Clients hire money coaches for a number of reasons, and, surprisingly, its not just about their coach’s skill with money!
Most people in the US need help with money, because or educational system failed to realize that “money skills” are something every student from K to 12, and in four years (or more) of higher education, should have a firm grasp on.
And while a professional money coach will bring hands-on experience and broad skills to the table, it is the less tangible skills that people often need to harness in order to make real headway with their personal finances.
Your reason to seek out a coach is unique to you, so to get you thinking beyond the dollars and cents of it all, here is an incomplete list of reasons that people hire a coach (listed alphabetically so as not to imply the relative importance of one reason over another).
- Accountability. The one thing that separates coaching from any other financial relationship is the two way street of accountability. In order for any coaching engagement to be a success, coaches must follow through. And so must clients.
- Biases. We all have inherent biases that can manifest in potentially damaging behaviors. Many clients have been been unable to overcome the biases and behaviors that have held them back from financial success. An experienced coach can plug that drain so their client can make smarter, informed decisions about their overall financial wellness. Money Coaching is on the cutting edge of changing investor behavior and establishing life-long money skills.
- Celebration. A win for the client is a win for the coach, and you will celebrate your victories as a team!
- Challenge. Changing any habit is hard, and a good coach will challenge their client to face their hardest problems, and partner with them until the correct solution reveals itself.
- Change. An experienced and informed coach’s support will help clients initiate critical change.
- Confidentiality. Unless you are attending a group coaching experience, your business is your business. Nobody has the right to know what you discuss with your coach. Private clients are just that!
- Discovery. Coaches help clients discover intelligent alternatives and approaches that they had not considered or didn’t even know were available.
- Effectiveness. Clients can’t be effective as an investor or money steward if they don’t have a personal paradigm or a detailed plan built around their personal goals.
- Focus. The money coach will help clients tune into the problems that must be solved, and tune out the rest of the noise. A laser focus on only the issues that matter means turning away the million and one bits of financial pornography that assault our senses daily.
- Goals will never be realized unless and until they are visualized. One of the most important roles a coach plays is helping their clients visualize and define realistic goals and then craft a plan to attain them.
- Honesty. Your friends and family may be reluctant to help you because they don’t know how. Also, they don’t want to put in their two cents and put the relationship on the line. An honest assessment from an unaffiliated, unrelated and trusted third party is what clients demand from a coach.Truth without baggage!
- Logic. A coach can help clients replace emotion with logic, the secret to effective long-term wealth creation.
- Mistakes. You want a coach to help you avoid costly mistakes, and most experienced financial coaches have made those same mistakes. It’s called “earning your stripes the hard way,” and hard knocks are the best teachers of all. If you work with an adviser, coach or planner that hasn’t made mistakes, fire them!
- Objectivity. You will benefit from unvarnished, non-judgmental and objective discussions with an outside observer.
- Observation. Through close observation, active listening, and asking powerful questions, financial coaches can help clients craft an intelligent plan, complete with detailed action steps.
- Obstacles. All goals face obstacles. Spotting potential obstacles and barriers before they appear, and crafting a plan to overcome them by anticipating changes or shifts in your life and the world in which we live.
- Partnership. Coaches are not dictators. Rather, they are collaborators, partnering with clients to find answers and create positive change.
- Potential. An experienced coach will know how to help their clients uncover their hidden potential, which will lead to fulfilling their dreams.
- Perspective. Coaches learn to look at everything from a broader perspective and in longer time frames.
- Resources. Clients are able to benefit from the network of allied resources that their coach has developed over decades in the field.
- Simplicity. One of the goals that seems to surface often is the client’s desire to take complexity out of the financial picture. Complexity causes stress; simplicity invites peace.
- Success. Success comes in many forms. Making more money, feeling peace of mind regarding your future, finding more time to do the things you want to do because you have the resources. You defines your own success; the engaged money coach helps you achieve it.
- Strategy. Without a strategic foundation, it’s unlikely anyone will build the wealth or the life they want.
- Tactics. Experienced coaches carry a full “bag of tricks” with them to share with clients. You will learn proven techniques for solving problems as varied as fixing a broken portfolio to creating meaningful lifetime financial wellness.
The reasons clients hire a money coach may be virtually unlimited, and may often can be quite surprising. For instance, a self-sufficient, hard-driving executive may actually need someone else to steer the personal finance ship, based on his or her own inherent biases or behaviors. Sounds odd, but it happens every day.
Most money coaches like helping people and they like solving problems. That’s a really winning combo of motivations, and the varied nature of the engagements and the diversity of the problems to be solved are two of the main drivers that lure many coaches into the field.
Money coaching. A new and unusual concept to many people, but don’t you owe it to yourself to take the next step?
