"The Ethical Coaching Organizations Guidelines To Ethical Coaching And Consulting Practice"
By
The Ethical Coaching Organization Chief Andrew Sonctranm Consumer Advocate, Chief Ethical Standard Compliance Director, And Founder Of The Non-Profit Ethical Coaching™
FROM THE DESK OF: The Ethical Coaching™ Association Founder Andrew Sonctranm
Consumer Advocate, Chief Ethical Standard Compliance Director, And Founder Of The Non-Profit Ethical Coaching™ Association
STANDARDS AND ETHICS
WOW™ Experience Of All Clients
Dear coach or consultant who wants to abide by the highest ethical standards and reap great personal and social rewards, as a result,
In this special ‘ethical standards’ educational report, our ethical board at Ethical Coaching Organization, donates this special report for free to coaches and consultants wanting to ensure their ethical standards are on the right foot, we’ll talk about the WOW™ experience, and why it’s important to create this wow experiences for all clients you work with for the rest of your career.
We’ll talk about why and how it creates more success for you, increases your profits, even be a policy that will allow you to gain freedom, and makes your clients very happy – every time.
Obviously, you don’t need me to tell you why having happy clients will make your life easier, your business more profitable, and the world a better place… nor do you need me to tell you this is the most ethical way to conduct your coaching or consulting practice. You already ‘get’ that.
What I will tell you is there is a formula so important to achieving this ethical standard and outcome that I’ve trademarked it as the WOW™ experience.
And because I want you to live up to the highest ethical standards as a coach so you stand out, and because I want to save the coaching and consulting industry from being hurt by unethical coaches and consultants who don’t abide by the highest ethical standards, I’ve made this training, free for you, at no additional cost.
I believe in coaches. I believe in consultants. I believe you are here to do a lot of good. You just need an ethical body to help point you in the right direction, so you can adopt the highest ethical standards and I promise you, when you do, all will be happier. Your clients, you, and your bank balance because it will create an upward spiral of success for you.
I wish you great success, wealth, and prosperity – using the most ethical standards known in the coaching and consultant industry I pledge to always use, and all certified ‘Ethical Coaching’ stamped coaches and consultants just like you pledge they will for their whole careers.
You stand out as a shining light among people, coaches, and consultants for following these ethical guidelines. May you be greatly enriched and all those you work with greatly enriched as a result.
Let’s get started!
ETHICAL STANDARD #1:
WOW™ Experience Factor
The WOW™ experience factor is the highest ethical standard all coaching practices must pledge to follow and integrate into every fabric of their businesses to receive the Ethical Coaching Stamp of Approval.
The WOW™ experience factor includes a four main areas:
Ethical Standard WOW™ Principle 1:
Under-Promise, Over-Deliver
In this section, we’ll talk about the ethical standard of under-promising, and over-delivering.
At first glance, you might think this means not to advertise aggressively, effectively, or with winning in mind. This is not true at all! Quite the opposite actually…
…you see, when you use the concept I’ll share with you here of ‘over-delivering while under-promising’, you still offer your best. You still put your best foot forward.
You just don’t lie!
If you feel like you must lie, mislead, or deceive to win, then you aren’t thinking right. And that will lead to a lot of pain and suffering for yourself and others short term and long term.
Believe me, I’ve seen many coaches and consultants stretch the truth only to make short term gains but then come out a loser at the end. Because your reputation will suffer, your peace of mind will suffer, and your business will not have the benefit of the WOW™ experience factor that grows your business for you.
The good will you generate will propel your business forward for you, and also you will have more energy, peace, and happiness knowing you are abiding by the highest ethical standards you can.
This concept is just as simple as looking at all you do, and being only 100% honest with what you know you can actually deliver, time and time again. Then promising that. And nothing more.
The key is, if you know with certainty you can deliver the goods over and over again. Now trust me on this one, scale it back just 5-10%.
I know that can sound frightening, scary or that you’ll lose a competitive advantage. But you won’t and I’ll explain why in a moment.
So let’s say for example, I know I can many any coach or consultant in the business, relationship, health, spiritual niches 1,000 paying membership signups to a monthly membership business I create for them, in just 8-weeks.
Because of my experience, I know that is the average.
But what you want to do to create a WOW™ experience and the ensure just in case, for some very rare and strange reason, you are off the 1,000 mark for a client and only get 800, you under-promise.
So that would be promising about 500 member signups in 8-weeks.
That is very achievable based on past results, and it is still a greatly desirable outcome a coach or consultant would want. Because even if selling each member at $97-$297 per month, that’s $48,500 profits at the lowest end of just $97 per month. That’s $582,000 over the year – automatically. So you can see this is still very desirable for any coach or consultant. And it is under-promising based on history and experience.
So now when they get more than 500 members in 8-weeks, they are totally thrilled! And they literally fall in love with you for life.
This means referrals, repeat business, and them joining your higher end programs if you want to make them available.
For me, I have a very high end mastermind group of 20 clients I’ve worked with to achieve great results, who all pay $120,000 per year to meet with me 3 times per year. None of these clients would pay that much or join my mastermind group, unless I under-promised, and over-delivered – thus creating the WOW™ experience for them.
The power of this WOW™ experience will be helpful to you for a very long time and your clients will be thrilled every time.
This is THE HIGHEST ETHICAL STANDARD you could ever abide by as a coach or consultant.
Now with confidence, you can market aggressively, be very bold in your claims, be strong in your efforts. And that allows you to ethically market the heck out of your coaching or consulting services with confidence, safety and security.
And the boldness you get from this will enliven everything you do as a coach or consultant.
Now there are many effective marketing models and strategies that is beyond the scope of this ethical guideline, but rest-assure. If you follow this ethical standard of under-promising, and over-delivering, you are on the ethical track to great long-term business success.
Ethical Standard WOW™ Principle 2:
Long Term Relationship.
There is no doubt about it, the ethical standard of thinking of your clients in terms of long-term relationships will help you steer clear of short-term thinking.
The best coaching practices are built on the idea of long-term relationships.
Now that doesn’t mean you do unethical practices like stringing them along for long-term one-sided gain. NO! That is unethical and the opposite of what we’re talking about here.
This has to do with actually helping the client overcome their challenges, grow, or learn whatever they need to get the result they are after. This allows you to have a successful practice short-term and long-term. Why?
Because the real results you deliver will create ‘Champions’ who literally go and ‘sell’ your business to their friends, family, relatives and or their companies – basically to people who know, like, and trust them… the warmest kind of lead you can have.
I can tell you the power of ‘relationship’ to grow your business is one of, if not the very best way, to build your business success long-term.
Think about it.
I remember being at the gym recently doing Yoga, which I’ve done for many years. I met a new guy who became friendly with me and found out I took a Yoga class.
This man NEVER thought of doing Yoga before, in fact, he was the most inflexible person I think I’ve seen in a longtime. But because of my natural passion and enthusiasm about Yoga and it’s benefits, it just naturally came out of me in a conversation and you know what happened?
That’s right. He joined the Yoga class.
And though I thought he’d give up. Guess what? My enthusiasm and leadership effected him so much he keep going and got great results.
The reality is, I’m a champion of Yoga because I did it and am enthusiastic about it’s results. This is talked about as people get to know about me, or they see I take classes.
So people who are more intimate with me, closer to me, or my area… I’m a guy who naturally has a lot of leadership, so people see it and are sold on it naturally.
I don’t get paid to sell others on Yoga, I’m just grateful for its benefits and enjoy it.
The same will be true when you under-promise, and over-deliver and think LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS with all clients.
It will ensure you act in a way that is ethical. And that is the base of a healthy business that thrives and helps a lot of people and makes you proud.
You think long-term relationship because you know every client you help does have many long-term relationships in their life, people who are similar to them, that they have great influence on.
The beauty is, when you do what is ethical and right and truly deliver a WOW™ experience and help them, they will naturally tell all their closest long-term relationships, and you’ll have them coming and joining your programs or buying your services too, and so on.
If you are selling a membership, or a high ticket solution, the concept is the same. Always think long-term relationship as a high standard of ethics and it will guide your ethical behaviour.
Ethical Standard WOW™ Principle 3:
Ethics
In this guide, we’ll define ethics as doing what is right for your clients, and yourself, so your clients get the results they are after and their expectations met or exceeded with the WOW™ experience, and you become more profitable.
In short, ethics here is defined as a win-win for everyone.
To abide by these standards, here is a helpful tool we suggest all coaches and consultants seeking approval with the Ethical Coaching stamp, print this off and keep it in a prominent place for you the see regularly and internalize for one year.
1) Right heart intention is to serve, help, and improve the lives of clients. Never self-serving, extracting, or trying to hurt.
2) Under-promise, over-deliver. Restructure your offering until you can do this.
3) Always create WOW™ experiences with all clients.
4) Long-term relationships minded. Don’t do anything for short-term gain if it compromises ethical standards.
5) Don’t lie. Speak the truth even if it means losing a client.
6) Don’t sell anything that hurts others. Only sell something that helps others and makes the world a better place.
Ethical Standard WOW™ Principle 4:
Highest Ethical Standards Equal Happy Clients
And More Success For Coaches And Consultants
I’m a champion of ethical coaches and consultants. I’m a champion of coaching and consultants success. I want every coach and consultant to make great profits, have happy clients, and a thriving business that gives them financial freedom and lifestyle freedom.
That is why I created this non-profit board to ensure the highest ethical standards are being met in the coaching or consulting industry to it continues to thrive well into the future, and all coaches and consultants benefit from this ongoing success.
But it can’t be had without ethical standards being seen widely among all coaches and consultants in the industry. This is why its important all coaches and consultants get on board with the ethical standards I’ve outlined here so everyone thrives and does better, long-term.
The reason why I created this is because as a very successful coach and consultant, I have been making multi-millions per year for over 15 years, and I wanted to help other coaches and consultants experience great financial freedom and lifestyle freedom leveraging the modern day system I created as well as take advantage of the modern day 21st century technologies available that when combined, could make coaches 6-7 figures or more per year while not having to work anymore.
This is because of the monthly membership model of business, using my proven systems for coaches and consultants I customize for them, so everything is easy including their monthly fast delivered digital deliverable to their niche, it makes it all easy when someone has 500+ members paying every month from $97-$297 per month to have total lifestyle freedom and financial freedom in just 8-weeks.
So I helped many coaches and consultants do exactly that and it was my passion, my interest, and what got me to jump up out of bed in the morning with a smile on my face.
This was like a non-for-profit for me, because I already was making multiple millions of dollars in my other memberships, and also I had built multiple businesses that ran without me.
I’m a multi-millionaire that doesn’t have to work again unless I want. But if you have achieve multiple-millions, travelled all around the world like I have (many times), and living a retirement lifestyle, you’ll find that you want to stay productive, give back, and contribute more to causes you care deeply about.
Because I was a coach and consultant for so long, and I know the heart of a coach and consultant is to be a helper and change people’s lives, I wanted to give back and help this community.
I’m grateful I did and love hearing the warm hearted success stories from coaches and consultants I’ve helped.
Most were working 120 hours or more per month and trading hours for dollars. Or what I call the Modern Day Slavery Trap™.
Many where doing this 10, 20, 30 years and more.
That’s a whole life without the financial freedom and lifestyle freedom you could and should have if you used smarter systems, and modern day 21st century technologies that now let you do that.
It was when I was helping these coaches and consultants I often heard them express being mislead by a so-called ‘goo-roo’ who just sold them a box of stuff and didn’t actually help them do it.
And the systems were all so outdated it just caused more frustration, more work, and more slavery.
That is not the way to live nor do things.
I heard these anger producing stories so much, I almost blew my top!
It was time to do something to ensure this never happened to good coaches and consultants again.
I created this non-profit Ethical Coaching Organization to clean out the swamp all the bad guys, the coaches and consultants who are unethical, selling a box of goods but not helping clients do it by doing it for them or with them.
This is important because just like I wouldn’t give you a box of heart-surgery and expect you do it is all in 3 months, if you tried to perform heart-surgery, what would happen? A big mess!
The same is true for coaches and consultant who are given all this business training and most of it is outdated and hardly effective. Especially in the modern day world.
Many are using different tactics like some new app, or social media, or whatever… none if it works good to give you freedom.
That is why I call it out.
What I found does work is having a ‘real’ business as a coach or consultant.
Having consistent income.
Escaping the yo-yo inconsistent style income most are trapped in.
You do this by having a consistent, reliable, guaranteed passive recurring income coming in every month, rain-or-shine, no matter what.
This is what is called a ‘real’ business.
The fastest, easiest, sure-fire way to achieve this and escape the modern day slavery trap is with a membership launch – the kind that I’ve championed and do with coaches and consultants over an 8-week period aimed at getting you 500 members or more within this period paying from $97-$297 per month.
The fact is, this is possible and achievable for virtually any coach or consultant. You just need the right expert to help you.
And that is where the ethical standard is.
You must be helped.
Just like a senior and experienced heart-surgeon can step in and do it with you, so you don’t make a mistake and create a big mess – or someone dies!
The same is true for the ethical standards of helping you succeed in your coaching and consulting business.
I believe all coaches and consultants deserve a real business.
A business that brings you in consistent, reliable, recurring monthly income no matter what – at a level that gives you total lifestyle freedom and financial freedom.
And I don’t care what kind of coach or consultant you are. It doesn’t matter in this modern day world with the modern day 21st century systems available – any niche can be automated and put successfully in this format even if you don’t think it can – or a fool would argue about before trying to seeing for themselves.
Because I care deeply about coaches and consultants, and kept hearing these unethical cases from clients I helped, I couldn’t sit back and let them run their unethical gambits any longer.
That is why I created this non-profit certification program to protect coaches and consultants by getting the word out about unethical coaches and consultants and their practices. And to create an agreed upon high ethical standards to be followed universally so the coaching and consulting industry survives and thrives to the benefit of all.
The reason I championed this non-profit was because I love coaches and consultants and want to protect the industry for ethical practitioners.
By following the ethical guidelines here and providing the WOW™ experience to all future clients by under-promising, and over-delivering, you’ll ensure your great success and the success of the coaching and consulting industry.
ETHICAL STANDARD #5:
No Dangerous Drugs When Safe
Proven Non-Drug Solutions Exist
When drugs are absolutely needed, we stand behind them. Like in the case of a major issue that must be treated with drugs and there are no non-drug alternatives.
But due to abuse, overuse, and outright fraud, we don’t condone nor certify any practitioner using any kind of drugs over already proven non-drug lifestyle treatments.
Some think clients won’t do the work, or change to a lifestyle that will cure their issue. However, that argument has been debunked by many studies and we believe a natural, life-giving, empowering solution is always best.
As a result, we don’t condone drugs when a proven non-drug option is available. This is unethical. Because non-drug options have no ill side effects, empower the individual, and cure the root cause instead of medicate symptoms only.
ETHICAL STANDARD #6:
Brief Effective Results-Oriented Solutions
We believe any solution a coach or consultant has to provide, in terms of transformation should be done in an ethical way to empower the individual and get them to their results as fast as possible.
It is unethical to string clients along, make them dependent upon your services for years and years and years without them getting to their promised goal.
The standard for ethics is similar to what has happened in psychotherapy from the Freudian era of pseudo-science that kept people on their couch for life, to scientifically validated brief-therapies that get people well within months.
Now it is ethical to give ongoing help, guidance, training to interest topics, areas, and niches. Memberships, clubs, and the like. But the promise must be delivered upon and should be stated as an ongoing value. That is a high standard of ethics must take into consideration the value delivered and the promises to the market.
ETHICAL STANDARD #7:
Clearly Defined SMART Goals
This is where the rubber meets the road. You must operate within the highest ethical standards by setting a SMART goal for everything you provide to your ideal clients.
They should know with precision what the results or outcome should be and within what time frame.
This allows them to move forward with clarity and confidence under your guidance.
This gives a win-win for you and them.
In order to do this, you must use the WOW™ experience factor to under-promise, and over-deliver. Based on real results to take what you know you can deliver to clients with 100% certainty, then under-promising from that by 5-10% or more.
You’ll realize why this is so important to your great success in the section on creating the WOW™ factor and using it as your highest ethical standard in your coaching and consulting practice.
It all starts with being very clear on your value delivery and results and making claims you can over-deliver on so clients are thrilled with doing business with you.
The whole concept of ‘Do unto others, as you’d have them do to you’ truly is the golden rule of ethical standards that this falls under.
With my best and warmest wishes that you thrive using the highest ethical standards and all your clients are very happy,
Andrew Sonctranm
Andrew Sonctranm
Chief Consumer Advocate and Founder of The Non-Profit Ethical Coaching™ Association
The Ethical Coaching Association (ECA) is a best practice standards setting and educating association committed to creating and sustaining high quality ethics & customer satisfaction programs for the coaching and consulting industry for the benefit of all.
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