The new year is the perfect time to try new things. Coaches, why not do what you continually encourage your clients to do? Try on a new perspective. Envision what you really want.
Here are just a few opportunities for change:
- How you price your services. For 22 years, I’ve approached pricing as a per-session rate, multiplied by the total engagement (e.g., three months, six months). I’m now piloting charging a one-time fee based on the client’s long-term goal and the value of that goal. This puts the focus on the outcome rather than on the session. It also gives us the flexibility to add sessions—or take them away—as we progress, but the fixed price doesn’t change.
- How you structure your time. If you’ve been doing hour-long sessions, experiment with 30- or 45-minute sessions. You could also survey your clients and ask what they prefer.
- Who you coach. One of my year-end practices is to review who I coached the previous year, looking at who I coached, where those clients came from, and what percentage of my income came from each type of client. When I started writing my book about internal coaching, I decided to just dip my toe into internal coaching. This year, I’m amazed to see that internal coaching has become most of what I do. So dabble in another niche and see where it takes you. If you’re feeling unsure, form a network with other coaches to learn from each other’s expertise and cross-refer different types of clients.
- How you meet with your clients. All I did was telephone coaching for the first almost 20 years of my coaching career. Even when I was on Zoom to teach and give presentations, I shared slides but I wasn’t on the screen. I didn’t start video coaching until the pandemic. So try turning off your Zoom video and using audio alone, or even the plain old-fashioned telephone.
What’s the next new thing you’ll try in your coaching?
Onboarding a New Coaching Client