"The Sky's the Limit--A Road Map From Therapy to Coaching"
Reprinted From The "Family Therapy Networker"
January, February 2001
pp. 36-43, 56-57.
by Ben Dean, Ph.D., MCC
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When I first met psychologist Ellen Ostrow three years ago at
a coaching workshop I was conducting, she was on the edge of
burnout. Managed care hassles had worn her down, and, after
17 years of doing therapy full time, it was "getting harder
and harder to spend all of my time empathizing with pain," the
49-year-old Silver Spring, Maryland, clinician told me. When
she showed up at my workshop on personal coaching as a new
practice specialty for therapists, Ellen wasn't even sure what
coaching was or whether she wanted to make it part of her
work. She only knew that she had heard other clinicians talk
about this new arena with real excitement in their voices--and
she was intrigued.

Today, Ellen's own voice lifts in enthusiasm as she talks
about her growing coaching practice, especially the rewards of
"helping people open doors they never knew existed, then
watching their lives really take off. It fills me with
wonder." While continuing her therapy practice, she now
devotes about a third of her time to coaching two specific
groups of clients: women making midlife transitions and women
lawyers. While the additional income has allowed her to cut
loose from nearly all of her managed care panels, that's not
at the heart of her exhilaration about her new work. "I see
coaching as a different way of helping people grow," Ellen
told me recently. "To me, it's about a process of blossoming--
helping people become who they've always wanted to be."

She told me of her work with a woman who had abandoned a
passion for making sculpture in order to earn a living as an
executive assistant for the past 20 years. When Ellen first
began coaching her to reconnect with her art, "she didn't
really believe she could make sculpture the center of her
life." recalled Ellen. But with Ellen's encouragement and
problem-solving acumen, within two years, this woman was
actually supporting herself as a sculptor, working with
developers to make pieces for new buildings and landscapes.
"You get a powerful sense of making a real difference," Ellen
said of her new work. And an unexpected bonus: Ellen is
enjoying her therapy practice again, in part because "coaching
has taught me to look harder for my clients' strengths."

Around the country, clinicians are experiencing similar jolts
of renewed energy and zest for their work as they immerse
themselves in the evolving field of personal coaching,
reinventing themselves as combination mentors, creativity
consultants, strategic planners and sounding boards for
clients with intensely felt, as-yet-unrealized dreams.
Enthusiasm for this new arena of service is at a high pitch:
The International Coach Federation (ICF) reports that the
number of coaches has jumped from 5,000 to more than 15,000
over the last 3 years; ICF's own membership has shot up 50
percent in the last year alone. The media, not surprisingly,
have caught on: Oprah and CNN have recently showcased coaching
as a cutting edge human-potential profession, while
publications as diverse as Time, New Age Journal, The New York
Times and USA Today have prominently featured articles on the
coaching boom. U.S. News and World Report has christened
coaching the "second-hottest consulting field in the country,"
just behind management consulting.

So what exactly is coaching? How does it differ from
psychotherapy? In my 18 years as a therapist, coach and, most
recently, a trainer of clinicians who want to become coaches,
I have found it challenging to rigidly separate these two
disciplines. Both use numerous skills in common, such as
active listening, reframing and empathy, which is precisely
why I believe therapists are so well-suited to coaching.

To me, the key difference between coaching and therapy has
more to do with mindset than method. While both coaching and
therapy can help people make major life changes, coaching
liberates therapy from its medical, pathology-based
underpinnings and focuses wholly on human strengths, positive
passions and the nurturance of untapped possibilities. Given
the severe time constraints of managed care, often the best
therapists can do is get a client to neutral--from a place of
great pain to a place of feeling "okay." The goal of a
coaching relationship, by contrast, is to help people tap
into, and actualize, their deepest vision of who they are.
Rather than serving as healer, a coach acts as a facilitator
for a client's full flowering as a person--a kind of gardener
of the spirit.

Because coaching is so squarely aimed at self-empowerment,
some culture watchers predict that coaching is poised to
become a pivotal human services profession of the 21st
century. According to William Rowley, M.D., of the Institute
for Alternative Futures in Alexandria, Virginia, today's
consumers are increasingly concerned with maximizing health in
the most encompassing sense--yet, they often falter in the
follow through. "We've committed ourselves to staying well in
our emotional, physical, spiritual, family and community
lives, but the choices and resources out there are
proliferating at a bewildering, even overwhelming rate," says
Rowley. "To help guide us toward our new vision of health, our
first line of defense may become the 'life coach.' "

Moreover, the coach of the future is likely to appeal to
people at all stages of life development, Rowley predicts.
"Baby boomers, who suddenly come to realize they are mortal,
will hire coaches to help them create lives with more depth,
meaning and personal time," he says. "For younger folks--
Generations X and Y and the Millennium Generation--there's
likely to be a natural comfort with coaching as a more
egalitarian and holistic route to a healthier life than can be
found in more traditional, hierarchical, helping
relationships."

Coaching is already evolving in the direction of broadly
defined health enhancement. Ten years ago, coaching was
largely still a business perk for CEOs who wanted to boost
their profit margins; today, perfectly ordinary people are
seeking out coaches to help them pump up their creativity,
lose weight, increase their emotional intelligence, learn to
meditate, attract a life partner. It is little wonder that for
many clinicians, the notion of adding coaching to their
practice rosters seems enormously attractive. Why not jump
into this exploding field, wherein managed care headaches and
difficult cases are replaced by highly motivated clients who
offer us the exhilarating invitation to help them breathe life
into their dreams? Why not embrace a specialty that uses many
gifts and skills we already have in spades? In fact, coaching
may seem like such a natural and effortless segue for
clinicians that it's tempting to believe that we can simply
give a marketing workshop or two, add "Personal Coach" to our
business cards and hit the ground running.

In truth, making a go of coaching requires more new learning,
humbling persistence, and repeated leaps out of our comfort
zone than most of us realize. I know this firsthand: As I made
my own transition from therapy to coaching, I made my share of
wrong turns and blunders that caused me to wonder, at times,
whether I was truly cut out for this work. In the process, I
gained some hard-won wisdom that may help you negotiate this
demanding new field. The following is my short list of
personally tested, essential strategies for developing a
thriving and deeply satisfying coaching practice--strategies
that I wish, early on, someone had shared with me.

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Get Yourself a Coach
=====================

For the first 12 years, my coaching practice was successful,
quite rewarding, and entirely local, comprised of clients I
saw in my office or on-site  in the Washington, D.C. area. I got both
coaching and clinical clients from local referrals and by leading
workshops. But once I realized that coaching could be
delivered nationally by telephone, I was really intrigued. I
began to try to market myself nationally and learned that my
local approaches did not translate. For example, I regularly
approached national publications and organizations about doing
articles and workshops to publicize my coaching practice.
Since I was a total unknown outside my metropolitan area,
these enterprises would often turn me down flat--whereupon I
would drop them cold. For months, my national practice didn't
grow much. It took a coach to help me see--and reverse--my
inexperience. 

I could have saved myself more than a year of stalled growth
and unnecessary teeth gnashing had I hired a coach earlier in
the process. But I was convinced that I was smart enough and
motivated enough to go national myself. (Never mind that I had
willingly laid out $30,000 for seven years of one-on-one
therapy supervision.)

In denying myself a personal coach, I denied my own fear and
ignorance. For me, making the leap from local to national
marketing required activities that were anxiety producing,
mainly because they were unfamiliar. The problem with walking
into new territory without guidance is that when we start
feeling scared and out of our depth, we tend to grind to a
halt. We procrastinate. In my experience, a coach can play a
critical role in helping us maintain momentum in the face of
the inevitable bouts of fear and uncertainty that attend
starting a new business--or taking on any new role--from
scratch.
 
My own anxiety and naiveté centered on marketing my coaching
practice nationally. Because my local practice had grown so
easily, I didn't understand that repeated rejection was simply
a fact of marketing. When I finally hired a coach (I held out
until the mid-'90s), I told him about my drop-'em-cold
response to unhelpful contacts. "Ben," he responded, "these
people are your friends--potentially. It takes time to build
trust. Keep in touch." Of course, he was right: Developing
relationships is the very cornerstone of sound marketing.
Now I faithfully maintain ties with every contact I make,
regardless of their initial response. But I needed an
objective coach to help me see the wisdom of nurturing
business connections, injured feelings notwithstanding.
While my coach knew I was apprehensive about marketing
nationally, we never explored in depth why I was anxious, as
we might have in therapy. Instead, he simply reminded me that
1) My feelings were perfectly normal and that 2) I needed to
walk toward what scared me, not away from it. With his
steadfast encouragement, I was able to do that. 

After 18 years in the business, I continue to work with a
personal coach. The reason is simple: Having a coach works.
Since launching my clinician-coach training program four years
ago, I've been juggling active coaching and clinical practices
with building a fast-growing business. Recently, when I
mentioned to my coach that I wanted to write a book, he helped
me to see that the impulse was terrific, but the timing was
off. That's a hallmark of a good coach: He or she has the
perspective of a wise outsider who knows when to encourage
action and when to advise you to do absolutely nothing--at
least for the moment.
      
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Think Big: The #1 Secret of Coaching Success
============================================

Many clinicians imagine themselves coaching from their
customary chair in their consulting room or working on-site in
a corporate client's office. Both face-to-face coaching
formats are perfectly valid and used by many coaches.
However, part of what makes coaching a truly 21st century
profession is its unabashed embrace of technology in the
service of amplifying the field's reach and influence. For
maximum impact, I encourage my trainees to coach in a way that
initially may feel hugely disorienting--via telephone with
individual clients or, even more exciting and far-reaching,
with groups.

These virtual groups, or "V-groups," are gatherings of clients
who are separated geographically, but joined by a live
conference call. For example, I recently ran a lively V-group
for clinician-coach trainees that included a family therapist
from Fort Lauderdale; a psychologist from Oakland; a
psychiatrist from Houston; a social worker from Boston, and 16
other far-flung participants. We were connected by an
inexpensive teleconferencing "bridge" that links up to several
hundred people in a single call (though V-groups typically
comprise anywhere from 8-25 people). We're just beginning to
tap the power of technology in this field: Within 3 or 4
years, teleconference coaching will likely be supplanted by
the even more compelling format of videoconferencing.

Coaching virtual groups catapults you from a purely local
center of influence--at best, your metropolitan area--to an
enormous national, even global, one. It's not only that you,
the "expert," can touch more people, but also that you offer
your clients the chance to belong to a highly supportive
learning community that may not be available where they live.
I never fail to be heartened by how quickly my V-group
participants begin to trust me and each other, offer
encouragement, trade valuable ideas and in every other way
function as a connected and effective group--except for the
hugs. 

But the benefits of virtual coaching extend beyond
facilitating long-distance support. If, like me, you have
logged thousands of "chair miles" in your office, an
undeniable perk of teleconference coaching is the freedom to
work wherever you please. With the aid of a hands-free
headset, you can coach while brewing tea in your kitchen,
walking around the house or relaxing on your deck. You can
coach on your favorite beach or mountaintop. You can coach in
cut-offs or sweats or, as one of my colleagues prefers, a
faded pair of Batman pajamas. And you similarly liberate your
clients, who no longer have to slog through traffic to get to
your office or make themselves sufficiently presentable for
"face time" with you. Life becomes simpler and less stressful
all around. 

By the mid-90's, I had been coaching face-to-face for more
than a decade. While my local practice was successful, I was
blown away by the promise of going national with virtual
groups. But still I resisted. The chief reason I avoided
running teleconference groups was simply that I had never done
it before and was afraid that I might not be instantly
terrific at it. I worried, too, that I wouldn't be effective
with people if I couldn't read their body language. What if my
clients didn't get their money's worth?

As it turned out, my only legitimate concern was that I
wouldn't be immediately wonderful. It took some time to feel
comfortable "working blind"--no question. But over time, I've
learned a variety of ways to work effectively in a virtual
medium. To compensate for the lack of nonverbal cues, for
example, I ask for lots of feedback. If there's a longer-than-
comfortable silence, I'll say: "Hey, guys, is anybody there?"
(Inevitably, I get laughter in response.)  I encourage
participation even more than I would in a face-to-face group,
making sure everybody gets a chance to speak at least twice. I
paraphrase people's responses to help them feel truly heard. I
also offer a range of ways for group members to interact with
me and/or with one another between sessions, including a buddy
system, an e-mail discussion list and virtual peer support
groups.

Several months ago, I wrapped up work with a virtual coaching
group that had been meeting for more than a year. During our
final call, we processed what it was like to say goodbye after
so much time together. As we remembered the worries, triumphs
and stubbed toes we had shared together, one woman began to
cry. The others supported her with quiet words of comfort and
validation. Enormously touched, I was reminded that given a
safe space, trust and intimacy simply flower. The connection
was just as real as if we had been in the same room together.
      
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Develop a Niche--the Smaller, the Better
========================================

Darryl Pure, a Chicago psychologist and single father of
three, has built a coaching practice that specializes in
helping men become better dads. He mentors men--single and
married, custodial and noncustodial--to connect more deeply
with their kids, especially when father-child closeness is
impeded by out-of-town work and long hours. Steeped in the
very particular concerns of his clients, Pure is now a
nationally recognized coach on enhancing father-child
relationships.

The lesson of Darryl Pure's practice: To become an
extraordinary coach, carve out a small niche. Bypassing a
generic "parenting" practice, Pure chose to go smaller but
deeper by focusing on fathering. In my own work, I chose not
to coach psychotherapists generally, but rather therapists who
specifically want to develop a virtual coaching practice. By
probing one small niche thoroughly, you'll learn the
challenges, strengths, history, language and longings of your
particular population with more discernment and depth than you
can possibly imagine. Your clients will also be your teachers,
each adding something uniquely valuable to your store of
wisdom. You, in turn, will encounter each new client with an
ever-increasing depth of sympathy, resonance and understanding
that no generalist can match.

The mistake that new coaches frequently make is a reluctance
to go small enough with a niche. Instead of specializing in
"boomers making life changes" for example, work with mid-life
physicians making career transitions. Rather than coaching
"chronic pain sufferers," focus down on athletes in chronic
pain. I realize that narrowing your niche is a deeply
counterintuitive notion. But remember, if you choose to
develop a virtual coaching practice, your potential clientele
is now staggeringly huge, encompassing much of the English-
speaking world. So even a niche that at first blush may seem
impossibly narrow--say, teachers with ADD--in fact comprises
tens of thousands of people who may need your help. Plus, it's
much easier to make yourself known to a well-defined group
than to attract the attention of the universe.

Of course, you'll also want to choose a niche that you find
genuinely intriguing, one that has an identifiable set of
problems you think you can help solve and one that is
relatively underserved. Also, since getting coached is a
purely out-of-pocket expense, choose a client population that
has some hope of paying you. I offer this piece of advice from
painful experience.  In my local practice, I'd always been a
generalist, coaching everyone from IBM executives to writers
to local politicians.  But when I first started to market my
coaching practice nationally, I intuitively knew I'd need to
pick one niche to emphasize in my marketing and settled on
Ph.D. candidates who were struggling to finish their
dissertations. I chose this niche because I'd struggled with
my own dissertation and knew they had a burning, underserved
need.  I never considered the fact that graduate students tend
to be notoriously poor. This is not to suggest that you should
choose a niche entirely, or even primarily, on the basis of
your target clientele's tax bracket. Just don't ignore it
entirely.

Silver linings abound. Even though I started out with a
national specialty that ultimately couldn't sustain me, I
learned a tremendous amount about the processes of virtual
coaching, running V-groups and practice-building with my
wonderful "ABD" (All But Dissertation) clients. You'll do the
same. Even if you can't initially decide on any particular
niche at all, it's fine to start with a general coaching
practice. As you work with a variety of people, you'll
discover that certain clients' problems interest you more than
others, or that you're especially good at helping people who
face particular sorts of challenges. From this unhurried and
organic process, your niche will materialize.
      
====================
Market Through Trust
====================

Once you've identified your niche, you can start marketing to
it. The good news: Your potential clientele is nationwide--or
larger. The more daunting news: You have to figure out how to
actually reach some of these faraway folk. How do you begin?

The short answer: Build trust. To grasp the central practice-
building challenge of virtual coaching, I find it helpful to
envision a "funnel of trust." The large, top end of the funnel
is jam-packed with the universe of potential clients in your
chosen niche--people who are regularly besieged with thousands
of advertising messages per week. It's a grim scene up there:
The vast majority of them have never heard of you, have no
reason to trust you and every reason to totally ignore you.

By contrast, the people at the narrow end of the funnel do
know and believe in you. This smaller group includes current
and former satisfied clients, as well as colleagues who
respect your work and readily refer others to you. Your task
is clear: You need to bring some of the suspicious strangers
at the top of the funnel down to the friendly, trusting
bottom. Because your potential clientele is so large, moving
even a small percentage of individuals down the funnel will
guarantee you a busy, thriving coaching practice.

One highly effective way to establish trust is to get the
permission of members of your target niche to send them free,
valuable information on a regular basis. The word "permission"
is key. Market research indicates that when individuals choose
to receive your message, they are less likely to screen it out
and more likely to be influenced by it. In my experience, one
of the most more powerful vehicles for building a national
coaching practice is an e-mail newsletter--a simple, brief
document, published monthly, that speaks to the major concerns
of your niche audience in a compelling, from-the-heart manner.
If you consistently give potential clients free information
that helps them solve their most pressing problems, --no fluff
allowed--you will slowly but inexorably earn their trust. And
trust is the raw material from which coaching relationships
are formed.

I learned about the power of trust the hard way. Several years
ago, when I was first moving into the virtual coaching arena,
I decided to give an introductory teleconference session on
overcoming writer's block. I produced a fabulous,
professionally designed flyer advertising my virtual session,
and then hired students at Duke, Michigan, Stanford and
Berkeley to plaster their campuses with it. I anticipated a
huge turnout. I got four people. I had spent $500 $700 to get
them. 

By contrast, the following year, I offered another
introductory virtual coaching session, this one on helping
people complete their doctoral dissertations. Several months
earlier, I had launched a simple e-mail newsletter, "The All-
But-Dissertation Survival Guide," and offered it to people via
speaking engagements and other marketing efforts. I had also
announced my newsletter on a website that publicized new e-
mail newsletters. In less than a year, I had attracted some
1,900 subscribers. I then used that newsletter to announce my
teleconference workshop--and got 200 responses within 48
hours. Ultimately, nearly 100 people, from Maine to Hawaii to
Toronto, signed on for an action-packed, one-hour virtual
workshop. That session, in turn, led to several coaching
contracts.

What made the difference in the outcome? Trust. Over time, I
had developed a relationship of increasing trust with my
newsletter subscribers by providing them--month after month--
with helpful information on completing their dissertations. So
when I eventually asked them to attend my virtual workshop, a
good number of them were willing to take a chance on me. This
is not to suggest that an e-mail newsletter is the only way to
build a virtual coaching practice, but it is unquestionably a
powerful tool. You can also attract clients via all manner of
workshops and presentations, as well as through a website,
writing articles for your niche's favorite publications and
other proven marketing approaches.

But perhaps the single most critical thing to keep in mind as
you begin to develop your coaching practice is that you are
running a marathon, not a sprint. Time--a healthy chunk of it-
-is required for people to begin to know and trust you
sufficiently to invest their dreams, energies and financial
resources in a coaching relationship. Furthermore, because
you're learning a new business, you'll make your share of
time-consuming mistakes. So keep your day job. While clients
from local referrals can come soon, significant income from
national marketing efforts may take at least 12 to 18 months
from the time you start your practice-building efforts. If you
want to hasten that timetable a bit (or if you tend toward
technophobia), you can hire someone to take care of the arcane
details of a virtual practice, such as formatting your e-mail
newsletter and setting up your subscription software. You
don't have to do everything yourself.

But above all, cultivate patience. Your coaching clients are
out there. They want your support; they need your wisdom.
Build trust and they will come.