Reid works with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender clients–many of whom are preparing to come out to friends and family. In her work, she focuses on helping clients find that “authentic you.”

As one of the coaches participating in our online video series, Coach Dian got in front of a camera and talked about herself: where she finds her passion, and how she brings it into her coaching. As she encourages clients to explore, she’s willing to do the same–agreeing to share her video as a work in progress.

By getting right at her own authenticity and passion in a video that’s well under one minute in length, Reid explains what she’s about and leaves it there. The video, with Reid in white against a subtle white backdrop, leaves the viewer with no distractions. The result is a video that draws the viewer in and leaves them wanting to know more:

A black backdrop can be dramatic–but so can white. While it can be risky to wear white against a white backdrop, Coach Dian has used the white on white to maximum effect in her finished product, which is now posted on her coaching website. As you’ll see, the video takes on almost a black and white look with just the most subtle hint of color–a very nice effect that is a perfect example of making the most out of a simple “set.” Instead of working to clean up your desk and fuss over the plants, the simplicity of basic black or vivid white gives your video a clean, professional look.

Here’s Coach Dian’s finished product:

How are you doing with making your video? Have you run into any problems you’d like help with? Are you ready to share your stuff?

But what about a fancy camera? Do you need lights? Maybe a good microphone and some expensive video editing software to give it the professional polish you pride yourself on? Don’t you need to ensure everything’s done just right to make sure your video serves you in the best possible way?

No. Not hardly. While online video has exploded and more and more people are spending more and more time watching clips and videos on their computers, it’s the content–not the camera–that draws them to click and keep watching. For a coach starting out making a first video, the time spent focusing on equipment should be minimal: the crucial part of the equation is getting YOU right. The exercises in the first two parts of the video series deal with how you can maximize yourself in front of the lens. What kind of camera that lens is attached to–and the lens itself, for that matter–are just not important at this point.

Getting your on camera style, confidence, and comfort–that’s what matters.

But don’t do the exercises to work on the above and then put off making that first video because you want to “gear up” with a better camera and a host of gizmos and gadgets (and there are endless ways you can invest in this stuff). Instead, keep plowing forward, keep experimenting in front of the camera–you can’t help but get better–and when you get to a point where you like what you’re doing, go for it. You’ll grab an audience with YOU, not your high priced camera (as nice as they are to use).

Are you working with our video series? Let us know how it’s going–and what you’d like to learn in future videos.

CoachReporter: Online Video Part 3 from Mark Joyella on Vimeo.

Are they watching you?

Coaches–like other professionals–are jumping onboard, offering video greetings on their websites and blogs, and using video to host webinars, teach classes, and share themselves with potential clients. There are few more direct and personal ways of showing someone who you are and what you’re all about than getting in front of a camera and telling your story.

Some coaches, however, may feel far more comfortable wearing a telephone headset and asking probing questions rather than sitting in front of a video camera. It’s hardly a natural experience, and as with most things, there are some tips and tricks that can make the experience easier–and lead to greater success.

In the first part of our online video series, we looked at ways to convey energy and passion on camera. In this second part, (4 minute video) we explore three tips that will help you deliver just the message you want without looking awkward.

We’ve heard from coaches who are giving some of these tips a try, and we’d love to see the videos you’re experimenting with–if you’re bold enough to share them! What else is giving you trouble and what would you most like to do with video to build your coaching business?

CoachReporter: Video Coaching Part 2 from Mark Joyella on Vimeo.

For some coaches, that’s the final frontier.

“I just finished adding video to my website a few months ago and it was torture,” said Terry Hoffmann, who owns her own coaching firm in Florida. “For me the two most challenging aspects (in retrospect) were my own presentation style, i.e. staying calm, appearing friendly and competent–and having a clear focus on what content I wanted to make sure was brought out.”

The very things that make video so powerful–it’s immediacy and intimacy–can be the most difficult and intimidating hurdles when a coach sits down in front of a camera and prepares to tell their own story.

So why bother?

According to marketing gurus and social media titans, video can work wonders in building a business. According to research by Nielsen, 137 million people watched online video in December 2009, a ten percent increase from the same month in 2008. And few expect the clicks to go anywhere but up. People have come to expect video online, and they enjoy watching it, whether it’s a cat on a treadmill or a coach using a short video as an introduction to their website and the services they offer.

From candidates for public office to startup entrepreneurs, producing a good video can be a career maker–at ultra low (or no) cost. And as internet marketers have found, having video on a website can lead to better rankings in Google searches, since Google weighs video heavily as something consumers are looking for.

But of course, the logic of adding video is not the issue for most coaches. They get that.

It’s making video–and starring in videos–that’s the problem.

As Terry Hoffmann found, it’s not the technical side of things that tends to be the big barrier. The days of prohibitively expensive cameras and lighting equipment being the price of entry into videomaking are long gone. Apple’s just-released iPhone 4 doesn’t just come with the ability to shoot high definition video, but the software to edit it as well–right in the phone.

The real challenge, then, is getting comfortable in front of the camera and using it to tell your story–your way.

As many of the most successful users of web video can attest, people are hungry for information and content, and will be extremely forgiving of the quality of camera work, audio and set design.

Just take a look at massively successful internet entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck, who turned a series of decidedly low tech basement wine videos into a multi-million dollar wine shipping business and a six book publishing deal.

For coaches, video opens up endless possibilities, from online video coaching to webinars, video blogs and perhaps going viral, just like those cats on the treadmill.

Coach Reporter Mark Joyella, who’s made every mistake imaginable in front of a television camera, has also learned a lot about coaching awkward, nervous clients and students into camera savvy “naturals.”

In the video below, Mark offers some of the starting point advice he gives his students about taking the mystery–and the fear–out of turning on the camera and starting to speak.

Have you experimented with web video? What worked for you and what didn’t?  What would you like to do better?

CoachReporter: Video Coaching for Coaches from Mark Joyella on Vimeo.

Jennifer Lee, a San Francisco coach, asks that question a lot. “I believe that powerful change happens one person at a time and that coaching and creativity are catalysts for personal transformation,” Lee says. “My clients are all naturally creative, resourceful and whole, and my job as their coach is to help them reach their goals more quickly and live their most fulfilling, authentic life.”

Along with an ICF credential, training at CTI, and a Master’s from USC, Lee’s also a yoga instructor and a lifelong lover of art. It was only after years working in corporate consulting that Lee realized she wasn’t expressing her creativity in her work. She found a way to do that through full time coaching.

“I finally decided to flee corporate America after co-facilitating a leadership retreat for a friend’s non-profit and empowering participants to live their big dreams. I realized I needed to stop living my own dream ‘on-the-side.’ I needed to walk my talk!”

As the founder of Artizen Coaching, Lee brings creative expression into every aspect of her coaching, urging clients to “live in full color” and to awaken their “inner muse.”

As Lee tells her clients—some of whom work with her in person during coaching sessions that incorporate the creation of art—“sometimes pictures, colors, textures and movement are better mediums for articulating our thoughts and feelings. So, through expressive arts activities such as collage, visualization, storytelling, dance, drawing, painting and book arts we’ll gain a fresh perspective on something we’re coaching around or help crystallize your values and vision. Plus, the artwork is a great visual reminder for what you experienced and learned.”

And the message is the same to fellow coaches: art and coaching serve each other brilliantly.

“As coaches, we’re helping clients get a deeper understanding of themselves, to help them get clear about what they really want, and to develop goals and actions to get there,” Lee says. “And the great thing about incorporating the arts and creativity into that is that it enhances the process even more.”

Lee makes art a daily part of her life, and just completed a ten month program in expressive arts teacher training, where she followed her own suggestion to pour her inner muse a shot of espresso or two. “I loved gaining a deeper, more intimate understanding of intuitive painting and expressive arts and appreciated developing more skills to faciliate this internal creative journey for myself and others,” she said. “I continue to be in awe of how the creative process provides such valuable insight and opportunity for self-development.”

So how can you bring a little art and creativity into your coaching?

Lee suggests opening the coaching conversation to include all forms of art, from painting, drawing and photography to dance and drama—and for many clients, a combination.

“If you’re working with a client and helping them tap into their body through dance or movement…you can have them experience that, really get it in their body, and then by bringing in something like sound, you can help them get an even deeper experience.” Lee says sound can come in any form, from singing to humming to grunting. The form matters far less than the expression of something true. “Anything that’s going to help them tap into that creative expression even more.”

And no, you don’t need any recognizable artistic talent to use art in coaching. The key—again—is finding a way for clients to express themselves. “Everybody can do that,” says Lee.

Lee believes artistic expression works on all sorts of levels—not the least of which is moving coaching from the spoken word of the left brain, into the images, sound, movement and emotion of the right brain. “By tapping into that right brain, we’re helping (clients) think of the big picture, to see broad brushstrokes and patterns” and ultimately, perhaps, a path to deeper understanding than the left brain would allow.

And it can be fun, to boot. Giving a client a box of crayons and permission to do anything they’d like with them can bring about some smiles—and often an unexpected path through blocks that stand in the way of moving forward in coaching. You don’t even need to be in the same room with a client to get them scribbling and discovering. “This is something simple you can do with clients over the phone, you don’t need much, and it can be very powerful.”

The crayon on paper doesn’t ever have to see the light of day, Lee says, for the art ultimately isn’t the point of it all. (Though a drawing—masterpiece or otherwise—can be a vivid reminder to a client of their path and their goals, like a vision board)

“It’s not about the end product,” Lee says. “The process is where the juice is going to be for a client.”

To see some of Jennifer Lee’s own art—and a few of the easy artistic projects she’s used with her clients and you can bring into your coaching, watch CoachReporter Mark Joyella’s video here:

CoachReporter: Art and Coaching from Mark Joyella on Vimeo.

“We help low-wage workers get that light bulb to go on that says, ‘wow, I can do a lot more than I thought I could do,’” Brown said.

Brown created Springboard Forward, a group that provides skills development and coaching to low-wage workers who often miss out on the powerful advantages of working with a coach. “If you don’t focus on what is next for these employees, all you’re doing is moving people from being unemployed and poor to working and poor,” Brown told his college paper, the Stanford Daily. “It creates a lack of hope.”

“This problem of people being stuck, it’s not just a problem for communities,” said Brown. “It’s a problem for business.”

Brown, some insist, now runs a “business of hope” that uses the power of coaching to get low-wage workers unstuck and moving toward a successful future.

“I was very scared,” said Erin Teahan, a Springboard client. “Making changes is very scary.”

Another Springboard client, Lilian Porteous, is a single mom who worked per diem at a California hospital. Deeply in debt, she paid for her children’s health insurance out of her own pocket and feared for the security of her job. “I didn’t know what to do—I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted and I didn’t think I had the skills to move up at the hospital.”

Springboard Forward connected Lilian with a coach, and the two of them worked together to create a “career map,” that identified obstacles and strategies for getting around them. Lilian eventually worked her way into permanent job with full benefits and greater security for herself and her kids. “I was lucky to have my coach,” she said.

“Everyone in their life has the desire to feel really fulfilled,” said Manuela Pauer, a Springboard Forward coach. “Coaching really gets at what it is that they truly want, and what is getting in the way of where they are meant to be.”

“With Springboard Forward, with entry level workers, the idea is that they are in an entry level job and they might not be thinking about where they go next or where they can go next,” said Pauer.

The formula—they call it Engaged Employment—aims for social change by empowering often overlooked members of the workforce. And Brown’s creation has been identified as a trendsetter: Fast Company magazine calling the group one of the “Top 25 Changemakers in the United States” and Brown was among a group of philanthropists and group leaders honored at the White House last summer by President Obama.

“It helped me to really put things in perspective,” said Misean Whitehead, who worked with a Springboard coach.

Or, as Springboard client Marco Ponce put it, “a coach is a guy who guides you towards your goal.”

Watch (7+ minute) film below, “Transforming Lives, Transforming Workplaces.”

Note: This video was made possible through a grant from The Harnisch Foundation.

Warrell is a certified life coach based in McLean and a best-selling author of “Find Your Courage: 12 Acts for Becoming Fearless in Life and in Work.”

What is a life coach?

It is a profession aimed at helping people be more effective at what they do in achieving specific goals. It also involves helping people who are finding something in themselves or in their lives that is causing dissatisfaction or unhappiness and helping them resolve whatever that is.
Who do you coach?

My clients range from professionals from Fortune 500 companies to budding entrepreneurs. You are working with people who are largely functional and are already dealing with a level of success.

Read story.

What other stories should your CoachReporter be working on in Florida? Who deserves an interview?

Mark asks for your input before he packs up and heads to the airport.

 CoachReporter: On the Story in Orlando from Mark Joyella on Vimeo.

As CoachReporter Mark Joyella discovered, a parenting website has selected a series of baby names that–they insist–would be perfect fits to infants destined to be life coaches. What might these names be? Mark has the good, the bad, and–no kidding, kids–the evil.

Watch the video here:

[Note: video runs 3:30]

CoachReporter: Coaching Baby Names from Mark Joyella on Vimeo.

So goes an online pitch for potential investors offered by The Growth Coach, a business coaching franchise that has plans to expand from 155 cities to 400 in the next four years. The company requires its franchisees to attend a five day training course before beginning work: “You need NO coaching and NO business ownership experience. Because of our proven and unique coaching system, only minimal business experience is necessary. Everything your clients will need is embedded in our proven, refined coaching process.”

For potential franchisees, the startup costs can be considerable. A franchise coaching company called Focal Point requires an upfront investment of at least $50,000. In return, investors get a week’s worth of company training and materials, and access to the Focal Point “brand.” Coaching experience, training or certification is not a qualification for being granted a franchise.

“At FocalPoint we’re careful to award franchises to people who not only have the right skills and character, but who fit with our organizational culture,” says Steve Thompson, Focal Point’s president. “If you’ve ever considered being an executive consultant, executive consulting, or an executive mentor, business mentor, corporate consultant, or mentorship in general, FocalPoint Business Coaching is worth considering.”

Watch CoachReporter Mark Joyella’s story:

CoachReporter: Franchise Coaching from Mark Joyella on Vimeo.

Among the people taking their name recognition to the world of franchise coaching: John Gray, the author of 1990′s bestseller “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.” Gray’s started a company called Mars Venus Coaching, which has operations in Australia, Slovenia, Malaysia, India, Italy and the U.S.

What does a relationship book have to do with executive and life coaching? According to a Mars Venus franchise pitch, “At Mars Venus Coaching, we believe that problematic relationships are at the heart of most professional, business or personal issues. And since gender differences can have a significant impact on communications–with business partners, executive teams, employees, co-workers and spouse/significant other–we believe in order to be successful, it is essential to not only understand these differences, but to know how to effectively manage them.”

Coaching franchise companies argue that buying into their business model makes sense and makes for the foundation of a strong coaching business. What do you think? Is it good business, good coaching, both… or neither?