Alienating the Client

The current economic climate has bought difficulties for many businesses, large and small, established or young, so are business owners and employees in a position where they should be alienating the client?

Well one has to think not, but it does happen, on the phone through email or face to face. Many companies employ executive coaches to train staff, but how many are going for the cheapest option rather than option that delivers real results.

I experienced some evidence of coaching in the dentists chair, for the first time in 30 years I was asked what I expected from my visit and what was the end result I wished to achieve, I prompted a question to define the time frame they thought they could provide, funny really, being a life coach I could feel the lip service.  The tedious questionaire that accompanied it though demonstrated that the guiding hand of advice wasn't quite on the client wavelength, bringing into question, did the coach identify the market properly or use a method picked up on a one off course. It will be interesting to see if they deliver.

Coaching has stretched to the driver training industry, it is neither life nor executive coaching, it is teaching techniques with a coaching slant, it is dressed up as client centered learning, yet the preperation a life coach makes before embarking on sessions with their client is not even touched upon and if it was, the instructor would have to charge a much larger rate than is currently being asked. That would see the end of cheap lessons, but the years of study to even begin this journey would push away many instructors.

The knock on effect is the courses being offered, one size doesn't fit all, one course does not make a coach. Having a qualification is not enough, because being able to academically achieve does not necessarily mean you can deliver the goods, so coaches develop a portfolio to accompany their CPD, on going CPD is a must for a coach, to join many of the associations you need a consistent level of CPD to accompany your portfolio. Does the buyer search for this or just fall for a sales pitch.

Moving on to other areas of coaching, life coaching, can the coach alienate their client, well it depends, there has to be rapport in the relationship for it to move forward, but as a business person can the coach create ambience to a satisfactory level without possibly embracing the personality of the client, well a good coach can. As coaching can be offered through e-mail, Skype or telephone then rapport isn't necessarily evident, it may be there it may not. However should someone who truly embraces coaching for it's real value, believe in it and trust it's worth ever risk their business by alientating anyone in their potential market place, we would hope not.

You do not have to be a financial coach to understand your business needs to be viable and nurtured, so can client marketing work. Literacy is important, a document with poor spelling or grammer sent to clients is the first step to pushing them away, understand your market, and to do that you must understand your client base.

Too many coaches offer courses, and this is covered in regular debate on coaching forums, because they have not been able to succeed as a coach, often attending one course or picking up one qualification outside of QCF guidelines and developing a course of their own to make money. Great for the provider not so great for the client, so does this also amount to alienating the client, according to many, well yes it does.

So how do we step away from this trap, know your market, your client and your own target, have a mentor and a plan, above all be realistic. The client always gets what they pay for, but do you want your business to alienate your client base because you bought the first off the shelf coach who came your way.