If you missed the March Chapter meeting you missed a great dialogue with Marilyn August (www.marilynaugust.com). Marilyn’s talk “Mind Over Money” gave me a new perspective on how to look at wealth and money.  It also made me aware of some strange perceptions I have about making money.  Marilyn is a wealth coach and facilitates seminars on Wealth and Wisdom, two things we all seem to be pursuing.

I’ve been thinking about an exercise that Marilyn took us through during the earlier workshop and networking time. We started by describing our ideal client. This emphasized whether we were aiming our marketing efforts at just any client or truly focused on the clients we wanted to work with. There were many cases of “Oh, I have to add that idea to my ideal client profile.”

The biggest surprise came when we were asked to identify what problems we solved for our clients. We had a tough time as a group answering this question and thought that perhaps it had something to do with our coaching training. We have all been trained with two key concepts in mind; 1) the client sets the agenda and, 2) we do not give advice. It appears that these two ideas have led us to the conclusion that we do not solve our client’s problems. I have listened to many coaches spend their time explaining what coaching is rather than explaining how they have the solution to their prospective coaching client’s problem. 

Think about it.  This time of year many of us are spending time with our tax advisor or accountant figuring out how much money we owe the Internal Revenue Service or how big a refund we might get. Did any of us select our advisor based on their explanation of how they prepare our taxes? My guess is that we selected the advisor based on the thought they could solve our problem, i.e. pay less or get back more money. So what is the problem that you solve for your clients?

In my coaching business, I work with top business executives, mostly business owners. I could list dozens of problems that have been brought to me during our coaching sessions just in the last week. They ranged from small to big issues such as: “Who should take over the daily operations of the company so that I can spend less time at work”, to “Do we tell the customer we double billed them and give them a refund?”  So how would I describe these problems and the solutions that I provide as a coach? The question of who takes over the daily operations leads to a discussion of personal objectives and willingness to delegate. The question of double billing leads to a discussion of values. Therefore, the answer to the problems that I solved for my clients were perspective and focus. I supported them in staying focused on their end objectives rather then getting sidelined by individual issues.

When I see you at our April 10th meeting, I invite you to share with me what problems you solve for your clients.

Doug Gfeller, MCC
President, ICF-Orange County Chapter