Q. What is CMADI?
A. The Coaches Make a Difference Initiative is an independent task force to assist coaches to increase their visibility, attract more clients, and become more financially successful. We are not affiliated with any one organization or school, nor are we a membership organization, nor a profit-making venture. We are a group of volunteers who believe that we can make a difference for the coaching profession by working together as a team to better support us all. Any coach who wishes to further this initiative is welcome to participate.
Q. What are CMADI’s goals?
A. Our long-term goal is to provide the coaching community with a comprehensive suite of tools, resources, and education to help coaches be more successful at business and marketing. The first project we have identified toward that goal is to create a public relations toolkit that could be used by any coaching association, chapter, SIG, or school to promote coaching to their own market niche or local community. Our vision of this PR toolkit is that it would contain ideas for coaching events and media “hooks,” guidelines and suggested language for communicating with the media, examples of press releases, promotional copy, and articles about coaching, and instructions for using the whole package. When complete, we will share this toolkit with any and all coaching organizations, at no charge and without copyright restrictions, and also provide free education in the toolkit’s use.
Q. Why is there a need for CMADI?
A. According to survey data released by the International Coach Federation, 64% of coaches earn less than $50,000 USD per year, 52% earn less than $30,000 per year, and 32% earn less than $10,000 (2003 data). Also, 68% of coaches have fewer than 10 clients and 43% have 5 or fewer (2006 data). Although there are hundreds of books, group programs, mentor coaches, and other initiatives to help coaches succeed, it’s clear that many coaches are still struggling.
We coaches chose this profession because we want to help others and make a difference in the world. But if we can’t earn a decent living, we give up our coaching practices, spend our energy at day jobs, and never make the powerful impact we know that we could. How can coaching make a difference if coaches aren’t coaching people? Earning a better living isn’t just about making money; it’s about making more of an impact.
Q. How did CMADI get started?
A. CMADI began at the 2006 International Coach Federation conference in St. Louis, where a group of 300 coaches gathered to discuss the topic “If You Can’t Make a Living, How Can You Make a Difference?” facilitated by Get Clients Now! author C.J. Hayden. In that session, coaches identified 75 different causes for underearning in the coaching profession. They acknowledged that there were many available resources to help coaches with these issues, but that these existing solutions clearly weren’t doing the job. Charged with the task of identifying creative new solutions to these problems, session participants crafted 100 innovative ways that coaches could attract more clients and earn more. You can view this session’s handout and a summary of the results in our Free Resources section.
The energy and enthusiasm created in this session lived on long after the conference. The coaches who participated wanted to begin implementing some of the solutions we created together. And so CMADI was born.
Q. Who is participating?
A. CMADI is directed by an all-volunteer Steering Committee. See About CMADI for details. So far, over 50 different coaching associations, schools, chapters, and SIG’s have agreed to contribute either materials or volunteers to our effort. See Who Is Participating? for a list.
Q. Why is CMADI creating a PR toolkit for coaches?
A. Our intent with the PR toolkit project is to give groups of coaches around the world a powerful set of tools that will enable them to promote their own brand of coaching, reach their own unique niche or local community, or promote their own organization as a source of coaches, thereby creating a “tipping point” in the public awareness of coaching. We believe that empowering multiple groups in this way will have more of an impact than any single group or coach could create working alone.
Q. Aren’t there materials like this already available?
A. Yes and no. Many coaching organizations have developed PR tools for their own use, or for use by their members. However, what we have seen and heard is that these tools are not well-utilized or simply don’t do the job. Members don’t know the tools exist or where to find them, instructions for using them are incomplete, the tools are oriented toward promoting the organization rather than the coaches who belong to it, or they are designed for use by individual coaches instead of by coaching groups working as a team. This project began because coaches asked for it, so it’s clear that the existing tools aren’t an adequate or complete solution.
We don’t intend to reinvent the wheel with this project. Our plan is to first gather any existing tools we can obtain permission to use, then create those that don’t yet exist, put them together with instructions for their use, make them available on the web to all coaching organizations at no charge, and widely promote their availability and use.
Q. Is anyone making money from this project?
A. No. Everyone working on CMADI is a volunteer, and all project costs are being covered by Steering Committee members. All of the materials developed by CMADI will be made available to the coaching community at no charge.
Q. How can my organization get involved?
A. First, please let your members know about CMADI. You can refer them to this website, or send them a copy of our outreach letter. If your members would like to have access to our PR toolkit when it is complete, please email us. To become an official participating organization, you can agree to contribute either materials to our toolkit, or volunteers to our project. Please email us to find out more.
Q. How can I get involved as an individual?
A. We welcome contributions to our PR toolkit from individual coaches, and we have volunteer opportunities available on several teams doing the work of CMADI. To find out how you can contribute to our PR toolkit, email us at this address. To find out how you can be a hands-on volunteer, email us at this address.