Mentor Coach Tips

Successful Starts: A Perspective

Although an older article (2001), "The Sky's the Limit" by Ben Dean, MCC is worth a read for both newer coaches and coaches in growth mode.

Written for therapists who might be considering expanding their practice to include coaching services, it offers a contrast on coaching vs. therapy.

And I heartily agree with his new coach success secrets: grow even faster with a mentor coach, determine and develop your target/specialty, consider alternatives to 1-1 in-person coaching, know that building a business (particularly a people-service one) is all about building relationships and trust.

And I'll add one more: be sure to get quality training in coaching skills! No matter how well-suited we are to being a coach ("it's something I've been doing all my life ... I just never had a name for it"), specialized learning about coaching skills and the coaching process can polish our natural abilities so we can be even greater blessings to our clients. Why be mediocre?

Show Me the Money

Many of us have a complex emotional relationship with money and all things financial.  We wonder about our value, we worry about never having "enough", we feel like we're walking on eggshells whenever we talk with prospects and clients about fees.

We can deal with these things during our mentor coaching conversations. But first things first.

As a professional, you owe it to your clients to provide them with a convenient, simple and straightforward process for purchasing your services.  And this means the capacity to accept major credit/debit cards ... a "merchant account".

You are probably familiar with PayPal as the secure and versatile web-based money transfer service for internet purchases. But it can also be your get-started merchant account solution.

Transaction fees are slightly higher than traditional merchant accounts, but there is no upfront set up fee.  And in these early days when watching cash flow is important, this is an important feature.

Approval for a PayPal Business Account is often immediate. Just be sure to sign-up for the "virtual terminal" option -- this will allow you to process your client's payment information, rather than asking your client to visit the PayPal site.

When is it time to move to a traditional merchant account? Call Practice Pay Solutions (familiar with coaches and competitive rates) when your receipts are consistently over $1000 each month. Fee differences begin to fade away at that level ... and so does pressure on cash flow.