What is a "Coaching Program?"

Coaching program to me means one on one time.

Training could be canned info

Mentoring is usually done for free

Apprentice works for you for free.

Thats how I see it.

Well, I think the only one that is truly unique of those 4 is the apprentice
program as to me, that suggests you take somebody under you and let
them actually help you do things for your business. But that's just my take
on it.

As for coaching, training, mentoring or whatever, to me, it's just semantics.

Bottom line:

A coaching/training/mentoring program should NOT just consist of sending
somebody to a web site and say, "Here you go...here's your training
materials."

That's not coaching. I don't know what the hell that is but some people
actually call that coaching.

Please.

To me, and this is what I do, a true coaching program:

1. Is one that is totally customized to each individual person, thus no
way you can have just ONE site to send them to.

2. Requires a one on one, hands on approach. You communicate through
email, skype, phone, whatever and talk about what the person is looking
to accomplish.

3. You THEN provide the person with materials relevant to what they
want to learn. But this is just the start.

4. You give them assignments to do. For example, if they want to learn
how to write sales letters, you have them actually write sales letters,
giving them a product to write it from.

5. You go over the assignments and make corrections, explaining in detail
what is right and what is wrong.

6. When they actually do work for their business, you look over everything
and make suggestions for improvements or, if it's good, let them know that
they're actually "getting it."

That to me is what a true coaching/training/mentoring program is.

In other words, you do whatever needs to be done to make sure the
student gets as much as possible out of your time together.

And of course you charge accordingly.

Nobody is going to give you 30 days of that kind of attention for $197.

Unless they are stark raving mad.

I agree with Brad a mentor is helping guide and answer for free. the person being mentored builds his/her business around the techniques of the mentor.

a coach is someone who gives you that added boost when you need it they are in your corner helping any way they can and finding out when they do not know how to answer. who helps not only instruct on business but on their products advertising/promo finding niches etc this is paid for usually.

An apprentice is someone who would work for me who would learn inside and out the workings of a business etc but I do not pay them. more considered I think an intern.

As for a coaching program I don't know each person is individual and has their own issues and barriers they need to get through so one size does not fit all in that sense so I am not sure a program is a 'fit" for people it needs to be one on one and that is not something that can be done with masses IMHO as there are only a certain amount of hrs in the day

Overall I think that there is way too many online offering these things simply to make themselves some quick cash. I mean there are a ton of "how to " books in this area so it is not surprising the amount of loose programs out there.
-WD

Training may or may not be canned.

Coaching does include one on one time or worse case group on one time with time for individuals in the group to get help.

Most what I hear called coaching programs is just training program with a specific contact person for "support".

Mark Riddle

- coaching program - done in a group with some one-on-one as needed
- training program - info product
- mentoring program - one-on-one
- apprentice program - apprentice does work for you in exchange for you teaching as you go

Yeah, when I first started out I received a lot of emails about "COACHING" which was nothing more than recanned PLR materials sent out to me and people trying to get me to join their membership sites.

I would say coaching nowadays is harder to come by and GOOD QUALITY coaching requires a personalized approach to each student's needs with attention to detail on their goals and desires to achieve through the coaching.

I think a workable, more formal definition of what coaching
would be is when the coach works one-on-one with the
person being coached.

Coaching is different from teaching or lecturing, because in
coaching you get down (as the coach) to where the person
you are coaching is and help them improve in the areas
they want to work on.

I don't want to be pedantic about it. I think "little league"
when I think coaching. You don't tell little leaguers they
should be pushing weights if they're gonna play pro when
they get older, you work with what they've got going for
them at the moment.

Hey Ron,

As I'm sure you're aware - those terms do not get used in a 'standard' way.

As someone who offers some of those I can tell you that what I've seen (and even paid for) from other people is NOT the same as I would call what they offer.

As a coach, I've always been told (by other coaches and coaching trainers) that in coaching - you don't give advice. Coaching is about helping people work out how to get what they want - but with the answers coming from them. Your job is to ask the right questions and lead them to see the best answers for themselves.

However, with that said - I don't actually believe that in the IM niche this is even what the coaching clients are expecting it to mean, and it's definitely not what most people offering 'IM coaching' are offering.

Also - I don't agree that coaching is only 1-1. Again this is probably because I've done group coaching and what I call coaching is not what some people here would call it. IM coaching seems to get classed as where people tell you what to do - that's NOT what most coaches would call coaching in my experience (apart from sports) - it seems to have been adopted by IMers.

Mentoring - I disagree with Brad that this is 'usually done for free'. I have friends who mentor business executives and it's never free (in fact they get paid very well for it), so there are obviously different views on that too.

In my view IM mentoring is more like what people seem to call coaching. It's a paid service where someone who has knowledge and experience shares that with you so that you are effectively short-cutting your own learning and avoiding mistakes you may have made.

Training Program - well, that could mean anything from showing people how to set up blogs to learning PPC.

Apprentice program - In the IM context that's a funny one again. I joined one of these many years ago and it wasn't personal and very cookie-cutter. If I was to offer such a thing it would involve working closely with me and learning how I run my business so that the apprentice could eventually do the same for themselves.
However, I'm not likely to offer that as I believe that people are better off creating their version of success not mine.

Andy

There most certainly IS a huge difference. Mentoring is instructional, teaching someone a skill set.

Coaching is one-on-one, and purely outcome based, rooted in the goals and wants of the person being coached NOT the coach. True coaching is clean, meaning it doesn't inject or distort the goals of the one being coached. When you get past all but the very inexperienced or new, most people in any area KNOW what needs to happen to become successful. Doing it is another story. That's where a coach helps to identify the outcome-based goals of the person being coached, and then helps elicit the specific, actionable steps that need to take place to get there, and then helps to keep the person on the path.

http://www.coachfederation.org/resea...-competencies/


Most of the coaching I've seen related to IM isn't even coaching. It's instructional mentoring or private tutoring. It has nothing to do with real coaching - and worse yet, I've even seen products teaching other people "coaching" that replicates the garbage approach of delivering instruction labeled as coaching.

To people that know the difference, it's sort of funny.

To me what a coaching program is that you are provided a book and also like cd's or like youtube video's that walk you step by step and you get to correspond with the person who wrote it. A mentoring program is where you get the above and also you talk with the person who wrote the product every week or even twice a week and they help you with problems and give you advice. This is what I think. Training program would be like the samething as the coaching but you do not correspond with the person who wrote the material. Maybe just support.

- Coaching is when someone personally tells you how lazy and stupid you are.

- Training are a bunch of materials (ebook, videos) where nobody tells you how lazy and stupid you are.

- mentoring is where someone suggest you and guide you to find for yourself how lazy and stupid you are.

- Apprentice is where you have someone to tell how lazy and stupid he is.

Semantics anyone? Seriously, this is inside baseball for most of us talking about it. To the vast majority of people out there, most of these terms are largely interchangeable. In my humble opinion. I've called what I do "coaching" for over a year now, and not one person I've coached has ever even hinted that it was really "mentoring" or "apprenticeship" or whatever. They want help. If you know what you're talking about and it helps, they don't care if you call it "sliced bread." We're talking about this from the provider's perspective, which is fine as far as it goes. But the recipients don't really care at the end of the day, as long as you help them in tangible ways.

John

Whoa. Get outta my brain! I just saw this thread again and thought "who cares as long as it helps them?"

I think people spend too much time worrying about words...

It's a bit self righteous for us to get all up in arms about how a word is used by somebody else, isn't it?

Peace

Jay

Words are extremely important.

In fact, Tony Robbins and much of Frank Kern's stuff is based on the earlier development of NLP by Bander & Grinder.

Jay, if you're a fan of Tony Robbins, you are familiar with NLP, the importance of very specific language, and the effect upon a person's entire psyche as it relates to mental and emotional state.

It's what's 1 post wonders put in their sig , just before they proclaim how they just achieved (insert random dollar amount here) by doing (insert something vague here).

Yoda was a mentor. Jedi Knights are like mini-Yodas.

Shula was a coach. Football players are not like mini-Shulas - the role is more complementary.

Hey, coming from a group of people who insist that the SELLING they do is actually marketing, who am I to argue with them that the TRAINING that they're doing isn't coaching.

We could look at the word 'program'. It seems to me that there is some sort of a schedule, with X amount of items to be learnt and uncovered.
As long as the program helps the person to go to the next level, and esp in IM, earn some real money, I don't care what term you are going to call it.
When there's a program, there should be an end date in mind. I don't want to spend years trying to find out something.

That said, I think coaching one on one is not making full use of your time. Is there a way to leverage that to increase your income?