Do you ever have performance anxiety during coaching sessions?
If you’re a new coach, that’s totally normal. With mindfulness and experience that feeling diminishes.
In my early days, I was so anxious about delivering value that I over-delivered. I felt drained instead of energized by sessions.
That’s a red flag indicating something is off and needs attention.
It took me a while to realize that being in a performative state — trying so hard to coach well — my clients weren’t relaxing into coaching and getting enough value.
It’s a circular problem. To be themselves and access their truth in sessions, coaching clients need to feel safe in your presence.
Cultivating an atmosphere of safety begins well BEFORE they hire you. It’s in your messaging and marketing. It’s on your website and in your social posts.
It’s about connection not performance.
Let’s talk about ways to cultivate trust from day 1 in your coaching business.
Hey Coaches!
Cultivate Trust Before, During and After Coaching
Every day in my inbox and social DMs I receive clearly canned and skeevy feeling marketing messages.
Most people would simply ignore or just delete those messages. But sometimes … because I’m a marketing mentor, I sometimes reply back and share how very turned off I am by their approach and how similar their messaging is to dozens of other marketers selling much the same thing.
A bunch of them are offers that will teach me how to get 100 calls with leads every month. Yuck. Just yuck!
Do you get stuff like in your inbox too?
How does it make you feel?
Well, I hope it shows you what NOT to do yourself in your marketing, which can be very educational.
But if you’re like I was as a new coach there’s a bit of a tug to pay attention because the message is totally aimed towards scarcity. “You don’t have enough clients or income yet” — those kinds of messages —so you spark at anything that promises more.
I get that.
Two decades ago, people were selling the same way! One guy was trying to sell me a method to enroll clients into a high-ticket program. He offered a free call, which illustrated his approach, which was high pressure.
When I didn’t bite, he bullied me, saying I’d be sorry and end up having to close up my business because I’d never succeed without this.
The cheek of that dude! I ended that call quickly!
There are 2 things missing in those high pressure, canned messages:
- Integrity
- Any effort to nurture a real connection
Coaching requires the coach to act from integrity. And attracting coaching clients through connection is not only a palatable approach to sales, but really the only way you’ll attract coaching clients you truly want to work with.
Ideally, BEFORE coaching clients hire you, they already have a strong sense of
- your integrity,
- your authentic personality, and
- exactly how you can help them
Those things create trust and provide a sense of safety.
Remember, you don’t have to hard sell or convince anyone to hire you.
Make your marketing process a natural selection process including all the language you have on your website and everywhere. “Yes, this person is for me” OR “No, this person is not for me.” And don’t worry about the people who don’t hire you.
If your social media posts, blogs, podcast episodes, videos, website – everything – show that you are fully informed about what’s important to your audience they can feel that. And, that’s a way to help them feel safe.
You want your audience to feel seen, heard and understood by you. If they do, they’ll follow you and share your content with others in your audience. They’ll also get curious about what you offer because you’re speaking about what they desire and what’s in the way of that.
Once they do hire you, you’ll be able to help them feel safe in other ways.
Set Boundaries and Provide Structure to Coaching Clients
In a desire to be ALL things to your clients you might forget to set boundaries and provide structure in your programs.
Coaching skills themselves are so open. Open-ended questions, deep levels of listening, open-mindedness about differences — all of those things will be enhanced when you put boundaries and structures in place for your clients.
People THRIVE with a sense of structure and will respect boundaries if you set them up thoughtfully and communicate them well.
Before your first session:
- Provide clear terms and agreements about your coaching program in your intake packet.
- Clearly describe your policies about showing up for sessions and payments (if you have a payment plan, which I don’t recommend.)
- Provide a Session Prep form they fill out and send you 1 -2 days before each session.
- Set clear expectations about your availability and how & when they can contact you. It’s tempting to give full access to you, but it’s really not a good idea.
Then in your sessions hold time boundaries as best as you can. If you think you will go over time, ask them if that’s alright with them and estimate how much you’ll go over. It sounds something like this:
“Hey, I’m noticing that we are getting close to our end time for this session. I think we’re going to take a few extra minutes — I’m thinking 10. Are you okay with that?”
Then stick with that! It’s not easy but it is important. For more about setting smart boundaries with clients listen to Episode 29.
After sessions, send a session recap that lists agreed upon next steps and any other notes you’d like to provide.
Track Your Coaching Client’s Goals
Then take the structure deeper into the sessions by create a simple method to track a set of goals that your clients choose related to your niche. This may seem obvious but in the interest of being thorough …
- Within the first 2 sessions set specific milestones you’ll help them achieve.
- Get clear on their top challenges and who they want to be when they transform.
- How will you help them perceive that they’ve made progress?
- Set a tickler in your calendar to check in on their progress towards specific goals. This is part of the accountability you provide.
Gather and Give Feedback from Your Coaching Clients
Feedback is underrated and so valuable to help your clients make progress and to learn from your clients too.
1. Be sure to ask for feedback regularly
- At the end of every session, ask for their takeaways. Write those down in the Session Recap. This helps them realize what they are getting of value from the sessions and what they want to be different.
- Make sure that your Session Prep form asks for feedback too. Acknowledge what they say in session.
- If you’re not getting enough feedback, take time in a session half way through or maybe ¼ the way through your program to directly ask for it. Not everyone is great at giving feedback as they go along unless you ask for it.
2. But also give feedback
- Let them know how they’re doing. Be kind but also real. Encourage them to step up if progress is slow.
- Ask for referrals mid-way through your program and at the end.
- Ask for a testimonial one week before your program finishes. Give them guidelines and make the testimonial process easy. Check out Episode 271 for details about how to do that.
Remember, client service goes beyond coaching. To make sure you’re providing service in a way that attracts ideal clients who pay well strategize everything from the start.
All these things I’ve shared are about helping your clients feel safe, which helps them be less anxious about the coaching itself —relax into themselves, be real with you and with themselves — to be able to move forward.
And, all this safety you provide for them also makes you feel safe, stable and confident. That way you won’t be anxious in sessions either.