Consider all the various service-based professionals: attorneys, financial planners, doctors, mental health professionals, human resource professionals, trainers, educators, and consultants to name some. In each case these professionals are the experts and the services they provide are based on their subject matter expertise.
Now consider coaches: these service-based professionals offer process expertise founded on the premise that whoever hires them and the individuals they serve are the experts. A coach is a partner that listens completely, asks questions, and empowers others to figure out their own answer and action plan. In coach training a significant insight is that empowering others to find their own answer takes more time, patience and skill.
Coaches who have completed their coaching certification may have subject matter expertise. The difference for a coach with subject matter expertise is that instead of being the expert who knows and provides the answers, the subject matter expertise is used for understanding the client and for formulating questions.
To simplify, coaching is unique because while other professionals are hired primarily for their ability to give answers, coaches are hired primarily for their ability to ask questions that move others to their own answer.
Coaching is unique in achieving results too with an average ROI of 600%!
The unique approach of coaching creates the unique level of return on investment – coaching is empowering and powerful.