You can download it at: www.coachfederation.org/coachingstudy2012/

The report is only 16 pages long, so it’s a fairly quick read. It’s based on just over 12,000 responses from all types of coaches in 117 countries.

What you’ll find in this report:

1. Number of coaches worldwide and by region

The International Coach Federation (ICF) estimates there to be 47,500 professional coaches in the world, as per a press release issued yesterday.

When you compare this with the estimated 40,000 business coaches worldwide from the Global Coaching Survey Frank Bressar Consulting did in 2008/2009 – the ICF number seems a bit low.

(To access this latter report visit: www.frank-bresser.com/globalcoachingsurvey.html)

2. Annual income from coaching by region.

In another press release the ICF stated that the average annual income generated by coaches globally is approximately $47,900.

You’ll also find the average income and the median income for seven regions worldwide in the report. Since I’m not allowed to publish figures contained in the executive report without their written permission, you’ll have to check those out for yourself.

Since executive or corporate coaches tend to make more than life coaches, it would be helpful to see the income number broken down by type of coach.

3. Other topics in the Executive Summary

- Trends in Client Numbers, Average Fees, Sessions and Income
- Changes expected in the coming year in client numbers, average fees etc.
- Key issues facing the industry including whether coaches feel the industry should be regulated or not.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the results. Leave your comment in the space provided below.

For those who are interested, there is an extended version of the study available on the web at the url above.

While I could give a summary on each topic listed in the report, it would do you a disservice as the context and nuances would be lost. Instead, here is what I find valuable about the Sherpa Report.

1. Thorough Covering of Topics

The Sherpa report is thorough and covers many aspects of executive coaching from standards of practice, the coaching process, and licensing and regulation to training and certification, and assessments in coaching. (Just take a look at the table of contents for the full scope of what is covered.)

I would have loved to have seen income ranges for executive coaches as well as any income differences between internal and external coaches. This would give prospective coaches the answer to an often asked question: Can I replace my current income as a coach?

In the extended report online, you can see the hourly fees charged with percentages and much more. (Check the ‘What Makes a Great Coach’ section.)

2. Trend Spotting (and How to Use Them)

Since this is the 7th annual report on executive coaching, the authors can compare results to those from previous years. When they do that they can see trends developing. One example of this is the trend towards teaching managers and executives coaching skills. If you’re a curriculum designer or practitioner (as per the ‘Themes’ in the report), this may be of interest to you.

3. Feedback from Coaches and Those Who Hire Coaches (and How to Use Them)

Since the survey is based on feedback from coaches and those who hire coaches, you get a unique perspective on what’s really happening in the field. For instance, when it comes to ‘standards of practice for coaching’ (page 4) – the two groups have opposing viewpoints. If I was an executive coach who wanted to get the contract and/or differentiate myself from other coaches, this would have me ponder how I could give HR, or those who are doing the hiring, what they deem to be essential.

If you’re wondering who to aim your coaching services or program at, you’ll find the ‘Who gets a coach? 5 year trends’ chart and summary on pages 6-7 valuable. You’ll learn what level of management is getting coached and what is driving any changes. Combine this with the ways coaching is being used (p. 8-12) and you’ll have some hints as to how to taylor your programs.

Note: While the Sherpa report can give you some valuable insights into the current realities and trends in executive coaching, you still need to know the needs and wants of the organization you’re working with or want to work with. The needs and wants of your organization may differ from the results contained in the report.

If you’ve already checked out the report, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Before it starts, check out the pre-summit series webinars. These 20-30 minute no-cost webinars are on a variety of topics applicable to Business and Executive Coaches. The truth is coaches of all types will benefit from this information.

Some of the topics covered in the Pre-Summit include:

• Public Speaking Profits
• Using a Webinar to Make Sales
• Ask the 7-Figure Coach Anything
• 3 Biggest Mistakes Coaches Make That Keep Them Struggling
• How to Get 5 Qualified Prospects to Meet You This Week
• Creating Massive Value for Clients

To access the Pre-Summit webinars visit: 3 Biggest Mistakes. (You can access the other Pre-Summit webinars from this page.)

Early Bird ticket price (50% off) ends July 15, 2011. To take advantage visit: World Business & Executive Coach SummitWorld Business & Executive Coach Summit

Disclosure: While these Pre-Summit webinars are no-cost, if you purchase a ticket to the Summit I will receive a commission.

To participate visit: www.CoachingStudy2011.com

By the end of the year you’d not only have twelve new habits that increase your personal effectiveness but also a much more powerful business.

You may be wondering what sorts of business habits would be helpful to adopt. Here are some examples:

• Set your top 3-5 daily intentions for the next day before going to bed. (These are most powerful if they’re based on your weekly, monthly and/or yearly goals.)
• For the first hour or two of your day, work on your top two profit-making activities ONLY. Do this before looking at emails or administrative tasks etc.
• Read and answer emails during specified blocks of time. i.e. 15 min. at 12 noon and 5 pm.
• Only answer the phone and return phone calls during specified blocks of time.
• Create an informative, valuable piece of content – article, video, or audio – each day and publish it to directories etc.
• Interact with prospects and customers on your social media sites for 10-15 minutes a day.

Note: While these examples may work for some businesses, it’s up to you to decide if they’ll work for your business. You may need to modify them based on the nature of your business.

Adopt the new habit and fine-tune it throughout the month. If you have a few set-backs, don’t worry – just chalk it up as learning.

Your turn. What activity, if you did it each day, would make the biggest difference to your business?

If you’re already a coach, it’s easy to get isolated and become a lone ranger as you build your business. Get out and mingle with coaches in your area and build your network. You may meet someone you didn’t even know you needed to meet or who needed to meet you!

One option is to attend a meeting of the local chapter of one of the coaching associations. The International Coach Federation, for example, has 100 chapters worldwide, the aim of which is to provide networking opportunities.

Find the chapter nearest to you (via the link below) and then see if they’re have a monthly meeting.
Find a Chapter

I did this when I was exploring coaching in 2000. I’m still in touch with a couple of the coaches I met that night.

Have fun and let me know how the meeting was!

P.S. This is just one of several ways to meet coaches outlined in the How to Become a Coach ebook.

ICF European Coaching Conference
June 16-18, 2011
Madrid, Spain

Theme: Reinventing Ourselves

Among the many presentations are talks by John Whitmore on “The Sustainable Future of Coaching” and Julio Olalla (Newfield Network) on “From Knowledge to Wisdom.”

For more information visit: www.coachingconferencemadrid2011.com

The Sherpa Coaching 6th Annual Executive Coaching Conference
June 5-7, 2011
Cincinnati, Ohio

For the first time this event is open to executive coaches worldwide, as long as seating is available.

For more information visit: www.sherpacoaching.com/conf11.html

Below are three suggestions for you to consider:

1. Determine your top three goals or intentions for the year professionally and personally.

Anytime an opportunity comes your way, ask yourself if it will move you towards or away from your goal. If it will move you towards, then seriously consider it. If it will move you away from your goal, consider letting it go.

Also consider the time, resources and energy that would need to be devoted if you chose to take on that opportunity.

2. Do the things you love and/or that you are uniquely talented at.

When we spend the majority of our time doing things we love and are good at time seems to fly. We feel energized even after hours of performing the activity. Unique talents are those things that we do easily
and naturally and that we enjoy doing. (See Discovering Your Unique Talents” for more on this topic.)

3. Delegate

Delegate the tasks you do not enjoy doing and/or you’re not good at whenever possible. These tasks usually end up taking you much longer to finish than someone who is good at it.

If, for instance, you are a small business owner and dislike doing your monthly bookkeeping, hire a bookkeeper. Hire a maid if you don’t like to clean your house.

Spend the time you save doing activities that will move you towards your goals and objectives for the year (as per 1.)

Related Post: Setting Yourself Up For Success”

We each have 24 hours in the day. There’s nothing we can do to change this. We just have to learn how to use the time we have in the most effective way.

In other words, we need to learn how to manage ourselves around how we use the time we have.

The end result – setting ourselves up for personal and professional success.

Big Rocks First…

If you’ve heard this story before, read it again and see if you’re living it…

Imagine that you are given a big jar, some big rocks and little rocks, sand and water. Your task is to fit everything inside the jar. In what order do you place each object in the jar?

The answer…

First you place the big rocks inside the jar. Then you place the little rocks. The sand goes in next as it neatly fills some of the spaces between the rocks. Finally you pour the water inside the jar.

Voila! You’ve done it.

So… how does this relate to your life?

Obviously the jar is your life and the big rocks are your most important priorities. The little rocks are your next most important priorities and so on.

The question is… are you taking care of your big priorities first? If not, how can you set up your day and week so that happens?

It may be beneficial to take a step back and re-evaluate your top priorities. Are your current top priorities going to bring you closer to your goals? Are they truly what you value in life?

Here are a couple of ways to ensure you take care of the big priorities first:

1.Write Down Your Top 4-6 Priorities

At the end of each day, write down the 4-6 top priorities for the next day, in order of importance. I find I’m much clearer about what needs to be done the next day when I do it this way. If I wait until morning I’ve forgotten and can get distracted by other things.

The next day, start at the top of your list and work your way down.

2. Do Income Producing Activities First

Only do your top two income producing activities before anything else, including email and phone calls. Income producing activities include delivering your services (ie. coaching, consulting etc), hosting teleseminars or webinars to sell a product or bring in leads, etc. Work on the first activity for 1-1.5 hours and then take a short break to stretch and move around. Then repeat this again. When you complete the first activity, move onto the second.

These are just two ways to get the big rocks done each day. Do you have any methods that work for you? If so – share them below!

In response to that article I received an email from a coach in which she shared that “while some coach training programs are over priced… I don’t think $6K is too much. Coaching is a profession that requires commitment, time and investment, just like other professions.”

All of this lead me to these two questions:

1. How does the cost of coach training compare to the cost of training for other professions?
2. How many hours of training are needed for certification?

Challenges With This Type of Comparison

There are some inherent challenges with this. Are we comparing apples with apples or apples with oranges? Or even apples with eggplants? (I believe it was the latter.) Some professions have regulations stipulating what training must be taken in order for someone to get a license and practice in that profession. This will differ between countries and even between individual states and provinces. For the purposes of this article I chose U.S. based training and professions regulated in Washington State.

Given all that…. just use these figures as a ballpark comparison… I didn’t include exam fees or books unless they were included in the total price. The sources of data for each profession can be found at the bottom of this article.

* Tuition is based on credits. The cost per hour calculation is based on 1 credit being equal to 16 hours of class time. In addition, the tuition is for a Washington State resident. Out-of-state students would pay quadruple that rate, effectively moving the cost per hour on par with coach training.

All professions above, with the exception of coaching and personal training, are regulated professions in Washington State that require a license to have a private practice. (For details visit: www.dol.wa.gov/listoflicenses.html)

Observations

Coach training is more expensive, on a per hour basis, than the other professions noted. As noted under the comparison table, tuition at the universities would be on par with coach training if out of state tuition fees had been used.

Personal training, like coaching, is not regulated as I write this article (Feb 2011). In other words coaches and personal trainers do not need to be licensed to call themselves a personal trainer or a coach. Most of the associations that certified personal trainers in the U.S. did not require any previous training or education, other than CPR and First Aid. Some required a high school education. Most, but not all, coach training organizations do not require any previous education or professional training/experience either. The exception would be coach training programs designed for therapists and helping professions.

This, however, may change for personal trainers. In 2008, the Fitness Professional Licensing Act was proposed in New Jersey. It if passed it would require professionals to have a minimum of 300 in-person hours of training, including 50 hours of supervised unpaid internship. Exempt would be those with Associate or Bachelors in PE, Exercise Science, Exercise Physiology or Adult Fitness. (Maryland and Georgia also tabled proposals in 2008 to license personal trainers).

I was surprised by the number of hours (both training and apprenticeship) required to practice as a manicurist and barber. A barber needs twice as many hours of training as a licensed massage therapist!

The number of hours needed to become an ICF Professionally Certified Coach (PCC) pales in comparison to the other professions notes here, with the obvious exception of personal training. The Master Certified Coach credential requires 200 hours of training. But… you do not need to be certified in order to have a private coaching practice, like you do with the regulated professions noted in the table.

What Do You Think?

What are you thoughts about the training and fees for coaching as compared to the other professions? Should the ICF require coaches have more than 125 hours to be certified?

Source of Data Per Profession:

Coaching: I used the average tuition calculated for the Affordable Life Coach Training post. 125 hours is the minimum hours of training needed to apply for the ICF Professional Certified Coach credential (in addition to the other requirements such as coaching hours, passing the exam etc.)

Certified Counselor: Based on the tuition fees and 180 credits required for a 4 year undergrad degree from the University of Washington. Tuition fees are for a Washington State resident. Fees quadruple for non-residents. A Certified Counselor can have a private practice.

Certified Dietician: Requires a 4-year undergrad degree in human nutrition, foods and nutrition, dietics or food management. The fees are from Washington State University for Washington state residents. To call yourself a Certified Nutritionist you must get a Masters or PhD in the topic area.

Personal Training: There are no minimal training requirements that I could find. This profession is not on the list of regulated professions in Washington State (link below above table). The 7.5 hour training is from ACSM and the 32 hour ACE exam prep training is from Triton in Texas. Other than an undergrad degree in Kinesiology, the only lengthy training I found was the 500 hour training provided by the National Personal Training Institute.

Massage Therapy: 500 hours of training are required from a state approved school. Fees and hours are the average of those for: NW School of Massage, Cortiva, and Massage Connections.

Animal Massage: 300 hours of training for either small animals or large animals is required. Fees and hours from the NorthWest School of Animal Massage. They actually offer 450 hours of training but since only 300 hours are required, I used the tuition cost for 300 training hours.

Manicurist: 600 hours of training and 800 hours of apprenticeship required. Fees and hours from Total Cosmetology Training Center.

Barber: 1000 hours of training and 1200 hrs apprenticeship required. Fees and hours from Total Cosmetology Training Center.