Gill Moakes 0:00
Oh, welcome. Welcome to the heads together podcast. Do you like me singing it every week? I might sing it a bit better next time for a lot about jazziness. My jazziness level has gone down slightly. I'm gonna be definitely more jazzy next week.
Gill Moakes 0:17
I'm not redoing this week. So you're going to have to accept that beautiful lilting song as the intro for this week. Anyway, thanks for joining me again. You're going to be glad you did, especially the coaches in the audience. Because this week, I'm joined by the fabulous Steph Durbin. Steph is the co founder of the coach directory, which is an online directory for coaches does what it says on the tin, right? I just love Steph she and I are we have a very, very similar outlook on the coaching industry. We had a having a fabulous conversation this week about the directory because I really wanted her to just share a bit of her story around her path which is similar to mine. She's a business advisor and consultant Steph is like she's a UK national and international executive, business and personal development coach and Steph like me is very committed to her own personal development and also the development of coaches within the coaching industry. And we talk about, you know, our unregulated coaching industry, and how we're both very passionate about raising the standard of the industry so that clients who work with coaches are getting the best possible experience they can. Steph is ICF accredited to PCC level. And she's also a qualified coaching supervisor, which we will also talk about in this week's episode. I can't wait for you to meet her. Without further ado, let's dive in.
Gill Moakes 2:03
Welcome, welcome to the heads together Podcast. I'm Gill Moakes. And I am obsessed with cutting through the noise when it comes to growing your business each week via intimate coaching conversations and inspirational stories. I share what it really takes to get the results you want in a way that feels right to you.
Gill Moakes 2:26
I am all about attracting higher ticket opportunities, building authentic relationships and creating the abundant full fat version of your dream business. I mean, how many of us have even away creating a light version of what we really wantl.
Gill Moakes 2:43
The thing is, I honestly believe when you're outstanding at what you do, there is no limit to what you can achieve. So are you ready to put our heads together and make it happen? Let's go.
Gill Moakes 3:05
Steph, hi, thank you for joining me.
Steph Durbin 3:09
Hello, Gill. Nice to be here.
Gill Moakes 3:11
I'm thrilled to have you. So I was just explaining that you and I have a fairly similar background really don't we we're both from like a corporate background and then have both made the transition to into coaching. So that's why I'm I'm really thrilled to have you on this week. Because first of all, I'm like I'm can't wait for you to share with people all about the coach directory. But also I would love it if you would just share with us a bit about your story from those that corporate time into how you've ended up doing what you do today. And what that is, of course.
Steph Durbin 3:52
I have a fabulous and very varied career with the cooperative group based in Manchester, but I was based all over the country for some time of that started literally on the shop floor with them and worked my way up the corporate ladder and was given ample opportunity to develop myself and develop people and build teams and departments set things up Run Transformation programmes and had a really exciting and varied career in doing that. And then I reached my late 40s and decided that I still had time to do something completely different. And for me self employed that was kind of what my my driver was had some considerable time out in 2016 Just for for medical reasons. And inevitably, when you have timeout, you have plenty of time to think and reflect and that's when it kind of all came together for me. I worked with a coach at the time. who helped me to work out what had made me both successful and, and motivated in my career, what had led to the achievements. And what was it all about? What got me out of bed in the morning, I think at the time, we came down to about five key kind of personal brand. Single words that describe who I was. I've actually narrowed it down to two since then. And the two things that really made me successful one was commerciality. I always had i'm a mathematician, so I always had a bit of an eye for the numbers, but I also love innovation. So new ideas and building that support that. Absolutely love that. And then my second one was all about people, people developing people's succession planning, talent. recruitment, just had a natural skill at being able to do that. So those two commerciality and people came together. Lovely for me, when I decided to go into coaching, fitted really nicely with the clients I wanted to work with. And the just the type of work I wanted to do. So I qualified as a professional coach, with barefoot coaching at the beginning of 2017. I've done most of my professional training with them, since then, most of it with them, including qualifying as a coach supervisor, couple of years ago, which I so I now I have that in my portfolio as well. When I was doing my training, that's when I had this this innovative lightbulb moment of an online coach directory, I thought it would be a really great idea in my cohort, over a bottle of wine in the pub one night, well, oh, yes, Steph, you really need to do this, you'd be great at this.
Gill Moakes 6:42
That's where the best ideas are born. Yeah, I have my best ideas fueled by wine.
Steph Durbin 6:49
Same here. Same here. And then I realised in my naivety, as a new coach just training, I realised that actually, there was quite a lot of online directories out there already. And thought, right, well, actually, I'm not in a space to get into a competitive race with any of the other directories that were already established. And I wanted to focus on building my practice and building my professional reputation. So I did do that for a few years. And then I happened to have a conversation with a very interesting person who had just built an online directory in the USA, for real estate agents. And in talking about that, and how it works, the challenges around that, it kind of struck me then I was already now sort of four years into three or four years into my coaching journey kind of struck me that there was an opportunity here to do something rather different. That wasn't like the other coach directory. So I don't see myself as a competitor, because I see myself as being quite different. And there's room for us all because many coaches list on more than one directory. So we set on the journey of developing something a bit different, kind of spent quite a lot of time, myself, thinking about what was important to me, if it's going to make it different. What is it about me that's going to make it different? What can I do? What can I offer it all underpinned around the kind of giving back to the industry, supporting coaches, and raising professional standards and awareness, that was kind of the real roots of it all. So we set about building it, and we built it. We had great results on Google, before we even had coaches on board, we knew that the site was was really well constructed. And then we launched formally this year, we went through quite a robust test and trial process, and then launched it earlier this year, reaching out to coaches, new coaches, and established coaches to join the directory and it's going the launch has gone really well. We're really pleased. And we're pleased with the, with what we're doing and what we're providing for our coaches in that online community.
Gill Moakes 9:11
One of the things you just mentioned was about the things that were important to you was around the kind of professional standard of the of the industry. And I think, you know, we all know that coaching isn't a regulated industry, which, in my opinion makes this what you're doing even more important, doesn't it? It means that, you know, we have to self regulate as an industry. Do you see that as an important part of what you're doing?
Steph Durbin 9:42
I see as the most important part, I think the responsibility that we have as coaches. First and foremost the responsibility that we have put our clients and for ourselves and the need to take ownership of that self regulation is really important to me. And that's why we set that as our as our minimum standard for joining the directory. So we're looking at those coaches that do invest in their development that are accredited with one of the international coaching organisations that there's, there's quite a few that that are acceptable. Yeah. And for us, it's all about the code of ethics is the is the primary thing there that coaches sign up to, and live and breathe by really high ethical standards when they're coaching? Because that's the right thing to do for for all of our clients, and for our clients to know how important that is.
Gill Moakes 10:42
Yeah, absolutely. Tell us a bit about the directory itself. So what does it consist of? What would it mean to be a member of the directory?
Steph Durbin 10:51
There's quite a few elements to the response to that question, that the most obvious thing that you can see if you go to the website is that coaches that are a member, they have their own profile page, and they can be found online. And that's the, that's the, I guess, the primary measure is that coaches are being found online and coaches that join off and that's their, the one thing that they're really looking for, is that visibility.
Gill Moakes 11:19
For new coaches, particularly, I think, you know, quite often I see people who are passionate about coaching, but they're not business savvy, particularly at the beginning, and the thought of having to wait until they've got an all singing all dancing website until they've got their, you know, email service provider set up in their marketing every week. And that's so bad. That's quite overwhelming. I think that's enough to put a lot of new coaches off from the industry, because it is quite a steep learning curve. Really, if you are not a business coach, you know, if you're more of a life coach or health coach, all of that those kinds of coaching niches, you're not necessarily super business savvy. So I think it's a real, it really lowers the bar for good coaches, to begin serving clients quicker if they have a way of becoming visible without having to wait for the perfect website to be finished.
Steph Durbin 12:24
Absolutely. I think that the risk of procrastination, not even the risk of the issue of procrastination in newly qualified coaches comes up all the time probably set, probably half of the new coaches that I speak to probably have exactly that challenge, which is I'll do it when my websites live. I know I need to work on it. I know I should. And we'd sort of try and pull back from the what they think they should do. So actually, what can you do now? As well as the question of what are the perfect website look like? Because actually, it's probably good enough now that this conversation happens a lot with the coach directory. Well, they have they have that online presence, like straightaway, so actually join and have that landing page. before they've even got a website. They could use it purely as their only online presence if they wanted to. We have got a couple of coaches that do that exactly that, then they can put aside that worry of being perfectionist about their website or procrastinating about their website. They can put that aside, just get that online presence started
Gill Moakes 13:32
And focus on coaching clients. Because that I think is the biggest thing I see is that procrastination is the right word here as well. There's a massive procrastination, I don't think it's always the same answer as to where that comes from. Sometimes it is genuinely not feeling like they can until they have this website ready, you know, because they want to portray the right image, whatever that that is. But sometimes I think it's deeper than that. Sometimes I think there is a an anxiety around actually coaching clients that they and then people will tend to use the delay tactic of not being ready because of website or whatever it is, to delay actually coaching clients getting the experience. So I love the fact that what you do is take away some of those barriers for people. If someone joins and has their landing page, their listing with you. What have you done about the SEO reach of those pages? Is that something that you work on behind the scenes?
Steph Durbin 14:39
I talked to my coaches about the three layers of quality SEO and Premium SEO? No, I'm not an online marketer, and I'm not a tech person. So a lot of what I say is in my version of layman's terms, but I also know that it works and people understand it. So it starts with the behind the scenes on the website. So the coding, the no redundant code, the page, load these and all of that stuff that Google need to know that it's a quality enough site, that's how we get sort of pushed up to the rankings. That's the first and foremost, the second layer is the content on the site. So that's what the coaches would be aware of. So on their page, it's how they write their bio, what what they put in their bio on the page, and they own that completely. And coaches can edit that and add stuff to it all the time, and the keywords that they use, and the tags that we use keywords associated to Google searches. And then the tags are associated to when a potential client lands on the site and wants a coach of a certain type or in a certain town. So we assist with that. So the coach owns it, but will absolutely give advice. And make sure that it's it's the right quality of content, as well as the other content on the site. So with the blogs that are written in the articles, guest blog, so wherever we can we mention a coach, that's a member. So we can that's kind of exhilarating enhancing how many times their their name might appear, which enhances the probability of them being found. And then the third piece that we do with SEO, which is just as important, is what we do outside of the website. So linking to our coaches, websites, linking to other places that are relevant, and having them linking back to us is really important. So we've seen online as collaborating with these other businesses. So this enhances the coach's likelihood of being found. And then we do a lot of our interaction and lots of it on LinkedIn, wherever our coaches are, is where we will hang out to make sure that we're maximising how much they can be seen.
Gill Moakes 16:55
Yeah. So you're kind of supporting your members on LinkedIn as well with.
Steph Durbin 17:00
Yeah, absolutely. When they, when they list with us, once it goes live, we make sure that it's indexed with Google. So Google see the new page quite quite quickly. For us, we've got a very fast turnaround with Google at the moment. And if they make changes to the page, same thing, and we'll make sure that it's re indexed as quickly as we can, we're very aware of how important it is that online content is accessible, visible. And out there.
Gill Moakes 17:26
I love that one thing that's coming to my mind, as you're explaining that stuff is how you it's funny, isn't it that things happen for a reason? I feel like that idea coming up for you the first time, I wonder if you would have had the the tools and the and the team around you back then that you have now which has resulted in this carefully constructed site? Because for this kind of thing, an online directory, it's not like throwing up a website, is it? It's no, it's there's so much more to it in terms of the back end of things. And I can just tell, you know, we've spoken before as well. And I can just tell how much thought goes into the back end of the operation, as much as goes into the front end, really, because without that back end, operating as it should, in terms of all those things like the Google indexing all of that kind of thing, then your members aren't going to get get the results that they're hoping for from being a member. And I know that's important to you as well, isn't it just making sure that people are getting that value?
Steph Durbin 18:40
Absolutely, completely. It was really it was so important to us that we after we had the site built, we tested it for a year to make sure that we got all of those questions answered to make sure that Google was seeing it the way that we wanted it seen it's the kind of the high standards piece as well. Not only are we talked about how standards, coaching and self regulation, but that also for me follows through into the into the website and what we do, I don't want to deliver exactly half hearted attempt at something it had to be. It had to be right and it and I want our coaches to feel that it's right and that it's working.
Gill Moakes 19:24
This is why I so wanted you to come on and talk about this because I think you and I are quite similar in that. That code of ethics is so non negotiable for us, and it spreads into every part of what we do. I think it would be easy for less ethically driven people to try and pull this kind of thing off to try and see it as Oh, you know, here's an easy way to make money. I'll just get people and I'll just throw up a website and I'll take people's money I'll promise them, and I suppose this is what I love about the coach directory is that well, maybe I love it because I know you sitting behind it and your high standards. But I think this is a platform that does everything you do everything in your power to deliver on those promises to your members. I just, I just think that's refreshing in an online arena where that's not always the case.
Steph Durbin 20:28
I talked to coaches about, well, firstly, about not wanting to be an anonymous database, we don't want to just hide behind a spreadsheet of coaches. And you're right, that could be done and uploaded to a website, and you never have any human interaction with the people that are actually running it. Unless your credit card expires. Maybe Yeah, so we didn't want to be anonymous, we didn't want to just be a database. And we absolutely are committed to it being a personal service, every single coach that joins us has, has this personal one to one face to face relationship with me. And with the team. Often we're we're a small, perfectly formed organisation organisation made up of kind of the web development side, and then the admin and marketing side and then the what I do, but talking to my coaches is so important. And then when we're engaging, like on LinkedIn, they they kind of know who they're engaging with, as well. So that's more personal, and it comes across more personal. So it's more authentic in the conversations we're having online.
Gill Moakes 21:37
Isn't that just like a win win for everyone as well, I'm just thinking about that. Just thinking about LinkedIn, for example, because your coaches know you and feel they can jump in, if you're putting something I dont know maybe you're putting something promotional for the coach directory onto LinkedIn, occasionally, the members because they feel they know you, Steph behind the coach directory, they're going to be jumping in and commenting. So it's such a win win, not only is there visibility being raised, but the visibility of the directory gets raised just by virtue of the fact that it's so genuine, you know, the interaction, because they have got to know you, personally. So I really like that about it too.
Steph Durbin 22:18
What I find with LinkedIn, as well is that I have the privilege now and I see it as a privilege of being able to comment and share on coaches material, both as the business and me as me as a professional coach and me as a person. So that, you know, we've had everything in the last couple of weeks from talking about supervision and the integrity of coaching and qualifications. right the way through to comment I made on somebody yesterday about dreams. So a personal a personal comment about dreams, but it's still me, it's still me, the individual and me, the coach, and me the coach directory, it feels like a good place to be in to be able to interact in that way with the coaches, especially the newer coaches who are still dipping their toe in the water of what's How should they be using the online platforms and how do they grow their reputation?
Gill Moakes 23:15
Yeah, absolutely. Just community form, part of the directory membership. You know, the coaches get to kind of do they get peer to peer support together as their community they can join?
Steph Durbin 23:28
The main community piece at the moment. The main one is the online supervision that gets offered so all of our coaches get offered a quantitive online group supervision that's obviously not compulsory, and I couldn't make it compulsory. Although in an unregulated industry, I I hope that one day does become regulated that coaches get it.
Gill Moakes 23:51
Oh, I, you and me both. Yeah, I think we think the same about that, don't we? I wish the coaching industry would become regulated, I would be absolutely all for it. I think we have to start prioritising the standard of coaching that clients get.
Steph Durbin 24:07
And that's what our online group supervision does for them. It gives them that opportunity in a very non judgmental, confidential arena to just talk about the stuff of coaching, depending on whatever the theme is the supervision theme, as we want, we run through we cycled through a framework of supervision using a recognised model. But then really, I let the coaches in those environments kind of take the conversation where it needs to go for them. So the coaches that gradually they're getting to know each other. It might be it could be a completely different group of coaches that turn up every time. Just that's just the way it works. We have a maximum of 10 on any session, but they're very personal. And those coaches that turn up regularly are getting to know each other. And that's one of the things I love about the coaching industry. We are possibly the least personally competitive industry of any that I've ever worked in, and I've worked, I've worked in some quite competitive industries. And I'm very much a, I'm a facilitator Well, I'm a supervisor. But I'm an observer and I'm a participant. That's a nice community feel.
Gill Moakes 25:23
Yeah, I love that.
Steph Durbin 25:25
And we were talking at the moment about whether to do more informal type of an online community where it's, I don't know, like coffee droppings or Friday, wine time or, nice. And we're exploring with the coaches, what would work for them in terms of just somewhere where we can just hang out together probably like, it's a bit like informal supervision really is a bit informal peer to peer
Gill Moakes 25:49
Love that. I really like that because I genuinely think entrepreneurial loneliness in general is a real thing, particularly now, you know, when so many of us work remotely, you know, our teams are remote. Because the online world has become so noisy. And just going back to that, you know, there is a very low barrier to entry now for starting an online business of any kind. And coaching in particular, there's really no barrier to entry for setting yourself up and calling yourself a coach. And I think the problem then becomes that those coaches who are committed to their personal development and to investing in being the best coach, they can be for their clients, those coaches, the kind of coaches that you welcome into the directory. They want a community around them of people who think like that. They don't really want the risk of joining a flippin Facebook group that stuffed to the gills with people who are just wanting to promote what they're doing. I would imagine not many directories offer that am I right in saying that?
Steph Durbin 27:00
There are a couple where, where they've been set up maybe by the coach, training provider. So if, if an organisation has delivered a training programme that's been certified and credentialed by them, some of those have an online directory. And as part of that offer, they have supervision included, I have come across some that I've got a couple of my members that actually have supervision from that room as well. But it's not usual.
Gill Moakes 27:32
No, no, I think it's a very nice touch. Yeah, yeah.
Steph Durbin 27:36
I didn't quite see the importance of it when we first designed the platform. And then I did can't even remember how it came about. I think we were we were talking and exploring the how do we add more value? And what skill do we have already in house that will offer more value to coaches and it just seemed like a no brainer. When we actually realised hang on a minute, I'm qualified, I'm doing this. And coaches aren't getting it. And one of the supervision could be a whole nother conversation, really Gill. But yeah, the barrier to coaches getting supervision, some of that is quite, quite deep in the coach, maybe the fear of judgement or the fear of failure, or they're just exposing themselves if they
Gill Moakes 28:27
I think it's that exposure, isn't it? It's feeling exposed. The fear of feeling judged.
Steph Durbin 28:34
And the biggest barrier for some coaches is cost, especially the new coaches who were already having to work out there. Where did they spend the money on marketing? And do they join the directory? What's their return on investment going to be? Supervision isn't cheap, nor should it be for what it is, but so to be able to offer it as a benefit. It's something that I'm doing anyway, then it really did did seem like a no brainer. It's the right thing to do to make it accessible to all coaches. And breaking down those barriers, that it's not a scary place, there is no judgement, like we have confidentiality is the number one rule for everything we do as coaches with clients. It's exactly the same in supervision, confidentiality, and no judgement.
Gill Moakes 29:22
Yeah, a really safe space.
Steph Durbin 29:26
And unless you've experienced that, if you haven't, if anyone has any doubts, unless they've experienced it, they don't realise just how safe that feels to get off your chest.
Gill Moakes 29:34
Maybe I'm just thinking that obviously, my listeners obviously aren't all coaches. I know that I have a lot of coaches that listen in but for anyone who isn't a coach, maybe we should just explain. Perhaps you could just explain what what you mean, when you call it supervision. I just suddenly became very aware that we were using something that we as coaches completely know what that means. And there will be people listening thinking, why do they have to be supervised? What are they doing?.
Steph Durbin 30:02
No, it's not it's not like that at all. But I guess, I guess the one word that's just popped in my head is there's something here about oversight. So a coaching supervisor will have the experience of coaching have the experience of their own clients and case studies, they look qualified as a coach supervisor, hopefully, just like all our coaches have. So there's something about over overseeing what coaches do. Now, for coaches, it's probably easier to talk about it from that perspective. From a coach's perspective, supervision helps them to stay fresh and up to date. It helps them to face some challenges that they might have as a coach, some things that they're not sure how to deal with, with the client, or things they've done or said to a client that sat uncomfortably with them. Or things they didn't say, to a client that sits uncomfortably to them and then exploring, so why didn't they so very similar to coaching, coaching the coaches in that in those kinds of examples, and it's not always, it's not always exactly like that. It's not always about coaches, bringing problems and challenges, it can just be about learning about new frameworks and tools and hints and tips. It can be about December, we're doing well being coaches, like when we mentioned about being a lonely place, as running a new business, as a coach, you put all of your effort into helping your clients, and you're carrying that on your shoulders with no one to really talk to about it. And that's where supervision gives you a really safe space to be able to just offload and the well being of coaches, that's our first wellbeing session in December, I mean, really well being of coaches runs through all of our supervision events anyway. But that's a good place to check in with coaches about how do they look after themselves? How do they turn up for a client session? Being them their best selves, to be fair to their clients? So their clients have the best experience? And then how do they look after themselves after a coaching session? How do they compartmentalise reflect or all of the other many things they might do after a session? But how do they do it? supervision for us is the combination really of the Ethics and Standards, information and education, and then wellbeing, that's kind of the three headlines that we talked about. And if our coaches can come to our sessions and benefit from all of that, then they're growing as individuals versus the flip side, which is they don't get any of that they qualify 10 years ago, or 10 years ago, and they do no other learning. They have plenty of clients, but they don't develop themselves or look after themselves or challenge themselves, or expose themselves in a safe, might be inappropriate, use the word expose themselves. Sorry.
Gill Moakes 33:10
oh, I'm all about exposing myself.
Steph Durbin 33:16
Yeah, so it's that it's helping coaches to feel that it's okay for it to be difficult sometimes.
Gill Moakes 33:27
Gosh, absolutely. I could not agree more. The thing that I think is so important with this is that if you're offering that kind of peer to peer support, that that supervision, isn't it just so important, that it's that these are like minded coaches, these are coaches who share that same commitment to the code of ethics, that same commitment to personal development, you know, and this is why I, I really love this whole concept, because it's, it's basically doing some of the hard work of finding a community of like minded people around you, as a, as an entrepreneur, as a coach. Without having to just be set free in the wilds of the Internet to try and track down people like you. You're doing a lot of that hard work by making sure that you're attracting the right people to the directory. And I just love that, you know, I love the amount of thought that goes into this from every aspect. So I suppose that brings me on to thinking though, so we've talked about what happens behind the scenes of the directory, which is really making it the best optimise the best for SEO that you can, being mindful about who you invite to become members and having some eligibility criteria for that. You know, giving each person their own landing page, all of those things that that go on behind the scenes, then there's the actual coaches themselves. What about from the perspective of a client who is looking for a coach? What kind of coaches are there? And you know how to clients find coaches by the directory, I guess,
Steph Durbin 35:22
It's a really interesting conversation and one that we we've gone quite deep into in terms of a client journey. So there will be very few clients that just think I need a personal coach, and there must be an online coach directory somewhere, let's find one, oh, there's a coach done. It just it's very, very unlikely that that's the client journey, the client journey probably starts with something like, how do I develop my resilience? Or what is impostor syndrome? Or because they've heard it somewhere?
Gill Moakes 35:58
That's it? Yeah.
Steph Durbin 35:59
They don't realise that they need a coach or that coach is a good idea.
Gill Moakes 36:04
No, they don't realise that that could be the solution. No,
Steph Durbin 36:08
That's exactly right. And in an even when they land on that being a solution, it that could take, that could take months of Ah, okay, so there's actually people out there that can help me with this, because ordinary lay people that aren't in the coaching industry, and probably don't even have access to understanding what coaching can do for them. So it can be a long journey. And then it's the Okay, so how do I find a coach? Well, that journey then is, it can be, because they might ask friends, and that's where the referral bit comes in. Or, like me, first thing I always do is Google. And then they might then come across the fact that actually there are online directories for coaches, boom, great, that's kind of what we're hoping for. But they don't necessarily know if you're not in this industry, you wouldn't necessarily know that this is how it can be operated. And then when they find a coach directory, what we need is that experience when they land on our homepage, as a result of coming up on the front page of Google search, after maybe many months of trying to work out whether they want or need a coach at all, is making sure that that experience, then the first time they come to our site to find the coach is satisfying enough for them that they come back again, because they're highly unlikely to click and send an email to the first coach that they land on when they land on the coach directory. Because we're humans, we kind of don't do that. And if, if you're a client new to coaching, you probably not just going to pick the first coach that you see, you're going to come back and visit them more than once. And we see that behaviour on the site where the same, the same addresses are pinging the same coach two or three times so we know they're coming back. And looking at the same coach before they get their nerve up to actually visit the coach's website or visit their LinkedIn or even, hopefully make a phone call or send an email. So the journey bit is something we we spend a lot of time exploring. So if we can understand the journey that clients are on, before they make that final approach, then we tailor the website to that journey, we tailor our articles to that journey, we tailor the coach profiles to that in terms of when they actually land on the site. The The other challenge that we have is that clients do not really genuinely understand the difference between a life personal coach, a business coach, and executive coach and transformational coach, all those different types of coaches that a client doesn't necessarily understand what the difference is. And is there much difference, because we all use the same psychology and the same coaching techniques, a coach is a coach, we might specialise in a certain area. So to help clients with that was quite clear about describing the different types of coach that there are on the directory. So we have 12 categories. Some of them don't have any coaches listed under them at the moment. So we might make those redundant. But we're very flexible with our coaches about what they would like to call themselves from the perspective of if you're a client looking for a coach, do you really know what you're looking for? So we're quite interested yeah, trying to close that gap for clients. Because it's a it's a big industry to delve into if you've never had a coach and don't know anything about what you're looking for.
Gill Moakes 39:38
Absolutely.
Steph Durbin 39:39
And if you do, then that's an easier journey. If you do know and you've done it before you've had to coach before, it's a much much easier journey in that that whole piece from exploration to making contact is probably a lot lot shorter. Because you would know what you were what you were looking for.
Gill Moakes 39:56
And so presumably then the what the coaches put on there. Profiles, the keywords that they're using in their profiles becomes very important in terms of, which is that how it would work so that the coaches who have them who are most suited will come up for a client search.
Steph Durbin 40:15
A client can search, they can search on a coach directory, either by geography. So they might want to coach in Scotland, for example, or a coach in Yorkshire or wherever or they ordered an interactive map. So they can just literally zoom around and find the coach that they want that way. Or they can search by keyword. So they might type in a phrase that they're looking for a coach that can help them with that, if that coach is tagged to that, then they're gonna be found that way. Or they can search by coach type. So they're looking for a business coach or a life coach. And that's, and that's how the search works. So there's kind of three layers to it, which makes it easier for clients to find whatever type of coach that they're looking for.
Gill Moakes 41:02
Okay, so from a client's perspective, this is like, like, I love that way that you've looked at it as different journeys. And this is I suppose, I know I keep harping on about it, but Steph, but I feel like this is what you do really well, which is going deep into the behind the the need behind the need, and the and the behind the scenes bits of how this is going to actually work in the real world. And this is why I just want anyone listening, if you are a new coach, or if you're an established coach who wants to really look at your visibility and wants this, like we said before, this community aspect is the group supervision, that you know, just feeling less alone as a coach. And also, it's not just feeling less alone, is it? Because I think you alluded to this earlier stuff about how coaches are so collaborative. I think the coaching industry, that's one of the most wonderful things about it is that it's very inclusive, very collaborative. If people are listening, and would love to find out more about the coach directory, where can they go to find out stuff,
Steph Durbin 42:11
First place I would direct them to would be to the website, that's Coach directory.co.uk. That will be the first place, have a look at it and have a look at some of the coaches on there and feel, feel the feel of what it's about having listened to the podcast, and then experience it from that perspective. And there'll be there's a contact form on there. If you wanted to drop us a line and emails, the other place would probably be on LinkedIn. That's kind of our main platform for talking to coaches. And you can connect with me on there, Steph, Durban, and you can connect with the coach directory business page on LinkedIn, which is where we do most of our kind of coach to coach social engagement. And then send me a message if you want to talk about if you want to know more send the message on LinkedIn, I manage all of that. Personally, we don't outsource any of the actual social media engagement stuff we do that ourselves, that's part of our personal service commitment.
Gill Moakes 43:13
Definitely, I would highly recommend you go and check that out. Coach directory.co.uk. Is that right?
Steph Durbin 43:20
That's right.
Gill Moakes 43:22
Perfect. Steph, it has been such a pleasure to have you on today. Thank you so much. It's just I know, there's something just so good about talking with other people who are in the same industry your in who share the same outlook on that industry and the same passion for raising the standards in it.
Steph Durbin 43:44
We're very passionate about what we do. And we really believe that it's the right thing to do. So that's what's driving us.
Gill Moakes 43:51
Absolutely. Thanks so much. Okay, bye for now. Bye.
Gill Moakes 43:56
I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that getting our heads together this week has filled your mind with what's possible. If you love the show, would you do me a massive favour please? Would you leave a five star rating on Apple podcasts? It would really help me put more heads together, reach more ears and expand more minds. Until next week. Bye for now.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
