Three Coaching Attractors

Clients initially look for a lot things in a coach. Here are three.

Authority - Expertise, experience, skills. I call all this professional authority. When we're not accomplishing what we'd like and we need help, we naturally look for someone who is "better" than us. They know more. They possess skills that we don't. I know, we coaches are fundamentally facilitators rather than "authorities," but clients often come to us with this mindset.

Empathy and Relatability - Someone who gets us and we can relate to. Particularly when we're struggling or feeling vulnerable. Their first unspokend question is, do you get me? Am I safe here?

Challenge - We want someone who will call us out of our comfort zone and into what is more. Someone who stands for possibility. Who sees more in us than we see in ourselves. And holds us to it. Some of us simply want what's on the other side of the challenge. And some love a challenge for it's own sake.

Any capable coach is capable of showing up in any of these ways with their own individual balance and flavor.

So here's my question: Is your brand messaging and photography meeting your ideal clients where they are, with their unspoken expectations?

For example, if you're an executive or sales coach in a corporate setting, you'll probably want to lead with your professional authority. You might stress results, skills, goals. And your brand photography should reflect a certain distance (authority automatically implies a certain emotional distancing).

If you're a relationship coach, you'll want to lead with messaging and branding that comes from a place of warmth, relatability, mutuality, and shared humanity. And your photography should reflect the softer, accepting, approachable side of you. Your colors and design may be softer.

And if your ideal clients are highly competitive or challenge-oriented, you'll want to lead with provocation. Immediately challenge the safe, comfortable, status quo. In fact, the status quo is the enemy. And your photos and design should provoke too.

I think of this three-fold distinction as meeting clients where they are, with their unspoken assumptions. None of this is meant to say you should pretend to be someone you're not. It's a matter of what dimension of authentic you that you start the conversation with.

And of course, there are nuances. These distinctions are a rough cut. You might love to work with competitive sales people but who also want a more human, relationship-oriented way to create sales. Interesting possibilities here! You might actually be a challenging disruptor.

So which of these roles are most most natural for you? Which space do you most easily come from?

Now ask yourself, what are my ideal clients looking for when they come to me? What's their first priority? This will almost always be unspoken.

So I'm curious. How do you most naturally show up in your coaching? What's you leading edge?