Many times I’ll get coaches asking me a ‘how to’ question:
“How do I create conversations?”
“How do I make proposals?”
Or
“How do I know when to invite people to a coaching conversation?”
Almost always my answer is: it depends.
It depends because people are not robots. Whilst there are guidelines that I share with my clients and we can go into the specifics of a particular situation or a particular person they want to invite into a coaching conversation, ultimately they have to be guided by their own gut or intuition which takes into account the context of the situation.
With one coach they may invite someone into a coaching conversation pretty quickly because the prospect is open to being coached or maybe they’ve even reached out asking for coaching. However, with someone else, there may not be the context created for a coaching conversation at all yet or they may have a full client load and so they want to slow things down before offering a conversation.
Last year, I had a coach reach out to me offering me a coaching conversation. When I declined he continued to try to convince me to experience his coaching. He applied pressure and questioned why I wasn’t accepting his offer. I tried to be polite but eventually, I gave him some pretty direct feedback by telling him that he hadn’t created the context for a conversation.
He had no idea what I was up to in the world, he had no idea what I was trying to create, he didn’t know what challenges or problems I might be facing and he didn’t take into account that I already have enough support with the coaches and mentors I work with.
I also told him the more that he pressurised me into having a coaching call with him the less I wanted to have a conversation. Even if I had said yes, because of the feeling created by the pressure I wouldn’t want to sign up with him and I wouldn’t have been as open in a coaching conversation.
No matter how good a coach you are, no matter how experienced you are as a coach and even no matter what people pay you, some people will not be interested in speaking with you. Creating clients isn’t about convincing anyone and everyone to hire you but finding people who would like support, who you can impact and who are open, coachable and can pay your fees.
So what’s the bottom line? How do you know when to invite people to a coaching conversation?
Ensure there is a good feeling of connection, ensure there is appropriate context created for any coaching conversation and ultimately trust your gut.
There’s no better person in the world that teaches the essence of that feeling of connection – through rapport and deep listening – like Dr Mark Howard. What I’ve learned from him completely changed for the better the impact I have on my clients.
It’s no wonder that I invited Mark to be a guest faculty member in my coaching career school and I am excited to see the ripple effects Mark’s teachings will have on the coaches who are attending the school and in the lives of their clients.
In the video above you can watch an interview I did with him for the school. Whether you attend the school or not, please watch this because it will help you to grow your practice in profit and impact.
With love and appreciation,
Ankush
Coach and Author of Sweet Sharing – Rediscovering the REAL You
P.S The school is filling up as we speak. If you’d like to learn more about it and see if it’s a good fit for you, just reply to this email and we can set up a conversation.
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