Does your practice need some coaching?

There are a lot of “coaches” out there; some very qualified in our industry and some not so much. When it comes to qualified coaches, I know this is not a crowded marketplace because there are more advisers who need help building their practices than there are coaches who can handle the business.
I, on the other hand feel there is a different area that advisers need help and very few are helping. It is how to run a successful business without killing yourself, getting a divorce, losing your soul, or being a terrible parent.
Running a business is a labor of love for most, but as we tell all of our clients, you have to be willing to give up something proportionate to what you want to achieve. In a lot of cases this does not end well for their relationships, their health, and their soul. They want too much too soon, and without much effort. So who helps them with everything else? Well, life coaches do.
Yes I said it, the evil words; life coaches. Most of us do not realign your chakras, lay our hands on you to heal your broken spirit, or regress you back to the day you were born. We help with your life, all of it. Business, spiritual, familial, marital, health, and whatever else you can throw at us. Life coaching clients talk about the things that they do not talk to anyone else about. We are a confidential confidant, and have the tools to help our clients work through their life issues, not just business. The best part is you do not have to leave your office. We are over the phone and you never have to meet us in person or look us in the eye. I have found this level of distance helps our clients tell us what is really going on and they do and feel so much better after they do.
Advisers need someone that understands their business, what it means, the level of responsibility, the stresses and the joys. They also need, more than someone that can tell them how to make another 100K, a confidant, a highly trained person who can help them be successful in their life.
I have worked with too many clients who work too many hours and lose their spouses, kids, health, and soul because of their career. Do you want to lose those things? Have you lost some of them already and need desperately not to make those mistakes again?
One of my clients told me, “I hired you so you can help me become more successful without losing my family.” Powerful! He said that he knew because of my training as a therapist, life coach, and business coach, that I alone was the person who could help him. Most life coaches have the same training.
If you do not want to be a good husband/wife, you do not care if your kids hate you for the rest of your life, and you feel that empty hole in your chest you keep trying to throw money down to fill, you can use a regular business coach. If you want to break that cycle in your life, regain your balance, be a good spouse, father/mother, and feel fulfilled, get a life coach.
Matthew Halloran is a certified coach for advisers. He wrote The Social Media Handbook for Financial Advisors: How to Use LinkedIn Facebook and Twitter to Build and Grow Your Business.