So who uses a coach anyway?

I’m often asked by journalists and reporters about what type of people use coaches.  In general, they ask me about who is the “average” client.

It’s not an easy question because there are really quite a few different (major) categories of coaches – athletic, artistic, life, career, executive, leadership and business. However, people using each of the different categories, for the most part, do share some commonality of course – they want to do better / improve their results / move ahead in their fields.

Recently, the International Coach Federation released the results of a worldwide survey they did with their membership – of which I am one.  The ICF is the largest coaching association in the world and, this won’t surprise you, it’s growing quickly across the world.  There are coaches in every country I’d guess.  I haven’t found one without coaches, and at BusinessSuccessCoach.net we’ve had clients from 45 countries using our products and services.

So I think the results of this survey probably answer the question: who uses a coach?

Here’s what we learned from the study and how it compares with my client base:

65% of clients are female  ( my experience is about 78%)

The majority (36%) of clients are between 36 and 45 years old, and have advanced levels of education like a post grad degree  ( in my practice it’s about 70%)

Duration of a coaching relationship was 12.8 months  (for me: about 5 months)

3 top motivators for using a coach – self confidence, life balance, career opportunities.  ( at Business Success Coach.net I think it is the same although the sequence is different with career being first)

96% of clients say they would repeat their coaching experience ( I have never asked this question but I know a big share of our clients are referals which is very powerful)

82% of clients reported they were very satisfied with their coaching results ( again, I’ve never asked the question of my clients at the end of our relationship but I do ask after each session so it’s at least that high based on their feedback which can be extremely honest)

I’ve used a coach since 1990.  The first coach I used didn’t call himself that back then.  And I have used different coaches at different times in my career. I’ve been involved with it since 1990 when I started doing coaching internally at the company where I was a line manager, so I may have a strong bias about its value.  But the numbers of the ICF speak for themselves.

john

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