Working Coach Labs

Hi Reader!! Last week, I went to one of those gala parties that you often see on television. Everybody was in their best clothing, dressed to the nines. It was a beautiful event. Interesting people who are investing in the coaching world filled my table. The conversations challenged me to think bigger and work smarter. New ideas flowed like water under the proverbial bridge. And it exhausted me. GALA Lighting is a bit strange...but we looked GOOD! I made the cardinal mistake that every...

Hi Reader!! When I first started coaching full-time, I didn’t have a system. Or at least, that’s what I told myself. I just wanted to coach, and I thought that if I put up a website, clients would find me. But I learned pretty quickly that working coaches find clients, clients don't find working coaches. That's a significant difference. I thought I could get by without a CRM, a fancy productivity app, or a color-coded calendar. Just a notebook, my inbox, and whatever post-it notes survived...

Hi Reader!! Welcome to How To Be A Working Coach, issue number 39. Last week, at the end of Issue #38, I asked for questions. I got several, but one question came up multiple times: How do I set myself up to make a full-time living from coaching? When I started my coaching career, I worked inside of several large organizations, and all of my coaching hours were tied to my job. I remember when I went out on my own, being completely unprepared for how long it would take to build a practice that...

Hi Reader!! I was three years into my coaching practice when I realized I'd been building someone else's vision of success, not my own. In those days, I was an internal coach working with people who worked for the same company that I did. I was busy, and I had plenty of people who wanted to talk with me and engage my coaching. From the outside, everything looked like it was working. But I was exhausted, resentful, and coaching the wrong people in the wrong ways for the wrong reasons. The...

Hi Reader!! My client had just told me we'd accomplished everything we set out to achieve. I should have been celebrating. Instead, I was panicking about losing the revenue. Then he said the thing every coach dreads: "This has been so helpful, I really don't want to let it go, but I'm not clear on what I should do next. What do you think I should do?" I had about three seconds to decide: Do I protect my revenue or serve my client's actual needs? If you've never been in this situation, you...

Hi Reader!! You sent the proposal three days ago. The discovery call went perfectly. Your potential client seemed excited about working together. Now you're staring at your inbox, waiting for their response, wondering if you should follow up or if that seems desperate. Welcome to "How to Be a Working Coach," Issue 36. Most coaches struggle with the window between sending a proposal and getting a signed agreement. Like the song says, "the waiting is the hardest part." A closing strategy that...

Hi Reader!! It actually happened out of frustration. My client asked me to drive an hour and 20 minutes from my home office to his office, and I realized that that meant I couldn't schedule an appointment before or immediately afterward. So, in a panic, I said, "Well, I'm happy to come to you, but I do have to charge you my in-person rate." Enough time has now passed to reveal that I didn't have an in-person rate. I just wanted to discourage the possibility of in-peroson coaching. But the...

How to Be a Working Coach Hi Reader !! Welcome to How To Be a Working Coach, the newsletter designed to help you get the coaching practice (and the life you want)! This is Issue #34, focusing on the strategy behind your pricing. Early in my coaching career, I was coaching 30-33 hours a week. But I was basically giving away the service, charging $25-$75/hour. It was a slog. By the time Friday afternoon arrived, I was tired. I'm pretty introverted, and all that interpersonal contact meant that...

How to Be a Working Coach Hi Reader!! One of the tensions in the coaching world is the relationship between data and outcomes. Lots of coaches like to point out that what they do is hard to measure. And I believe that's true. But there's another compelling reason to have a data source attached to your coaching: Data can be a revenue stream. During a recent conversation, I was describing to a potential client why I liked having the Harrison Assessment included in an engagement. My whole...