Is This the Right Career Change for You? Questions and Answers About the Outside The Job Box Career Certification Program

Your Emails Answered

I’ve been fielding phone calls and emails from people who are interested in the Certification Program all week. I was going to try to summarize things into one coherent (and shorter document). But then I thought it might help to read the questions written in their actual words.

Obviously you’d like to hear the answers too, so I have cut and pasted my replies. Again I wanted to spiff these up as well but you know what it’s like before leaving on vacation and an old friend from my corporate days is driving up from DC to spend the night so there is much scrambling to clean the house and get dressed in real clothes instead of the sweat pants and slippers I live in!

All of this is to say — this post is bound to have some typos and my replies are definitely is not grammatically correct to never mind proofed. But I hope you find these questions and my answers helpful.

QUESTION

A bit of context… Karen (not her real name) is a career counselor at a large university. Following last year’s Work at What You Love workshop, Karen sent me a box of gourmet chocolates and a note that read, “Thanks to you I can never think about work the same again.”

Karen was on the fence about the Certification last year and ultimately decided to wait. Once again she is considering signing on but had a few questions:

Dear Valerie,

One of my questions is: I’ve been to a Work At What You Love workshop, and I’m a member of the Fast Track community. So, I’ve got access to a lot of resources already. How much more will I gain from doing the certification program? I’m sure part of the answer to that is “tons of support,” and that’s certainly worth a lot.

Are there testimonials available from the people who were in the first certification program?  How many of these individuals are on their way to making a living at career consulting? Are any of these people mothers of a small child? 

I’m also just really curious to know how many hours a week (average) you work. Or is that one of those personal questions, right up there with asking someone how much he/she makes? You seem so incredibly busy, and yet happy with your quality of life.

I really admire what you do, and I’m very happy for you that you’re so successful at it.  Thanks for your hard work.

ANSWER:

Hi Karen,

I will definitely be reinforcing concepts you learned at the workshop and via Teleclasses I have conducted as part of Fast Track. It is my experience that just because you learn something once, it doesn’t always stick. There are certain concepts that are just ingrained in how I think and therefore how I work with clients. Unless you are working with these concepts day in and day out as I am, they take a while to integrate into one’s consciousness.

Specifically I am thinking of the “5 Sources of Ideas for Income Streams,” the “Life First-Work Second Approach,” and the “20 Ways to Quit Your Job and Get a Life.”

I’m not sure if this is spelled out anywhere in Fast Track or not, but also central to what I do and therefore teach, is something I call simply The Formula. It’s a series of 4 questions clients need to explore (1. What do I want? 2) What do I have? 3) Who wants what I have? 4) How do I turn my ideas into actions?) Personally I think one of THE most important techniques to master is becoming adept at helping clients ask and answer the third question, “Who wants what I have?” beyond just customers and clients.

Since you are already a career counselor (or frankly even if you weren’t) there is no reason why you could not take everything you learned at Work at What You Love and in Fast Track, integrate key concepts into your own approach (obviously crediting any of my work to me), and start seeing clients next week if you wanted to. And maybe that is a way for you to test the waters to see if you even like this work!

I work at least 40 hours a week – occasionally less and often more. I am an idea person and I have this habit of acting on ideas which of course creates a steady flow of projects! Career consulting is one of 7 income streams for me. Part of what we’ll be covering in the Certification is how to create multiple income streams. The consulting is a place to begin. But as Barbara Winter reminds people, “The business you start out with will not be the business you end up with.”

As for the current consultants, I would say about half are on their way to making a living at this work. For many “life” got in the way – three people relocated, one is taking care of aging parents, one was planning a wedding… Much of what people are focusing on now is developing their blogs, or we sites, or newsletters and other means to make people aware of who they are and what they have to offer.

Several have realized that they would rather focus on doing workshops than working one-on-one. One has decided to actively pursue a lifelong love of black and white photography and is at a 10 week training program as we speak before moving to the mountains and will do consulting on the side. Two are creating an information product together. One is going to specialize in people who want to live and work abroad. And another is an introvert who is going to work with other introverts. Several have young children.

No one is earning a living at it nor would I expect them to be – especially since none of them either chose to or are able to be building their business full time. Here is a link to an audio recording of an interview I did with 7 consultants. I gave them all the master so they can turn it into their first free bonus product or sell it if they like:

http://ChangingCourse.com/dreamteamfall06.mp3

I am also giving the CD of this away as a seminar bonus to give them more exposure. Their URLs will be on the version I’ll be handing out at the seminar. I did not put it on this version because a) some of them are still scrambling to get their sites up in time for the workshop – pressure works and b) I did not want to put them in the position of having to field a bunch of emails or calls from people with questions about the certification. (Separately I have included Carrie’s phone number – you and she attended the same workshop so she would be good to talk to.)

I have also invited the 9 consultants who are coming to the Work at What You Love seminar to design and run a Friday night brainstorming session. They’ve been meeting via conference calls to plan the agenda. Again it’s about giving them practice and exposure.

You are right I should have added more testimonials – I just ran out of time. If it helps, here is an email I received from Lynn B. this morning:

Valerie,

I am so grateful to you. I have heard from 4 people via email, and 35 people so far have signed up for my newsletter. This is exciting. I knew taking your course would be the right move. I just knew it on so many levels. I will definitely document this because it is a perfect example of what happens when you follow your strong instincts.

And not only the course itself but all the directions it has lead me in because you have exposed us to so many different people and possibilities. So thank you again my guru. Have a great day.

Lynn

Update:

Karen and I spoke my phone today. She is still undecided in part because the fall is a really busy time on campus. And yet, it seems to me that if she knew this was right for her that she would know it. I think she was relieved to have someone give her permission to consider other paths and decided to schedule an individual session with me instead.

QUESTION

Note I have edited Elaine’s question a bit to disguise other parties. Again this is not her real name.

My name is Elaine and I am interested in your program but am hesitant to sign up because of a past experience in another very similar program. I enrolled in a ”coaching” program at a cost of $5000.00 for training much like yours.  I found the “program” to be extremely frustrating because of the lack of structure with regard to specific steps, scripts and steps to follow to “coach” clients.  It was obvious after I joined that the main purpose of the program was to promote the program director and her seminars.  If you questioned the lack of structure, you were told you were being negative and not “coach” like. 

I am an intelligent woman, however, I do need some structure with regard to scripting and what words to say to clients during a phone session.  I struggle with that.  It seems easy when you hear a master life coach go through a session on the phone but when you are faced with a client starting out the words do not just flow into my head.  Perhaps I am not suited to this type of work but I am drawn to it again and again. .

ANSWER

Hi Elaine,

You ask a very good question. I am not familiar with that particular coaching program but I can understand why for $5000 (or any price really) you’d be frustrated.

While I do have a script of what to say when a prospective client calls that I do recommend people follow pretty closely – and I have another script for kicking off the session and some others for when certain things come up – it is essentially a brainstorming session. And when you’re brainstorming, you never know what will come up so there is are exact words “say this when they say that.” Also each client is different so there has to be a certain amount of winging it and seeing where it goes.

One the students in my last class is an introvert who wants to specialize in working with other introverts. She told me recently that, like you, she is not best thinking on her feet… instead she often thinks of ideas after the fact. To her this was a bad thing. To me, it is an example of brainstorming what I call “Work Arounds” (something we will cover in class).

How can you “work around” this apparent barrier? Well, she can structure her business so she works with someone for say 45 minutes then does a follow up session in a week or two. I would actively promote this as a benefit of working together: “In between our sessions, I will be thinking about you and your passions. I’ll be jumping on the Internet to do some research and coming up with more ideas.” In other words, turn the fact that you need time for things to percolate into a benefit – which it is!

I guess the key question to ask yourself is, “Why do I want to do this kind of work? Do I naturally like thinking outside the box? Do I enjoy brainstorming and helping someone think through their options?”

I hope this helps, Elaine. Take your time and make sure it is right for you. (I am rushing so this is not proofed – please forgive me – call if you’d like to talk more!)

Valerie

BOTTOM LINE

I leave for the lake tomorrow. We will be leaving the description up at http://ChangingCourse.com/certification.htm — but closing down the registration process until I return on 8/20/07.If you are certain you want to register, and do not want to wait until I return, contact Lisa Tarrant at Lisa@ChangingCourse.com or 413-594-2522 and she will send you the registration link.

In the meantime, if you have additional questions I have not answered here, please contact Lisa or me when I return. 

To your dreams,
Valerie Young
Dreamer in Residence
http://ChangingCourse.com

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