Archer Coaching

Coaching you on your path to joyful abundance.

Posts Tagged business

My Path to Coaching and My Approach

Feb 11

Posted by Laura in Appreciation, balance, business, change, clarity, Coaching, Coaching Week, Communications, difference, Dreaming, education, experience, Making an impact, Path, Purpose | No Comments

In honor of International Coaching Week, February 6 through 12, I am posting a series of short articles about coaching.

Day 6: My Path to Coaching and My Approach

My path to becoming a coach was rather roundabout. I have an established career as a professional book copy editor, and for a while I had my own direct sales business as well. After a particularly grueling quarter with some difficult projects and a lot of extra work, I was exhausted and extremely frustrated. I felt like I was doing the same old thing over and over! I started thinking about what I really wanted, and I began to realize that I wanted my work to make a difference in the world and have an impact in people’s lives. I was getting tempting little tastes of it here and there, and I decided to ramp that up! The only problem was, I wasn’t sure what path would allow me to do that. Should I find a job somewhere? Go back to school? Try something entirely different? At that point “keep doing what I’m doing” was not an attractive option!

In what turned out to be a life-changing meeting, I attended the national conference for my sales company and met a wonderful trainer. I was struck by her enthusiasm and creative ideas, so I made a point of going up to her and asking point-blank if there was any way I could work for her! She said, “I need coaches with your sales experience” (to coach other direct sellers). Ding ding ding! The more I thought over this option, the more appealing it became. I could use my communication skills, combine them with my desire to work with people, and really help clients transform their lives for the better!

My new mentor insisted I take an ICF-accredited coach training course, and I’m so glad I did! I learned the foundation of true coaching: supporting the client to unlock his or her own genius! I’ve been able to work as a coach since 2007, and immediately loved it. In 2008 I started Archer Coaching, my own coaching practice, for working with professionals to create a meaningful career and a balanced life. In 2010, I earned my Associate Certified Coach credential from the International Coach Federation and began working with Roving Coach to offer coaching in corporations.

My approach to coaching is simple: I believe the client is whole, resourceful, and wise. My job is to help unleash a client’s inner genius by asking the right questions, providing a new viewpoint, and supporting him or her on the path to achievement. I am constantly amazed at what people can create, and how they make things happen in their lives. It’s an honor and a privilege to be a part of that. Coaching as a career is an excellent fit for my natural enthusiasm, optimism, curiosity, and desire to learn.

Tomorrow: What Does Archer Coaching Offer?

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How Do People Use Coaching?

Feb 9

Posted by Laura in balance, business, change, choice, clarity, Coaching, Coaching Week, definition, Goals, Path, performance, planning, public speaking, relationship, success, time management, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

In honor of International Coaching Week, February 6 through 12, I am posting a series of short articles about coaching.

Day 4: How Do People Use Coaching?

People can seek coaching for support in nearly every aspect of their lives. A general “life coach” or “business coach” may help a client focus on many or all aspects life or business. In a sports metaphor, a head coach, someone who oversees all aspects of the game and team, is like a life coach.

Many coaches have a specialty, or niche, and focus on helping certain kinds of people (e.g., executives, entrepreneurs, speakers, direct sellers) or address certain aspects of life (e.g., relationships, life balance, communication). A specialist coach still connects to the whole client and doesn’t work totally in isolation on one particular area. In a sports metaphor again, a specialist coach might be someone who works with basketball players only on their free throws, or a putting coach for golfers.

Clients may come to coaches with the desire to create change in one or more of the following focus areas (and many others!):

  • Career advancement
  • Career change and job seeking
  • Life balance
  • Management and executive skills
  • Starting or growing a business (including marketing)
  • Time management/productivity
  • ADD support
  • Improve communication (including presentation and professional speaking)
  • Organization
  • Relationships (including parenting)
  • Self-esteem and self-confidence
  • Handling a specific issue
  • Problem solving
  • Financial planning
  • Spiritual growth
  • Health and wellness

I’ve you’re consider hiring a coach, but are not sure what to use a coach for, ask yourself these questions: What one aspect of my life could benefit from some coaching? What one area of my life, if I improved it, would improve all the other areas?

A lot of people think that coaching only comes into play for big-picture life or career issues. Did you know that coaching can also be supportive of a single particular project or a short-term goal?

Just about anything you can imagine that has a timeline for completion can benefit from some coaching attention!

  • Writing a book
  • Creating a business plan
  • Developing a workshop or speech
  • Training plan for a triathlon
  • Losing a set amount of weight
  • Starting a club or community group
  • Planning a wedding or other large event
  • Completing college or graduate school
  • Job search
  • Work projects, such as creation of an action team or development of a program
  • Earning tenure at a university
  • Increasing sales in a single quarter
  • Marketing planning and implementation

Imagine what might be possible if you had focused support and energy around a single project. What could you achieve?

Tomorrow: Are You Coachable?

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Solopreneur Magic: Making the Most of Downtime (part 2)

Nov 29

Posted by Laura in business, change, choice, clarity, Communications, Creativity, education, Goals, momentum, performance, planning, practice, professional image, public speaking, speaking, success, time, training | No Comments

(A continuation from part 1.)

I have been self-employed for nearly 14 years, running a variety of businesses over that time. One thing I have noticed is that work seems to come in waves. Sometimes I’ll have tsunami of projects, other times just a trickle. I know I’m not alone in this. It can often be feast or famine. So what can you do to build your business if you don’t actually have billable work in hand? Plenty, it turns out! Over the years, I’ve learned to look at “downtime” as a gift to take advantage of. Check out the following ideas.

5. Learn something. Downtime, even just a few hours, is a terrific time to break out those CDs or MP3s you picked up at a conference or online but haven’t listened to yet, find some books and online training, or read that pile of magazines. It’s important to stay current in your field. You’ll have the time–so open up your mind, and get ready to learn some fabulous new techniques and ideas! Load up your e-reader or your iPod, or go to the library. If you don’t have a pile of stuff waiting for you, go online to professional associations related to your business.

Bonus tip: When reading, have a notebook handy. If you get inspired by an idea, you can write it down, with reference to where you read it. Then you have a “hot list” of ideas and thoughts that you can refer to without flipping through a pile of material trying to find it again. This can be quite useful when you’re searching for blog, article, or speech topics (see tip 7). Alternatively, keep some sticky-note flags available so you can highlight key ideas in a book or magazine.

6. Update your online presence. You may well have a daily or weekly practice of time set aside to maintaining your Facebook Fan page (or personal page), LinkedIn, Twitter, any Ning networks you are a member of, and your website, among others. Downtime is a great opportunity to make major updates and changes. LinkedIn particularly is constantly adding new features; take a little time to create a company profile, update your personal profile, find some new groups to join, and ask and answer questions. Write those new pages for your website like you have been thinking about, update your profiles on other sites, add more content where you can.

Bonus tips: With a tool like HootSuite, you can write a bunch of status updates and tweets and schedule them to go out in the future, instead of all at once. If you use WordPress for your website, you can “draft” pages before publishing them, giving you time to work them through carefully and thoughtfully.

7. Get writing. Write some blog posts, newsletters, articles, speeches, even books. When you make your expertise available, you establish yourself as an authority in your subject and offer valuable content to potential customers and clients. Downtime is a great opportunity to let your creative juices flow. Many blogging platforms allow you to schedule the release of your blog posts in advance (one colleague of mine has a year’s worth of weekly posts already scheduled!). You can easily turn blog posts into articles and publish those on your site (or at a site like ezinearticles.com) or submit them to relevant publications. If you have a regular newsletter, you can start prepping future issues to save you time. Finally, you can turn blog posts and articles into speaking presentations (if you have the communication skills), which is a terrific way to build your business. If you have several blog posts, articles, or presentations on a related topic, you have the bulk of a book (or ebook) written.

Bonus tip: Many social media platforms will link to your blog so that when you publish a new post, it is automatically imported to that platform.

8. Renew connections and make new ones. Business downtime is a great time reestablish your professional connections and make new ones. Have lunch, coffee, or meet up with your colleagues and strategic partners. Go through that pile of business cards and connect online (with social media) and in person. Follow up with potential opportunities by calling, sending a hand-written card, or connecting in another way. Find some networking groups to visit and meet new folks.

Bonus tip: Whenever you receive a new business card from a connection, write a note on the back–where and when you met, any key conversation tips you had, when to follow up, or whatever you need to remember the person by more than just a card!

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Solopreneur Magic: Making the Most of Downtime (part 1)

Nov 26

Posted by Laura in business, Creativity, education, experience, Goals, momentum, performance, planning, practice, time | 1 Comment

I have been self-employed for nearly 14 years, running a variety of businesses over that time. One thing I have noticed is that work seems to come in waves. Sometimes I’ll have tsunami of projects, other times just a trickle. I know I’m not alone in this. It can often be feast or famine. So what can you do to build your business if you don’t actually have billable work in hand? Plenty, it turns out! Over the years, I’ve learned to look at “downtime” as a gift to take advantage of. Check out the following ideas.

1. First, and most important: Take time off. Especially during holidays, it’s time for you to visit with family and friends, too! Recharge your batteries, enjoy your life, and take some time for yourself. This is important for staving off burnout. Remind yourself that one of the points of your own business is working (and thus, not working) when you choose. A little R&R can be just the mental and physical refresher you need to come back with renewed energy and vigor. It’s not a crime to spend a day goofing off, especially if you have the time in your schedule.

2. Clean and organize. Did your work space get cluttered up? Receipts lying everywhere? Left the filing until you “had a moment?” Now is your chance! Clean and organize your office space and come back to work with a fresh slate! Purge your email inbox, clean up your hard drive, catch up on the filing. Hang that artwork, vacuum, dust, take out the trash and recycling, create a supportive space for your work.
Bonus tip: Have you been considering implementing a new system for filing, accounting, a database, contacts, or other business process, or perhaps creating forms that might support your business? Devoting time to setting these up carefully and thoughtfully is a great use of downtime.

3. Paperwork. Get caught up or even ahead of yourself. Need to update files? Transfer handwritten notes to disk? Catch up on Quickbooks or online banking? Update log files? It’s never too late to get caught up or get a jump-start on the year-end paperwork you might need.
Especially important: Start inputting everything you need to generate some current financial information. Getting your paperwork up to date now saves you tons of time and frustration when taxes are due.
Bonus tip: If you get an accurate picture of your business finances, you’ll immediately see where you can make more money, where you can cut expenses, and more opportunities for growth. Don’t wait until the end of the year for this!

4. Set some goals. If you have updated your paperwork (especially finances), you probably have a good picture of what the last year, quarter, or month in your business looked like. Now is a good time to set more yearly, quarterly, and monthly goals for you and your business. Stretch a little! Write the new goals down, so you can track how well you do. Don’t wait until the end of the calendar year to set goals–do it now!

Next up: Four more tips!

What do you do for your business when you have downtime?

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Making Space

May 18

Posted by Laura in Appreciation, balance, blessing, change, choice, clarity, Coaching, Creativity, Mindfulness, Path, planning, Powerful questions, time, Uncategorized | No Comments

When there is something big you want to create in your life, how do you make room for it? If you want to start your own business, get married, travel a lot, have children, start a new hobby, and so on, how do you create space for it? I’m talking beyond just wedging it into your calendar, saving money, or clearing out a corner of your home.

I’ll give a personal example. For a long time, I’ve held space in my heart and in my dreams for motherhood. In talking with my husband about having a child, he asked a great question: “How will we have a kid when we’re so busy as it is? How will we fit it in?” I realized then that something that large and life-changing doesn’t just get “penciled in” to our existing life. We must create space for it, giving up certain things and changing others so that we might be healthy, whole, and ready.

So I began paring down my responsibilities, specifically by deciding not to step up for officer roles in various professional organizations I belong to. I did some reading about fertility, learned how to chart, started taking prenatal vitamins, and tried to eat better and exercise more. I had some appointments with my doctors to deal with various issues I was concerned with. I put some money in a savings account to use during maternity leave.

I’m going through a similar process of making choices with my business right now. I am evaluating my commitments and side projects, winnowing some down so I can focus on my core interests and my best work. It’s a little bittersweet at times, saying goodbye to something that was fun but no longer moves me in the direction I want to go. But it opens new doors of opportunity, and that’s quite exciting to me!

I’ve blogged before about setting a goal and making sure it is SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed). Coaching is a way to help people set goals, figure out a plan, and track toward achieving it. Making space is a critical step that might get overlooked by some. We can’t keep cramming our lives full of stuff to do without occasionally weeding some things out and changing others.

What do you do to make space? What do you make space for?

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Thinking Bigger: The VA Experience

Feb 19

Posted by Laura in change, clarity, Communications, Creativity, experience, momentum, planning, professional image, success, Uncategorized | No Comments

Loyal blog readers may remember some time ago that I posted about the three D’s of task management: delete, defer, and delegate. Well, I’ve had some serious experience with delegating recently. I hired a virtual assistant (VA) several months ago. The different in my business, my approach to it, and my personal growth has been startling! I want to share my experiences here, partly to sing the praises of VAs and partly to show how a simple change can bring about profound learning.

Virtual assistants can do all kinds of support work for a businessperson. Without getting into too much detail, they can offer administrative support, some Web work, design, event planning, phone calls, documentation, you name it. I found my VA through a local networking group, and we signed a contract by which she provides me 4 hours of her services each month. How I ask her to use the time is up to me. So far, I have had her work on both of my Web sites (which were recently relaunched in WordPress), design promotional flyers for and assist with some training events, optimize my profile on some business networking sites, make phone calls and perform some research, and create a PowerPoint presentation from some extremely raw text. I plan to have her help me with a newsletter, more slide presentations, and some marketing tasks in the future!

What surprised me in the process of making use of this support is how much it helped me grow! The lessons ran deeper than I could have imagined (and are still revealing themselves to me). Here are some of them.

  • I was pushed (in a good way) to let go of something and trust another person to handle it. I’ve been self-employed for 14 years, and because I’ve always had to handle everything, it’s fair to say I became a bit of a control freak. I’m so used to handling it all–it was a challenge to let something go. When I was able to do so, a lot of new, exciting opportunities for my time and energy opened up!
  • I became more engaged in my best work. Because I now have support around the details and busy-work of my company, I have more of my brain power and heart invested in the actual work–that of coaching. I no longer have to fret over details because I have a trusted person to handle them for me. I can truly focus on serving my clients.
  • I opened the door to more profitability. I was shocked when I realized that my VA could spend 1 hour on something that would take me 4 or more hours (and a lot of frustration) to get done. I can use those 4 hours to do billable work! Also, because she can support me with excellent work, I’ve accelerated my plans on a lot of my business-building ideas, which will bring more clients to me.
  • I began to see more possibilities in my business. As I was challenged to come up with tasks for my VA (she works so fast!), I started to see a lot more opportunities for myself and my business. Currently, she is developing a slide presentation for me from very raw text and images. This will be published on SlideShare and available for free to anyone who is interested. Before I met my VA, I doubt I ever would have considered this. I don’t like slides, and I don’t know how to use PowerPoint well, and it would have perpetually been put on the back burner. Now it’s happening! More creative ideas are coming to me all the time, and I’m energized to attack them.
  • I started thinking like a bigger company. Suddenly, I have “people.” I can take on bigger projects, bigger commitments because I have support in other areas. I feel more professional. I’ve widened my playing field. This has opened up even more opportunities, and I find I’m incredibly excited and engaged with my business all over again!

Obviously, I recommend a good VA if you need or want some support in your business. As you think about the cost of hiring someone, weight it against the immediate benefits of getting things done, and remember to think about the bigger picture advantages!

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