Most coaches get into this business because they want to help others and enjoy doing so. But let’s face it, sometimes the joy leaks and coaching becomes a job. The main culprit? Like any professional service, coaching has its share of mundane tasks, meaningless matters, and otherwise maddening obstacles. The dark side of the coaching profession can all-too-easily become one’s main experience, and when that happens our coaching suffers, our clients suffer, and we suffer.
Following are four ways you can stave off these difficulties and improve your life as a coach. Following these four insights will not usher you into coaching heaven but doing so will keep you out of the coaching version of the other place.
1. Learn to outsource. Newsflash: you are not good at everything. And you are not even good at everything related to having a thriving coaching practice. There are plenty of things that must be done, but which you lack the desire and/or ability to do. In such cases, you need to outsource and collaborate.
Over 50 years ago economist Leonard Read demonstrated how no one person had the knowledge, skill, or resources to make a simple No. 2 pencil. Instead, the pencil came to be through the efforts of hundreds, if not thousands, of people around the world, each doing his or her own small part. A similar dynamic needs to inform your approach to having a happy, thriving life as a professional coach. You cannot (and should not!) do all the marketing, scheduling, invoicing, etc. necessary to have a full book of coaching business. At CAM, we use resources such as Upwork to find freelancers to whom we can outsource important tasks that we lack the time, skill, or disposition to do well.
2. Lower your standards. Yes, you read that right. It’s not just the raging perfectionists who suffer from perfectionism; sometimes even we ordinary folks can set our standards too high. When your standards are too high, the extra work is not worth the effort and the extra effort often doesn’t get done – resulting in no results! Case in point, sometimes I mistake writing a blog post for writing a NY Times Bestseller. While I want every blog post to be good enough, aiming for perfection bogs me down, drains my energy, and prevents me from writing much of anything.
Years ago, I heard pastor and leadership guru Larry Osborne talk about “the cringe factor.” He said that church worship teams often aim for a level of musical quality that is totally unnecessary. As long as the music was good enough that people didn’t cringe, it was good enough – anything else was mostly wasted effort that only the worship leaders appreciated.
I’m not suggesting you settle for second-rate coaching, but many aspects of running a coaching practice can be dialed down a bit. What kinds of things? For starters, you might benefit from lowering your standards for: your website, your intake packet, anything related to your platform and marketing, your tools and resources, and your office space (if you have an office).
3. Use tools to increase efficiency. For too many years, I dreaded making coaching appointments with my clients because the process consisted of emailing back and forth and by the time the client responded to my previous email, the appointment time slot she or he wanted was already filled. Ugh! Life got so much easier when I started using an online scheduling tool. The CAM team currently uses Acuity, but there are many other similar tools out there. And there are tools for other mundane aspects of coaching: sending and receiving invoices, updating your website/blog/social media, and improving your writing. Using the right tools (including spending a little $$ on such tools) will save you from a lot of headaches.
4. Create and use systems. A system is a pre-determined way of doing things that you have to do regularly or fairly often. Having a system prevents you from inventing the wheel every time you need to go somewhere. In the world of coaching, we onboard clients, schedule appointments, conduct intake sessions, provide tools and assessments, receive payment, submit proposals, etc. – all of which can benefit from a system. One thing I learned the hard way is that “no system” is, in fact, a system – it’s just a poorly designed system. For the first few years of my coaching, I did not have a system for onboarding new clients. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I rewrote my contract every time for my first twenty or thirty clients because I didn’t have a very effective filing system. In fact, I lost a few clients because I was so disorganized. Like I said, embarrassing!
Think back over the past week and month: what are the tasks, processes, and activities that you could do more efficiently if you had a better system?
That’s my list, and it’s far from comprehensive. What would you add to the list? What makes the coaching life challenging for you? What problems do you wish you had solutions for? I look forward to hearing from you.
