The following is an excerpt of an actual transaction between David and a client in Top Coaching Techniques.
David: How often do you work out?
Client: I got sick again, so I haven’t again, but I try to go at least four times a week.
David: How often do you work out?
Client: Well lately it’s been – I haven’t since I moved here, so it’s been once or twice.
David: Okay, so is that something that would support you if you worked out four times a week, something that would –
Client: Oh yeah.
David: – help your brain chill out?
Client: Absolutely.
David: Okay, so what’s it going to take to have you exercise four times a week?
Client: I just need to get more disciplined with the hours I spend at work, and ensure that I get some more sleep than I’m getting. I’m –
David: I’ve got a little warning bell going off.
Client: What’s that?
David: When someone says, ‘I’ve just got to get more disciplined,’ or, ‘I’ve just got to do it,’ that doesn’t always, in fact, it often doesn’t equate to doing it.
The following is taken from David’s interview in 10 Super Coaches.
What words of advice would you give to a coach starting out?
I would say, make sure you’ve got some good guidance. Whether that’s through a school or through a mentor coach or a good circle of support around you that also has good business sense.
And, you need to coach. You can’t just wait for it to happen, you can’t just wait to get confident and you can’t just wait for people to float through your door at $300 or $400 a month.
You need to coach fifty people, I’d say, even if it’s just one session, so that you can develop some confidence as a coach and that’s when your career can really take off. When you know that you’ve got the skills, when you know that people are getting results, that’s what’s got to happen and it won’t happen until you actually coach.
The following is a transcription taken from Explode Your Practice.
David: So let’s just see if we can cover all the rules here. It has been quite a fast session for me where you get right into something. The time flies. Ok so we have. Oh the other element how about paying on time.
Ok
David: What a great way to demonstrate commitment. And last thing I can think of is that they have been ready for the call.
Ok. So they are ready with their notebook, their homework which I should now have a copy of.
David: And that they have generated what they want to cover in the call. Ok. It’s a real passive stance when they have come along to the call and say ok now what?
That will give me time to look over the material and…
David: Exactly and even if you don’t do that you can even work out what their actions could be for the next week. Have them do the coaching themselves so they can come up with solutions rather than rely on you. Ok and then you can build on what they do rather then replacing what they would do.
The following is a transcription taken from Explode Your Practice.
They will look for coaching.
David: That’s a bit of a myth. For you and I coaching is a big word, but they might be more likely to type in career advice or career direction. Try this, go to overture.com and look for the search suggestion box. You can see what people are searching for. You can even put in dream and see what comes out in dream and see if it is find a dream career or discover your dream career. I’m guessing for you the most searched phrase would be new career.
David: You might find 4 key words that work for you life career direction and you have it. It’s going to be hard to compete with everyone around the world for even career direction. And if you get someone from the UK, it probably doesn’t do any good. They want to find someone on hometown. So for whatever key words you choose add Melbourne. You can go for career direction, or career coaching, another word that should be prominent is Melbourne and Australia. You will get plenty of traffic and the right kind of traffic rather than if you were to go too broad.
Yes.
David: Key words. You can’t go for too many on each page. Let’s say you want your home page to have the keywords” career coaching, Melbourne and Australia. That would work out fine. Make sure each of these words or phrases are mentioned 4 or 5 times on your page. That way when you submit it to the search engines they will rate highly.
The following is a transcription taken from Explode Your Practice.
Just a couple of quick pointers on your letter. I will tell you what I think and you can ask questions at the end. There is no passion at the beginning of this letter. I am in the process of starting up my business; I’m looking for whatever. There’s nothing about the incredible joy of starting a coaching business and the profound privilege of actually being able to be a part of helping people with their lives. And if you want to say that you are scared to death, you can say that too. But, you are giving no sense of you. It’s just putting in some passion and some feeling. Letting them know who you are. Then they can relate to you and know what is really going on here. In your second line you say I am looking for people who are interested in my service. I would rip that out. And say something like, “I’ve created ten spots for people who are interested in having a discussion about their life and where they are heading.”
The following is an excerpt of an actual transaction between David and a client in Top Coaching Techniques.
David: Okay. So that’s a good example. You’re walking on the edge of the concept. You may have it. I just want to check. One great example of this is you decide to bake a cake for somebody. Halfway through baking it, a TV show is on and you start getting pissed off, because you’re baking a cake instead of watching TV.
Client: I do it all the time.
David: Right. That’s called being irresponsible
Client: Yes, that’s exactly what I am.
David: And that’s okay. It’s a human thing, but it’s like, ‘I decided this and now I wish I were doing something else. Maybe I made a wrong decision then.’ It’s a load of crap. It’s really just a way of making yourself wrong in life.
So, the making a cake is a great example. Now let’s look at a business. You choose a business like the cake – you choose it. Stuff might come up and you go, ‘Oh, I wish I was doing yoga right now.’ So, if you say, ‘I made the choice and this is what I am going to do. This is what I prefer – to have the business over the yoga.’
Client: Yeah. I choose and therefore I make a commitment.
