Peak Careers

Professional Development for Career Practitioners

career coaching

INTERVIEW: Expect Your Coaching Business to Change

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As more people start or think about starting a career coaching business, we want to talk about how our businesses changed over the years

With a combined 60+ years of owning/growing our own business, you can learn how to start or grow your own. Like Virginia Franco one of our presenters said, “I wish I had had advice like this when I was starting out.“

I asked my panel these two questions

(1) Describe your coaching business when you started and what are the biggest changes you’ve seen

(2) What advice do you have for people who are developing or thinking about starting a business?

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Interested in growing your business?
Check out this 5-week online seminar, Building Your Coaching Business

BIOS

Hannah Morgan is a trainer and job search strategist. She has worked in outplacement services, a graduate school career center, a Department of Labor one-stop, and as a recruiter/HR generalist. She is a nationally recognized author and speaker on job search trends and was previously a LinkedIn Top Voice in Job Search and Careers.

She founded CareerSherpa.net to combine her career expertise with her love of writing, speaking, and social media. Hannah is a regular contributor to US News & World Report. She has been quoted by media outlets, including Kiplinger, Forbes and Money Magazine. She is also author of The Infographic Resume and co-author of Social Networking for Business Success.

Hannah is active across social media including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Mark Danaher, Owner of MarkDanaher.com 

 Mark Danaher is the founder of Mark Danaher Training and Coaching (www.markdanaher.com). He helps professionals gain career clarity and build confidence so they can achieve the impact they want in life. Mark has been a career counselor and coach for over 28 years helping professionals connect the dots to reduce stress, regain balance, and thrive in their life and career.

Through his private coaching practice, Mark presents workshops and training for career professionals, universities, businesses, and organizations thought out the United States. His commitment is to help people find the work and life they love and deserve. He has a passion for helping people reinvent themselves to be ready for their next adventure. Mark has been teaching the Facilitating Career Development course online for over 10 years and has taught the career course at the University of Connecticut.

He has been awarded the NCDA Fellows award which is one of the highest honors based on his work in career development. He was the President of NCDA in 2014-1015. He currently serves on the Training and Education Council of NCDA. 

Virginia Franco. I am a multi-certified Executive Resume and LinkedIn Writer, Coach and Storyteller whose documents help clients to land interviews. I founded Virginia Franco Resumes years ago when recognizing my years of corporate communications, journalism and social work offered me a unique understanding of how people read, communicate and share information.

I co-founded Job Search Journey, the first digital marketplace for job search, to provide job seekers access to high-quality, highly-affordable job search tools from industry experts. 

I help clients all over the world to tell their stories and test the job search waters – often for the first time in years or after deciding to make a career change.I’ve shared job search insight as the host of the Resume Storyteller podcast and in various publications and podcasts – including Job-Hunt, Ivy Exec, Business2Community.com, Jobscan, Career Sidekick, MedReps, Career Cloud and  Career Metis.  Website: HTTPS://VirginiaFrancoResumes.com 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/virginiafrancoresumewriter

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

Sign up to receive my TOP 10 TIPS WHEN WORKING WITH AN UNDECIDED PERSON. You will also receive the career practitioner’s weekly email on a variety of career topics, industry news, interesting events, and more. (Sign up)

Interview: How does mindfulness help our clients?

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This is one of my favorite topics and I am excited to have my good friend Sabrina here today with Roberta Rolfe to talk about why mindfulness can be helpful to our clients. Previous interviews focused on why mindfulness is good for us as career service providers. (Here is one of my blogs on this topic if you are interested. Watch now.)

Today I ask our experts
—How do you use mindfulness practices during your coaching or therapy sessions?
–What would you like career coaches to keep in mind as they do their coaching work regarding mindfulness?

If you enjoy(ed) this interview, you may want to check out another interview on this topic where Bob McIntosh interviewed Sabrina Woods and me (Jim Peacock) about mindfulness. (Watch now)

Guests today

Sabrina Woods is a Holistic Career/Life Coach & Consultant with close to 20 years’ in the career services field at universities including Harvard, Northeastern and the University of London. She is also the President of the Career Counselors Consortium based in Boston. In her private practice, her joy comes from tapping holistic and mindfulness-based practices while helping people with major career transitions. Sabrina also facilitates workshops and train-the-trainer sessions ranging from the Myers Briggs to Mindfulness to Linkedin. Her workshops combine her insights, enthusiasm and infectious energy. Sessions have been taught in the US, UK and Middle East. For more info: www.sabrina-woods.com or www.linkedin.com/in/sabrinawoods.

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Roberta Rolfe. Since 2008 Roberta Rolfe has worked as a limited licensed psychologist in private practice. Her clientele is primarily women with childhood trauma. Roberta has extensive training in treating trauma and has many tools to help her clients lead fulfilling lives. Mindfulness practice is at the center of her work with recovering clients. 

Prior to Roberta’s work as a psychologist, she helped to found organizations and projects that focused on healing, both individuals and groups.

Roberta‘s most important and satisfying career was being a mother. Today Roberta lives in a retirement community in Kalamazoo Michigan. She and her husband travel to Europe and Mexico and relish time with their children and grandchildren.

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

Sign up here to receive my  TOP 10 TIPS WHEN WORKING WITH AN UNDECIDED PERSON.  You will also receive the career practitioner’s weekly email on a variety of career topics, industry news, interesting events, and more. 

INTERVIEW: Thinking About Starting A Coaching Business?

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I have known Karen Chopra and Mark Danaher for a while now and have the utmost respect for both. Karen has had her own business for many years and coaches other folks on how to build a coaching business / practice. Mark has built a strong coaching business and also helps people to build their own private practice.

Today I ask our experts:
– – Why is there so much interest from people who want to start their own career coaching private practice?
– – What tips do you have for people who are thinking about this or have started recently?

Image of 3 people in interview
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Check out Mark Danaher and Jim Peacock’s
5-week, online, discussion-based seminar,
Building Your Coaching Business.

Also, you can read my blog; Thinking about starting a career coaching private practice? Read Now

Bio’s
Karen Chopra, LPC, CCC, NCC, is the founder of Chopra Consulting for Consultants  (www.KarenChopraConsulting.com), which helps therapists, counselors, coaches and other consultants create thriving businesses.  She also has a well-established career counseling private practice in Washington, D.C. (www.ChopraCareers.com), and has helped hundreds of clients with career exploration, job search, and career management. 

A former U.S. Government trade negotiator, she is the author of Coaching Career Clients on Salary and Other Workplace Negotiations and numerous other articles on the business and practice of career counseling. Maryland-CDA has honored her with both their Outstanding Career Practitioner and Lifetime Achievement awards. She received her M.A. in Community Counseling from George Washington University and her B.A. from the University of Virginia.   She also has a master’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

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Mark Danaher is the founder of Mark Danaher Training and Coaching (www.markdanaher.com).  He helps professionals make a career change from the work they hate to the work they will love. Mark has been a career counselor and coach for over 25 years helping professionals connect the dots to reduce stress, regain balance, and thrive in their life and career.   Through his private coaching practice, Mark presents workshops and training for career professionals, universities, businesses, and organizations thought out the United States. 

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Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

Sign up to receive my TOP 10 TIPS WHEN WORKING WITH AN UNDECIDED PERSON. You will also receive the career practitioner’s weekly email on a variety of career topics, industry news, interesting events, and more. (Sign up)

Thinking about starting a career coaching private practice?

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I started part-time with Peak-Careers while I was working as the Director of Advising & Career at a community college and never thought I’d go full-time with it. After 10 years my consulting business kept growing and growing and I finally took the leap to private practice full-time with Peak-Careers Consulting in 2012.

Here are a few tips I have learned over the years that I wished I had known when I was starting out.

private practice
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
  1. Begin now.
    Don’t worry about what you have not done or what you “should” do. Start now and write down what you want to do and how you want to do it. What is your “super-power” that makes you unique? By writing it down it helps you take it out of your head and make it more real. (link to journaling)
  2. Take the time.
    The most powerful gift I give myself is my monthly, or bi-monthly, tech-free day-long retreat. You need to find the time to sort out the many details of what you want to do, how you will do it, when you will do it, and who needs to help. Find at least a half of a day where you can leave all the “to do’s” aside and really focus on what your private practice could be.
  3. Set goals.
    Just like you do with your clients or students, writing down goals and creating concrete, measurable steps that need to be done is important for yourself as well. Give yourself deadlines on when things need to be done so that you see progress.
    And then, share them with someone who can keep you accountable.
  4. Seek advice.
    Starting your own business has a lot of moving parts to it. How do you set yourself up? How do you handle collecting money? What legal considerations do you have? How do you write a business plan? How do you market?
    Talk to other people who have a private practice – there are lots of social media groups out there.
    Consider hiring a business coach.
    Definitely check out the Small Business Administration free support near you. Your independence may be important to you, but don’t do this alone.
  5. Trust Your Instincts.
    Make the best decisions based upon facts, research, and advice but trust your instincts too. Know when to move forward and when to change directions by listening to the voice…that gut feeling…your guardian angel who is watching over you. 
  6. Take the time to evaluate.
    Yeah, I know #2 is “take the time” as well but after you get started in your private practice, take the time to evaluate what is working, what didn’t work, and why, what other opportunities might exist. Even if you are busy juggling a full-time job and your side-gig, find the time to think about your business. My regular tech-free retreats are great at allowing me the space to reflect on my business from the 10,000-foot view.
  7. **Added 7 & 8 after original went out because my good friend Scott Woodard pointed out these two important thoughts.

    One I would add is to remember that it’s a business. To me, the term “private practice” doesn’t carry enough “heft,” it’s almost like a hobby rather than a business. Scott.

    Having come from higher education and K-12 education…I was clueless on running a business! This is such a great point that Scott makes. It really is a business and it really was a ‘mindset’ change for me to think like a business.
  8. The other thing I’ve learned is that I tend to spend a LOT more time in my business (admin, marketing, etc.) than on my business (coaching, consulting). Scott.

    I was shocked at how much time I spent on the business side compared to the time I actually provided career coaching. If I wanted to do more career coaching, I should have stayed at the community college where I would see 5+ students every day and more when I taught the career decision making class.

I wish you the best in your adventure of private practice.

I know I will never work for someone again 40-hours per week. I love the independence and creativity of owning my own business.

If you’d like more assistance (see #4 above)  you may want to check out the 5-week, discussion-based online seminar Mark Danaher and I are offering in October – November. Building Your Coaching Business.

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

Sign up here to receive my  TOP 10 TIPS WHEN WORKING WITH AN UNDECIDED PERSON.  You will also receive the career practitioner’s weekly email on a variety of career topics, industry news, interesting events, and more. 

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It’s All About The Conversation

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it's all about the conversation
—————— My conversation/interview with Skip Niles summer of 2018 ——————

As career coaches, we must always remember that it is all about the conversation. It is not about the assessments we give, or the advice we hand out, or even the resources we share. Without a quality conversation, we are unlikely to be that helpful to our clients. By discussing assessment results and consistently checking in with our clients, they can then learn how to interpret whether they are on the right track.

It’s all about the conversation.

When I was the Director of Advising, Career, and Transfer at a local community college, I taught a Career Decision Making class. I gave three different interest assessments—one personality and two values assessments. I always would say as I prepared the students for each one “Don’t believe the results of the assessments”. They’d look at me confused and typically ask, “Then why are we taking them?” I explained they should be suspicious of all assessment results. It isn’t until we discuss the results and make sense of them within each person’s specific life and situation that we can believe them.

The power of Career coaching is in getting the students or clients to explore their own beliefs, values, interests, and experiences and really listen to their interpretation of their world. If they present a skewed picture of their own career development or see obstacles where there are none, it is our job as the coach (advisor, counselor, practitioner…whatever you call yourself), to challenge their thinking and help them figure out how to move forward. Again, it’s all about the conversation and getting them to figure it out with our help.

Read how I use card sorts to create the conversation.

We should provide resources and information when appropriate, but the real power in the coaching session is getting the client to uncover important themes and realize they often have the answer within themselves, they just need a coach to help pull it out.

There is nothing worse than hearing someone say “My guidance counselor told me I could not do that.”  Or, “my parents said that I should do _________.”  Because when someone else says you can’t or shouldn’t or even should do something, it will be that person who is wrong when it doesn’t work out. Yikes!  Now we can suggest, offer, and nudge when appropriate but never lose sight of the fact that it is indeed all about the conversation.

Asking those great open-ended questions that get the client to think about things forces them to really try to make sense of their own career development. I am always listening for their words and phrases and my goal is to get them to be the one talking at least 60-70% of the time.

It's all about the conversation
Thank you_Pixabay-Geralt

Many of their own conclusions will not come in the current session. It may happen when they leave and do more thinking about your conversation, on a walk they take in two days, or maybe even a month from now. The key is to get them thinking and taking ownership of their own career development. You do that by making sure it’s all about the conversation.

Note: this blog is based upon Chapter 7 in my book A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Clients Create Their Next Move due out in May 2019.

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Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

Sign up to receive my TOP 10 TIPS WHEN WORKING WITH AN UNDECIDED PERSON. You will also receive the career practitioner’s weekly email on a variety of career topics, industry news, interesting events, and more. (Sign up)

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The Future of Work is Now and Why it Matters to Career Practitioners

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coworking_space_in_berlin

Work has changed…and continues to change. Career practitioners need to pay attention. There is much talk out there how millennials are forcing the change of work and I think they have been given too much credit. Many boomers like and want the changes too. (As do all the other generations). I believe our economy is changing and all generations are changing with it. This also means that companies need to be nimble in order to succeed and deal with these changes in our workforce.

It appears to me the U.S. economy is a bit like a teenager with the growing pains of changing from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. And then overlay the changes in technology and the dearth of work after the 2008 crash, and you have an economy trying to figure itself out. This creates a very dynamic place to work.

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