Have you been stuck with figuring out what to call yourself? While it ultimately doesn’t matter what is on your business card, it does provide a level of confidence when you are clear about how you serve people.
Before you get caught up with locking yourself into a title, don’t get obsessed with what to call yourself. This can be a way you are avoiding doing the things you actually need to do in your business (like sales and marketing).
Coach:
Great coaches ask great questions and empower their clients to find their own answers. You guide your clients through a series of insightful and bold questions. The power is in the silence of waiting for your client to dig deep with their intuition to uncover their own answers. You guide your client and don’t do it for them.
Self Assessment: Do you ask questions to empower your clients to get to their truth or to you tell your clients your perception of what they are feeling or thinking?
Mentor:
This can be a version of a coach and the biggest difference is a mentor is typically an expert that the clients studies and models after. The client observes what the mentor does and follows in their footsteps as they are in the same type of business or industry.
Self Assessment: Are you living what you teach while realizing that you are not going to be perfect and there is always room to grow.
Strategist:
You don’t get the client to answers through insightful questions but rather from determining the strategy you see for the client to get the desired results. As the strategist you take the lead on outlining the steps of action for your client.
Self Assessment: Are you open enough to assess your client’s true strengths? Are you willing to be bold and tell a client when to stop going down a path because you are clear that the strategy isn’t going to lead them to their goal?
A great combination is to use the skill sets of all three.
- Outline the strategy (strategist)
- Coach the client through the breakdowns that WILL come up as the client takes action (coach)
- Be the mentor you want to be and model what you want your client to follow (mentor)
Here are a few other tips to give great value to your clients:
- Don’t get caught up on what to call yourself. Deliver your best value.
- Listen to your clients.
- Outline steps for your clients to move to their goals and empower them to take action. It’s up to your clients to take the actions and ask for what they want.
- Don’t make your agenda your client’s agenda. Hold the space for your clients to take full accountability for their experience and results.
- Finally, be the client you want your clients to be and you set the pace in the right direction of integrity. Hold your contracts with your clients. Be the kind of coach/mentor/strategist that you want to have.
To Your Success!
Angela
