The Down and Dirty of Working with a Coach: 4 Questions to Select the Correct Coach!

A quick Amazon.com search on business books will provide 1,762,091 results. The hundreds of these books that I’ve read often point to the need for quality professional to have business and life coaches in their life.  And I agree with this 100%.  The problem with this recommendation is that there is very little direction on how to select the correct coach for where you are in life.  There are a series of questions that we must answer in order to assess the type of coach we need.

The first question is do I want a Life Coach or a Business Coach?

This question is a simple one to tackle. First what area of your life are you looking to improve? Is your personal life or marriage in need of work or are you launching a new business. Are you looking to be a better father or mother or are you on the fast track to the C-Suite?  This only becomes a difficult question when we realize that both worlds are heavily impacted by the other.  So how do I choose?  My recommendation has always been to ignore the type of coach and observe the person that you will be working with in the coaching agreement.  This is the core issue.  What you must understand is the coaching relationship is very close.  You will be spending time discussing all areas of life and regardless of the type of coach you will end up talking about family, friendships, habits, finances, and business.  This is only a brief list and could go on and on.  Because of this fact we don’t need to choose the sole area of coaching.  What we must select is the area that will be the foundation of the discussion.

The second question is, do I want a friend/mentor/coach or a paid professional coach/mentor?

The answer to this question is summed up in two key components.  The first component is, what is the life and business quality of your circle of influence, and are they willing to speak the truth in love? This is one of the greatest areas of risk in coaching relationship.  People often select a coach based when we first begin seeking a coach we are not surrounding ourselves w on their availability and cost (FREE). The problem with this, is that most of the timeith the type of people we want to learn from.  Though this may not be the case if you have a strong circle of successful people. The risk still exists in this case because the nature of the coaching relationship is one that can place significant strain on any relationship.  If you value the friendship and do not want to change the paradigm, I would advise avoiding coaching relationships with good friends. The alternative to this is to hire a life coach or a business coach. As a professional coach this is my preference. Not because I grow my practice, but because I always pay 2 coaches myself.  Why? Because I want someone that is going to challenge me to be my absolute best, and while I have amazing friends that have achieved extraordinary success I will glean from them through the course of life, but I still need people in my life that will push me to level-up! At times this can result in confrontational conversations that can permanently hinder friendships. You must acknowledge that this is a business transactions. You are paying your coach to make you the best possible version of you as they can.  This requires them to sharpen you through knowledge, reflection, insight, prompting and the hard truths of what is holding you back.  This is why I hire my coaches and why I recommend it to others. The second reason that I hire coaches is that it is far easier to fire a coach than it is to fire a friend.  If a coach is doing their job you should be growing and if you are growing, you will in time leave your coach. This may be a year or two down the road or a decade.  The key is when the time comes a relationship based on a business agreement can end without it feeling personal.

The third question to ask when selecting a coach is based on character, is this a person that I desire to be associated with in my community?

This can be your business community or local community. What many people fail to consider is that it is only matter of time before you will begin to emulate or be associated with your coach. This can be a great thing if your coach is someone that is respected and carries influence in your community or industry. This can also be a great disadvantage when the coach or mentor has a less than stellar reputation.  You want to avoid guilt by association at all cost. The last thing you want is to pay or work with a coach that hurts your long term standing because they do business or life in a way that is not respected in your community.

The final questions is one relating to style. What do I want from my coach?

There are many styles, but we are going to address two distinct types of coaches. The first is the “Teacher Coach”. While all coaches will do this to some level the “Teacher Coach” lives to impart knowledge.  They will spend the majority of the conversation talking.  They are going to do 75% of the talking in a conversation. In most cases they will have a significant amount of knowledge in your industry.  The purpose of this type of coach is to impart knowledge to the person being coached.  They exist to expand your knowledge in an area or variety of areas. Many coaches will need to fill this role at times, but if this is their only style I encourage you to anticipate that the coaching relationship is only for a season.  Once the person being coached has understood and internalized the information they will often move on to the 2nd type of coaching style.

The second coaching style is the “Discovery Style”.  This type of coach is a question asker. The driving force behind a coach of this nature is to bring out the best in others.  This is not a simple task.  There is a definite skillset that is required to pull the best out of others. They also must be able to discern between honest replies and the masks many of us hide behind.  The key is finding the right balance between teacher and discovery style, especially when hiring a business coach.  You need them to be able to respond to the business specific questions and impart wisdom, but also have the necessary skill of bringing your greatness to the surface.

After reviewing these areas I want you to look in the mirror and ask yourself a very honest question.

Why am I not working with a coach? Top athletes, writers, speakers, musicians, artists, professionals and executives all have coaches in their lives. Why have I decided to go through life and business on my own? Why have I decide to fall alone and replicate the mistakes that many others have made before?

If you have asked the question and feel that you are ready to move forward.  Let’s kick the excuses to the side and go hire a coach that is ready, willing, and able to impart the knowledge and draw forth your greatness, so that 2016 is your greatest year to date.