Okay, I am going to get it off my chest. There are all sorts of people who are calling themselves “coaches”. Don’t get me wrong. I have plenty of coaching clients. I don’t want to impede anyone else’s career. So why does it bother me?
I guess it is the confusion around coaching.
The coaching field is not regulated in any way so you do not need any special schooling or certification. Anyone can put up a website and call themselves a coach without having any credentials of any kind. LinkedIn now has an endorsement for “coaching.”
For many direct selling “coaches”, their idea of “coaching” is to give someone a playbook and tell them what to do. The term “hostess coaching” is telling the hostess what to do. That is training. If you find yourself offering most of the solutions, telling your team member what to do, and hoping they do it, that’s not coaching, that is training.
Many direct sellers use some coaching skills when working with their team. However, most professional coaches have enrolled in a training program and have been mentored by a coach.
When I decided to coach people for a living, I was trained in the professional skills that are the foundations of coaching: active listening, powerful questions, designing actions, coaching presence, creating awareness are just some of the core coaching competencies recognized by the International Coach Federation. The Team Connections coaches are not just experts in direct selling; they have been trained as coaches.
So in my humble opinion, if you went to a weekend retreat, took an online class, use a few coaching questions to drive your training agenda, I won’t endorse you as a coach. I would invite those of you who want to receive coach training with a content emphasis on direct selling to check out Ultimate Coach University. UCU, which offers several tracts of coach training, is the only direct selling coach training program that is seeking ICF approval.
