Have you ever considered yourself a good listener who offers sound advice? If you’ve heard this being said about you, you may have just found an interesting opportunity to take well into your retirement years.
There is a demand for coaches and I’m not talking about sports here, either. Consultants offer advice, but coaches assist clients in overcoming various behavior issues that may prevent them from succeeding otherwise.
The best part about this kind of coaching is that you can specialize in a number of different topics including life, career, executive and financial. Considering this is a relatively new field there are no licenses and credentials are not mandatory but there are courses available to assist you in becoming a certified coach.
For example, CoachFederation.org outlines the eleven core competencies developed to support the understanding of skills and approaches that are used in the present coaching profession. They fall under four main categories: Setting the Foundation, Co-creating the Relationship, Communicating Effectively and Facilitating Learning and Results and explore each with subcategories to assist with dealing with various situations.
Another resource, TheCoaches.com outlines their leadership training program that will help you to recognize your personal leadership styles and strengths and show you how to develop them to become more effective. The benefit to being a coach in this capacity is that you are essentially mentoring others and helping them to become the best they can be.
If it sounds interesting to you, let me explain a bit more that may assist you in becoming even more interested. Being a coach can be a perfect part time job as you get to set your own hours and many of these leadership coaching sessions take place over the phone.
The best part is that life coaches charge a rate averaging $75.00 per hour with financial coaches charging much more. As stated before, this is still a very new kind of profession, so you may want to focus on dealing with topics you may have experience in already.
For example, if you spent you working days in a management position you could easily spin that knowledge into becoming an executive coach. If you were active in your working days as an employee in various jobs you could use that knowledge to assist someone as a life coach. The possibilities are endless if you take a hard look at what skills you currently have and how they can assist you in your new part-time coaching career.
There are a variety of ways to get the word out about your new service in order to develop a client base. The easiest one is to advertise in local newspapers. Also contact them to see if they will run a story about you and your coaching service. A semi-retired life coach mentoring others could have an interesting hook that a newspaper may latch on to and publish.
Also reach out to the people you hope to have as clients by making personal contact with business executives or financial institutions, depending on the specialty you choose to focus on. They may provide you with referrals or hire your services for various retreats and team building sessions.
Regardless of what direction you take in coaching, this is a rewarding option that will bring you the satisfaction of using your leadership skills to assist others to improve themselves and their own personal circumstances.
Resources
There are dozens of coaching organizations – some completely bugs – but the two most respected ones are the International Coaching Foundation (coach federation.org) and the International Association of Coaching (certified coach.org). Either one can help you find classes to improve your skills and both offer certification. Whether you’re interested in becoming a life coach, a corporate coach or something more specialized, certification can give you more credibility and allow you to charge higher rates.