EN
June 9, 2023
In the last week I read and heard about the following training offers for clients:
The last one is apparently even recommended by marketing specialists as one of the biggest growth sectors for influencers and those who want to become one (see Mama Doctor Jones if you want a thorough debunking). Why are new, bright and shiny methods and tools so attractive to coaches? Ok, I hear you remind me that why questions are not really what you came here for. But bear with me as I explore some of the reasons and what coaches might explore instead. Ok. I'll say it: should explore instead. There, I said it.
Coaches don't like marketing
Most coaches' motivation is to help people and earn money by having deep conversations. They tend not to like "shallow marketing" and standing on a soapbox praising their wares. They also assume that clients will naturally congregate toward competent coaches. So what could be more natural than taking one course after the other and adding more and more knowledge? In my experience, most clients don't know what good coaching is and know even less about all the methods that you are offering. So instead of piling up more or less useful knowledge, why not learn about marketing? Yeah, I know. Not fun. Neither are tax returns. But you have to. No way around. Find a way of marketing that is fun for you. I hated it, too, until I found that I could treat myself to writing a blog every week and think about interesting topics publicly, do free meetups and speak with great people and call all that "marketing".
Coaches are generally curious and want to develop
Yup, that's us. We like new things and are interested in them, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, when I supervise coaches, the solution to a "performance gap" is almost never: "I need to learn astrophysical wellness beaming" or something like that. This almost always about how the coach interacts with their client, how they understand their role or how they can cooperate even better with their clients. It's about looking at practice and designing experiments to grow. Please consider buying a nice reflective blog (a simple word file will do, too, but if you need to spend money, this will at least look nice) and start by asking yourself: "What happened? What am I learning? How am I going to take this forward?")
Coaches are not immune to the "keeping up with the Jonses" effect
We go to conferences with other coaches and they speak about their new certifications. Suddenly we start feeling that in order to compete, we need that, too. As my mother used to say: "And, are you going to jump out of the window if everybody else is?" Resist that temptation. You can do it. You don't buy every lovely pair of shoes that you see either, right? Ever resisted that third scoop of ice-cream? See. I said you can do it. Sleep over it before you enroll in a training: Is any of your clients going to pay you one cent more for it? What if you took that day to go walking, reflecting, to the beach, the pool or anything else that may rejuvenate you and thus make you a better coach?
Working on yourself and your coaching skills is hard
Real growth as a coach comes from reflecting on your practice. We record sessions, look at what we did in response to the client and think about alternatives. Not fun. Not good for our ego, but necessary. Of course, we also invite ourselves to look what went well, but seriously, who does that when it comes to their own practice (this is why a supervisor is so helpful). Going to a course, getting a certificate offers much faster gratification than trying to learn to craft questions out of the clients' words (for example).
As I said at the beginning, this was a little rant. Our trainings deliberately contain invitations to continue growing after the course and develop a reflective and deliberate learning practice, so you don't have to feel like you are not good enough and need to patch it with a bright and shiny new tool. You are good enough right now, especially if you continue learning what YOU do well and what YOU can improve.
Hoping to see you at one of our meetups so I can tell you in person that you are good enough :-)
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