It’s a new year… what a great season for personal trainers to engage in relationships with clients that want to get into physical shape in 2014. What a great time for business owners and professionals to find a business coach or consultant to help them be more productive or profitable in 2014.
I have had a few business coaches throughout my career and think it is important for most people, especially people in the field, to have one. One coach I had was very knowledgeable, was good at heart and did help me in a few different ways. I do not regret my time spent with this coach, however there were five things that irked me enough to stop the coaching sessions. Most of a coaching relationship revolves around personal responsibility by the client and with full disclosure I will admit that sometimes I wasn’t a great client. I tried to communicate and correct some of these issues but in some ways, I should have never had to ask for the correction in the first place. If you are looking for a new coach for 2014, make sure they don’t make these mistakes.
1. Following through with follow up
One thing that bothered me more than anything else is that I wouldn’t receive a recap email in between coaching sessions. Our coaching session comprised of me talking about things I was focused around, items I was looking for additional help or accountability on and also commitments for the month. The coach should be taking notes on my situation and then summarizing this in an email for me to refer back to, or more importantly, for HIM to refer back to! It was like we were starting fresh every coaching session instead of revisiting the progress and commitments from last session. I asked for this to be done, and he did it once or twice but then reverted back to not sending anything at all!
2. Don’t coach and drive
One Friday afternoon session, I was almost certain that my coach was driving his car while providing a coaching session. Now I wouldn’t really care if he was talking to me while driving, as long as I felt as though he was engaged in the conversation. There should be a law, or coaching code that doesn’t allow you to coach while driving without fully disclosing that you are only 90% paying attention to the client.
3. Five minutes late
The saying is 15 minutes early is on time, not five minutes late. I’m not being a stickler here about the amount of time dedicated to our session, because he wouldn’t watch the timer. I am just surprised at the lack of professionalism always being late to the call. If it was just once in a while, I wouldn’t care, but every time he was 5 to 8 minutes late.
4. Original fact finder
Before we started our coaching calls, I filled out a 10 page “fact and feeling” finder so the coach could learn more about me. I answered questions that ranged anywhere from my birthday, struggles in the past, favorite movies and future goals. This was a great exercise, but the coach never reflected on all this content I provided him to help coach me better.
5. Lack of understanding
In many circumstances, I felt the coach didn’t understand the project I was working on, my viewpoints or what I was trying to accomplish. Maybe I wasn’t conveying the message properly, but a coach’s job is to clarify, understand the situation and make sure they are on the same page if there is going to be coaching around it.
Feel free to email me with questions regarding selecting the coach or any general questions.
About
Eddy Ricci, Jr., has been labeled as “the emerging expert in developing Gen Y sales professionals” by the chairman of Publicis Kaplan Thaler and is also noted as “understanding what motivates Gen Y sales teams. He is on my radar and should be on yours” by international speaker and NY Times bestselling author, Erik Qualman. Eddy is the director of a unique training and development collaborative platform that services financial planning firms in the northeast where he has arguably worked with more Gen Y financial professionals than anyone in the country over the past four years. He is the founder of The Growth Game, LLC. ,a professional development company and has authored a book that holds the same title. Eddy is a certified coach and specializes in helping professionals develop sales skills, leadership approaches and implement business development activity systems.WWW.THEGROWTHGAME.COM
