Post #1 of a thought leadership series.

What makes coaches different than other service professionals? #1
I love life and business coaching and coaches. Over the years various coaches have help me overcome traumas, connect in my relationships, discover myself as an artist, realize my dreams, and become more fully and powerfully ME. Truly life-changing and life-evolving gifts.

So when I see a gifted coach brand and market themselves as just another service professional – among accountants, attorneys, graphic designers, etc. – my heart sinks.

They miss three key dimensions that set them apart.

#1 The experience of coaching
Coaching is not only a service, it’s an experience — and often an unprecedented experience for your clients. Many people have never actually lived the kind of difference skillful coaching can make in their lives. They haven’t experienced, for instance, that shift in perspective on a problem by seeing it through a new frame.

Flash back to Client Day at my first coaching training years ago. The outside client my training partner and I were assigned came in complaining of always getting lost whenever she had to drive anywhere. My partner and I quickly formed a plan to teach her how to read a road map. (This was before Google Maps were available.)

We were required to check in with the coaching trainer before any intervention. The trainer simply said, “Find out what getting lost does for her.”

What a world that opened up! It turned out that our client was a stay-at-home mom with a young child. And she was lonely. Getting lost when she went out gave her an excuse to stop, ask for directions, and connect with people! It wasn’t about map skills at all.

You should have seen our client’s face light up when she realized this! Something shifted within her, and she was able to quickly put together a plan for getting more quality connections in her routine – without needing to get lost.

Coaching is kind of like riding a roller coaster: you can describe the track and the cars, but the experience is the thing.

Many coaches’ marketing and messaging tries to explain coaching in general and leaves out the client’s first-person experience.

Lesson: See how I used a story to engage you in a client’s experience above? Stories trump explanations in getting at the experiential dimension of coaching.

What do you think? What’s been your experience enrolling clients who’ve never before experienced coaching?

Stay tuned for differences #2 and #3.