The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.
Many new coaches I work with make a very simple mistake in their early sessions. “How did your Exploratory Session go last week?” I ask. “Great!” they say. “I’m going to call her next week to set up a time for another session.”
Can you see what’s missing here? They are still not this client’s coach. They are just someone to talk to if the client has time next week and still feels interested in coaching next week. You know how you can pick up a self-help book whenever you feel like it and put it down when you feel like it? In the above example the coach is playing the role of the book! That’s not coaching. Or more precisely, it’s not a Coaching Structure.
One thing that separates coaching from many other professions is the client’s commitment to his/her coaching goals and to a particular time frame working with the coach. This way, it doesn’t matter if the client gets busy next week. Their session is scheduled for 3pm Thursday, and that’s that.
The following is an excerpt from Top Coaching Techniques.
6. DON’T
Allow your client to be afraid of bigger than life goals.
DO
Use Jack Canfield’s “Rule of 5”. Encourage your client to do 5 specific things that will move them toward their goal each day. Make sure that the tasks are simple and will help to create momentum.
7. DON’T
Assume you know what a client is going to say.
DO
Stay present to what your client is saying right now.
8. DON’T
Focus on what you want for your client.
DO
Focus on what a client wants to achieve.
9. DON’T
Let a client waste your time by consistently being late or forgetting sessions.
DO
Set standards and procedures on lateness and lost sessions.
10. DON’T
End sessions abruptly.
DO
Ask clients towards the end of the session what they got most from this session.
The following is taken from David’s interview with Bobette Reeder in 10 Super Coaches.
What top methods, in order, did you use to get your clients in the first 2 years?
I was totally involved in my community… did a lot of leadership activities and social activities and visible activities.. this led to lots of credibility with a large number of people. I also was heavily involved in the coaching community (my training school and IFC).
What method did you find most effective in getting your initial clients?
I talked about coaching whenever the opening presented itself… and then I dropped the subject unless I was pressed to discuss it. I made it seem almost mysterious… and people wanted to know more. And my life was visibly changing too… always attractive. And I was VERY excited about it… very enthusiastic… people wanted some of that!
The following is taken from David’s interview with Rachel Pryor in 10 Super Coaches.
What was most disheartening for you while building your practice?
When I first realized that I was going to be a coach, I was afraid that my friends would tease me, so I assumed a pen name (I knew I would be quite public). For 3 years I worked as a corporate training, counselor and healer, all the time coaching, though calling it something else. Though I contacted many media outlets, none of them were interested in my business.
Then I decided to use my real name – and gained instant success. But boy, those first 3 years were dreadful – I was unable to be my best, and was uncomfortable with many of the ways that I was forced to train my clients.
The following is an excerpt from the book Get Paid For Who You Are.
You may want more time, to be closer to your family, financial abundance, creative expression, or a combination of freedoms. Which freedom is most important to you?
Jon is a good earner and saver, and he likes the large amount of vacation time his corporate accounting job offers. However, he’d love to work from a home office or while traveling, rather than being confined to a cube at work. A website presence could lead to location freedom for him.
Janet earns a good living as a landscape architect. She also feels that two weeks of travel a year is plenty. But she’d like to cut her work hours from 40 to 20 per week, to spend more time with her family. an internet business can give her time freedom.
trent Hamm, who you’re going to hear about in a little while, felt the financial wolves howling at his door, and do you know what? Today he has financial freedom, and he created it.
The following is an excerpt from David’s speech regarding FirstFiftyClients.com.
Now, when I stopped saying “I help people close the gap between where they are and where they want to be” which is accurate, but boring for me, and I started saying “I help women who are not ecstatic in their relationships to get everything they’ve ever wanted in their relationship” then I wanted to get on the phone and tell people about it. And a funny thing happened: when I did, when I got on the phone and I told them that, they could think of names.
When I said “I help people close the gap between where they are and where they want to be’ they went ‘mmmm…okay”, but when I said “women who are not ecstatic in their relationship who are ready to have everything they’ve ever wanted”, they would say “Well, Julie would be great for that, and you could call Betty, and Rhonda, yeah”. So it changed, when I decided I was going to say, (because it changes for me, you know, what I say to people) “I work with people so that when they’re eighty lying on their deathbed they have zero regrets”, I had fun with that. And then people go “Huh? Really? What do you mean?” and I say “Well, if you died tomorrow, what’s one thing you’d regret?” and all of a sudden they know what I do.
