March 2007
		Coaches: Who Are You?
		Sneak Previews
		Claire Recommends
		The Marketing Warrior

Coaches: Who Are You?

by Linda C. Puig, president

Last fall, the International Coach Federation (ICF) undertook a global survey of the coaching profession. In all, 5,415 coaches from 73 countries responded, half of them from the United States. Known as the ICF Global Coaching Study and conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the survey reveals an interesting profile of the burgeoning coaching profession. Here are a few initial results of the study, presented with special permission from the ICF.

• Most coaches are female. Globally, 69% are female; in North America, nearly 75% are. (Not surprisingly, this exactly mirrors the ratio of our Claire Communications clientele in North America.)
• Most active coaching clients are female (57%).
  Most coaches (69%) are between 36 and 55 years old, with the largest portion (39%) being 46-55.
• Coaches have an average of 11 clients, with the largest percentage (39%) having 1-5 clients.
• The largest portion of coaching clients is 38-45 years old (35%); about 27% are ages 46-55, while 23% are ages 30-37.
• Revenue generated by the coaching industry globally is close to $1.5 billion, about half of that generated in the United States.
• Just 39% of respondents were full-time coaches. The average full-time coach currently earns nearly $83,000, with the average part-time coach earning a little more than $26,000. Four out of five respondents expected their revenue to increase in 2007. 

More detail is to be released over the course of this year in four separate modules, with a final report to be released September 15. We’ll keep you posted.

What gave me the most pause for thought in the study was the income information. I personally know plenty of six-figure coaches. I also know plenty who mix and match coaching with a wide assortment of other income-generating services. For example, my massage therapist is also a CTI-trained coach, an NLP practitioner, a Soul Wave practitioner, a trained Watsu giver and probably something else I don’t remember. 

Still, I wonder…do part-time coaches want to be full-time? Do you? And if so, what stops you from becoming full-time? Given my particular bent—helping you market your services via newsletters, ezines and articles—I’m inclined to say that it’s all about getting the word out about how your coaching can help people live more fulfilling and satisfying lives.

I like to imagine what the world would be like if everyone could work with a coach. It fuels my desire to help you thrive, to take work off your shoulders so that you can do what you do best and what the world so needs. If we here at Claire Communications, can be of service to you in the area of ezines, print newsletters and/or individual articles, it would be our honor.

www.NewslettersForCoaches.com
www.ArticlesForSale.net

Sneak Previews

Rich Content and Passive Income for Your Website!
As you know, book recommendations are an excellent way to further your clients’ learning. You may include book titles on your website—a great resource for anyone visiting it—and even make it easy for people to purchase online right then and there (usually earning you a commission, usually around 4%).

Imagine what a valuable resource your website would be if your clientele and site visitors could immediately purchase and download an audiobook from your site, and begin listening right away…on their computer, in their car, on the treadmill, cleaning the kitchen, on a plane—wherever! Perhaps it would be a reason to visit your site again and again.

Even better, imagine if you earned 10% of every sale made from the books listed on your site! Look for an email from us later this month showing you how to EASILY do this, when we open our new online downloadable audiobook store, Claire Audiobooks. There will be some special bonuses for the first 20 of you who sign up to sell titles on your website.   

New Claire Web Design & Development Services
It’s always been a natural for Claire Communications to offer website development services. Many of you who are wanting newsletters and articles to help build your private practices also need websites.

But to be honest, the set-ups we’ve had—in-house custom web design services or referring to other web designers—never worked the way we wanted it to, and sometimes came back to bite us.

The third time must be a charm! I am very excited about a new joint venture with a hugely talented, solidly grounded, experienced, reliable, professional, and, yes, charming web designer. It’ll be another 6-8 weeks before we’re ready to announce. But if you’re in the market for web design or expect to be in the next year or two, you’ll want to hold onto your hat! 

Claire Recommends

Virtual Practice Builder Webinar Mentoring Session
If you want to build your practice using the Internet, Travis Greenlee is a person I’d like you to meet. I’ve worked with Travis before, and I can tell you that this guy’s information is solid gold, as is his heart.

His highly regarded "Virtual Practice Builder" is chock full of cutting-edge practice-building techniques that he spent years creating, specifically for professionals with a private practice. He can show you how to dramatically increase your bottom line, while demystifying what can seem to be such a complex mystery.

Mission & Vision

I’ve always been uncertain about the specific differences between a mission and a vision—whether business-related or personal. It seemed to me that they were more or less interchangeable or that they swapped meaning, depending on who was doing the defining. Needless to say, I never really defined a personal mission or vision because of all this confusion.

Recently, I attended a workshop that helped me understand mission and vision, and the roles they play in creating our life. It’s really simple, almost a “Duh!” when you hear it. Your mission is your life purpose; it’s what you bring to the world. A mission statement should include what you do (action), for whom, and the value, benefit or end result created. For example: “To guide and assist individuals to identify and live their purpose with passion.”

Your vision is the vehicle through which you live your mission. It’s the outer manifestation of your mission. Using the example above, your vision might include leading workshops or writing a book. You can have two or more visions operating concurrently, or they may go successively.

One benefit of knowing both mission and vision was immediately apparent to me. Because of my background as a newspaper and magazine journalist, I recently was asked to teach a journalism class at my son’s high school. It was really intriguing to me, as I have strong feelings about the role that journalism should be playing in our culture today. But when I sifted it through my newly clarified personal mission statement and vision, it was completely clear that teaching the class was really outside my mission, and it did not move me toward my vision. It was an interesting prospect, yes, but ultimately a distraction from the road I feel most strongly about traveling.

What’s your mission and vision? I’d love to hear from you.   

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© 2007, Claire Communications. All rights reserved.