Category Archives: Business Coaching

Differences in Coaching

Business Coaching

Relationship coaching

HOW DO CONSULTING, COACHING  AND THERAPY DIFFER?

Consulting: Coaching is a form of consulting, but the coach stays with you to help you implement the new skills, changes and goals to make sure they really happen.

Therapy: Coaching is not therapy. There are some large areas of overlay and skills that both a therapist and a coach uses. Coaches don’t work on “issues” or get into the past or deal much with understanding individual human behavior and motivation. Rather, they help move you forward with focus on setting and achieving personal and professional goals that will provide the life you really want.

Some might hear the word “coach” and think football. But athletic coaches generally are in charge, setting the goals and the path to victory. With lifecoaches, it’s the client who sets the goals.

The International Coaching Federation said there are 16,000 coaches worldwide, hundreds of schools offering training, as well as an endless variety of subjects: health, relationship, spiritual, creativity, business, career, acting, sewing, gardening, dating, parenting, divorce.

Coaching isn’t therapy, It often is very practical, focusing on actions a person can take to reach goals. Unlike therapists, coaches don’t focus on the childhood experiences that might be the root of the way a person lives or feels.

There’s also a difference between getting help from a coach and getting help from family and friends. Loved ones might be influenced by the past and long-held expectations.

Coaching relies on a set of skills: active listening, asking powerful questions, communicating directly.

I follow the guidelines from the International Coach Federation (IFC). The IFC holds its members to a higher level of professionalism.

The value that my clients get is hard to put into words and that is why I try to let my clients speak for me. I think my clients do a better job of selling me than I do of selling myself.

You can see and hear some of my clients tell you what they get from me on my testimonial page.

Here is what I hope to achieve. Helping people realize their dreams. Each client has a different dream. What is your dream?

The fact that you are visiting my site means you probably are already considering hiring a coach. You’re probably wondering how it can make business sense. Your also probably wondering, ‘Is this Chuck Franks the right guy for me.’ Let me see if I can shed a little light on who I am and what I believe in so you can make that decision and choose to contact me about having a conversation. Here is an overview of some of my thoughts, beliefs and feelings around how I work and what my clients accomplish by working with me.

My personal philosophy of Coaching

I’ve been a coach my entire life. My training as a counselor gave me a strong education and background to work with. The basics of Reality theory are about clarifying the truth and then doing something about it, taking action.

I get excited about coaching when a client has an “AHA moment”.   A shift happens and they can instantly see the world from a new place in a new way.   It is simply amazing. It’s definitely what drives and excites me. I work with my clients and we move forward together through the process of reaching their goals creating the life they truly want.

Even though I get excited from “AHA moments”, I get even more excited when my clients tell me stories about how they see direct results from the work we do together.

It’s not enough just to be an optimist because it’s not enough just to focus on the part of the glass half-full you have to focus on the skill set that’s going to allow you to fill the glass completely full which is ultimately the expectation that we have in life these days.

We expect to be a live have a fulfilling career and a full social life we expect this level of happiness and satisfaction that we can have it all and we can is just a matter of appreciating what is that we already have and then focusing on how to attain what is that we don’t have yet not focusing out with one what we don’t have the focusing on the steps that will achieve obtaining that

How my experience fills a need for my potential clients is that because of my counseling psychology background I have a unique ability to bring therapy skills to the coaching process. I clearly state that I don’t do therapy however there is some crossover in technique and skills that bring a unique experience to my clients based on my past experience.

 

 

 

Chuck Franks Kansas City Life Coach on International Coaching Week

Business Coaching, Life Coaching, Relationship Coaching

International Coaching Week. We are currently celebrating this week and offering many opportunites for individuals to ask questions and decide if coaching can help them achieve their dreams. As a coach I am always striving to help my clients do more.

Here is something I share with clients.

Living your own life:
We are all living the life that we choose. Sometimes we don’t want to look at the fact that the choices that we make lead to the life that we have.

If you want a different life you have to start making different choices. You have to look at what the choices that led up to it and then decide what you want and decide what choices need to be made to make the changes you want to see.

I often talk about how you are the CEO of our own life and yet people don’t view their life as something that they are in charge of.

How do you take charge of your life? What choices do you need to make to affect the change you desire?

Take an honest assessment and then map out a game plan for the changes. A coach can help you stay on path to impliment that game plan.

I hope this helps you. If I can be of any further assistance feel free to reach out to me.

Chuck Franks, PCC

Giving back to Kansas City Coaching Community

Business Coaching, Life Coaching, Relationship Coaching

I’ve been asked as a past president to come back and speak on a panel of leaders to the Kansas city coaching community. If anyone is interested they can also sign up for it tomorrow Jan. 11, 2013.  You can find it at HeartlandCoaches.org

 

The coaching profession has come a long way over our very short history.  We owe a great deal to those leaders and visionaries who have contributed so much to help pave the way to where we are now.

How did we get here?

Where are we going? 

What will we (the collective we of our chapter and our profession) create for tomorrow?

What role will you play?


Our goal is to understand what the landscape and industry looked like when our chapter was a baby, and what that growth has been like through the  eyes of our Past Presidents. Launching from that perspective, we will tap into their thoughts and your vision about where you see coaching going as a profession, an industry, and what that means for our chapter and our members.

We will prepare questions for our panel in advance so they can provide thoughtful, insightful, and maybe even provocative answers.

Here is the bio I sent them:

Chuck has a background in Counseling and his coaching practice was an extension of his past work. Chuck worked for and ended up managing the Counseling Department for the Excelsior Springs Job Corps, managing a staff of 12 and responsible for over 500 students educational and mental health needs. He was still working on finishing the College of Executive Coaching program and working toward becoming an ICF credentialed coach when he was asked to help lead. He remembers thinking, “Organizing a small group of coaches seemed like an easy task. How hard could it be?” It did not turn out to not be so easy. He remembers hearing the phrase, “herding cats” quite often.
Chuck’s primary goal as president was to create an organization with a strong foundation wasn’t tied to any one person’s personality. Not dependent upon his leadership but could be handed off and lead by someone else.
Group goals
1) Increase awareness. Not everyone will choose to join, but every coach in Kansas City should know about us to make that choice.
2) Affiliate with ICF. Create bylaws that allow for local participation but not mandate ICF affiliation.
3) Create a space that allows for diversity of thought about a coaching practice means.
4) Make sure each meeting has something meaningful that adds value to attendees life or business.
5) Be Kansas City’s coaching organization educate, raise awareness and participate in the community.
I’m very proud of the work that not only I did but of the other coaches that supported me during my tenure as President. Leadership brings many challenges, and with those challenges opportunites for growth. I owe a great debt of grattitude to the community and am honored to be able to once again step into a role to share and give back.

Feel like Michael Phelps an Olymipic Gold winner in your work day

Business Coaching, Life Coaching, Relationship Coaching, , ,

Given the Olympic fever and Michael Phelps becoming the most decorated Olympian in history it only seems appropriate that I would draw on a sports metaphor to help a client get grounded.

Michael Phelps

Michael Phelps (Photo credit: The Wolf)

My coaching client has been struggling with some managerial roles lately. He is getting frustrated that his progress isn’t linear. Meaning he isn’t seeing direct, straight-forward, one foot in front of the other, upwardly climbing progress.

First I had to give him permission to let go of that concept. Improvement is never just forward, especially when you’re dealing with people. The fact that he has been able to even see some of the minor success and positive progress is for this client huge.

In the middle of our session I go off topic and interject with asking him how his backhand on his tennis game is. I saw a hint of instant frustration flash across his face cause he was trying to tell me about his lack of progress at work.

Kirilenko backhand

Kirilenko backhand (Photo credit: toga)

Then, there it was a huge smile started forming across his face and he started shaking his head as I went in to ask the next question. How many times do you have to practice your backhand shot to improve it? He said “I see it, Thanks. I get it now I have to practice the skills I want to improve at work.” He went on to say, “I have to look for the improvement not the shot that went out of bounds. Or focus on how the opponent keeps hitting to my backhand.” Each time your opponent hits to your backhand, You get stronger.

 

 

My approach to coaching is to listen to what someone is struggling with and then help him or her see the same thing through a different lens. Allowing them to bring it back home to what we are talking about. I’m flying a little high myself feeling like I just won a Gold medal as I sit here in my office in front of my computer screen in Kansas City MO as my client is rushing off to work in Irvine CA.

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When your customer has a problem, are you there first with the right answer?

Business Coaching, , , , , , ,

When I was a kid in school, my teacher would pose a problem or ask a question. It was expected that we would raise our hands. The student that raised their hand first was the one that was called upon and given the opportunity to give the right answer. Don’t miss the chance to keep customers by not raising your hand first.

This is also true in business today. Business owners should not only be looking to be the first to answer their customers’  questions and solve their problems, but they should also strive to  solve the problem before it happens. What can really set your business apart is to be a “customer-centric” business — one who is figuring out a customer’s concern before the customer even has a chance to experience it. Changing the way you focus on solving customers’ concerns is what sets business owners up for success.
In business and life on the Internet you have to be one of the students that raises your hand first. You have to be there first to let that customer know you care and want to solve any problem they have. You want them to go “WOW” to your response — not only in the uniqueness of that response but also in its timeliness and accuracy.  If you give the wrong answer (or no answer at all!), you might as well be paying your competitors’ marketing expenses. It’s literally like advertising for your competitor when you drop the ball. The teacher always called on someone else if you got the answer wrong, and so will your customer. You just missed your opportunity, now the next student or business gets to step-up and when they get it right, they also get YOUR customer!

From the beginning,  you want to be a customer-centric business — making decisions based on what is best for the customer, not what is best for you.

You want to create a space that allows for the minute someone goes online and asks a question, knowing you have the answer. You want to be the business that has the solution to their problem. In order to do that, speed is an issue. Timeliness and responsiveness are all factors that grab customers’ attention. You hardly ever see the news highlighting how great a company handled a complaint. It is, however, great news when a company falters and we get to see how dissatisfied someone is and how frustrated they are when a company doesn’t solve a problem (think about the recent news coverage about Netflix, for example).

Accuracy: depending on the industry that you’re working in, think about how accurate your answer is when solving the original problem. Do you show your work so that the customer can understand why you got to the answer that you got?

Being able to understand your customer and to walk in their shoes is the greatest skill on which you could focus. Learning that skill means becoming objective enough to see your business from an outsider’s view, and the customer’s view. What is the customer’s experience with your business? When you can see customers’ experiences, you can objectively make decisions about changes that can enhance their experience. The majority of businesses make decisions based on employee and owner satisfaction.  I propose that as the owner, it’s your job to make the experience easy, positive and entertaining. You want the customer to want to return to you for future business. You want them to choose you over the competition because you make it easy for them. This is where the true strategy comes into play — thinking about how you set your business up so it is easy for the customer. Their experience should be pleasant and easy and entertaining wouldn’t hurt.  Think about this, rather than focusing on “how can I make my day better as a business owner,”  ask yourself, “how can I improve my customers experience when doing business with me?”

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be thinking about how to work less and make more money — that’s working smarter.Business owners need to step back and rethink their process from the customers point of view.   A better question to start from would be, “How can I make doing business with me the most entertaining, fun, easy process for my customer that I can provide?”

If you lead with that question,  you’re going to make decisions based on your customer and the service you and your employees give them. You can and should always implement new processes that will make it easier for your company and your employees to serve the customer, but it needs to be a customer centric philosophy that leads your business.

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