How Women Consultants Can Make An Informed Decision About Whether They Need A Business Coach
This was originally posted on my Seven Figure Consultant LinkedIn Newsletter. Subscribe today to get insights about how women are building powerful and impactful consulting businesses.
Is there a possibility that you’re ‘uncoachable’?
Do you see other consultants benefiting from having a business coach but doubt it could work for you?
You might be right.
Sometimes people are not well suited to coaching.
I try to detect this before we enter into a coaching relationship, but I have been caught out in the past.
The client insists they want me to coach them (because that’s what they believe to be true), but the evidence suggests otherwise.
They don’t book in for our sessions, or they do book in then don’t show up.
They suddenly can’t afford to continue.
Or they’re too busy to finish their contract.
They just don’t want to talk about certain areas of the business, or they’re not willing to allow a coach to set the course for the work together.
There can be all kinds of reasons but the thing underlying all of it is that they either don’t or can’t trust me (or anyone) to be their coach, maybe because they don’t feel safe allowing someone else to give their perspective.
I think when this has happened to me with clients I’ve often felt it has come down to their feeling of emotional safety. There has to be trust there. And if they perceive the coaching relationship as a threat in some way – they will find ways to sabotage it.
For some people one-on-one coaching is just too intense. They feel confronted, or under a spotlight. They feel the need to defend their position. Or take control of the direction we’re headed in.
If that sounds like you, I’m not casting judgement with this post – I’m agreeing with you. If you feel like this, then now isn’t the right time to jump into a coaching relationship.
But this won’t necessarily be the case forever, and in the mean time, there are other things you can do to get some of the benefits of business coaching, without the intensity of a 1-to-1 private coaching relationship. And after you’ve done these things, you may feel more prepared to move to private coaching.
The lowest cost, easiest way to get started is with pre-prepared materials like my free report on the Six Elements of a Seven Figure consulting business. That gives you time to get to know how I work, what I believe in, but you get to do it at your own pace, on your own terms.
I also offer an upgrade from the report to a video series called the Scaling to Seven Figures Video Guide which would be the next step up. You get to see my face, hear my voice. You can start building the relationship, again, entirely on your terms.
And if you’re still not fully sure you’re ready for a private coaching contract with me, I offer 90 minute strategy sessions, with no ongoing commitment. These provide an opportunity to bust through a persistent block, or plan towards a new goal, without the investment of a larger coaching package, and they are an excellent opportunity to see how you feel when being coached.
In addition, I also occasionally offer a group mastermind, which can be a good fit if you find being the centre of attention uncomfortable. The women in the mastermind often benefit from the coaching I give to others – it’s easier to drop their defences and hear what I’m suggesting when I say it to someone else, or to a wider group of people that includes them. And as they see the others in the group open up and make progress, that helps accelerate building trust between us, making our coaching relationship more fruitful.
If you’ve been curious about coaching, but hesitant to enter into a private coaching relationship, let me know if a smaller, lower commitment offer sounds like it would be helpful to you, and I’ll get in touch when I have offers available.
Free Report – The Six Elements of a Seven Figure Consulting Business
I’ve created a free PDF report called The Six Elements of a Seven Figure Business. It’s my most popular free resource and in it I outline the 6 areas of unscaled businesses that need to change in order to move past being ‘booked up and burned out’ and shifting into that higher gear that gets you cruising again.
It’s the framework that helps consultant women like you find their feet and get back to leading the business, rather than being buried in client work and back-end business operations.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your feedback and future topics you’d like me to feature. You may also enjoy The Seven Figure Consultant Podcast, the show that takes you from booked up and burned out in your consulting business to THRIVING as the CEO of your 7 figure enterprise.