32 - Leveraging professional expertise for coaching credibility
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the business of executive coaching. I'm Ellie Scarf, an ex lawyer turned executive coach. Over the last 17 years, I've coached in house, I've been an associate coach, and I've run executive coaching businesses with teams of coaches around the world. My clients have ranged from global brand names to boutiques, startups, and more.
and organizations doing good in the world. I now run the Impact Coach Collective, a community of executive coaches who want to level up their business skills and take action in a community of like minded peers. I'm a traveler, a reader, a mum, wife and dog parent, and I know firsthand that our stories have a huge impact on our businesses.
The executive coaching business is tough. And I've learnt all the lessons through plenty of mistakes, and also with some great mentors. This podcast is all about growing a thriving executive coaching business. [00:01:00] You can build a coaching business that is profitable, sustainable, and that supports your personal goals, whatever they are.
I'll be sharing tips and ideas translated for your context, as well as stories from the field with brilliant coaches and mentors. If you want to level up your executive coaching business skills, Then this is the place for you.
Hello everyone, Now I've had an interesting morning recording the podcast. I recorded it and then went to play it back and there was nothing, complete silence. And what I have gleaned is that somehow Zoom was tapping into a Microsoft Teams audio connection. I don't really use Teams, so I don't know what happened.
But I'm very pleased to be back and I'll have another go at recording what is a really important concept to me and to the people in my community. Before I [00:02:00] dive in, I wanted to share something that is pretty exciting for me. And, and hopefully for you, which is that you might not have heard me talk much recently about the impact coach collective, which is my community Of coaches who I work with as a mentor and a coach.
It is a fabulous group of people, but the reason I haven't been talking about it much recently is for a very good reason, which is that there are lots of new things in progress. Now you can expect to hear more about it towards the middle of, or maybe the start of October. But there's lots of things you're going to hear about name changes, expansion to what is offered in the program.
So more live calls, more materials, lots of bonuses if you join up in, in October. But there is also likely to be a price increase and a different structure to the payments. So if you have been considering joining us, I would suggest that now is a good [00:03:00] time because you'll be able to get in and get access to all the new stuff at the current price.
And one big thing is that currently I offer a month by month option where people can join with absolutely no minimums. You just give us two weeks notice and you can leave anytime you're not getting value. So if you want to join before prices go up and with that month by month option now is the time to do it.
If you want to consider that you can have a look at www. elliescarf.com/ICC, or if you'd like to have a chat and see if you are a good fit for the program, you can book a call with me in the show notes. I've put the link so you can just directly book it in and I'd love to have a chat. Of course.
Now today I want to I want to talk about something that underpins loads of conversations that I have with members. And it relates very closely to confidence. It relates close, relates closely to sales. And that [00:04:00] is credibility. And particularly our perception of how credible we are as coaches. And I have some good news, which is that your credibility as a coach comes from so much more than the number of coaching hours you have completed.
So. When I talk to people about what they believe constitutes credibility as a coach, typically they're saying to me that it's, Oh, it's number of clients. It's hours of coaching experience. It's how senior the people that coach are, but I want to differentiate credibility from hands on experience and skill.
So credibility is. The belief that we have and the perception that our clients have of our ability to have the impact we say we can as coaches. And this is obviously related to our hours of experience and our skill. And I think our skills in particular are so important. I wanted today focus on this belief [00:05:00] in this perception, part of the credibility puzzle, because it is really caught up in how comfortable we're going to be selling and marketing our services or how uncomfortable we might be probably more to the point.
Now, quite often coaches display a very high level of self deprecation and humility, which is very admirable, but in a sales and marketing context, it is entirely unhelpful. So you know, if the answer to the credibility question of what makes up coaching credibility is truly, I've only been coaching for one year, or I only work with new leaders, not the C suite, or it was so long ago that I did this thing in my professional role.
I'm not sure I can count it. If those are the sorts of responses you might have. It may not be the most helpful way of viewing it. So today I want to propose a different way of thinking about credibility. And this is a way [00:06:00] that works for newer coaches. It works for more experienced coaches. And it is intended to help boost your own perception of your credibility as a coach and boost the perception others have of your credibility as a coach.
So the way I want you to think about. Your, about this is that your credibility as a coach is like one of those old fashioned scales, you know, so weighted on both sides and your credibility as a coach, as a coach is a sum of both sides. And so when one side is lighter, the other one is by definition weighted more heavily.
So on one side of the scales is your direct coaching experience, your hands on coaching hours. And on the other side is your professional experience and credibility. So as an example, if you have more recently completed your coach training, your coaching experience, your hands on hours may be lower. That means that your [00:07:00] credibility is going to be more heavily weighted to the side of your professional experience.
And the consequence of this is that it is going to be easier to sell your coaching credibility to others who either know of or value that professional background. So think, you know, your network already knows you, organizations in that industry, or people with the same role that you've been in, but in different industries.
And so then if we follow the bouncing ball, as you increase your coaching experience, then the coaching side of your scale gets heavier, which means that you can lean more on the perception of your coaching experience itself. And that then opens up more opportunities beyond those areas that you already have experience in.
I hope that makes sense. And yeah. You know, eventually what happens is that your coaching expertise takes over from your professional expertise in terms of your, your, the lead element in your coaching [00:08:00] credibility. But the truth is your professional background is always going to be there as a source of credibility.
And a good example of this is that, you know, I've been a coach now for more than 17 years. So much of my professional expertise is now in coaching and leadership and facilitation. And I also have a professional background as a lawyer. So even though I doubt I could lower my way out of a paper bag these days, because it has been a very long time since I reviewed a contract, I still understand the challenges and I understand the culture and I understand the environment and I understand the language and the jargon.
And so that means that my background is perceived as helpful when coaching in professional services context. And, you know, sometimes it is even just to reassure people that I can go head to head with their people from an intellectual perspective. Right. And of course, this is such a small [00:09:00] part of my credibility now, but it is still there and it is still relevant.
So why does this matter? It matters in so many ways. And I want to start from the inside out. It matters in terms of how we view ourselves and how we view our own credibility. Okay. To be honest, I would say that our own perception of our credibility as a coach is the single biggest factor that impacts how we are perceived by others.
So it really matters. We can broaden our own belief in our credibility by realizing that as coaches, we are the sum of all of our experience and not just our coaching hours. In fact, the quality of presence that we bring to our coaching engagements is unavoidably informed by all of our experience, right?
All our successes, all our failures, all our successes. All our learnings, all our struggles, all our victories, and to deny these parts of ourselves, when it comes to marketing ourselves as coaches would be doing [00:10:00] ourselves and our potential clients a huge disservice because those are the things that give us insight, that give us breadth, give us, you know, the ability to, to understand context.
So I want you to think really broadly about credibility because it is not just because I say so, because that is. Also what our clients value. And in fact, you know, we're probably much of the time getting hired, not just in, you know, in spite of our professional background, but because of it, right. So people want coaches who have got a really meaningful professional background.
I think that is only a strength. So when it comes to selling your services, one of my best tips, when you're building up, you know, that coaching business you're in the earlier days, or even when you just want to get some more clients is to leverage the professional expertise that you have and leverage that side of your credibility [00:11:00] equation.
Now, how do you do that? Well, The first thing you do is sell to people who already know you and already believe in your credibility based on your professional expertise. So people that you've worked with, people that were clients in the past in a different role you know, colleagues. peers, or, you know, you name it, those people will already believe you to be credible.
So translating that credibility to a different role will be a smaller step. Similarly sell to companies in the industry that you have come from. You have got credibility in that industry. It is easier to transfer that credibility to a different role when you're staying in the same industry. And, and equally, you might want to sell to people who have the same role you've had, even if it's in different industries.
So the link there is the credibility link is the role you have. And then the jump [00:12:00] is to, to coaching of that person in a different context. So I would also suggest that you make sure that your bio speaks to your background. One of the biggest mistakes I see in coach bio documents is that rather than referring to their professional experiences in a specific way, they speak really generically about coaching attributes and it can sound a little fluffy.
And yes, you know, if I'm reading a coach bio, I want to know what perspectives you bring to your coaching. I want to know about your coaching style, but I also want to see some specifics and some evidence of the sorts of work and achievements that you have from your professional career. And these specifics are going to speak to the audiences that you have open to you.
And there's going to be those very specific audiences as a result of your professional background. So don't leave it out now. It doesn't mean regurgitate your CV in your coach bio, [00:13:00] be strategic. Think about the sorts of experience that are going to make the buyers of coaching go, Oh, I'm going to do this.
Oh, wow. That person is going to understand the pain that our people are experiencing, or the complexity of the dynamic in this context. So those are the sorts of things you want to highlight. I also suggest use your expertise In your social media presence, and I'm talking really about LinkedIn here and use it to translate the value and the ideas of coaching to the industries or individuals that you understand really deeply as a result of your professional background.
So show your credibility as a coach by linking it to your credibility and experience in your professional world. We talk a lot about these concepts and particularly in a sales a sales. Environment inside the impact coach collective. We talk a lot about how do you [00:14:00] leverage your specific expertise as credibility when selling your coaching services, if that's something you're interested in, in talking about, I would love to have a chat and I'm really happy to chat about that.
How you might leverage your expertise to build credibility as a coach. And I'd also love to talk about whether the impact coach collective might be a good fit for you. So if you have a look in the show notes, you'll see a place to book a quick call and you know, I'd love to, I'd love to have a chat.
Or absolutely no obligation. Hopefully I can just add some value and we can talk about what would be a good fit for you. So to wrap up, don't forget your credibility is so much more than your coaching hours. And I look forward to talking to you next week.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the business of executive coaching. If you found it helpful, please share it with a colleague or friend on LinkedIn. And don't forget to [00:15:00] tag me so I can say thanks. I would be tremendously grateful also if you would leave a review on Apple podcasts. More reviews means more people can find us.
This episode was brought to you by the Impact Coach Collective, where executive coaches grow their businesses in a community of peers with business education, mentoring, deal clinics, and more. If you'd like to contact me or work with me further, all my free resources, courses, and more info on the Impact Coach Collective can be found at elliescarf.com. Have a brilliant week, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.
