Previously, I described the five main criteria (labeled as Group One) that we have found to provide excellent indicators of whether a personal coach can and will coach you to great success. Here they are again!

1. How well you connect and enjoy communicating with the coach.

2. The number of years they have been providing true coaching

3. The number of past clients they have coached to success.

4. The success rates of their clients.

5. The number of real referrals they received from people you know.

The difficult part is to learn enough about these 5 criteria of prospective personal coaches to be able to make an informed decision about picking the best coach for you. So let’s dig into how this information can be attained as smoothly and accurately as possible.

1. How well you connect and enjoy communicating with the coach.
This criterion is critical. If you do not feel a great connection with a prospective coach for any reason, move on to the next coach. The best way to determine this is to participate in a sample session with a prospective coach. Let the natural flow of the session and your intuition guide you. I also strongly recommend that you do not meet the coach physically and if possible you do not visit or read much from their web site. Most experienced coaches will offer a free sample session or a one time much lower cost sample session.

2. The number of years they have been providing true coaching
Ask the coach how many years he or she has been actively coaching on a professional level, where they are compensated one way or another for their coaching. Avoid the many people who claim they have been coaching almost all of their lives. Be sure to clarify that their coaching was done with one on one clients and not paid for by any third party corporations or organizations, or where they were coaching as managers of others. The more years the prospective coach has coached under these conditions, the better for you.

3. The number of past clients they have coached to success.
This goes hand in had with the number of years but divulges the intensity and frequency of coaching. The same thing applies to the type of clients as with #2 above. Be sure the prospective coach does not include therapy patients, consulting clients, group-coaching clients, counseling clients, or subordinates in their number of coaching clients. The more independently coached clients prospective coaches may have, the better for you.

4. The success rates of their clients.
Ideally, prospective coaches will give you the total number of clients coached, to answer criteria # 3 and also give you the number of clients who achieved their stated coachable goals, either as a total number or as a percentage. However, in today’s world where the overwhelming emphasis has been placed on coach training, coaching certifications and coaching publications, too few coaches consider the success rates of their clients. Ask the prospective coach anyway, and if they have any prior knowledge or calculations to report to you about client success rates, consider that an excellent indicator that they consider their clients successes important enough to track. The strict confidentiality between coaches and clients makes it very difficult to accurately verify the success claims of the coach, but success rates can be determined by coaches and can be reported as a group without violating confidentiality.

5. The number of real referrals they received from people you know.
Just like you would ask a prospective employee for referrals, ask your prospective coach for the same. Get the names, telephone numbers and permission to contact several referrals. If your prospective coach has satisfied you through the first four criteria, asking for referrals would be a very good idea, but if your prospective coach failed any of the other four criteria, there is no sense in bothering with referrals. If you feel asking for referrals is appropriate, then be sure to at least call every referral you get. You will be amazed at what people will tell you and you will be sending a message to the prospective coach that you are serious about succeeding through coaching.

Remember, when you are selecting your ideal personal coach you are relying heavily, if not entirely on your gut instincts to pick the coach whom you really do like and feel a great connection with. You are not buying a car or computer where specifications become important. Consequently, there are no hard numbers for criterion 2 through 5 to follow. If you get a strong connection as part of criteria 1, getting positive solid responses from 2 through 5 will most likely confirm what you already felt.

Going to the trouble to select the right coach for you will be worth it. Doing so will assure that you will achieve coachable goals more remarkable than you ever thought possible before.

Have fun!