When I completed my executive coach training I believed I was joining a profession, just like Accountancy. With my new occupation, I would be fully qualified, accredited and a member of a professional body, just like the ICAEW. All that remained was for me to set up my coaching practice just like any general practitioner would do. Voila! But so, naïve!
Coaching is not regulated
Anyone can call themselves a coach (and they do, just like accountants). Back in 2006, I had many a colleague questioning why on earth I would chose to go from professional accountancy practice into life coaching??? (their words, their perceptions, not mine). Coaching is not a compliance led service; it is not a need per se, rather it’s a ‘nice to have’. Coaching is about the softer stuff, the people side and as such is considered much more discretionary in the hierarchy of business and personal needs. I imagined I would set up a website and individual clients would come flocking; I did, but they didn’t. Beyond the fact that coaching, as a one-to-one service, was still relatively uncommon back in 2006, it was also not universally respected and, individual clients, in the main, were not prepared to pay a highly qualified individual like myself the premium hourly rate that I felt was commensurate with my skills, experience and value proposition.
What I soon realised though, was that, as an ACA, I was in a highly privileged position as a coach. While many of my fellow training cohort gave up after the first year of what transpired to be a ‘lifestyle’ business, I was able to call on all my commercial experience and business skills to find a way to leverage my ACA. In time the provision of coaching services became an integral component of my portfolio career, a career which ultimately allowed me to get back on the ACA earnings trajectory and out of the ‘lifestyle’ paradigm.
Coaching is rarely a ‘job’
Some coaches, on qualification, might shift side-ways in their organisation, from technical specialists in (say) accounting and finance to a full-time role coaching and mentoring inhouse or even to external clients. These coaches work mainly with individuals, sometimes with teams, supporting potential and performance enhancement, facilitating leadership development and working in collaborative relationships to aid problem solving. But these jobs are few and far between. In my experience they largely (but not exclusively) go to HR professionals and they are rarely full-time. There are, of course, a number of standalone coaching consultancy practices, purveyors of executive coaching and leadership solutions, while individual coaches do also set up their own dedicated practices. Both types of business do sometimes offer coaching ‘jobs’, but again, the opportunities for full-time, professional-level work in coaching is still sparse. Think hundreds of roles rather than thousands: quite the anti-thesis to the familiar accounting and finance professional jobs marketplace!
Yet blend together an ACA background, business expertise and organisational experiences with a coaching-mentoring qualification, and opportunities really open up.
What does a coaching ACA’s portfolio look like?
I work as an associate for several organisations. I’m dubbed ‘the executive coach with the finance background’. I get to coach and mentor at all levels, from new hires to aspiring leaders and C-suite executives, on topics as diverse as career progression and time management. My ACA background gives me the kudos to coach The Board (from micro businesses to listed corporates), on anything from team-working together to strategic planning. And I’m also a Business Coach, placed alongside start-ups, entrepreneurs and owner-managers as their non-executive critical friend.
Being an associate (or freelancer) means flexibility and choice; I work with a mix of businesses and individuals on contracts as short as half a day to a full year. My more traditional ACA career years equipped me with a breadth and depth of business experience, bequeathing a highly marketable USP (unique selling point) within the associate coaching marketplace.
And in parallel, over the years, I did make progress with setting my own website and developing my own coaching enterprise which sits in my portfolio alongside the associate work. Through speaking at conferences, writing for the business press and developing and deepening my network, I’ve built my own business, theaccountantscoach.com. My search engine optimisation has been organic rather than paid for, and it brings me a steady stream of clients, finance professionals who engage me to coach and mentor on career strategy, career problem solving and wider issues.
I love what I do. I’m passionate about learning and development, and coaching in particular. My diverse portfolio is more akin to business consultancy, while my ICAEW training and background continues to hold me in great stead, whether working with finance individuals or in business organisational development.
This is not just coaching. This is ACA-coaching…
*The views expressed are the author’s and not ICAEW’s.