Career coaching success stories
I love reading success stories of any type, so I thought it would be fun to find and share career coaching success stories to share with my readers. I am not affiliated with any of these career coaches, and they don't know I am writing about them. These are success stories sent to me by happy clients when I posted at HelpAReporter.com (now Connectively.us) that I was seeking career coaching success stories. Some of these stories are long, but I thought they were so interesting, I didn't heavily edit them.
“Janet, I saw your inquiry, and I wanted to share with you my experience using SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) as my career coach. A client first told me about SCORE, the national organization providing free and low-cost counseling to businesses and entrepreneurs when I was interested in hiring an assistant to help with my Songpreneurs community.
I filled out an online survey on the SCORE website, and a few days later, received a phone call from Mr. Lewis Moorer, the retired executive who was assigned to help me. I have now been working with Mr. Moorer and other SCORE counselors for over two years, and their assistance has been immeasurable.
Mr. Moorer, who at one time ran four divisions of General Electric, and I had an initial phone conversation, and he sent me a packet of materials via mail, which I found charming and motivating, as it was a physical packet, and not only digital materials.
After six months of completing and answering all the questions in the packet, I contacted Mr. Moorer again to set up an in-person meeting. He later told me he thought I had completely fallen off the wagon! But because of the extensive nature of the preparation material, and balancing completing that with running my regular business, it took me a full six months to complete everything.
Mr. Moorer has been an amazing resource and has steered me toward sustainable success in my industry, the music business in Nashville. Despite an incredible downsizing of my profession (nearly 80% of professional songwriters have left due to declining opportunities and royalties in the traditional business model over the past 15 years), I have, with Mr. Moorer and SCORE's help, been able to increase my income by about $30K per year by following his advice, which is largely related to effective delegation and time management.
Since becoming involved with SCORE, I have seen not only my business skills increase but also my confidence as a businesswoman.
SCORE is a valuable resource for everyone, and their workshops are provided at a low cost so that virtually everyone can afford to attend. Many are free, and their extensive four-hour workshop events are usually priced at around $25.” - Amanda Colleen Williams
“Janet, I worked with a career coach, Jen Shultz, based out of Austin, TX. I wasn't looking for a coach when Jen and I were introduced. I had a friend who is a DJ that had a mediocre career that bloomed into his current success of being world renowned. As I was following his travels and success on Facebook, I asked him where he gets his drive and motivation, and he introduced me to Jen at the end of 2015. I was in a very busy and corporate sales job selling high-end kitchen appliances for almost seven years, but it was not very fulfilling. After my initial call with Jen at the end of 2015, I was not ready to make a change or work with a coach. When I followed up with her a few months later, I was ready to think about taking steps from being a 9-to-5er into entrepreneurship.
Jen has a program called LEAP, which helps people find their talents, strengths, courage and inner guidance to help in making this transition. She doesn't recommend everyone just quit their job to do what they love. There's strategy behind her approach that is methodical in digging deep into one's true passion and vision for how they see themselves in this new role, as compared to their current work situation to see if it is, in fact, a good step for one to take.
For me, this was my second time in my career making such a leap. This time, however, I had a different business model. In 2009, I left my sales career to become a personal trainer, and it wasn't very successful. This time, I was making the leap to fulfill my dream of being a healthy chef conducting food demos and classes.
Working with Jen really helped me to home in on my strengths as a business professional and provided me with tools and guidance to get me set up to have the courage to leave my job and work on my business with the guidance of a coach. Today, I am successfully running my business as a nutritional chef, wellness counselor, and coach. I teach private, group and corporate clients all about what I know and love: healthy cooking and nutrition.
Jen helped me with time management, specifically showing me I can find time for things that are important. She taught me to be more accountable for my own actions and responsibilities. She gave me tips on how to be more resourceful about networking, and she taught me a formula for cold calling and following up with contacts. I highly recommend coaching to be more successful and happy.” - Melissa Eboli
“After a successful and diverse 31-year career at IBM, I retired in 2010 and started my diversity and career development consultancy. When launching my ‘encore’ career, as part of my retirement package, IBM provided me with two coaches who had very different styles. I found the coaching invaluable.
The first coach, Vickie Bevenour of RDW Group, specializes in vocational transitions. She inspired me with her own example of leaving corporate America to forge her path as an successful entrepreneur. Vickie is a tough coach who taught me that discipline and planning were key to starting and running a business. She gives rigorous homework assignments to her students, so we uncover the steps we need to take to succeed, but also provides warmth and encouragement. People most often think of coaches in the realm of sports, but coaches can also work in areas of business, financial, dating, retirement planning and general life management.
Later, I transitioned to a second coach, Nancy Heller. Nancy has a soft-spoken, almost laid back style. She has a creative mind, and she frequently challenges me to look at business issues in different ways and to find innovative solutions I would not have noticed without her coaching. And like Vickie, she always offers an encouraging word which inspires me to work harder. The mix of two different styles with two different coaches has led to the best possible results.” - Stan C. Kimer
“I engaged a career coach (the same one) twice. His name is Darrell W. Gurney.
In the first round, he coached me to get an offer for an EVP of HR role, negotiate a 1.5 times increase in pay, a significant sign-on bonus, and a severance package. In addition, once I started, he coached me to deal powerfully with a very challenging company culture and environment.
In the second round, using his own unique method, he coached me to move into becoming a thought leader in a subject I deeply care about, start writing and publishing articles on LinkedIn (resulting in a big increase of exposure), prepare for other professional publications, and get in touch and interview business leaders and other thought leaders I would otherwise not have access to.” - Alexandra Levin
“Janet, I am so glad you asked! I would not still be in business if it were not for my career coach, John Felitto. Starting a business with very little money and experience is scary. You have to be a risk taker—YES—but more importantly, you need an objective voice. Your business partner is often as emotional as you are. Sharing with your business partner alone may add to the challenge of trying to solve a problem or overcome an obstacle. As a startup, 15 years ago, I had ‘support’ from friends and family but none of it was meaningful in practical terms.
A coach like John gives me a much-needed shift in perspective. John mixed the real world knowledge of business with tactical advice I could use immediately. Even better for me was the fact that he made the transition from a corporate type career to follow his passion for helping people by creating his own business. He walked the talk. He helped me to navigate issues around finance, hiring, client disputes, and employee tensions. Coaches come in many forms, but John's approach is based on values-based spiritual principles. His goal is to help you enjoy the present moment rather than put happiness on hold until a particular milestone is reached. Many coaches are GOALS oriented, and that's fine, but I wanted a coach to help me make sense of things NOW, to integrate both my personal and my business lives.
John has jogged alongside me through the ups and downs, giving me objectivity I couldn't get elsewhere. 15 years later, he is still on my Board of Advisors with an expanded role to help my office staff with one-on-one coaching and facilitation of quarterly staff meetings. It hasn't always been fun and games, but coaching gave me a better perspective on why life was unfolding in a particular way. I credit coaching with giving me the courage, clarity, and tools to navigate the great adventure of starting, owning, and operating a business.” - Maria Vizzi
“Coming out of college, I had a great job and a prosperous future in corporate sales. But after a year of working, I felt lost and confused because what I thought my career was going to look like and how it was turning out were completely different. I hated getting up every day for work and would spend most of my day filtering through social media on my phone, looking for something else to distract me. I went through a couple of other job interviews looking for another job, but I was unsuccessful. I was at a point where I simply just wanted to give up and go backpack around the world to ‘go find myself.’
I'm so glad that I didn't. Instead, I got turned on to the idea that I could change my entire situation by just changing myself. So I started to read personal development books, listen to audio tapes during my commute to work, and I instantly became enthralled with the idea that I could become better—it simply had never occurred to me. Months went by, but things at work were still the same. So, I decided to sign-up for a conference, Unleash the Power Within by Tony Robbins. The conference was $1,000 ticket plus airfare and hotel. It was by far the biggest investment I had made in myself at the time. I was so nervous about it that I canceled the ticket a month before, only to repurchase two weeks before.
The conference was truly a tipping point because at the conference the biggest question that I remember being left with was, ‘This conference was amazing and life changing, but who is going to hold you accountable when you get home?’ I didn't really have a great support network. A lot of my friends were just drinking buddies, and I had just gotten out of a relationship, so I knew that I needed someone else to help me get to where I wanted in my career. Before I left the conference, I signed up for coaching under the Tony Robbins Coaching program. And within a week I was assigned a coach, Debra Russell.
It's funny when you get assigned a coach in these types of programs because you don't know what type of coach you are going to get and have no prior knowledge. You hope they are good since they are with this program. Well, I could not have been luckier. Debra had been affiliated with the Tony Robbins program for decades, ever since Tony first started his leadership business. She was his right-hand woman for years and that experience shined through in our coaching calls. Over the next three years, we worked with each other on a weekly basis on one-hour phone meetings, going through things all the way from goal designing to understanding the dynamic between work and life.
Every week before our conversations, I would fill out a pre-call worksheet highlighting my successes for the week, what I was struggling with, and what I wanted to talk about on our call together. Almost without fail during our calls, I would come in with an idea of what I wanted to talk about or accomplish and would come out of it with something totally different, in a good way. She knew how to dig deeper into my problems to find the root cause. So, for example, I was struggling with being happy and productive at work, but that issue was really stemming from me not having an active social life outside of work. Work was becoming my social life and when you work in sales, and not in an office, my social life became my customers, which was a terrible idea.
During the time she coached me, she helped me get two promotions and helped me get recruited on LinkedIn for a 6-figure job. It's funny, though, because a lot of things that we worked on were not work related. She helped me grow as a person, and as a leader and my progress as work was only a symptom of the real progress being made. She helped me become a person who gets paid six figures, not just a person who happened to land 6-figure jobs. I think having a coach who knows how to talk to you as a human being and not as a corporate robot really helped me figure out what I wanted to do for work, and how I could achieve that by working on other areas of my life. I owe a lot of my career, my passion, and development to her.” - Scott A. Bradley
“I am a Realtor in Los Angeles and am being career coached by Gretchen Hydo of Any Lengths Coaching. She has been amazing. We are redirecting my real estate career to use social media and sophisticated marketing, rather than the ‘old’ marketing one hears from typical real estate coaches. I needed to step out and let people know who I am and how I work for Sellers and Buyers—to move beyond my friends, past clients, mailers and ‘door knocking.’ She has been a superior resource for me with practical ideas that are working. I've moved from burnout into fresh energy.” - Kathryn Bishop
“My career coach was Fred Farnsworth from Lee Hecht Harrison. I was laid off from a job in June 2016. I took advantage of the coaching offered by my former employer and changed careers to become an entrepreneur as a healthcare consultant. I have used my skill sets learned from my experiences as an RN and pharmaceutical sales representative to start my own business.
Fred coached me for the time allotted as per my former employer and assisted me with assignments, weekly calls, and answered my many questions along the way.
I also worked with the SBDC through the University of Scranton and the Women's Entrepreneurship Center to gain more local assistance. They assigned me a great mentor in my area, Rose Bradford. She has a great network that has been instrumental in assisting me with my success.
I now have an LLC, a few clients, am building up with more clients all the time, and developing a great reputation in the area. I am joining the NAPW and started a contract so I may bid for government contracts.
I am going to have a booth at a local CRNP conference next month that will give me access to 40 CRNPs during the day. My present clients and my new potential clients are excited about that.
I still keep in touch with Fred. In fact, he is one of the advisors in my company!” - Karen Graytock
If you know someone who is interested in career coaching, please share this article with them.
I first published this article on 2017-06-05 at VocationVillage.com.
