As a professional, how do you define success for your firm or company and, just as critically, for you?

To achieve that success, you, as a professional, often require solid and objective input on issues you confront in your day-to-day operations.  Whether you own your own practice, work as a partner or associate in a private firm, company, or organization, or are employed in the public sector, the issues you face on a daily basis are largely universal.

In today’s professional environment, the competition is brutal, the game is tougher than ever, the stakes are higher, and the firm and client expectations often seem insurmountable.  How do you handle all these issues without feeling completely overwhelmed, while attempting to carve out a life beyond your professional world?  So often, there’s no one within your organization to whom you can comfortably turn for answers.  Given this reality, such advice is often best sought from external sources, which is typically the role a coach fulfills for professionals.

Some of the many issues often handled in a coaching relationship with professionals include:

• Leadership and mentoring skills
• Time management and organizational mastery
• Strategic business planning
• Professional business/client development and networking/marketing planning (to enhance your position and value to the firm, while still maintaining personal caseload)
• Client service quality and client retention
• Cash flow, profitability, financial planning
• Case management
• Acquisition, capitalization, and retention of best talent
• Work delegation issues
• Employment/HR issues
• Associate/staff support
• Team building
• Negotiation skills enhancement
• Motivational strategies to maximize employee buy-in and firm morale
• Engendering effective communication within all levels of your firm
• Increasing productivity
• Reputation enhancement within your professional field
• Discerning when loyalty to self may supersede loyalty to your firm
• Creating ways to carve out a fulfilling personal life (when your work week could easily never end)
• And the list goes on…

But, most critically, the key to achieving continued success as a professional is having someone to whom you can comfortably reach out for honest, objective advice and guidance, to enhance your value to your firm/organization, and without the risk of compromising other’s perceptions of your abilities or stature within the firm/organization.

A coach provides the priceless commodities of honesty and objectivity – serving as a non-judgmental sounding board, and offering effective business guidance without compromising your professional position.  How invaluable to have someone in your corner with whom you can have open confidential dialogue, to whom you can reach out for guidance, and to whom you’re accountable to stay on track, all the while knowing they have no agenda other than to support you in reaching your desired level of success.

A priceless investment for your professional success, wouldn’t you say?