I started looking at questions like this with a dictionary.

Coaching is defined as: one who instructs or trains, especially: one who instructs players in the fundamentals of a sport and directs team strategy.

Typical definitions of coaching take us to the world of athletics. In the world of business, a coach helps you to set goals that match your highest potential, create a realistic plan to achieve those goals, discover and then eliminate any tendency to sabotage your own success, and finally will hold you responsible for achieving those goals within a specific time period. 

Coaching teaches you how to find the answers within yourself. 

This is my goal for you when you begin coaching me. I will offer you insight and advice, but the primary purpose of coaching is to help you to find your own answers so you can achieve the goals you set for yourself, with confidence and BOLD Action!

You need a coach if you want help:

• Organizing your thoughts
• Creating a practical and effective plan
• Prioritizing your goals and tasks
• being more accountable for following through on tasks
• maintaining high levels of motivation and BOLD action even in the face of obstacles or challenges
• understanding how self-sabotage is affecting your efforts (and figuring out what to do about it)

A coach asks questions to bring out your unique abilities, helps you to gain clarity on your vision and plan for the future, and stays with you while you implement changes in your plans, thoughts, and actions.

A coach holds you accountable for what you say you’ll do, gives you a push to do more than you would do on your own, and helps you overcome limiting beliefs that are holding you back from success.

A coach holds space for you to become the best version of yourself while you boldly create the business of your dreams.

Coaching is not:

• Therapy: business coaching is not therapy, because (typically) therapy helps people to recover from emotional or mental disorders such as depression or anxiety or develop an understanding based on the past. Coaching, on the other hand, focuses on the present and the future, focusing on optimizing the opportunities in your life to ultimately achieve greater happiness.
• Consulting: Consultants are typically hired based on their knowledge in a particular field. They are expected to diagnose problems and prescribe or sometimes implement solutions. Coaching assumes that you can develop your own solutions. Your coach is there to guide, assist, and help you to develop your own plan and your own actions to take.
• Training: Training requires a linear, one-way learning path that complies with a set curriculum. Coaching is non-linear. It is a two-way partnership and does not start with a given curriculum.

After kicking off our BOLD Action coaching series, clients meet with me, via telephone or Zoom, every other week. Clients have recurring appointments that are agreed upon as we begin our coaching relationship.

I ask my clients to make a commitment to our coaching relationship for a year. Any new actions put into practice today may take from three to six months to show results. BOLD Action coaching can be very effective for short-term change. Customers often find coaching effective over 12 to 18 months. The learning that takes place creates results that continue for one to three years. Business Coaching is not meant to be a “quick fix” or a short-term relationship.

If you’re asking this question, it may be the right time for you.

Clients in my coaching programs typically fall into three categories:

• Client type #1 is someone who already has a business and wants to grow it or expand to new areas.
• Client type #2 is getting started in a new business and knows exactly what business she wants to be in and has some existing skills they're bringing to this new venture.
• Client type #3 has several ideas for businesses but isn’t sure yet which one (or which combination) will work best for them, or if there’s something they haven’t thought of yet that might be the best fit.

It’s easy to question yourself when beginning a new, different path for your business. An initial call from me may help you to recognize if I am the right coach for you and can serve you as you deem necessary. Let’s chat about starting your BOLD Action coaching program.

You can certainly achieve many goals on your own!

By working with me in BOLD Action coaching, however, you will be able to do bigger things, set bolder goals, and get results faster. Commitment, accountability, and follow-through are some of the most valuable components of the coaching process, and they are why people who work with me make much more progress than working alone. 

I also give you access to a set of tools, techniques, and processes that are proven to work, and you benefit from being exposed to a different perspective that challenges your approach and provides you with new ideas. 

Athletes and CEOs know that they can not make it to the top by themselves. They understand the value of a trained, experienced professional who helps them identify the best direction and provides them with unbiased support and unparalleled feedback. There aren’t any athletes going to the Olympics without a coach, and no football players going to the Super Bowl without a coach. Shouldn’t you get the same advantage?

• Who is your ideal coaching client?
• What is your coaching philosophy?
• What is your definition of success?
• When have you failed and how did you handle it?
• What are the biggest challenges you’ve helped clients tackle?
• What measurable results have you helped your clients achieve?
• What do you do best? What don’t you do well?