The free coaching session is a valuable tool available to the coach. This can be used for a life coach, business coach, marketing coach or any number of disciplines existing in the coaching arena. This allows a coach and a client to get to know each other and decide if they are a fit or not. While many alternatives to this is available, the free coaching session is the most widely used way to accomplish this. My personal favorite is the use of engaging videos on such a large scale that a client can see whether or not they resonate with a specific coach before they even pick up the phone. A coach can be more effective if less of their time is spent selling their client and more time is spent helping the clients that match their particular style. Free coaching lands for new coaches as a waste of their valuable time and they are reluctant to give away any of their information to a client without pay. This attitude is often promoted by certification companies in reverse when they require certain student coaches to have an 80/20 ratio of paid to free clients. As a new coach with no validation or testimonies to speak of, the question always arises as to how to get paid clients when one has no track record. Apart from prospective clients wanting to know their money spent on the coach is good money, it is even more crucial that the coach feels they are worth the money they are asking. Even more so than the free coaching, the idea of "free" in the market place in general is not well understood.
From a business standpoint, there is an attraction for free tools and technologies. Many people believe that free is better because it is free, that is not the case most of the time. In fact that is never the case. The law of the universe is that each and everything has to pay it's way. You give the ground a seed, it gives you a crop. You put wood in a fireplace and it gives you heat. You pay money at a restaurant and you receive food. Everywhere in nature you can see this principle. Even animals have to make a contribution to the ecosystem. A dog is the only animal that does not have to pay it's way except for the love and that's another story or blog. An exchange of energy is at the root of it all and money, if it is nothing else, is energy. The world of business follow the seedtime and harvest principle which simply put, is that you reap what you sow. So for the purpose of this blog, know that before you can get water from a pump, you have the prime the pump. When I was a boy, I lived in the rural part of the city known as "The Country." There was an old pump sticking up out in the back yard. Every morning it was my job to take a bucket of water out to the back yard and pour a little into the top of the pump and start to crank it. I would try cranking it without putting in the water sometime because I did not want to go all the way back to the house to get more water in the bucket. But it was always necessary to pour water into the top of the pump before cranking it would give me water.
The idea of getting something for nothing is another concept it is up to coaches to make real for their clients. As clients begin to understand this, the idea becomes more prevalent in the marketplace and less and less people look for free stuff. I stress this because it is a new revolution for me and I have been doing business for years. We want to be paid for our service but we are reluctant to pay for the services of others. The idea of looking for a deal in every instance while at the same time keeping your money in your pocket is a losing proposition. Everyone speaks of how important mindset is but when you tend to treat your own resources as though they are your last, they will always be your last. Money is not owned by anyone but it is the control of money that we enjoy. It is called currency for a reason and that reason is that it moves. Helping your clients understand that faith in more gives them the freedom that is needed to spend or invest money with the expectation. A reluctance to use the money in your control might also be an indication of a lack of confidence in your ability to make more. It is not a big jump to also realize that this may be due to an inferior product in your mind. If you are not sold on your product or service, it will manifest as a lack of confidence to make money. Help your clients realize that it is not a matter of whether or not they are going to spend money for their business but more of a matter of how they will spend. An unwillingness to spend your hard-earned cash by the bucketful forever limits your ability to make it by the bucketful.
Finally, it this is to change, it is the coaches that will do it. Reading it here is a start. Learning it in a seminar is also good. But to keep this uppermost in your mind until it becomes second nature requires regular reinforcement. And whether you are a coach or a busines-owner, this can best be accomplished by an accountability partner like a coach.
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