Insights from Flow

Coaching
How to Determine Your Coaching Fees in 2021

Do you like talking about money? I know when I started, determining my coaching fees was one of the hardest things to do. Looking for clients and setting up my sessions were the least of my problems. I always had issues when it came time to talk about money and how much I thought my services were worth.

The coaching fees you charge are one of the most crucial decisions when you are starting your coaching business. The amount that you will charge will directly determine how many people will buy your service. If you are looking for a good start to your coaching business, take some time to determine the correct coaching fees to charge.

Questions for Determining Coaching Fees

When you are starting out a coaching business, you should start with a business plan. As part of the business plan, you should also determine your coaching fees. When coming up with a number it's important to ask the following questions to yourself.

  • What are the current rates for 1:1 coaching in my location?
  • Should I charge an amount less than other coaches because I am new to this?
  • Will my potential clients be discouraged if I charge as high as experienced coaches?
  • Should I come up with more than just individual coaching fees such as group discounts and a discounted price?
  • Where should I get feedback regarding my coaching price?

Current Coaching Rates:

It's not easy to answer these questions and does require some background work. According to a report from the Harvard Business Review, the range of coaching fees is from about $100 to $3000. Of course, it’s a huge range. The best way to determine your coaching fees is to ring a few coaches around your location and get an idea of how much they are charging based on the experience they have. This will give you an idea.

Does Low Experience Mean Low Coaching Fees? 

In all honesty, yes, when you are starting out your fees need to be near the minimum border. But it is important to come up with a feasible number because if your coaching fees are too low clients might assume you don’t offer a valuable service. Make sure to not undervalue your services. You need to know and understand what services you are offering and balance that with the price you are putting on the coaching services.

Can a Coaching Fees Be Too High?

A very high coaching fee means you can discourage potential clients. It is only sensible if a client looks at both the experience and certification while comparing prices. If they call around and notice your fees are on the higher end but your experience or certification is low they are most likely to think you have overvalued your services. It is essential that you are confident in your services but that confidence shouldn’t hinder you from getting clients.

Should There Be More Than One Coaching Fees?

Your personal coaching fees should be simple and straightforward but should also have variety. Hence you should have some different kinds of fees such as individual fees, group discounted fees and also offer package discounts. Package discounts can include adding a specific group of sessions or adding an extra item in the package such as a book or videos.

How Do Clients View My Pricing?

The best way is to gain feedback. Periodically ask your clients for feedback including one for the pricing. Clients can have useful insights. If you don’t ask, you won't know. So be open to asking opinions and feedbacks from your clients regarding your service and your coaching fees.

We hope that this article helped you learn more about how to put a dollar value on your services. At the end of the day, being a coach isn't easy and it takes a lot of passion and sacrifice to do so. However, it is still a career and you should properly value your work and ensure that you are also getting what you deserve in compensation.

If you are looking to become a coach, head on over to our schedule page to see if there are any upcoming programs that you would like to join us for. We can't wait to see you!

Talyaa Vardar

Coaching
How Much Will It Cost to Become A Coach?

If you have stumbled upon this article, we know that you're looking into becoming a coach. There are so many coaches out there today however, there is only one institution in the world that provides proper certification. And that is by the International Coaching Federation.

So, since you're here, I'm sure you're interested in finding out how much it might cost you to become a professional certified coach, well, we break this down in this article.

There are multiple factors that determine the price and cost it will take to become a coach. Basically, it depends on some of your answers to the questions below:

  • Is becoming a coach your hobby or do you take it seriously as a career?
  • Do you want to work independently or for someone else?
  • How soon do you want to become a certified coach?
  • Would you want to travel as a coach?
  • Is getting certified as a coach your priority? (Coaching certification helps your career immensely)

Coaching Training Cost Factors 

The training costs for a coaching certification program is dependent on several factors:

  • You would need to enroll in a coaching certification program if you’re looking to adopt it as a career rather than a hobby.
  • If you are working independently your need for a coach certification program rises rather than if you are working for an organization.
  • Some training takes place over a course of a year and some in a few months. We encourage you to enroll in FLOW Coaching Institute’s fast track courses and coach while you train. Get certified in just a matter of few months.
  • Travelling can be costly instead online training is much for convenient and cost-effective. FLOW Coaching Institute provides 100% online coach certification programs that you can take part in from the comfort of your own home.
  • Certification is key. Certification from an independent organization is preferred. All of FLOW Coaching Institute’s certificates are ICF accredited and certify you as an ICF FLOW Certified Coach.

How Much Should You Expect to Pay?

  • You can get short training for under $ 1000.
  • Accredited/approved training programs often cost more. If you want a particular certification, such as ICF accreditation, be sure your training hours qualify.
  • Average industry costs are much higher than FLOW Coaching Institute’s training programs. You can get certified as an ICF FLOW Certified Coach in just CAD 1990.
  • Higher Certification Costs more than $ 10,000 as an industry average whereas FLOW Coaching Institute’s program certifies you as an ACTP in just CAD 6990.

How Can You Cover the Costs for the Coaching Certification?

  • FLOW Coaching Institute offers payment plans.
  • Some coaches apply for a credit card with zero-interest for the first year and pay with that credit card.
  • Get a part-time job and pay with what you earn
  • Keep your full-time job to cover your coaching certification
  • Some coaches utilize their saving
  • You can train while you earn, pay your training with the income through coaching
  • Downside a bit and pay it off until your coaching career flourishes enough.
  • Your employer may consider paying for your coaching certification if it complements your job.
  • Many coaches come up with a combination of strategies to cover the costs for the coaching certification.

Check FLOW’s Program Schedule now to enroll in your coach certification program with us.

Talyaa Vardar

Coaching
How to Break Cycle Of Failure

Break the cycle... How many times have you heard that in your life? We are all told to break the status quo but do we all have what it takes? A lot of people go their entire lives without making this change and without breaking the cycle. Only because it's easier to just do what we're used to as opposed to changing the way we look at things.

This also happens a lot in businesses. A lot of companies never go past a certain point because they are not looking to improve or change things because of fear and not having the right people there to help them get past it.

Why Do People Seem Fixated on Failure 

Why do some people have consistent success while others miss out? Many institutions and directors seek the answer to this question.

If the person in question has no pathological conditions, or if the characteristic tendencies of the person do not prevent success in his/her performance (a combination of the wrong person and the wrong job), then coaching and mentoring are beneficial in up to seventy-five percent of cases.

What Do You Do When People Can't Get Themselves Out of It? 

However, sometimes there is a circumstance where you try everything you know how to help the person, but something is just off and it just doesn’t work. As a coach, you will feel bad and you will wonder why, but the answer rests within your client. Someone who is unable to carry the burden of responsibilities will miss an opportunity to grow – especially if s/he is constantly looking for someone else to blame.

In fact, an opportunity for success will be missed. If you observe people like this for any length of time, you will see a cycle where there is a tendency to self-sabotage by denying themselves and their actions. Instead of carrying the burden of their own responsibilities, these people regularly blame others or the circumstances surrounding them.

They need others to be wrong in order to be able to reassure themselves, even if just a little, because accepting the problem or mistake requires growth, and that growth needs courage and strength.

Man is born alone - he comes into this world on his own and leaves on his own. This is actually power, but only a few people possess the level of awareness that will allow them to face up to this truth.

People who regularly sabotage themselves avoid facing existential loneliness. When someone faces it once, “understanding” happens. Subsequently, understanding necessitates choice; they are either going to be strong or they are going to admit that they are knowingly sabotaging themselves. However, then it will no longer be possible to blame others or the circumstances. The easiest thing for such people is denial and avoidance – until the next sabotage. Unless these people break free of this cycle of blame and denial, they will be doomed to the repeated failure over and over again.

So What Do We Do?

At the end of the day, as a coach, there is only so much you can do. If you have tried your best and the client still seems like there is no movement from their end -- it usually suggests that they are not ready yet to change. And you can never change someone who is not ready and willing to change. If you try to you will just hit a brick wall.

Just be there and support them as much as you can and show them what change and success can look like if they choose to walk alongside you on that path. If not -- there isn't much more that can be done.

Have you ever been in a situation like this? How did you handle it?

If you are looking to become a coach to help people like these around you, check out our program schedule here to join us on this amazing journey of learning to coach the whole person.

Talyaa Vardar

Coaching
Become A Professional Certified Coach In 3 Steps

Professional coaching is a very growing industry at the moment. It is pursued by people who want to create an impact in the lives of other people by helping them go beyond their potential. Especially in 2021 when the world has changed as we know it and a lot of people are in need of guidance and support in their lives.

The coaching profession has exploded over the past 2 years because of just how fast the world is evolving and the emphasis being put on personal growth and improvements in yourself. Coaching has turned into an extremely lucrative business and career today.

The number of professional coaches in the world is growing rapidly and there is a growing demand for new professional coaches in different areas of life such as life coach, career coach, parenting coach, spiritual coach, business coach, and so on. People are getting more and more interested in getting certified as professional coaches.

The coaching industry is full of new opportunities as people are tired of routine and monotonous jobs and are looking to do something different and meaningful. If you find happiness in supporting others and helping them achieve their goals by aiding their thinking process you should think about becoming a coach. Here are some steps to become a certified professional coach.

How Do You Become A Professionally Certified Coach? 

Step 1: Discover & Learn:

Before you take the first step. Discover yourself and your ambitions before beginning. Are you interested in helping other people? Do you have the resources to sustain a coaching business? What can you do for people who are looking for coaches?

Many potential coaches start by getting coaches by themselves, this helps them get more knowledge about the process and the profession. You can start by searching ICF-certified coaches in your area and get in touch with them. ICF-certified coaches are not only very skilled but also abide by the professional standards of coaching.

Step 2: Get Certified

Once you have made a decision to become a professional coach search for a reputable coaching school that has programs accredited by the International Coach Federation and enroll yourself. Being certified will not only increase your credibility but also create your reputation in the market. Make sure the school’s values align with the ICF and it emphasizes implementing ICF Core competencies and code of ethics.

FLOW Coaching Institute has online coach certification programs accredited from the ICF and has a basis of programs on the FLOW Coaching Method and Positive Psychology. You can choose to enroll in one of our programs.

Step 3: Obtain Credentialing

Once you have completed at least 60 hours of coach-specific training that meets ICF standards you can consider completing other requirements for ICF credentialing such as ACC, MCC, and PCC.

ICF Global Coaching Study 2016 says seventy-seven percent of coach practitioners agree that clients expect them to be certified or credentialed.

To earn an ICF Credential, an individual must complete at least 60 hours of coach-specific training, attain 10 hours of mentor coaching, gain a designated number of coaching experience hours and demonstrate an appropriate level of skill in applying core coaching competencies. Applications are made directly to ICF.

To gain your coach-specific training and mentoring hours you can enroll in one of our programs or get in touch at info@flowcoachinginstitute.com

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Coaching
5 Ways A Certified Coach Can Help You Transform Your Life

At some point in your life, you would have had someone in your life coach you and mentor you through some hard and difficult moments in your life. When you were younger, that person might have been your parents and when you go to school, it would be your teachers. 

But, somehow, this kinda stops when you grow up. Why is that? 

When you get older, why should you stop having that one person who is there to help, coach, and mentor you through your life? This is why we believe that coaches are incredibly important for you to thrive in life. An ICF-certified coach will greatly help you plan out your life, help you figure out which parts of it you want to focus and grow and what parts you would like to work on and improve. 

Certified coaches can help you achieve your fullest potential in areas like your business, career, personal life, financial life, and just life in general. They are known to be masterful when it comes to achieving life goals as they are there to help ground you and walk alongside you to achieve your goals and wants in life. 

Here at Flow Coaching Institute, we have worked with thousands of students and we have helped change and transform those lives for the better. With that first-hand experience, we have also continuously improved our coaching programs to put forth the best-certified coaches out there. Our alumni are known to be some of the best-certified coaches out there because of our direct feedback loops and our dedication to making the world a better place from coaching. 

So, how does a certified coach help you transform your life? 

Certified Coaches Help You Identify Your Blockers & Problems 

Certified coaches are there to help you dig deep into your roots and find the causes of your main blockers and problems. These issues are usually the ones that are stopping you or holding you back from reaching your best potential. 

Determining your issues is hard and confusing especially if you haven’t done that practice before. An experienced certified coach will be able to assist you with a better understanding of yourself, your ideas, your blockers, issues, and roadblocks. By working with a certified coach and by identifying these blockers, you will be able to stop holding back and move forward with the changes that you wanted to see in yourself. 

Certified Coaches Will Help You Focus 

Everything is moving at 100 miles an hour today, with the internet, everyone working from home and just how easy it is for us to get information, it can get overwhelming. There are always going to be a hundred things that you want to get done and that are important and urgent. But, with a certified coach by your side, they would have worked with you to find out what your blockers are, and then with that, they can create a path of focus for you. This path will help you focus on what it is you want to work on. 

Focusing on these little steps is the main way to help you reach your goals. Without focus, nothing really changes and this is where a certified coach can help you. 

Certified Coaches Create Your Goals With You 

Once you’ve figured out your main blockers and roadblocks and you’ve honed in on your focus areas, another great benefit of having a certified coach by your side is that they will work with you to curate your goals. 

The reason why having a certified coach by your side is so that you can make sense of all the work you want to get done with yourself. After identifying your issues, blockers, and what you want to focus on, that is only half the work. The other half is putting that on paper and actually creating a plan to help you reach those goals. 

Certified coaches are your lighthouses, you can go and explore and try new things but they will always be there to guide you back to where you need to be to achieve your goals. 

Certified Coaches Boost Your Confidence 

How does it feel when you have someone on your side, supporting you through it all? It feels extremely rewarding, doesn’t it? It also gives you that confidence boost in knowing that someone is in your corner at all times. A certified coach will help you see your worth, your strengths, how to leverage your weaknesses, and also ensure that you realize that you deserve the best things in life. 

Certified coaches will also make sure that you are empowered and fueled to get what you truly deserve in your life as well. That overall confidence boost is critical in ensuring that you really change your life for the better. 

Certified Coaches Are There To Hold You Accountable 

Have you ever been a victim of the new year’s resolution issue that happens every year? Where everyone is super pumped to change their lives and they create this list of resolutions that get forgotten after a month? Well, having a certified coach will help you curb that. 

Regardless of your goals, they are there to make sure that you are accountable to yourself, and that you are constantly working on improving yourself and making your life a better one every day. They are there motivating you and picking you up when you are down. 

At the end of the day, a certified coach whether it’s for your career, your business, or even your personal life is someone that you need in your corner if you are seriously thinking about changing things in your life. They are there to give you that extra push, to mentor you, and to be there for you when things seem like they have hit a plateau or a brick wall. 

If you have a personal coach, let us know what makes them so special? We would love to hear about your experience as well!  

And if you are looking to become a coach, head on over to our schedule page to see if there are any upcoming programs that you would like to join us for. We can't wait to see you!

 

 

Talyaa Vardar

Coaching
FLOW For Women: Female Empowerment with FLOW Coaching Institute

Here at FLOW Coaching Institute, we choose to celebrate women every single day. Women are incredibly powerful and without women, the world would be a sad and boring place. This is why, whenever we are asked to do any CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities for women, we say yes almost immediately all the time.

In this article, we wanted to take some time to showcase some of the awesome things we've been doing for the community of women around us. As women, we need to ensure that we help each other constantly and whenever we can.

Women are still being oppressed in 3rd world countries and even in places like Canada and the United States. No woman will ever be able to say that they haven't been looked down upon or made fun of in their entire life. This is just the reality for a lot of women across the globe. This is why we need to be able to ensure that we help women wherever we can.

So here are a couple of the fun things we did in 2020 for all our amazing women.

#1: The MentorSHE Program

In Partnership with WSTEMTO to offer to coach to women in STEM 

This was my first post last year to commemorate the launch of the MentorSHE meeting.

We realized that there were so many amazing women in STEM that are extremely smart and talented. That is why it was such an easy decision to make when we were asked to partner up with WSTEMTO to help women in STEM with our coaching and leadership sessions.

Our first round was extremely successful.

These were the results we got for the first cohort! We are so proud and happy to see these numbers from all participants and it makes our hearts sing.

Our next cohort starts in March and we cannot wait to see how that goes then!

#2: The Kizlar Sahada Program 

Last year, COVID stopped the world in its tracks. A lot of us were forced into isolation, people lost jobs, families were forced apart and people lost jobs. As a team, we knew that we had an arsenal of great coaches, and the ability to give back.

We are so proud to share another snippet from our girls from the Kizlar Sahada Project in Turkey. We trained and coached a group of amazing girls that were part of a local soccer team.

Here is one of the testimonials for one of the girls we coached.

Our coaches focused on:

- Building their confidence
- Empowering them for the future
- Teaching them how to curate goals for themselves
- Creating a positive environment for them to truly be themselves

We are so proud and humbled to be a part of their journey.

What do you do to give back to your community? Is there any way you think we can help. Leave us a comment or email us at info@flowcoachinginstitute.com to share or learn more about these programs. We would love to hear from you.

 

Talyaa Vardar

Coaching
7 Key Business Coaching Questions to Coach Start-ups

In business coaching it is important that the business coach is capable of coaching the entrepreneur or executive through 9 pillars of business planning. Every business owner should be able to answer these key business planning questions.Whether the coach has a business background or not it is important that he/she gets himself well acquianted with these aspects of business coaching.

So if you are a business coach or wanting to become one, create a template for your coaching process with these 9 pillars and related coaching questions below:

  1. Value proposition
    • What is the business? What value does one get by using your service/product?
    • How would you describe value proposition for the business?
  1. Customer segmentation
    • Who is the target audience? What segment (B2B, B2C, …)?
    • How would you describe customers/clients?
  1. Channels:
  • How are you planning to reach out to your clients?
  • What kind of sales and marketing strategy do you need?
  1. Revenue streams:
  • What are some potential revenue streams for the business/for you?
  1. Key resources:
  • What do you have or know?
  • What other resources do you need to develop/acquire? (techonology, people, talent, skills, know how, raw material, money, investment funding…)
  1. Key partners/stakeholders/talent:
  • What type of support do you need?
  • Who can help you? What kind of talent do you need?
  1. Cost structure:
  • What are the costs: operating costs and fixed coasts?
  • How will you manage your costs? What do you need to reduce/ stop/increase?

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Coaching
Create a Happier Life With 4 Principles of Positive Psychology

Using the principles of positive psychology to recognise your full potential in all areas of your life can transform you in to a happier person.

Why do you think some people are happier than others? The answer is hidden in the way they think, hence within their established habitual thinking and perception.  Habits can change, so can people. Positive psychology is an area of study showing us the way to turn ourselves into happier individuals. It is not rocket science, but it is science.

Acknowledging pleasure and enjoyment

One route to happiness is through experience of pleasure. Pleasure is acknowledgment of satisfying our basic needs such as hunger, thirst, sexual drives and physical comfort. Importance of acknowlodging the pleasure of satisfying for example our bodily functions was first mentioned in the book Utopia by Thomas More.

Achieving flow in the routines of daily life

Unless you are an adrenaline junkie running from one adventure to another, for majority, life is a routine cycle. Most people have a regular cycle of going to the same job or school. Therefore it is important that we develop a feeling of contentment in the present while working towards gratification that is meaningful to us through our jobs, homeworks or hobbies. That gratification will give you a sense of meaning and intention that is worth of seeking.

Recognising positive traits

Positive Psychology gurus Dr Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson set out to describe and classify human strengths and virtues that help people to thrive. Six virtues emerged that seemed to be recognised and respected by every culture in the World:

  • Wisdom and knowledge
  • Courage
  • Love and compassion (or humanity)
  • Justice
  • Temperance
  • Transcendence

Building and maintaining positive relationships

Both positive psychology and abnormal psychology research show us that having a community and support system are the remedies of anxiety and depression. Investing time and energy in building and maintaining positive relationships are definitely very effective ROIs for your gross happiness.

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Coaching
What Does A Business Coach Do?

Business coaches serve as motivation and success partners, coaching you in the skills you need to be successful in your business and serving as a source of information should you ever have any questions about what you should do.

Much like any other coach, business coaches work to help you define SMART business goals that are specific and achievable, help you to define a game plan, refine your talents, support your decisions, help with stress and resilience to ensure that you and your business are successful.

Business coaches start by a needs analysis to understand the gap between where you and your business are and where you can and should be. They might also start by learning about your brand, business and company, from its value propositions to its target customers to the challenges it will face and beyond. Once your business coach has learned everything that they can about your offerings and systems, they’ll next want to learn more about your vision for your company and the goals that you have for it. Business coach will need to know whether you are planning to turn your business into a livable income for you and your family or a multi-million dollar corporation and/or planning an exit in the future.

Next, a business coach will work with you to set attainable goals for you, your business and your team if exists. Once a set of goals are in place, your business coach is there to help you meet them, aiding you in devising a set of strategies and action plans designed to push your business to meet desired results and coaching you navigate any challenges that come up or might come up along the way.

At FLOW Business Coaching Certification program, our business coaches are trained specifically in coaching through business analysis methodologies such as SWOT, Gap Analysis, Three Pillars of Strategic Creativity and many more. Therefore they will know how to approach your case and what to offer that will ensure that the best approach is in place for you and your business.

If you want to become a certified business coach through ICF (International Coach Federation) you can check our online business coach training information page here: https://flowcoachinginstitute.com/courses

Talyaa Vardar

Coaching
Why is Coaching Presence Important?

If you ask any master coach what is one of the most essential things to bring to coaching they will say its Coaching Presence.

One of ICFs Core Competencies is Coaching Presence and they define it as an "Ability to be fully conscious and create spontaneous relationship with the client, employing a style that is open, flexible and confident", Not all coaches pay attention to having a strong coaching presence.

Research defines presence as being present in the now, no distractions of the past or the future exists and no distractions by one’s own personal needs. High awareness, curiosity about the next moment and a state of flow exists. Coaching presence is a state which we experience from time to time but it can be difficult to achieve by trying knowingly.

Coaching presence is highly likely to transfer from a person. If the coach is present it makes it easier for the client to be present as well. This kind of synergy encourages creativity, self-awareness and confidence. This helps find solutions and acting upon them becomes easy which is essentially what ones wants to achieve through coaching.

What Can You Do to Achieve Coaching Presence? 

Practicing mindfulness and meditation daily can help your brain recenter and experience flow without thinking. Yoga and other meditative practices also help you gain presence of mind and body. A few deep breathes are your first start.

Additionally, self care and meeting your own needs first will help boost yourself and help you be more present. Along with this an effective coach training from an established coaching school, observation of coaching demonstrations, peer coaching, practicing your own coaching, mentoring, supervision and gaining feedback from clients as well as supervision & feedback from experienced mentor coaches will eventually get you where you want to be and you will be able to achieve a concrete coaching presence on your own. This will lead you to asking right questions at the right times and have satisfactory coaching outcomes.

If you’re looking for a program to enroll check out our course program schedule to find one that suits you the best.

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