[00:00:00] Melisa: Welcome to episode 179 of the Grow Your Independent Consulting Business Podcast. This is Melissa Lieberman, and today we're tackling the 
[00:00:09] Melisa: three ways to sell executive coaching as an independent consultant. I find that this is an often overlooked, offering that you can include in your consulting practice.
[00:00:22] Melisa: And I'm going to walk you through all the reasons why and how to do it and, in what circumstances it could be really beneficial [00:00:30] to you and your business. So even if you don't consider yourself a coach, this is something that can be really valuable and powerful as you're thinking about your overall business.
[00:00:41] Melisa: Services Portfolio. And so that's why I want to talk about this with you here today on this episode. And I'll share with you some very specific examples of independent consultants leveraging this type of coaching offering in their practices, how to do it. And, especially in those scenarios where none of them were, would call [00:01:00] themselves a coach.
[00:01:01] Melisa: so that's what we're going to do here today and help you with, landing some low hanging fruit in your business. All right. Low hanging, high, Fulfillment, high profitable type work. Okay. Before we move into the agenda though, I want to recommend a companion resource for you and listen up because usually I'm recommending the book. In this case, I'm actually going to offer you something different, which is the offer scorecard. If you haven't [00:01:30] taken the Offer Scorecard that I've created for independent consultants, or you haven't taken it recently, I recommend that you go over to consultingoffer.
[00:01:39] Melisa: expert, so that is the URL, consultingoffer. expert, and you'll go through the Consulting Offer Scorecard. It's a series of questions, and it will ask you questions about your company. Consulting offers and the process by which you're managing and offering those services to your ideal clients, and [00:02:00] then give you a score at the end that helps you to identify areas of opportunity for you to improve and optimize the offers that you are making, the service offerings that you have available.
[00:02:13] Melisa: for your consulting clients and your ideal consulting clients just helps you really level set where you might be missing some low hanging fruit in the way that you're offering your consulting services and the types of offers you're making so that you can increase your sales growth. Close rates, [00:02:30] and you can feel more fulfilled in type of work that you're landing and ultimately land higher paying type work.
[00:02:36] Melisa: So go take that at consultingoffer. expert. That is the URL. 
[00:02:41] Melisa: So with that, let's talk about the agenda and then we'll dive into the episode. So first we'll just level set on what is executive coaching, make sure we're on the same page.
[00:02:50] Melisa: Sometimes the word coaching can be a little bit of a mystery to so many of us. So let's talk about what is executive coaching in this context. then we'll talk [00:03:00] about what are the. Prerequisites to you offering executive coaching as an independent consultant. And then we'll talk about the benefits of you offering executive coaching as one of your service offerings.
[00:03:12] Melisa: then we'll move on to the three ways you can offer executive coaching as an independent consultant. 
[00:03:18] Melisa: And then wrap this up with next steps to put this episode into action for you and your business.
[00:03:23] Melisa: And now we will move on to the meat of today's episode, which is all about leveraging [00:03:30] executive coaching as one of your offerings. So let's just level set first on what is executive coaching. Because again, coaching means so many different things to so many different people.
[00:03:43] Melisa: Sometimes there's a idea that executive coaching is only for CEOs or the C suite. And that's just simply not the case, especially anymore. And so I want to just level set first on what does it mean to offer executive coaching? It's really you setting up a [00:04:00] structure with a client, a corporate client in this case, whether it's one on one or maybe even for a team where you're helping to guide and mentor them.
[00:04:09] Melisa: Helping them to see what their strengths and weaknesses are, helping them to, set professional goals and developing strategies to achieve those goals, whether it be on a personal level, as a soft skill perspective, from a leadership perspective, from a management perspective, from an influence perspective, from [00:04:30] an executive present perspective.
[00:04:32] Melisa: Or it might be on more of a hard skill side where you're helping them navigate complex business challenges that you've likely navigated yourself in the past when you were in corporate, or when you worked with clients that are doing the same types of things that they're doing, consulting clients, I should say.
[00:04:51] Melisa: So it may be, usually it's a combination of those things, where you're helping with soft skills as well as hard skills and strategy [00:05:00] and helping those Corporate Clients. To achieve the types of results that they're looking to achieve by doing two things, like learning new strategies, learning new tactics, as well as learning how to think in a way that gets them to where they want to go so that when I talk about executive coaching, that's what I'm talking about.
[00:05:22] Melisa: I actually offer some executive coaching still because I love continuing to sell work to corporate. [00:05:30] Because that's what I help my clients do to sell work to corporate. So I like to stay fresh. And one of the easiest ways for me to do that is to sell executive coaching and to continuously figure out what's working and what's not working as it relates to selling work to corporate.
[00:05:46] Melisa: And so from a coaching perspective, what I find is it can be such a valuable way to impact one person. One person at your ideal client who then can impact [00:06:00] others on their team and have that kind of waterfall effect as a result. So it's so incredibly fulfilling and also just leverages so much of the skill set that you've likely built over the course of your career when you were working in corporate.
[00:06:14] Melisa: And have those types of responsibilities that then you might be helping, your executive coachee to implement, where you've had that type of experience and those types of scenarios that you've faced in the past. And you almost get a do over in some ways to help [00:06:30] them to think differently about the challenge, to approach it differently, to think differently about a Goal that they might be trying to achieve with their business unit and, to test out new ways of accomplishing that, that you might have, learned those lessons the hard way.
[00:06:44] Melisa: So that's what I'm talking about when we're talking about executive coaching. It can look like so many different, types of approaches, but ultimately you're Wanting to help your individual client or a team of clients to achieve a certain set of outcomes, [00:07:00] both by way of business outcomes that they're wanting to achieve, where you're not doing it for them, you're guiding them to do it themselves, and to help them think differently and take different strategies than they may have considered themselves.
[00:07:14] Melisa: So it's just a very simplistic, way to think about executive coaching. and the type of impact that you could make on these potential clients. So let's talk about the benefit to you and your business if you were to [00:07:30] pursue some kind of executive coaching offering in your business. I'm not today here suggesting that you switch completely over to executive coaching, although if you want to, that's certainly an option.
[00:07:42] Melisa: But what we're here today to talk about is how can you add Executive coaching as one of your service offerings and what might the benefit be to you if you decide to go forward with that. So let's consider that for you and your business. Some of the benefits of offering executive coaching as one of your [00:08:00] service offerings is number one, it creates something very nimble for you to offer.
[00:08:05] Melisa: So for example, you might be someone who does a lot of strategy and advisory type work and, That might take a while to sell. And so one of the things that you might do is offer executive coaching. That's something that's quicker to sell. It has a shorter sales cycle typically than selling advisory type work or strategy type work or even project based [00:08:30] work.
[00:08:30] Melisa: So it gives you a shorter sales cycle. It can give you a shorter sales cycle, which is obviously a benefit to your business. It can also give you the ability to offer something to potential clients when you are at capacity and they want to work with you and want to achieve the type of, outcomes that you help clients to achieve.
[00:08:51] Melisa: You might not be available to take on another full fledged consulting client, but you might have pockets time every other week to take on [00:09:00] a client as a coaching client and help them to achieve the goal and coach them to achieve the goal rather than you doing it for them.
[00:09:09] Melisa: And so it becomes a very nimble offer for you to offer and to deliver and even a backup type offer when you're at capacity where you can take on a client or two here and there. When they meet your certain criterion. If you haven't thought through what that might be, you can go back to last week's episode and start thinking about what the qualification criteria would be.
[00:09:29] Melisa: But [00:09:30] here today, as we're talking about executive coaching, you're wanting to really think about, you know, this is a great way when you're at capacity and you are,still selling because we don't want to ever not sell, we're always selling even when we're fully booked as a company. Consultants, and this could be a really easy way to say yes to a client.
[00:09:49] Melisa: I can bring you on, it will start off as an executive coaching relationshipand then we'll have a really good understanding of each other. And then we can move into, consulting on this [00:10:00] specific engagement, um, in, in a few months. for example, when your availability frees up, that's another way to do this.
[00:10:06] Melisa: another benefit to you and your business is that it's very simple offer to create, especially when it's one on one because you're creating an executive coaching approach. to that client based on their particular needs and thinking about, okay, if I was trying to accomplish this particular outcome, how would I go about doing it?
[00:10:27] Melisa: How would I increase my executive presence? Or how would [00:10:30] I increase the influence of peers that I've found to be very challenging? How would I go about doing that? And you can craft the approach one by one in a bespoke way. To those clients, tailor it to them, which is a benefit to them because you're leveraging your experience and your knowledgeall of the lessons learned that you've had over the course of your career and mapping out an approach with them.
[00:10:53] Melisa: rather than needing some kind of pre packaged, pre defined, robust coaching program [00:11:00] that won't be as fit for purpose for that given client anyway. So it can be really beneficial to you because you can make it up and tailor it to them. It doesn't require a lot of, or any, very little, let's say, upfront work.
[00:11:14] Melisa: And then at the same time, you're building something for them That is fit for purpose for that each individual client. So it's beneficial to both of you in that way. It's simple to create. So we've got this nimble offer that's simple to create. That's a short or shorter [00:11:30] sales cycle that can create a Easy cash infusion in your business.
[00:11:36] Melisa: These are engagements that are typically charged up front. 15, 000, whatever the price is that you want to offer for your executive coaching package, typically Corporate clients will pay for that all up front. And so it's an easy way to have a cash infusion into your business.
[00:11:56] Melisa: And then the last piece that I find to be even the [00:12:00] most beneficial is that it's so fulfilling. It's, it can be so fulfilling to help someone. To mentor someone to see the difference that where they feel more confident in what they're doing in their career, where they're more impactful how they're approaching the way that they go about doing business, they have more influence over their peers and people.
[00:12:20] Melisa: on their team and in their business unit, on their overall, company, really being able to see all of those benefits, can be so fulfilling when you're [00:12:30] working with people one on one in an executive coaching relationship. 
[00:12:33] Melisa: And it's also hands off type work, right? You're not down in the weeds doing, creating deliverables for them.
[00:12:39] Melisa: You're coaching them to do the work so that they can keep doing it over and over again, even after a relationship with them, has that coaching relationship has ended. So it's long lasting, impact as well. So those are some of the benefits of you thinking about adding coaching as one of the offerings in your independent consulting [00:13:00] business.
[00:13:00] Melisa: So now let's move on 
[00:13:02] Melisa: to thinking about what are the prerequisites to you offering coaching as one of executive coaching as one of the offerings in your consulting business. Here are the mistakes I often hear consultants making. They think that they need to have a whole lot of certifications in order to pursue or offer executive coaching.
[00:13:23] Melisa: They think that to have some kind of built out well defined coaching program before they're [00:13:30] able to offer coaching. And what I want to suggest to you today is that none of that is true. Now, let me be clear. I'm not saying to you go out and offer executive coaching when you haven't done some form of coaching in the past and likely you have, and maybe you're not giving yourself credit for that.
[00:13:49] Melisa: And what I mean by that is you likely have been a leader in your corporate life as you know, and having people on your team that you've [00:14:00] managed. You may have been a mentor to other people in the organization who would come to you and ask for your advice. These are forms of Informal coaching, where you're coaching your team and the people that you manage to get to a certain outcome without doing the work for them.
[00:14:17] Melisa: Where you're mentoring people who reach out to you and say, look, I need some advice for what it is that I'm trying to accomplish. In the past, you've likely done some form of coaching, whether you give yourself credit for [00:14:30] that or not. So look back to the experiences that you've had in your past in terms of managing people and leading people and mentoring people and think about and be clear for yourself about how you have coached people in the past, rather than being Thinking you've never done this before, which so often it's so easy to fall into that trap to say, well, I've never coached anyone before and I don't have a certification.
[00:14:55] Melisa: And so therefore I'm not qualified. It's another form of you not giving [00:15:00] yourself credit for what it is you do know and how you can help people. I can tell you that I've personally hired so many coaches over the last 10 or 12 years, and It doesn't matter if they're certified or not, people that have had the most amount of certifications that I've worked with have had the least impact on me and my business and what I was trying to, in my career, what I was trying to accomplish, and some that have had the most impact.
[00:15:24] Melisa: No certification or qualification whatsoever have been the most impactful for me [00:15:30] and the way they've helped me and everything in between, right? So don't use this idea of I need to get certified in order to be a coach as some kind of gating factor that just simply isn't true. You want to look at how could you be and how is the experience that you have had Really set you up to be the best type of coach for the type of clients you want to work with, for the types of scenarios they might be facing, so that then you can move forward and starting to offer [00:16:00] executive coaching in those scenarios.
[00:16:01] Melisa: And I'll give you some very specific examples here in a minute, but I want to really implore you not to use this idea of, I'm not certified or I don't have a, Step by step coaching program to offer as false prerequisites because they're simply not the case. 
[00:16:20] Melisa: Now, with one caveat, there are some corporate clients who require ICF type certification.[00:16:30] 
[00:16:30] Melisa: That does happen occasionally, but what I will tell you is most of the time what I find is that clients are not asking about certification whatsoever. And number two, That's even if they are a lot of times if someone is asking for, recommending or telling their organization that they are going to hire an executive coach and that it fits into their learning and development budget, for example, in a professional development budget.
[00:16:59] Melisa: That's. [00:17:00] When they're bringing their coach to the table, no one's going to argue with them and say, well, that person's not ICF certified, so you need to go find a different coach. Sometimes that happens, but not very often. So what I'm saying here is you could run up against a scenario where if you're not certified or have a certain type of certification, you might be ruled out.
[00:17:20] Melisa: But I would say that is very much the exception, not the norm. So with that being said, let's now move past and say, with the assumption that you're open to the idea that you're [00:17:30] qualified or more than qualified to be the coach of the types of clients you want to be coaching. And now let's talk about what that looks like to start selling that and offer it, what the offers might look like.
[00:17:45] Melisa: So, by that I mean, first you want to really think about what is your mindset around you offering executive coaching. So if we move past the point of those false prerequisites, if you will, and you have the [00:18:00] type of experience to coach and mentor your ideal clients, we want to really build up your mindset as you start thinking about going to market with executive coaching as one of your offerings.
[00:18:11] Melisa: That mindset might look like You thinking about yourself in a certain way, like I am qualified, even though I don't have a certification, you might be thinking, I'm qualified to help my ideal clients. And those ideal clients might be, director level, the type of, role that you did, you know, 10 years [00:18:30] ago, for an example.
[00:18:31] Melisa: we're not talking here about only coaching the C level and that's it. You can definitely decide at what level of the organization do you want to start out with. You want to center your mindset around who is that ideal client. So you might think about not the types of clients who won't be a good fit for you, but center your mindset and your approach around who those ideal clients will want the type of executive support, executive coaching support that I'm going to offer.
[00:18:57] Melisa: And then finally, the executive [00:19:00] coaching mindset for you in your business, you want to think about the process by which you're going to sell and deliver your executive coaching offering. And that might sound like. a simple sales process is the most beneficial to all of us. A quick decision is the most beneficial to all of us.
[00:19:18] Melisa: How can I supportthe client to consider and then decide to move forward or not with my executive coaching. How can I deliver executive coaching in the most impactful way so you're [00:19:30] not overengineering it? Thinking you need to create some big program that's structured, that ends up really not being the most beneficial to your client because now they're worried about doing all of your steps instead of you supporting them in the moment.
[00:19:44] Melisa: So really getting clean about what it is you're offering and And setting yourself up in a way to see yourself as qualified and that the ideal clients will want you as an executive coach, and that your process can be really simple [00:20:00] to make the most impact for those clients and also help set you up for speed to market.
[00:20:06] Melisa: Those are the types of mindsets that you want to be embedding. Foundationally, as you start thinking about adding this new type of offering to your business. Of course, you know, you can't get away from an episode with me without talking about mindset in some form or fashion. Okay. So with that, let's now wrap up the episode by me sharing with you Three ways that you can incorporate executive coaching [00:20:30] into your consulting practice.
[00:20:32] Melisa: The first is as a standalone offer. So you might decide that you want to offer advisory type work and, , strategy type work and coaching, executive coaching as kind of a equal offer to some of your other core offers. You might decide that it's a standalone offer that you will, , provide to those clients who are qualified.
[00:20:53] Melisa: Or recommend to those clients who are qualified. That's one way to look at this. When you're thinking about your [00:21:00] overall services portfolio, it might earn a spot as one of your core offerings. Another way to look at executive coaching as an independent consultant is as an add on option. So I have clients, right now who are independent consultants who are, offering things like strategy type workshops and facilitated retainers, to their clients, project based work to their clients.
[00:21:27] Melisa: And then one of the add on options that they will [00:21:30] propose to those clients who meet certain criteria is an add on option of coaching. So it can be something that you think about as you're building up proposals or recommendations to your clients to think about Executive coaching as an add on option, which is like, you know, anywhere between a 20k to 100k type of a, offering usually.
[00:21:56] Melisa: You may also think about it on an individual basis. So when we're thinking [00:22:00] about this add on option, it could be just an individual add on option where you're coaching the executive in charge or your main stakeholder, you're coaching them in addition to whatever delivery work that you're doing. Or it might also look like you are coaching the team.
[00:22:17] Melisa: So I'll give you an example here. I have a client who she does a strategy work with her clients, with her consulting clients. They meet together on a quarterly basis. They [00:22:30] establish, you know, in the very first quarter of the year, or sometimes even in Q4, they'll establish the overall strategy of the business unit and the company for the coming year.
[00:22:41] Melisa: and then they work together to implement that strategy. And so she really gets embedded almost as a fractional strategy type of a resource, where they're setting strategy, revisiting the strategy, implementing the strategy, evaluating the strategy and pivoting. And so that's her main [00:23:00] offering.
[00:23:00] Melisa: to her clients. And then on top of that, what she offers is executive coaching for the key leaders. So it looks like executive coaching for the main stakeholder, typically, and then sometimes executive coaching for some of the more, underperforming executives who have high potential, but they might be underperforming in certain aspects.
[00:23:23] Melisa: And so based on whatever strategy it is they're trying to implement, she'll take on one or two of those [00:23:30] clients as executive coaching clients who she's working with one on one. And then sometimes she'll even do more of a, offering of coaching for mid level managers to help them to up level their skill set and become more effective at their job.
[00:23:46] Melisa: Because a lot of times those types of leaders come organically through the organization and don't have a leadership experience or development. And so that type of coaching can be really valuable as well. So that gives you some ideas or [00:24:00] examples of add on type options. can be offered in addition to or in a complimentary way to, other types of offerings in your business.
[00:24:11] Melisa: And then finally, another great way to offer executive coaching is as a continuation type offer. And by that I mean, you might have gone into an organization and delivered on a, Projects, certain type of projects. And as you're wrapping that up, you can [00:24:30] offer executive coaching as a continuation type offer to the main stakeholder, for example, or to the, some of their team members to make sure that the type of work that you've implemented, can be effective on an ongoing basis, or that they're just looking for It may not even be related to the type of work that you did, but you identify some, professional development that they want to accomplish.
[00:24:54] Melisa: Either that means stakeholder or people on their team, and you can offer that as a continuation [00:25:00] type offer for the people that you know that you would love working with. The great thing about this continuation offer, I have a client who offers this quite frequently, Because she knows who on the team she would love to work with and who could gain the most from her mentorship and coaching.
[00:25:17] Melisa: And so she'll make these types of offers because she wants to continue working with those individuals and to, make an impact on them specifically. So that's a great way to implement a [00:25:30] continuation type offer wherethat client may not need another partner.
[00:25:33] Melisa: You can offer continuation type executive coaching as a lighter weight type of an offer then keep your foot in the door at that client. And then when they're ready to have the next engagement, you've got a lot of on the ground detailed knowledge about that client that then will help you to inform the types of recommendations and offers you're making to that client when they're ready for the next engagement.
[00:25:59] Melisa: So hopefully that [00:26:00] gives you some examples of how you can embed executive coaching into your consulting practice, whether it's one of your main core offerings or as an add on offer. type of an offer or a continuation type of an offer. Those are some specific ways to do it. So now as we're wrapping up today's episode, let's talk about how you can put what you've learned today into action in your business.
[00:26:25] Melisa: First, I recommend that you decide if you want to add executive [00:26:30] coaching to your service portfolio or not. A lot of times you just think, well, this was an interesting episode and you just keep doing what you've been doing versus making an explicit decision.I recommend to you today, make an explicit decision.
[00:26:44] Melisa: You might decide, I do not at this time want to offer executive coaching. Why not? Do you like your reasons? Is it because you would love to do it, but you don't feel qualified? Or is it what is the reason and do you like it? Or do you want to pursue adding executive [00:27:00] coaching into your service portfolio?
[00:27:04] Melisa: If so, under what circumstances and when are you going to start offering it? Is it in the next opportunity you start thinking about? One way I love to look at this is a lot of times we think about this is, particular client comes into your pipeline and you start thinking about what might you offer to them the way I love thinking about it.
[00:27:23] Melisa: If you decide to go ahead with executive coaching, but this can apply to any of your offerings. You think about, okay, I'm [00:27:30] always going to default to offering executive coaching and then rule it out for whatever reasons versus putting in a process in place where you have to think about and justify offering it each time.
[00:27:42] Melisa: If you see what I'm saying here. So if you decide you want to move forward with, Adding executive coaching as one of your service offerings. And it may be that you only have one executive coaching client at any given time. So who has earned that spot? You think about offering it as a default and then why you [00:28:00] wouldn't versus talking yourself into offering it.
[00:28:03] Melisa: That's one of the ways I love approaching this because so often when we think about, okay, it's going to be something that I'll offer occasionally, we always end up talking ourselves out of something that could be really valuable for one reason or for another. So that's why it can be really good to say, this is part of my standard practice and then rule it out versus trying to justify ruling it in.
[00:28:23] Melisa: So those are some of the mechanisms you can leverage to put at executive coaching. As one of the [00:28:30] new service offerings in your business. Again, it's a very nimble It can be very highly lucrative and also very fulfilling offering to add into your business. If this feels like a bit of a mystery to you, it does for a lot of independent consultants.
[00:28:45] Melisa: I would love to help you Implement executive coaching in your business, clean up your offerings overall, and really dial in your business development process so that you have a more repeatable, sustainable business. And if that's [00:29:00] something that feels like it would be valuable to you, you can go apply for a consultation at consultmelissa.
[00:29:06] Melisa: com. We'll put the link in the show notes. You'll fill out a short application, and then choose a time and day on my calendar. And then we'll meet to talk about, 
[00:29:14] Melisa: really you and your business goals and what is getting in the way of you accomplishing those goals and then make a plan. If coaching will be a good fit for you, we'll talk about that as well as part of your plan to help you make a decision about [00:29:30] whether working together would be a good fit.
[00:29:32] Melisa: All right. So with that, thanks for tuning in and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Take care. [00:30:00]