Can Anyone Coach?

Over the past few weeks I have been interested to see the number of Internet Marketers who have started pushing, their often pricey, Internet Marketing Coaching programmes. My interest arose because I have been coaching both online and offline for many years in business, management, internet marketing and indeed personal development. As a professional learning and development specialist in the offline world I have been particularily interested in developing my coaching skills and have spent considerable amounts of money on honing my skills.

Given that, I am sure you can imagine my reaction when someone on a popular internet marketing forum made a statement along the lines of “oh anyone can coach there is no particular skill involved!” It was that comment that made me take a closer look at what some Internet Marketers are offering as “Coaching Programmes” and to say that they are a million miles away from my understanding of coaching would be an understatement. From my observations what they are effectively offering is a pre-written “teacher/expert” led programme which has little or nothing to do with the identified need of the individual they are offering it to. What seems to be happening is that they are branding their programme because “coaching” is fashionable, sexy, popular and gets attention!

A few days ago a friend of mine started a thread at a popular Internet Marketing Forum about the approach he had received from a so called Internet Marketing Coach about joining their $15,000 Coaching Programme. There was an interesting discussion which ensued and one of the contributors posed some excellent questions which I would recommend anyone should ask someone who was offering to coach them. It was in response to those comments that it became obvious that many of these Internet Marketers just see Coaching as another route through which to make money.

So let’s take a look at some basics and let’s start by looking at what Coaching actually is and how it differs from what many Internet Marketers are offering.

Coaching is a one to one or one to few interactive relationship which enables the person being coached to achieve the goals and objectives they identify with their coach. The role of a coach is to help the individual to travel from where they are now to where they have identified they want to be.

Consultancy is where the Consultant as expert. Consultants are the ones who give you direct answers to specific problems and sometimes help you to apply those solutions.

Teaching is the transfer of knowledge where the teacher as expert imparts their knowledge and it is left to the person being taught to apply the knowledge to their particular situation. Having said that there are different approaches to teaching which have evolved over recent years where the Teacher takes on more of a facilitator type role.

As I have watched the discussions and observed many Internet Marketers they predominantly take on the role of teacher where they impart their knowledge of techniques, strategies and approaches to the development of an online business. This has it’s place and indeed has value in certain circumstances and in some instances the amount they charge can probably be justified. However, when you have completed their programme will you be able to adapt and change should the techniques you have been taught no longer work? The reality, again from what I have seen is that no you won’t! That’s why for me much of what is offered as Internet Marketing Coaching is nothing of the sort. Why? Well because with real coaching you will work with someone who will be focused on your development rather than on simply tactics.

Let me explain a little more by talking about the typical Internet Marketer who might seek out “Coaching” and maybe you might recognise yourself? Or be able to think about what you need a little more clearly. So our typical Internet Marketer, let’s call them Joe, they have lots of ideas about how they can make money but they flit from idea to idea and always feel like they are one big idea away from success. They spend lots of money buying all the latest courses, ebooks and special offers trying to find the next thing that will enable them to move forward! Now the Internet Marketer who sells their “Coaching” would see this as an opportunity to sell their “This is how you make money” programme. The true Internet Marketing or Business Coach would see this as an opportunity to work with you on:

Identifying your key priorities
Assessing your strengths,
Decreasing the chaos in your life
Helping you to focus on making business decisions
Creating specific action plans
Being a sounding board for the flow of ideas
Holding you accountable for delivery against agreed objectives
Understanding your customers and their needs
and much more…..

Do you see the difference between what we see offered and what you could get from Internet Marketing Coaching?

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