David Wood | Inner Firewalking

About David Wood

For 20 years David has helped entrepreneurs around the globe to grow their results, by growing themselves. A former consulting actuary to Fortune 50 companies in New York, David quit corporate life to pursue his inner journey, which now deeply influences his work. A digital nomad, David is currently dancing salsa, paragliding, and coaching his rock star entrepreneur clients from Colombia. His specialty is doubling your productivity and profits, while halving your stress. If you become a highly authentic and inspirational leader in the process, well….that can’t be helped.

Referrals

The following is taken from Get Paid University.

How come it’s hard for the people to refer if you don’t give them something to refer. If you give them a business card, maybe they’ll carry it around long enough to hand it to somebody. But if you send them an email with something valuable, how easy is it for them to forward it to their friends? Or they’re going to post a link to it on Facebook or Twitter. I’m getting… on my blog, I’ll put up a blog article and I found a plug-in that puts a Twitter button and a Facebook button and I’m noticing I’m showing up on Twitter with people saying check out this article. I didn’t even know that was going to happen.

Who Will You Help?

The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.

So whom would you like to help? Someone wanting to switch careers? People wanting to begin treating their bodies well? Or children dealing with puberty? 30-35 year old women looking for a partner? Bachelors over 50 wanting to organize their life?

If you focused on a particular client type, what are three possibilities? Who would you really like to contribute to or do you feel a connection with? (Small business owners? Women? Kids? Artists? Butchers? 50-60 years old?)

If you concentrated on three coaching areas, what would they be? What are three things you might like to help these groups with? (Switch careers? Get over divorce? Clean their cupboards?)

Time Freedom

The following is taken from Get Paid University.

You can’t serve everyone with your time. You just can’t. You don’t have enough time. By having a newsletter, you can reach people and they can be circulating it around the world and you’re serving more people. It’s almost free to send an electronic newsletter. If you use mailchimp.com, that’s mailchimp.com – Sarah, maybe you can put that in the chatroom? – then for the first 500 people, they’ll let you use it for free. Now as you start getting up, I recommend you start with professional card solutions and you can find that, I’ll put that in here; getpaidforwhoyouare.com/pcs. Getpaidforwhoyouare.com/pcs, you can go to them directly as well. I became an affiliate for them so I do get extra revenue when people sign up which is one of the things that you can do as well as creating your own product is you’ll other services that you want to promote and you’re going to promote those and share in the revenue. This is the best that I found is the one that I use at getpaidforwhoyouare.com/pcs.

Philip Cohen on Pursuing Certification

The following is taken from David’s interview with Philip Cohen in 10 Super Coaches.

Would you advise coaches to pursue certification? If so, at what stage in their practice, and through which accrediting body?

I believe strongly in certification. Having a certification or being on the path to one, sends a strong message to my prospects and clients. It says I’m serious about what I bring to our relationship because I’ve gone through training and been willing to prove myself. I believe certification gives me a competitive edge over other people who call themselves coaches, but they are that in name only. I also believe certification is important to give credibility to the profession in the eyes of the public.

The certification process starts on the day a person decides to become a coach. The process starts with a mental attitude. A person who decides to purse certification is saying this is a serious process and they are committed to being the best they can be.

Marcia Reynolds on Coaching Niches

The following is taken from David’s interview with Marcia Reynolds in 10 Super Coaches.

What are your coaching niche(s)? How did you discover this?

Technical corporations. It is important to build your practice on your past experiences, at least at first. Many of my clients are engineers, scientists and researchers since I speak their language (I spent 11 years working for technical organizations).

Emotional intelligence. It is also important to begin to define an area of expertise early on. I am passionate about researching and teaching the latest techniques in emotional intelligence. I also speak and write on the subject, which has helped me to become known as an expert in the field.

Government. I do a lot of work for local, state and national government agencies. This niche found me.

I also mentor coach new coaches, sharing my ups and downs to help them build their practices avoiding the mistakes I made.

Anna Dargitz on Coaching Schools

The following is taken from David’s interview with Anna Dargitz in 10 Super Coaches.

Are there any particular school(s) you would recommend?

I have a few biases about coaching schools. Go to any school you like. Ask yourself, “What is easy to integrate into my lifestyle, what fits with the values I want to enhance in my life? What makes my pocketbook feel respected?” Go there. And then finish your training at The Schools of Coaching (SOC).

Your training (and here comes a bias) will never be complete if you don’t finish it at the Schools of Coaching. My formal training for coaching began at the University of Maine with a BA in psychology in 1972. It took me through all kinds of other trainings including Coach U. And because SOC promises a lifetime of training, I plan to live the remainder of my days taking the latest and greatest classes as a student of SOC. You could just start there too – they have beginner and intermediate training. The choice is yours. In my opinion, if you aren’t learning throughout your life, you aren’t living all of your life.

Posts by David Wood