CultusHaving a life coach comes with a price tag. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, an hour of coaching costs an average of $500.
The price range is anywhere from $200 to $3500. When you think about it, that is a lot of money that you are about to charge your clients. That is why you need to deliver something good in return. What you are delivering is your guidance and your own persona. To be worth the money you are charging, you need to invest in yourself and make sure that you have all the skills and traits of an excellent life coach.
Perfect listening skills
People will come to you for all sorts of reasons. In some cases, people are discouraged and aren’t able to set their own life goals. In other cases, their dreams and desires are so big that they are not able to achieve them. Some people need help with their self-confidence while some of them just need a little bit of help with the organization of their life.
To understand and help your client more, you need to learn how to listen carefully. Do not listen just to be able to respond, but make sure that you get the message that your client is trying to give to you. Also, notice the ways your client is delivering their message and the relation they are trying to develop. It will tell you a lot about them and the way they function.
Sharp analytical mind
To be able to help your client means to be able to see their problem from every possible angle. Also, it means that you need to be able to realise what the heart of the problem is and how to solve it in the best possible way. You need to be very analytical in order to do this properly. These analytical skills are possible to train and develop.
High level of empathy
While it is important that you see the issue at hand objectively, you also need to be able to put yourself into your client’s shoes and go from there. You can see the perfect solution to all of your client’s problems, but if that is not the way your client does things, it is all in vain. Being empathic means understanding the modus operandi of one person. This further leads to finding solutions that are within the abilities of that person.
Excellent talent for expressing oneself
Listening, observing, and spotting the problem are just the first part of your job. To be able to effectively communicate with your clients, you need to be able to express yourself well. Communicative skills are of the utmost importance for a life coach. More than anything else, you need to be able to ask powerful coaching questions that will lead your client to give good and useful answers to you and to themselves.
Proper education and training
To get the best out of coaching, you have to build trust among your potential clients. Why would somebody pay you to give them advice about their life if you have not bothered to do all that is in your power to perfect yourself? With this in mind, make sure that you have all the needed training, education, and that you are constantly working on your professional development.
Do not worry if you do not feel you have all these five traits. If you are good at what you do, the word-of-mouth will be your best advertisement. Different clients prefer different coaching styles and diverse personalities for their life coaches. Therefore, there will definitely be enough people who feel that you are the one that can help them with their life choices.
Dan Radak is a web hosting security professional with ten years of experience. He is a coauthor on several websites and regular contributor to BizzMark Blog. Currently, he is working with a number of companies in the field of online security, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies.
