or unpaid) must occur within 18 months prior to submitting the application for credential.
• At minimum of eight different clients need to be documented.

Might seem like a lot of rules and restrictions, but in truth if you just document the times you are actively coaching, you are likely to meet or exceed these guidelines.

Now how do you get clients to coach?

• Peer-to-peer coaching is always helpful. Using other students is a great way to learn and amass hours.  The opportunity is large. Every student that is or has taken the Fast Track program will be wanting to gain their 100 hours as well.  Tap into that network.
• Starting a big practice, launching a website is one way, but think more strategically. Find a theme or a type of situation or person you like coaching. Don’t over think it. Branding and marketing your future practice before you have really found your coaching voice can be a distraction and time burner.
• Obvious warning: Coaching your family or significant other can work, but it can come with some disadvantages. Being too attached to the outcome, the subject or the person can skew the coaching and lessen the learning.
• Pro-bono can be an unproductive slope. When we offer free coaching to everyone, clients can equate the zero cost to the value. You will notice this is active when clients say “yes” to the coaching, but don’t show up for the session as “something came up”. Try to connect a return value (payment) to your coaching. Such things as providing feedback after the session, testimonials, referrals, something that obligates the client to give back in return. Pro-bono coaching is often best delivered as part of a cause or a movement that gives the person you are coaching a reason to stick with the coaching.
• “Paid”, what is paid coaching? As coaches we are ethical people. The ICF expects us to be ethical in all our dealing inside and outside of coaching. But at no point in time does the ICF specify an hourly rate for our services. $10 is a paid session, $100 is also a paid session. An agreement for equal return of services is considered paid. Do you know anyone who is starting a website design business that needs coaching? Well, you happen to be a coach that might need a website. Hmmm – make a deal. Think beyond the standard coach rates and be innovative. Be authentic though, write out the agreement, ensure all parties are aligned. Stay ethical.
• Bottom line. Clients seldom hire you because of your website. Clients are buying YOU! You have something they want. In that wisdom lies the best way to attract clients.  Be seen.  Start conversations.  Waiting for your clients to come to you, gives you waiting and no clients. Connecting with people, gives you connections to potential clients. 
• Show up everywhere as a coach. I don’t mean coach everyone you meet – that pushes people away, and without an agreement for coaching, its unethical. I mean be authentic, be curious, when people are sharing stories, be the best listener, ask the powerful questions, show a genuine interest in their world.  Then when someone is sharing a story or a situation they are stuck in, you can simply say “I’ve got some tools from coaching that might help you (get unstuck, get what you want, help you …). Would you like to take 30 minutes this week and discuss your situation in more detail? 

EXERCISE: Now its your turn.