Kay's steps: The Making of a Business Coach
ACTIVE CLIENTS: Helps Adolph J. Ferro, CEO and president of Epitope Inc., maker of an FDA-approved oral test for HIV, manage the shift from research and development to manufacturing and marketing; works with James M. Hurd, CEO and president of Planar Systems Inc., an $80-million maker of flat-panel displays, on strategic planning; helps Deborah Coleman, CEO, president, and chairman of $160-million Merix Corp., develop her management team; meets monthly with Katherine Keene, CEO of SAIF Corp., a nonprofit publicly owned workers' comp carrier, for coaching on organizational issues; helps A. G. "Bud" Lindstrand, CEO of ODS Health Plans, a $300-million health-insurance company, develop his board.
DIRECTORSHIPS: Chairman, $39-million Wholesome & Hearty Foods Inc.; founding director and investor, Bank of the Northwest; director, Franklin Covey Co.; director, $4.3-billion Standard Insurance Co.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: Portland Community College, director of public relations, 19711976. Portland General Electric; human-resources specialist, 1979; assistant to the president, 19791980; vice-president of human resources and administration, 19801985; vice-president of marketing and customer operations, 19851987; president of the energy-services division, 19871989; president and chief operating officer, 19891992
EDUCATION: B.A., Stanford University, 1967; M.A., University of Portland, 1978
Careers: Help Strangers Nail Bliss, Earn Big $$$--Be a Coach PotatoI
It's lucky Kay Stepp wandered into business coaching when she did. These days it's hard to imagine that she'd get very far.
Oh, sure, her rarefied corporate experience at a big utility would electrify prospective clients at first. But sooner or later, they'd begin to wonder: How come she's not officially certified as a coach? Why hasn't she taken any teleclasses in, say, 1990s marketing? And what's she got against the phone that leads her to insist on meeting face-to-face? Quite frankly, she'd seem a trifle too casual for someone breaking into "one of the truly great professions of the 20th century," as Sandy Vilas dubs it.
Vilas, president and owner of a virtual school called Coach University, has an obvious stake in seeing coaching as more than just a resting spot for wayward big shots. And he's far from the only one. The practice of coaching may hinge on one person's offering a nonjudgmental and agenda-free zone to another, but the industry that has sprung up around coaching contains no shortage of folks who seem clear-eyed about their own intentions: to make a bundle of dough.
You can, too, if you call now--or so the standard pitch to potential coaches seems to go, inviting comparison between coaching and the lucrative science of envelope stuffing. Coaches like Jeff Raim, who carry the heavy burden of being role models as if it were a foot of freshly packed snow, waste no time hemming and hawing about the boundaries they draw around their work: Raim's workweek begins Monday morning and wraps up shortly thereafter, on Tuesday. The 42-year-old, who lives in a ski resort in Angel Fire, N. Mex., charges his roughly 35 clients $400 apiece every month for regularly scheduled half-hour phone appointments. He takes away "a great income" of about $170,000 a year. During his workdays, he jams in one measly midday break for skiing. He's back, shackled to his desk, four hours later.
Aside from coaching, Raim also serves as president of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), a group that claims 1,400 members, who pay no dues and elect no officers. Started in 1995--the same year as its nonprofit rival, the Professional & Personal Coaches Association, to which 400 members pay $115 a year--the ICF, until recently, seems to have operated on the Netscape-browser principle: people who joined were introduced to Coach U., which charges $2,495 for two years of conference-call coursework. According to Raim, the ICF declared its independence from Coach U. last fall, hoping to be "taken seriously." Dues are also being levied.
Given the snug setup, it's perhaps no shock that both highly virtual organizations (read: low overhead) were founded by the same man, Thomas J. Leonard, a former financial planner who claims to have launched the modern coaching movement. The 41-year-old embodies the phenomenon's worst contradictions. He quickly points out that the average Coach U. graduate earns at least $60,000 annually after three years. Leonard says he's "still getting used to" having sold Coach U. to Vilas last year for a clean $2 million. "I can live really well on that for several lifetimes," he adds. Vilas says that Leonard "may eventually get a sum approaching that," suggesting that Leonard retains a piece of the action. Not that Vilas is hurting: 923 students are enrolled at Coach U., which Vilas operates out of his second bedroom. He expects revenues of at least $2.5 million this year.
But enough about money. Coaching is about helping people slam shut the gap between what they've got now and what they want for themselves. "It's the surprise of two people talking," says Leonard, "the synergy of two minds working together."
That's the theory, anyway. "Tom," says Vilas, "can't stand working with people."
Joshua Hyatt is a senior editor at Inc.
Resources
Thinking of taking up a career in coaching? Pick up the phone--a skill you should practice anyway, since 95% of coaching begins that way--and order up a box of business cards. If anyone actually hires and pays you, then consider yourself a member in good standing of the newfangled breed. Typical monthly pay for a half-hour weekly conversation, as well as availability by E-mail or phone on an as-needed basis, runs from $150 to $500. ("Corporate clients," says Thomas J. Leonard, who launched the current coaching phenomenon, "won't do it if you don't charge them enough.") Some coaches require a six-month commitment, but that's about as long-term a contract as exists. Warning: you could quickly find yourself unceremoniously dumped back into the bland role of being a garden-variety consultant. Stay current on buzzwords, just in case.
