Coaching Blog

I finally have an answer for you to the age-old question: Which is more effective, coaching by telephone or coaching in person?

The coaches who prefer coaching in person, invariably assume their way is better. Those of us who prefer to coach by telephone sheepishly counter that coaching by phone seems to work just as well.

But is telephone coaching really just as good as coaching face-to-face?

After all, we've all read the scientific estimates that up to 90% of the information we receive in a face-to-face conversation is visual, not verbal. So how can telephone coaching possibly work as well as face-to-face coaching?

And from another perspective, face-to-face coaches often brag that they make more money per hour, but do they really? Yes, telephone coaches charge their clients on average slightly less per contact hour, but they also spend less time in non-contact hours.

I'll explain: While I don't recommend scheduling your clients back-to-back (a 15 minute break helps you refocus), I've done it and I know lots of other phone coaches who do it and I can tell you that a few hours, earning $300/hour, from my home office on a snowy Monday sure beats traffic jams, commuter trains, crowded elevators and cafeteria lunches, ad nauseum, by a mile. And when you add up the extra time spent in transit, plus tolls, tickets, parking, gas, wardrobe, wear and tear on your car, eating out, not to mention all of the above which also has to be spent on in-person client attraction, versus attracting clients via the internet, I'm willing to bet telephone coaches make more per hour, keep more of it for themselves,  and enjoy more of their working hours with less stress. A coach who's relaxed and having fun is always better than one who is not.

But here's why telephone coaching is actually more effective than face-to-face coaching:

Remember how up to 90% of information taken in during a face-to-face conversation is visual? That should make face-to-face coaching 10 times more effective than telephone coaching, but it doesn't. Why? Because nearly all of that visual information is unconscious, meaning the coach isn't even aware of it.

It gets worse. Many assume that our brains absorb continuous information, like video cameras  making a movie, but they don't. Not even close. Your brain takes a couple of snapshots of visual information and fills in (nearly all) the rest with your expectations, assumptions, beliefs, shadows, biases and prejudices. In short, while you're talking to that person, you're taking in some new information from them, but you're unconsciously adding 80-90 times as much information from your past.

And you don't even know it.

With telephone coaching, if you're well-trained, you learn to consciously hear more. And if you practice those hearing skills in hundreds of coaching sessions, you develop the kind of hearing - at least for conversations - that usually only the blind possess because thousands of hours of coaching changes your brain. That means you can hear far more than most of us ever thought possible. And you do it without adding tons of info from your past.

Are telephone coaches completely free of their past assumptions? No, of course not; no one is. But a strong case can be made that, because telephone coaching is a skill that's consciously learned from the ground up, the coach is aware of a larger percentage of incoming information, which helps them interface more fully with the present and the uniqueness of their client and the client's situation.

Here's an example: I've lost track over the years of the number of clients I've coached who were of a different race, socio-economic background, or sexual orientation, and I didn't know it. I'd like to think that wouldn't make any difference (unless it was pertinent to the topic of the coaching), but I've seen the studies on that and know how unlikely it is that anyone is completely free of biases.

Telephone coaching doesn't eliminate all assumptions and biases, but it narrows them down and makes it less likely that a bias or shadow can lurk undiscovered.

Here's another reason coaching by phone is more powerful: When using the telephone (or Skype), you can coach with anyone in the world. That means that out of over 7 billion people worldwide, you can match up with your ideal clients and be their perfect coach. Coaching in person is almost always constrained by distance and travel, forcing people to coach with whomever they can find in their home city.

You'd think with the ease and low cost of talking via online video, that video coaching would catch on quickly, but it hasn't so far. I'm guessing it's because video tends to highlight the visual in a way that makes it even harder to listen and really hear - and raises the likelihood that unconscious visual information is triggering a conditioned response. And if people can see their own image, they are more self conscious and less likely to show up authentically. Some find video coaching more distracting than anything. Indeed, some find talking by telephone t o have an intimacy that's lost with video.

Last but not least, from the client's perspective, lower prices for telephone coaching, plus higher quality coaching, means a greater ROI (return on investment) for clients. Who doesn't like that?

In short: phone coaching is not only just as good as in-person coaching, it's actually better. Do you agree?

We've been training our coaches via distance learning and preparing them for international coaching careers for over a decade. Find out more below:

My colleague and friend, Deborah Brown-Volkman, and I are planning a coaching communications project that moves beyond, ‘Which coaching questions should I ask?’ and covers the trickiest and stickiest conversations that professional coaches must have, but often dread.

 

 

You know the coaching conversations that give you sweaty palms:

• How do you handle the client who doesn’t pay you on time?
• How do you tell your client that you really can’t give them an extra 20-30 minutes every week?
• How do you tell your client that s/he needs therapy instead of coaching?
• What do you say to the client who ‘can’t afford’ you?
• How do you raise your fees without losing your clients?
• [insert your dreaded client conversation question here]

My students and mentees ask me these questions everyday, but Deborah and I are creating a new resource to give you answers and ideas that are right at your fingertips.

The truth is, as a coach, you need advanced communication skills. And if you don’t have them, your peace of mind will suffer and so will your coaching.

“Success in life is directly proportional to the number of awkward conversations you’re willing to have.” - Anonymous

Do you worry about how to handle touchy conversations with your coaching clients? Then please share which conversations keep you up at night in our comments section, below.

Tell us some of the hardest or most difficult conversations you've had or don't want to have. Your questions about communication best practices for coaches will help shape this project greatly - and will help us to better help you.

Please share your questions below. We’ll be happy to offer answers or methods for finding your own best answers, so you never have to dread having another uncomfortable conversation again. And if you have a great story about how you handled a tough conversation, we’d love to hear it - and you might just help a fellow coach get a good night’s sleep tonight!

[UPDATE: Deborah and I are hosting 4 low-cost live, interactive tele-webinars on how to have the toughest coaching conversations of your career. Click below for more info...]

Ask your questions about dreaded coaching conversations, below...

You've probably heard that group coaching is a must-have for your coaching business, but you may never have thought about becoming a Certified Group Coach.

In my opinion, you don't have to offer group coaching, but if you're ready to branch out from just one-to-one coaching clients, group coaching is the next logical place to go. Yes, information products are great, but dollar for dollar and hour for hour, you'll make more from group coaching, especially if you don't already have a mailing list of thousands.

There are probably hundreds of good reasons to add group coaching to your business, but I've highlighted ten from my own experience below, just to give you an idea.

Group coaching is an advanced skill set, combining many of the skills of one-to-one coaching with group facilitation and more. I thought it would be easy for me, because I was a very good one-to-one coach with 15 years of experience as a college professor. In the beginning, it was a lot harder than I thought! But if you think group coaching is something you want to learn more about and if you'd like to become a Certified Group Coach, skip to the bottom of this blog post and check out an upcoming opportunity.

Top Ten Reasons to Become a Certified Group Coach:

1. Make more money

In 2003, my first coaching groups were focused on a hot new certification from the IAC, which used Thomas Leonard's Proficiencies. I was teaching the Proficiencies at the time, so offering a mentor group to help coaches master them, was a natural for me. I filled my first group up with 10 people and had to open a second one quickly, because even more people wanted to join. It kicked up my income very nicely, even though the groups themselves were a bargain to join.

2. Charge less to your clients

As I said, I charged bargain fees to my clients for those first groups, only $75 per month, per person. But with 20 new clients, that was $1,500 more income per month and about $250 per contact hour. Nice pay ~ and very affordable for my clients! Actually, you can charge much more for group coaching, depending on your market. Generally, groups meet for three to six hours per month, with group sizes ranging from 3 to 10 clients. And most coaching groups cost $150 to $350 per month, per person. Do the math. Group coaching saves money for the client and makes more money for you.

3. Grow your fan base faster

I mentioned your email marketing list earlier, because your True Fans are a vitally important element in your coaching success. Building that list with just one-to-one clients can be murder. Coaching groups with 3 to 10 members each, will help you build that list 3 to 10 times faster.

It's an incredible amount of work to design ebooks, white papers and other information products to attract new people to your list, but coaching is customized in the moment, so there is far less upfront work, while far more value is delivered - and at a higher price that clients gladly pay. People simply view in-person, customized service as more valuable than pre-designed, canned content - because it's far more effective.

Contrary to what you may have heard, coaching clients don't need to buy cheap products from you before they hire you to be their coach. For most of them, you being a credible coach who is in the right place at the right time, with an appealing specialty or niche, is all it takes.

4. Give more value to your clients

Here's where it gets interesting: your group clients will actually get a lot more value from each other than they would from you alone, so a group of ten will multiply value by ten. Why? Groups are organized around commonalities between the members of the group and their mutual goals. So guess what? They have experiences, know-how and resources that you don't have and they tend to share them generously - so long as you know how to set up a bonded  synchronous group, which is one of those advanced skill sets I mentioned.

5. Upsell to one-to-one coaching

It's natural to balance group coaching with one-to-one coaching, because sometimes your clients need you to drill down deeper with an issue than you have time for during the group meeting. This is an important value add for your clients, which gives them the benefits of one-to-one coaching plus group coaching. You can easily add an option for each group member to have one or two individual coaching sessions per month with you and of course, you can charge extra for that.

6. Increase your credibility

As you become known for certain specialties or niches in your coaching groups, you'll become known for those specialties and niches in all your coaching. Once I offered the Get Certified Coaching Groups, which I mentioned above, I became known as a mentor coach who helps coaches get certified. This became an important part of my one-to-one coaching practice for several years, as well - until I leveraged my reputation and what I had learned to start School of Coaching Mastery. You see, over the years, I became an expert on this type of coaching and potential clients saw me as someone they wanted to work with on this. In other words, I developed the credibility to do well with this niche and specialty.

Back then, there was very little training in group coaching, so I had to teach myself and it took years of trial and error. There were no group coaching certifications, but if there had been, I'd have gotten one. Credibility is everything when you're in business for yourself.

7. Decrease your work hours

You can work day and night on a membership site, on information products and live events - or you can just coach. Group coaching pays you even more per hour than one-to-one coaching, so if a short work week is a goal for you, then group coaching needs to be a specialty of yours.

8. Add additional income streams

As you organize your coaching groups, you'll find yourself writing more, because it'll be an easy way to communicate with groups. The nice thing about that is that once you've written something, it can be re-purposed.

Remember how I mentioned that it's a lot of work creating information products? If you've already created something for a high-paying coaching group, you've been well-paid for your time. If you take that written piece and sell it as a free-standing product at a lower price, whatever you make from it will be profit. That's the easier, more profitable way to do it.

Also, working with groups of people will give you a good idea what kinds of solutions they're looking for. That may spark great ideas when you're ready to do live events or create products.

9. Upsell from information products

Remember how I said that clients don't have to try inexpensive products from you in order to be willing to hire you to coach them? Well that's true. And sometimes you'll attract people who were just looking for that inexpensive ebook that tells them how to do something, but upon reading it they'll realize what they really want is a coach. If you have both group coaching and one-to-one coaching options, you'll be able to reach more people in exactly the format they want.

10. Learn where your next opportunities are

Just as I mentioned in #8 above, working intensively with clients will give you ideas about what they really want and need next - even when they, themselves, can't tell you what that is. So group coaching is perhaps the most valuable form of R&D possible, because you get to know your coaching clients inside and out. For me, that took me from coach, to mentor coach, to founding my own coaching school. I knew what my clients wanted and needed because I had gotten to know them so well.

Where will group coaching take you and your business? Where ever it is, you'll get there much faster if you don't have to learn it all from the ground up. That's why we're offering the 8-hour Master Group Coaching Success module, which ends with a Group Coaching Certificate. You'll learn how to organize, market and facilitate successful coaching groups in these live tele-webinars, which come with written materials and more.

Want to become a Certified Group Coach? Take Master Group Coaching Success, described above, and then join the upcoming Certified Group Coach Mentor Group. I'll personally mentor you as you learn to lead your own groups and get started with your very first group. You must attend both the learning module and the mentor group in order to become a Certified Group Coach.

 

If you've read blog posts on how to become a successful coach, you know that building your marketing list is a must.

As the saying goes, 'The money is in the list!' But things have changed. Now that inbound marketing is replacing traditional marketing for small business, the marketing list is a must for local face-to-face marketing, as well as for internet marketers.

Not only that, but social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, have permanently altered the definition of 'list', as well as how to manage a list and nurture more sales.

So if you think the size of your list is what matters or that email is your principal marketing tool, you're missing out on some huge opportunities to connect with your potential coaching clients and get hired by more people. In short, you're losing money.

What if you're a new coach who has no list at all, yet? You need a strategy for building one, right now. The good news is, you don't need a website to start building your list.

Learn the myths of list building for coaches and find out what really matters when it comes to marketing your coaching business with Coach 100.

Get started with the popular and FREE Coach 100 eBook.

Learn what Coach 100 is and where it comes from. Find out why it works and how you can put it to work for you.

The Coach 100 Business Success Program is highly effective even if you currently know nothing about marketing and sales. It is included for FREE when you join the Certified Positive Psychology Coach Program. Get certified by the IAPPC!

Get your FREE eBook now:

 

Wondering how you can become a successful life or business coach?

There are three main approaches to becoming a successful business or life coach. The first, I call the Entrepreneurial Coach. The second, is the Professional Coach. The last is the Sweet Spot. Let me explain:

1. The Entrepreneurial Coach* usually has a strong business, marketing and sales background and either a juicy niche or a smoking hot specialty. This coach knows how to attract the right clients and how to encourage them to buy. However, if s/he over relies on her business smarts, s/he can get caught on the hamster wheel of constantly having to market and sell, in order to keep his/her coaching roster full.

Why? Unless clients experience fantastic results quickly, or at least maintain their motivation long enough to experience extraordinary results, they tend to drop out of coaching within a few months. That means the entrepreneur coach has to constantly close new sales just to maintain a good income. For most coaches, this is exhausting and unsatisfying.

Worse yet, if clients quit before they're delighted, the entrepreneur won't maximize their number of all-important testimonials, case studies and viral buzz - the stuff that makes for a friction-free marketing and sales engine.

2. The Professional Coach*, on the other hand, has great coaching skills, either from decades of coaching or from a few years of coach-specific training. S/he knows how to elicit amazing results for his/her clients and as a result, clients stay month after month, or buy again and again. However, s/he may know little about effective marketing and sales strategies and as a result, too few clients ever sign up in the first place. That means too few potential clients ever find out about the professional coach, so s/he's constantly searching for that rare client who's willing to pay his/her fees.

Sadly, this coach may have spectacular results to point to, but often fails to share them with potential clients, who increasingly, are looking for 'proof' that their coach really knows what s/he's doing.

* In both cases above, the coach is forced into a situation where s/he needs his/her clients. The entrepreneur always needs new ones. The professional needs to hang onto the ones s/he has. Otherwise, both risk losing their incomes. When you need your clients, your focus is on yourself, instead of on helping them. To reach the coaching sweet spot, your needs must be met, so you can focus all your energy on helping your clients get those awesome results. Otherwise, something's got to give. It's way harder to maintain a sustainable coaching business when you have to focus on your own needs instead of clients' needs.

However, there are some entrepreneur coaches who really are good at coaching and most of their clients are quite happy and loyal. And there are professional coaches who get it when it comes to marketing and sales, so they're not desperate to get and keep clients. These exceptional coaches are moving into the Sweet Spot.

3. The Sweet Spot: This is the coach who has the skill to produce awesome results quickly and to keep producing results for months or even years. That keeps current clients wanting more and paying for it happily. At the same time, this coach has his/her marketing message down cold, has expertise that new people will buy and knows how to communicate and form client relationships (a.k.a. marketing and sales). Of course, those ever important testimonials, case studies and viral buzz come easily to this coach.

When you reach the sweet spot, you aren't desperate to make new sales and you don't cling to your old clients, trying to squeeze out a few more more dollars. You naturally meet your own needs and you can focus all your energy on meeting your clients' needs and helping them get what they want. Happy clients attract more happy clients.

I call this coach The Master. Everything we do at School of Coaching Mastery is designed to move our coaching students into the sweet spot by helping them become masters, faster.

Marketing programs help entrepreneurs communicate and sell to clients, but are useless when it comes to the critical skill of getting coaching results and keeping clients.

And most coaching schools will only get you started on becoming a professional coach - who may never get clients. At SCM, we give away that part of our program for free and focus our real attention on helping our paid members become masters and enjoy that sweet spot, sooner.

Turn your five-figure business into a six-figure coaching business and turn your six-figure business into a seven-figure coaching business: Become a Master Coach.

 

 

Article by David Papini and Julia Stewart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Julia: Below is the winning entry in the Best Coaching Films Contest. I chose it, not because it was the best example of coaching, but because it was presented in a thorough manner that made it easy for David Papini and me to analyze it, which we were interested in doing. In that sense, it's an awesome entry and it provides a terrific opportunity to disect something that sounds like coaching, but actually isn't. At least it's not very good coaching. See if you agree.

You may or may not be surprised to know that the character of John Keating, in Dead Poet’s Society, is not an example of a good coach. Yes, he opens up new worlds for his students, something that great coaches do, but he is burdened by enormous assumptions and a huge agenda, which leads him to a crucial conversation with Neil Perry and may have helped cause Perry’s later suicide. Not a desirable outcome in coaching!

Actually, this film is a wonderful example of what happens when Values Systems collide. It ain’t pretty. The parents and teacher’s are all of the modern values system: rational, materialistic, conforming. Think: Business Executives. (And read Spiral Dynamics or take our Spiral Dynamics for Coaches course, if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) Keating’s values are post-modern: creative, individualistic, passionate. Think: Hippies.

There is nothing wrong with either system, but in evolutionary terms, post-modern comes after modern, which makes it more inspiring (that’s just how it works). Keating and his student’s assume that ‘inspiring’ is better. However, the only thing that makes one Values System better than another is whether it solves your problems best.

The film, itself, is passionate and can inspire and trigger the viewers’ own adolescent memories of struggling to become authentic while being pushed and bullied to conform by parents and teachers. But for one very sensitive, vulnerable, conflicted boy, Neil Perry, who is the ‘client’ in the following ‘coaching’ session, this schism presents a problem so overwhelming, he pays the ultimate price.

David: I think that here Keating is not coaching Neil, he is more trying to help him as parent would do. One of the risks of a “parenting” coach model is that parenting brings with itself not just love and care but it is also prone to confusion between parent’s needs and child’s needs.  This kind of confusion has an evolutionary advantage, because maximizes the chances that a parent will take care of her children as if they were herself, but it is not that useful when your goal is to foster someone else’s freedom of choice.

In terms of technique, Keating here uses more the tools of a tutor or mentor. All the relationship is with Keating ‘up’ and Neil ‘down’. No doubt, Keating cares about Neil’s greatness, but he fails in checking and validating if the change that he is pushing Neil through is ecological for all Neil’s parts. Working with all the parts (for example with NLP) and allowing all of them to show what their good intention was and to foster dialogue among them, could have been useful to Neil.

Read on to see why a coach’s assumptions and agenda can cause a client his very life... 

John Keating Coaching Neil Perry:

Coaching Conversation	Analysis
Neil Perry: I just talked to my father. He's making me quit the play at Henley Hall. Acting's everything to me. I- But he doesn't know! He- I can see his point; we're not a rich family, like Charlie's. We- But he's planning the rest of my life for me, and I- He's never asked me what I want!	David: Here Neil shows he is aware of what is really important to him and also he is capable of understanding his father’s reasons and he is also aware that his father is not recognizing him as a person capable of choice Julia: Neil’s dilemma is fairly typical of a coaching client’s presenting problem, even though his is the perspective of a minor. His story is highly emotional and full of assumptions. He’s genuinely stuck.
John Keating: Have you ever told your father what you just told me? About your passion for acting? You ever showed him that?	David: Keating clarifies, acknowledge Neil’s passion and invite the possibility for Neil to share more with his father Julia: Great coaching question from Keating. It not only elicits important information, but points to a possibly more resourceful response to Neil’s problem.
Neil Perry: I can't.	David: Neil is facing a block. Julia: This is a typical response from someone who is stuck. There is no physical reason that he can’t talk to his father, but he believes he can’t.
John Keating: Why not?	David: Keating poses an ineffective question. He could have asked about Neil feelings (how does it feel that you cannot share with your father) or add resources (what would you need to be able to tell him). The “why” question here seems to hide Keating’s agenda or a tutorial question (I know you can and I want you realize that). Keating here is acting like a parent, a tutor, a mentor or a friend more than a coach. Julia: I agree with David. Questions that begin with ‘why’ tend to invite rationalization from the client, which just deepens the story and the client’s sense of having no options. To open Neil’s mind to more options and resourceful thinking, Keating could try the following questions: ‘What would it be like if you could talk about this with your father?’ ‘What would you tell him, if you could?’ ‘Would you like to be able to talk with him about what’s really important to you?’
Neil Perry: I can't talk to him this way.	David: Neil is still blocked but adds “this way”. Julia: Neil doesn't have the words to articulate what's holding him back, he just knows he's stuck.
John Keating: Then you're acting for him, too. You're playing the part of the dutiful son. Now, I know this sounds impossible, but you have to talk to him. You have to show him who you are, what your heart is!	David: Coach here had the opportunity to clarify (for example asking “what way”?). Keating choses to challenge and show Neil his intuition (“You’re acting for him, too”), without asking for permission to share. Then uses all of his influence to push Neil toward the behavior he considers appropriate (he asks Neil to do something that seems impossible to Neil and possible to the idea that Keating has of Neil’s strength and of Neil’s relationship system). Keating shows love for Neil but it’s not a loving coach act, again, it’s more a mentor’s or a tutor’s action, who sees the reality of his pupil’s behavior Julia: Agreed. Although Keating's aware of Neil's assumption, he's not aware of his own. He's pushing Neil toward the outcome that Keating believes in. Neil needs to decide what’s best for himself. Even though Keating is a mentor/instructor to this young man, he’s over-stepping his professional boundaries. This would be considered unethical in coaching. The fact that Neil later commits suicide is strong evidence that this conversation didn’t serve him.
Neil Perry: I know what he'll say! He'll tell me that acting's a whim and I should forget it. They're counting on me; he'll just tell me to put it out of my mind for my own good.	David: Neil is still blocked. His options are not increased, he is still trapped in a scene he already knows. Julia: Neil is quite naturally resisting the push that Keating gives him. Most coaching clients will push back in similar ways when pressured by their coaches.
John Keating: You are not an indentured servant! It's not a whim for you, you prove it to him by your conviction and your passion! You show that to him, and if he still doesn't believe you - well, by then, you'll be out of school and can do anything you want.	David: Keating acknowledge the genuineness and the importance of Neil ‘s passion, but again offer to him solutions that do not come from Neil himself and assumes that proving the passion to the father will be useful for Neil (implicitly reinforcing the idea that the father has to decide). Also the second option (you can do what you what when you leave school) is completely part of Keating mindset. Here Keating is consulting (giving advices) and/or leading (ordering). The coaching part could have been the first one, if the sentence finished with “it’s not a whim for you”. On another  layer of thought here there could be also that Keating is fighting with Neil’s father (what Neil’s father represents to Keating), by using Neil as means. Keating here is acting like Neil’s father, forgetting that Neil already have one that tells him what to do. The fact that the real father is not capable of loving Neil enough, does not authorize Keating to use a father role as a way to take care of Neil’s needs, especially without acknowledging the conflict that will rise in Neil’s emotions. Julia: Keating is pushing his own Values System on Neil, something that he did throughout the film, with mixed results for the boys. He awakened something inspiring in them, but assumed parents and teachers would value it. They didn’t, which created conflict for all the boys. By the way, Keating’s Value System is Green, or post-modern, in integral terms. The school and parents were mostly operating at the Blue/Orange, or traditional-modern level, which does not understand Green. Post-moderns typically make this mistake, that everyone will see the wisdom of their view, if just given the chance. They won’t. Again, this is unethical in coaching. Don’t make this mistake for your own clients.
Neil Perry: No. What about the play? The show's tomorrow night!	David: Neil assumes for a moment the second Keating’s suggestion and confronts it with the practical short term consequences, and has a doubt. Julia: More resistance in response to being inappropriately pushed.
John Keating: Then you have to talk to him before tomorrow night.	David: Keating provides the answer, completely in the frame of his agenda (Neil must talk with his father) Julia: If Keating were a good coach, someone who cares more for others than for his own agenda, he would have elicited options from Neil and respected them. Or at the very least, offered multiple options, rather than telling Neil what to do.
Neil Perry: Isn't there an easier way?	David: Neil asks for a way to avoid something he fears. Julia: Keating would do well to respect the wisdom behind Neil’s reluctance.
John Keating: No.	David: Keating acknowledges the fear (by non-verbal cues, need to see the scene ;-) but keeps Neil on the decision (which is not Neil’s decision). If Neil’s fear had arrived after a personal insight or search path, this could be an appropriate way to keep the client on track, but given the previous choices made by Keating in the conversation, it’s just another way to push Neil to realize Keating’s agenda (which of course Keating considers an agenda for the good as Neil’s father does with his one, and this is often the tragedy…) Julia: Rather than eliciting greatness from Neil and helping him expand his possibilities, Keating’s ‘coaching’ arrives at one very narrow and unproductive option.
Neil Perry: [laughs] I'm trapped!	David: Neil is emotionally trapped (and desperate) Julia: Neil is between a rock and a hard place, with his father’s values on one side and Keating’s on the other. As a teenager, he hasn’t yet developed the  strength to think for himself and has allowed Keating to back him into a corner. Some adult coaching clients are also this easy to influence. Coaches need to be extremely careful not to make decisions for our clients. We never have all the information. We’re only there to help the client think better and to inspire their personal greatness.
John Keating: No you're not.	David: Keating does not acknowledge the emotions in Neil, and underlines that Neil is free. Julia: Yes, in Keating’s mind, Neil is free, but only IF Neil does what Keating tells him. This is an obvious contradiction, common to post-modern thinking. It’s all about a specifically defined form of liberation that is ultimately repressive: ‘You’re free if you do what I tell you to do.’ Post-modern thinking is common among coaches, but often results in narrow thinking. My personal bias is that post-modern thinking has limited value in coaching.

 

The following post concerning how long coaching client engagements should be is inspired by a conversation at School of Coaching Mastery's members-only Water Cooler Forum. A student wondered how to set up coaching client engagements.

The Question:

Should coaching client engagements be short (3 - 6 months) or long (1 year or longer)? And should coaching client engagements have a fixed length or should they be open ended?

Here are my views. I find the length of coaching engagement varies according to the business model, niche, and specialty of the coach, as well as the goals of the client.

 

The Short or Fixed-length Coaching Client Engagement:

    •    Shorter engagements of specific length are common to business, executive, career and corporate coaching, where the bottom line is always of high importance.
    •    Lengths usually are 3, 6 or 12 months. Almost never shorter than 3 months.
    •    The per-hour or per-month charge is generally much higher, $300+/hour; $500+ per month, or the charge may be for the entire period.
    •    If you use this business model, know that you must be prospecting for your next clients at all times.
    •    Benefit to the coach, other than the higher fee, is that you can sometimes contract to coach an entire team, department or company. In other words, it can be a very significant gig and you may need fewer gigs to support your business.
    •    Benefit to the company that hires you, is that the fees are fixed and predictable and ROI is easy to measure.

Long or Open-ended Coaching Client Engagements:

    •   Open-ended coaching agreements are common in life coaching and other forms of personal coaching, such as health, restorative, personal development, and spiritual coaching.
    •    Minimum lengths of client engagements are 3 months. Any less than that and the client is unlikely to experience a specific outcome and may not see the value of continuing. Also, the coach is likely to get stuck on a merri-go-round, constantly trying to attract enough clients, if they allow clients to sign up for one month or less.
    •    Keeping one's ego out of the coaching engagement is extremely important in open-ended client engagements and depends on on the coach's personal development and integrity. Also, having plenty of money in the bank can be  important for the coach. Otherwise, the coach may be tempted to stretch out the client engagement for the coach's financial benefit, rather than the client's personal development. Some coaches, especially those who are less well developed, assume that all coaches create dependancy in long-term coaching engagements, but that's not necessarily so.
    •    In a long-term coaching relationship, the coach needs to keep an eye out for what else the client may need to work on. Periodically invite the client to a new higher level of play when you sense they are ready for it. Some clients absolutely love this, because they want to grow as much as possible. Think: Empowerment vs. Dependence.
    •    Generally, coaches charge less for this type of coaching, $250 - 450/pr month or $100-200/hour.
    •    The benefit for the coach is greater client stability and less marketing, although annual income may be lower than for business coaches. Benefit for the client is greater personal growth and fulfillment.

My colleagues and I have all experimented with these business models. Commonly, what we find is that when we raise our fees to over $500/month, we have no trouble attracting clients, but coaching client engagements tend to be shorter.

In my coaching business, I offer three different types of coaching. My life coaching clients focus on personal development, shadows, values, attraction, etc. My fees are lower and engagements sometimes are for several years.

I also offer mentor coaching for coaches, which includes working toward certification, business development and personal development. Fees are a bit higher and engagements last 6 to 12 months.

Finally, I offer business coaching that focuses on inbound marketing for micro businesses. Fees are higher and engagements last from 3 to 6 months.

How do you model your coaching client engagements?

The Water Cooler Forum is one of the 'hidden benefits' of membership in School of Coaching Mastery's paid coach training programs. Get your questions answered by mentors and insiders:

Guest post by David Papini.

There is a famous scene in the first movie of The Godfather trilogy, when the four Corleone brothers meet right after their father has been shot and is struggling between life and death in a hospital. The topic they discuss is if and how they have to retaliate against Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo who ordered the shooting. At a certain point in the discussion, Michael Corleone/Al Pacino, the youngest brother, the only brother not involved in his family mafia business, proposes himself as the avenger in a plan where he manages to shoot Sollozzo. The elder brothers explain to him that the issue at stake, retaliation, “it’s not personal, it’s just business”, meaning that it has nothing to do with emotion, family values, the need of justice, the father-son relationship: it’s only a tool to protect the business and send a message to the “business community”.

What struck me (apart the fact I am Italian and I know that business better than the Godfather’s screenwriters ;-), is that for these guys family is not affect, emotion, relationship; it’s “just business”: this is why Michael’s brothers do not consider appropriate (and even harmful) the intention of avenging his father following an emotional reaction (while of course the killing itself can be an appropriate tool, but without emotional involvement).

Last week a client, struggling with her career, was talking about having a “professional demeanor”. To her, this was synonymous with “professional mask”, as opposite to “personal authenticity”, which she was patently not allowed to show at her workplace. Further inquiry led us to discover that for personal authenticity she intended “expressing emotions”, that is, the mask was intended to hide her emotions from her colleagues, because expression of emotions in general was not very welcome at her workplace. Basically, she and her firm were adopting a variant of the Godfather philosophy: it’s business, no emotion or affect needed per-se.

The step from “not expressing emotion” to “believe that you can stop/ignore feeling emotion” seemed closely related for her, while I had in mind what Antonio Damasio (Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain, 2010) says: “The expression of emotions can doubtless be modulated voluntarily. But the degree of modulatory control of the emotions evidently cannot go beyond the external manifestations. Given that emotions include many other responses, several of which are internal and invisible to the naked eyes of others, the bulk of the emotional program is still executed, no matter how much willpower we apply to inhibit it. Most important, feelings of emotion, which result from the perception of the concert of emotional changes, still take place even when external emotional expressions are partially inhibited.”

That led me to think of how many times I challenged these limiting beliefs about emotions, all variants of the Godfather syndrome: when it comes to emotions and business, clients often found or put themselves in a mafia business, implicitly negating reality, unavoidability and the value of emotional states. Over time I collected a list of common misconception of emotions in the workplace (and, more in general, in organizations) that I call “storytelling about emotions”. Here is it, with the “false” part in bold:

1. You are/I am too emotional (I credit this one to Jim and Michele McCarthy, in their book, Software for your Head)
2. It’s wrong to feel like this
3. There is no reason I/you feel like that
4. You make me feel …
5. Expressing emotion can be disturbing
6. One must be rational
7. One cannot think and feel at the same time
8. Emotions are dangerous
9. Emotions are not thoughts
10. Emotions cannot be changed
11. Emotions can be masked

Every belief in the list favors detaching between parts of the self in a person, which in turn prevents development, change for the best, growth and happiness. This is why I consider part of my job as a coach to help clients with mafia-like emotional approaches to explore how the world can be outside the Godfather mindset.

David was born in Florence in 1966 just a few months before the deluge, and that's a kind of destiny. As an executive is in charge for general management in a IT Firm, as a certified NLP counselor helps clients to explore their life experience, as a Coach helps clients getting what they really want , as a conflict mediator witnesses how tough and creative a relationship can be, as a trainer helps trainees in stretching their brain, growing and learning, as a public speaker enjoys co-creating experience on the fly, as a dad loves his two children. As a man he is grateful and worried that he’s got this wonderful life. And he’s fond of categorizing his professional roles :-). More about him at http://papini.typepad.com/lifehike/

David is a member of SCM's Certified Coach Training Program.

Have you worked with monster coaching clients?

Every master coach has at one point or another, because it's tempting for life and business coaches to try to help  everyone - until we get chewed up and spit out.

If that's happened to you, thank those monster clients for teaching you a critical lesson in your master coaching career: You can't help everyone and if you don't choose your coaching clients well, you can't help anyone.

 

Here are ten types of coaching clients you should run from like they're Tyronnosaurus Rex:

 

1. Failus Gnossos - The client who thinks like a failure, no matter what. This client will spend their coaching sessions trying to convince you that it's not their fault; everything is going wrong because life's not fair. Yes it's true; life isn't fair, but it's the folks who take responsibility for what happens in their lives who succeed. If your client thinks this way on a frequent basis and your efforts to shift their focus are unsuccessful, suggest they work with a therapist, instead of a coach.
2. Controllos Everythingess - The client who tries to control their end of the conversation - and yours. Speaking of therapists, I once has a therapist client, who tried to psychoanalyze me while I tried to coach her: "Why would you ask me that?", "Why do you think that is?" Needless to say, the coaching sessions were a waste of her time and mine. Coaching clients need to be collaborative to benefit from coaching. That doesn't mean you control everything; it means the two of you are partnering for their benefit.
3. Responsibilities Nothingess - The client who refuses to take responsibility for anything. One of my clients had already worked with several coaches. She told me that none of them delivered on what they promised. I found her impossible to work with, because she kept making me responsible for her choices. I ended the coaching relationship with her early and I'm pretty sure she told her next coach that I didn't help her, either.
4. Dirtus Cheapess - The client who has a scheme to get more out of you for less. This type of monster coaching client comes out more during a recession, but the hard-core version is around even in boom times. Probably a fairer name for them is, 'misguidedly frugal'. You know the type: The distant aquaintance who calls for free coaching help because afterall you're 'friends', the total stranger with the sob story who wants you to coach them for free, the person who requests a complimentary coaching session with you, but who nervously ends it early when you mention continuing the relationship. As a master coach, you know people will move mountains when they really want something, so don't be overly sympathetic with people who want more from you than they're willing to pay for.
5. Nano Inspirationess - The client who is uninspired to the point of being depressed. It's easy for me to have compassion for depressed people, because I occasionally suffer from mild depression, myself. Unfortunately, even mildly depressed people are hard to coach, including me! I once gave a complimentary coaching session to someone who wasn't inspired by anything. When I broached the possibility that she was depressed, she told me that although she had been suicidal at one point in her life, she didn't think she was currently depressed. I'm no psychotherapist, but that was enough for me to decline to coach her. Depression is a serious problem. Trying to coach someone who is depressed is a serious mistake.
6. Victimus Dramaticus - The client who could 'really benefit' from coaching if they were just willing to let go of their perpetual dramas and victim status. Many new coaches fall for this mistake: They have a friend or relative who is in constant crisis and the coach just knows that coaching could help them. But it doesn't. That person you know who could 'really benefit' from coaching has to get to the place where they really want to change before outside assistance can make a lasting difference. When they are ready to take responsibility for their lives, they may need a 12 Step Program and/or therapist, before coaching is really helpful.
7. Lazy Mixedupedness - The New Age client who thinks all they need to succeed is abundance thinking. This one is slippery, but the 'evolved' client sometimes is the most dysfunctional. They may take the Law of Attraction so literally, that they do nothing but think and feeeel what they want. Good luck with that.
8. Greedus Monsterus - The client who measures their success and your performance in terms of dollars, only. Many clients hire coaches to help them make more money. There are few coaches who can really help them with that. Why? Because many coaches don't really understand money. It's a stand-in for everything else the client wants or 'needs'. Few clients really want money for itself; they want freedom, they want to get over their self-doubt, they want to win, or they want something else. You can never get enough of what you don't really want. Don't coach greed or need unless you really understand it.
9. Elephantus Blindness - The client who has a gaping blind spot that's wrecking their life and refuses to look at it. I once had a client whose fiance, an entrepreneur who had lousy credit, refused to marry her unless she loaned him $50,000 to start a new business. First she refused, then she relented, because after all, 'he's a sweet man who really loves me'. This client had several blind spots that to me were as big as elephants, but if I broached those topics, she'd deflect my questions with replies such as, 'I don't know. You're the coach. I thought you'd tell me.' I told her I couldn't be her coach.
10. Parasiticus Dependantess - The client who needs you to do  their work for them, because they're too 'sensitive', scared, unsure, etc. Sometimes going the extra mile for a client will inspire them to step up to a new level of greatness. But beware the client who 'needs' you to do what only they are responsible for. This client will eventually fail, but not until they've drained you dry.

Okay, maybe it's not fair to make fun of these coaching clients. After all, they're doing their best, just like everyone else. But a little humor will get you over the pain of firing a client who otherwise will devour you. In time, you'll spot these folks before you've given them your all.

So what are your monster coaching client stories?

 

Try Coach 100 and learn to identify great coaching clients faster.

Whether you're a brand new coach or a veteran, one of the most painful experiences is to have too few coaching clients.

If that's you, read on...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s the #1 thing stopping you from filling your coaching practice?

I’m a new coach

- SOLUTION: Time; stick with it

I’m shy, unsure

- SOLUTION: Experience creates confidence; so get to work ;-)

I don’t feel like a real coach, yet (credibility to self and others)

- SOLUTION: Start coaching, now and you’ll immediately BE a real coach!

I don’t know who/how to invite

- SOLUTION: You may need training to get started and enough practice that you'll learn everything you need

I’m too busy with something else

- SOLUTION: Commitment; stop kidding yourself! Do you really want this?

I hate to market

- SOLUTION: You need to shift perspective, because all human communication is marketing

I have a fear of rejection

- SOLUTION: Either feel the fear and do it anyway, or work with a coach or psychotherapist to get over your fear once and for all. For many people, doing the feared activity over and over reduces or eliminates the fear.

What's standing between you and a full coaching priactice?

Whatever your reason for not having the coaching business you really want, Coach 100 can help you get it.

Learn about the Coach 100 Program, by reading the free ebook. Coach 100 Pro is included free of charge with membership in the Certified Positive Psychology Coach Program. 100% of coaches who complete the program have clients by the end.

87% of coaches who complete the program have full coaching practices.

 

Get the free Coach 100 eBook here.