☕ CoffeeChat Weekly
Opportunities & Insights from Across Our Community
CoffeeChat is proud to celebrate International Women’s Day this year! Our mission to make 1-on-1 coaching more affordable, accessible and relevant also means making sure women access coaching support to realize their full potential in both their personal and professional lives. More than half of the coaches and experts we host on our platform are women, and an even higher portion of our coaching recipients so far have been female. We will continue to challenge ourselves to serve and support women across emerging markets.
Next weekend, CoffeeChat founder Chris Suzdak will join a panel titled “Future of Work and Women: Finding Mentors, Sponsors, and Allies“ hosted by Coach Meenakshi as part of her series of global conversations this month around the topic of the “Future of Work: Power of the Female Perspective“.
Free Group Coaching Session
This Thursday, Style Coach & Certified Image Consultant Khandini from Mauritius will host a free session about building your personal brand image. She shares:
When attending interviews or working in corporate environment, the only thing that sets you apart from others, is your PERSONAL BRAND. Have you defined it? Did you work on it?
Weekly Coach Spotlight
This week we spotlight Christopher, a Performance Coach based in Mauritius. Read the full spotlight article to learn more about his experience with coaching. Here’s what he shared about his experience of becoming a coach:
I realised I often listened in order to respond and advise. Coaching is more about holding a space between you and your client and really listening. And when you do open your mouth, you ask questions and guide them to find their own answers.
Add Value During Discovery Sessions
In our weekly playbook preview tip for coaches, we cover a topic within the theme of “Show Your Value”:
Everyone knows the importance of making a good first impression.
Yet often coaches sabotage themselves by not following the principle of "show, not tell." They will focus too much of their time on explaining the journey they aim to take clients through and mention a successful case study. But what is arguably more important to do during your first session is actually deliver a first-hand experience on the spot that demonstrates the value they will get from working with you.
Assuming the client is a good fit for you, you want to make sure they also feel the same way, and are excited to commit to moving forward with additional sessions. If your prospective client doesn’t leave this discovery session having learned something new about themselves or excited to try something new with a key challenge they are facing, then the odds are much lower that they will decide to move forward with you in the short term, unless you come highly recommended by someone they know and trust.
This can done by sharing a few self-reflection questions before the session that they should spend a few minutes preparing to speak about, then spending half the call beginning to unpack their initial responses.
A structure for the first discovery session could include:
Objective 1: Add Value
Facilitate reflection based on pre-sent questions and dig deeper
Challenge client to find opportunity to practice new behavior they've self-identified
Objective 2: Determine Fit
Share each other's backgrounds
Explain the types of support you typically offer
Client Q&A
Objective 3: Housekeeping (potentially over email)
Discuss pricing
Agree on next steps
Depending on the context of how the client was introduced to you and whether they are being sponsored, some of these items can shifted to an email follow-up, a second discovery session, or the first actual session of the coaching engagement.