Leadership is a critical part of the make-up of a
coach. This is so critical, in fact,
that we can make it the limiting reagent.
That means that you can only be an extraordinary coach to the degree at
which you become a leader. We all know
presidents who have been great leaders and none of them greater than Bill
Clinton. No matter how you feel about
him personally, his leadership ability was unmistakable. If a person considers themselves a leader and
there is no one following him, he is not really a leader, he is only taking a
walk. There was always someone following
Bill Clinton no matter if he was being chased or not. Having followers is the hallmark of a great
leader and that leader makes an extraordinary coach primarily because of their
credibility. It is best if you resonate
with a leader you choose because you are going to follow him or her no matter
where they go.
The research shows us that people will follow you if you and
your vision line up and of course that is a given. When people buy into you, they will easily
buy into your vision and you strategy for their business. You, of course, are assessing their goals and
desires and make your recommendation based on that. But suppose they don’t like your vision but
they like you and have bought into you? The
answer is that they will follow you anyway and make an excuse for
themselves. Let’s go back to Bill in the
case of his legal troubles. When he was
accused of being disrespectful to women per se, he did not get much push back
for it. Even though an organization like
the National Organization of Women fiercely criticized others for much less, he
nearly got a pass that the unsophisticated just did not understand. But the trainer of leaders got it
immediately. Bill had buy-in. They liked him. Call it the “IT” factor if you wish but there
is no rhyme or reason except to say that they had bought-in to him. He could do no wrong.
Contrast him with lack of buy-in for Bob Dole. The people liked his vision. They even liked what he stood for and surely
he was conservative enough for them. But
the people did not buy-in to him. I know
because I was one of them. The word
around the campfire is that if people buy into the vision, goal or other aspect
of a leader but not the leader, they will not change their vision or goal, they
will change the leader. And that is
exactly what happened. Had Bob Dole ran
for president again, he would have lost.
In fact, he most likely could not win dogcatcher because he was a
difficult man to buy into.
That is the beauty of social media. It allows us to show who we really are. If we post media that is close to our hearts,
people will buy into us. We don’t have
to ask for business with every post and offer deals before we have even gotten
to know someone, we just be us. Let our
clients know who we are and what we’re about.
For instance, some say not to post political things and stay away from
religion and politics. While I am not
overly political or religious, I may post something in those arenas because
that is who I am. If you are political,
then post things about politics. If you
are religious, post things about that too.
No matter who you are or what you like, you are not the only one that is
like that. Consider the people in Branch
Davidian and their leader David Koresh. There
was not that many of them but they bought into the leader. I am sure they did not wake that morning and thought, “I think I will die
today in an explosion in the hopes of going to heaven.” They had bought into David Koresh and they
would have gone wherever he took them.
Had he decided not to blow the place up and went on living, they would
have followed that too.
I am not at all saying that as a coach you need to be a cult
leader. I am saying that it is your job
to get buy-in before you take on a client.
That buy-in occurs before you even meet the client if done
properly. If you have a newsletter with
valuable content, they can brand you as an expert. If you have posted your family camping trips,
they know you are an outdoorsman. When you
share the same opinions as they, a lot of times, that gets buy in. To truly achieve your goal of being an
extraordinary coach. You must get buy-for sure but that does not mean being
something that you are not. When you
have buy-in, you have a much easier time keeping clients over time and when it
is time to raise your fees, they will go right along with you.
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