Why Developing Coaching Skills Are Vital To Yourself and Business

I listened to a call given by Renegade Professionals by way of Barbara Silva the other day. She titled her talk “The Coaching Mindset – Why Developing Coaching Skills Will Save Time, Money, Effort, and Your Nerves!” I found her title pretty intriguing and I learned quite a bit from her talk.

The first thing she talked about was “What Does a Coach Do?” Simply put, a coach uses their skills to help their clients, a sort of guidance system. But its important for the client to choose his or her own course. Being sort of like a consultant, teaching the client how to sail their own ship. Coaches identify the underlying problems. They identify the elephant in the room, the thing that needs to be said but isn’t. Coaches listen on a much deeper level. Which is something that will take some practice, but once mastered can save you a bunch of time because lots of times its what’s not being said that’s most significant.

Next Silva speaks on “Why Coaching Skills Are Important to Your Business?” Coaching skills help cut down on the time it takes to get things done. Coaching skills help inspire trust in you immediately. Coaching Skills reduce the pressure and stress that comes with being a business owner. And most importantly, coaching skills help make sure that the message you send out, is the same as the message that the client is receiving. You want to fine tune your clarity. Things can become misconstrued, and misunderstood very quickly, but with the proper skills as a coach, you can avoid all confusion.

As a coach, you want to learn to see what is and isn’t there. You want to be able to tune into what your customers do and say in a way that you may not be able to do currently. Most people don’t do this, but you want to stand out amongst the bunch and show the clients how you are different from the rest of the “coaches.” This is simply listening to people, and understanding their concerns. Listen to what is said, and what isn’t said. Ask questions, and listen to the answers. Listen, listen, listen, with your whole heart as if no one, no thing matter at that particular moment in time. Listen with no judgements, don’t rush to any solutions, just giving them the space to be who they are. It will make a difference.Put yourself in the other person’s place, listen to where they’ve been, what they’ve been doing, who they were with, what part of the world they are from, anything to give you a context on how they might receive your message.

Coaching is delegation in its supreme form. You learn how to give another person the space they need to let their own process of discovery flourish. When they do this, when they feel safe, they start to find solutions on their own. And that’s when you truly cut down on the time it takes to get things done in your own business as well as within that person’s you are helping grow.

One might ask, “What Can I Start Doing Right Now?” And the answer is begin practicing true listening skills. Whether you are speaking with a client or a family member, practice being completely “in the moment with them.” Out of everything Silva spoke on, the most important idea I came away with was how critical listening is and can be to you connecting with your clients and how vital to your business. Put that listening skill into practice right now!