Frequently asked questions about Business Coaching*

1. Do you work with clients outside of NYC?

Absolutely, I work with clients both in person and on the phone. Both methods are equally effective. As long as you're fluent in English and can make sessions during business hours in the Eastern time-zone (GMT-5) we can work together.

2. What Is Coaching?

A professional partnership between a coach and client that supports the achievement of extraordinary results, based upon personally relevant goals set by the client. Through the process of coaching, clients focus on the skills and actions needed to successfully produce personally relevant results.

Clients choose the focus of each conversation. I listen and contribute observations, ask questions and suggest concepts and principles which can assist in generating possibilities and identifying actions. Through the coaching process, clarity that is needed to support the most effective actions is achieved.

Coaching accelerates the client's progress by providing greater focus and awareness of possibilities which lead to more effective choices. Coaching concentrates on where clients are now and what they are willing to do to get where they want to be in the future. Results are determined by the client's intentions, choices, commitment and actions, supported by the coach's efforts and application of coaching skills, approaches and methods.

3. What are the benefits of coaching?

Clients can expect to experience:

Fresh perspectives on personal challenges and opportunities
Enhanced thinking and decision making skills and interpersonal effectiveness.
Increased confidence in their chosen work and life roles.
Appreciable results in the areas of productivity, personal satisfaction with life and work, and the achievement of personally relevant goals.

4. How can you determine if Business Sanity Coaching is right for you?

To determine if you could benefit from coaching, start by summarizing what you would expect to accomplish in coaching. When someone has a fairly clear idea of the desired outcome, a coaching partnership can be a useful tool for developing a strategy for how to achieve that outcome with greater ease.

Since coaching is a partnership, also ask yourself if you find it valuable to collaborate, to have another viewpoint and to be asked to consider new perspectives. Also, ask yourself if you are ready to devote the time and the energy to making real changes in your work or life. If the answer to these questions is yes, then coaching may be a beneficial way for you to grow and develop.

If you're seriously thinking of working with me, I offer a free business coaching consultation to see if your needs and my services and style are a good fit.

5. What are some typical reasons someone might work with a coach?

Here are some of the many reasons that someone might choose to work with me:

There is something at stake that's urgent, compelling or exciting.
There is a gap in knowledge, skills, confidence, or resources.
There is a big stretch that needs to be done quickly.
There is a desire to accelerate results.
There is a course correction that needs to take place in work or life.
Their style of relating is ineffective or not serving them.
There is a lack of clarity, and choices to be made.
The individual is extremely successful, and success has become problematic.
Work and life are out of balance, creating unwanted consequences.
One has not identified his or her core strengths and how best to leverage them.
There is a desire to simplify work or life.
There is a need and a desire to better organized and more self-managing.

6. What does the coaching process look like?

Coaching typically begins with a personal interview (either face-to-face or by phone) to assess the individual's current opportunities and challenges, define the scope of the relationship, identify priorities for action, and establish specific desired outcomes. Subsequent coaching sessions are conducted in person or over the telephone, with each session lasting a previously established length of time.

Between scheduled coaching sessions, the individual may be asked to complete "fieldwork" specific actions that support the achievement of their goals. I may provide additional resources in the form of relevant articles, exercises, assessments, or models, to support the client's thinking and actions. The duration of the coaching relationship varies depending on the individual's personal needs and preferences.

Various concepts, models and principles drawn from behavioral sciences, management literature, spiritual traditions and/or the arts and humanities, may be incorporated into the coaching conversation in order to increase the individual's self-awareness and awareness of others, foster shifts in perspective, promote fresh insights, provide new frameworks for looking at opportunities and challenges, and energize and inspire the individual's forward actions.

7. How long does a business coaching partnership continue?

It varies depending on the individual's or team's needs and preferences. When clients are focused, motivated, and ready to change, 4 to 6 months may work. Others may find it beneficial to work with a coach for a longer period. Most clients achieve significant results within 9-12 months, but there is no guarantee, since success is determined by the client.

Some decide to work beyond the point where they've achieved their initial goals because they want to continually raise the bar, and benefit from ongoing guidance, support and accountability and sounding board for ideas. Types of goals, client's personal style, degree of commitment, the way they like to work, frequency of sessions, and financial resources available to support coaching will also effect the length of the partnership.

8. What is your role as coach?

To provide objective assessment and observations that foster enhanced self-awareness and awareness of others.
To practice astute listening in order to garner a full understanding of the individual's or team's circumstances.
To act as a sounding board in support of possibility thinking and thoughtful planning and decision making.
To champion opportunities and potential, encourage stretch and challenge commensurate with personal strengths and aspirations.
To foster the shifts in thinking that reveal fresh perspectives, challenge blind spots in order to illuminate new possibilities, and support the creation of alternative scenarios.
To maintain professional boundaries in the coaching relationship, including confidentiality, and adhere to the coaching profession's code of ethics.

9. What is the role of the client?

To create the agenda for coaching based upon personally relevant goals.
To utilize assessment and observations to enhance self awareness.
To assume full responsibility for personal decisions and actions.
To utilize the process to promote possibility thinking and fresh perspectives.
To take courageous actions in alignment with their personal goals.
Engage in big picture thinking and problem solving.
To utilize the tools, concepts, models and principles provided by the coach to engage effective forward actions.

10. What do you ask of a client?

To be successful, I ask certain things of my clients, all of which begin with intention:

Focus——on one's self, the tough questions, the hard truths—and one's success
Observation—the behaviors and communications of yourself and others
Listening—to one's intuition, assumptions, judgments, and to the way one sounds when one speaks
Self discipline—to challenge existing attitudes, beliefs and behaviors and to develop new ones which serve one's goals in a superior way
Style—leveraging personal strengths and overcoming limitations in order to develop a winning style
Decisive actions—however uncomfortable, and in spite of personal insecurities, in order to reach for the extraordinary
Compassion—for one's self as he or she experiments with new behaviors, experiences setbacks—and for others as they do the same
Humor—committing to not take one's self so seriously, using humor to lighten and brighten any situation
Personal control—maintaining composure and staying grounded in the face of disappointment and unmet expectations, avoiding emotional reactivity
Courage—to reach for more than before, to shift out of being fear based in to being in abundance as a core strategy for success, to engage in continual self examination, to overcome internal and external obstacles
Commitment—to yourself, your personal growth, your values, your success and the coaching process.

*Adapted from the International Coach Federation.

Learn more about business coaching services.

Schedule your free business coaching consultation.

Based in New York City, Susan Martin is a leading Business Coach and Consultant.