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Follow-up coaching is often disregarded and can be called the forgotten part of coaching. This article shows the importance of a structured follow-up coaching.
How it improves your coaching business, how it helps to create sustainable results for your clients and an additional revenue stream for you.
Once the coaching program is over we’ve given our client a solid foundation and strategies to achieve their goals and desired outcomes. This could be improved behavior, personal development, self-growth, self-improvement or new skills. But the real challenge starts once the coaching is over.
Lasting & sustainable change is a process not a one-time event
Creating new habits, changing the mindset or finding strategies is just the beginning. Lasting and sustainable change takes time. And now it’s up to our client to put all these learnings and intentions into practice. Rome wasn’t built in a day and sticking to one’s plan is hard work and the human nature is notoriously poor at following through with our intentions and plans.
Once back in our daily routine we are very likely to slip back into old habits and unhelpful patterns. Our comfort zone is called like this for a reason and all our new plans have to be proved in the daily practice.
After the coaching, our clients will face various challenges. Some of them are unforeseeable like the reaction of their environment. How will their partner, colleagues, and friends react to this different behavior and acting?
If the reaction isn’t as expected (or even negative) the client is likely to fall back into her „good old self“ where she was before the coaching. Other hurdles and roadblocks will arise and jeopardize the success and results of the valuable coaching you provided.
The solution to this problem is offering a follow-up coaching. That doesn’t indicate your initial coaching program wasn’t good or that you did a bad job. Also, it’s not about hand holding the clients to their success. You show your clients your expertise and that you know what it takes to achieve lasting change and sustainable success.
You give them the feeling someone is there for them who knows what they are going through and you help your clients to help themselves (not make them dependent on you).
Benefits and effects of follow-up coaching: Sustainable change and outcomes
- Follow-up coaching reinforces improved habits and behavior. Once the coaching program is over it’s important to keep the momentum going.
- You remain connected without the need for extra coaching sessions and you enable your clients to walk away feeling they had everything they needed.
- The real challenge for your clients is to implement all the strategies and solutions in their daily life. As written before unforeseeable hurdles and roadblocks will arise and jeopardize the success and results of the coaching. A customized and structured follow-up coaching prevents these setbacks.
- This additional offer to your initial coaching program helps you to stand out as a coach who really cares about the lasting success of their clients. It shows your clients that you really care about their sustainable results. Change is a process, not a one-time event.
- It helps clients to stay accountable, motivated and focused after the initial coaching
- After we’ve accomplished change or success it takes work to maintain these results. Follow-up coaching does just that
- Follow-up coaching is a next level opportunity: People yearn to go deeper and to continue to grow. It’s not just a continuation but the next step on their journey from where they are to where they want to be. It gives them what they need to advance to the next level.
- This offer is an additional revenue stream and increases the lifetime value of each client
Referrals are the source of a thriving coaching business. And guess what clients who achieve lasting! results and success with your coaching program will do…
Easy Ways to provide a follow-up coaching – Improve your coaching for lasting success
How do you structure a follow-up offer after your initial coaching program?
Every client and their situation is different but there are some guidelines that help you create this additional offer and to maximize the impact of your coaching.
First of all the intention of a follow-up coaching doesn’t mean you need extra coaching sessions, even if you can arrange them once the situation makes them feasible.
The follow-up process is typically between 2 and 6 months depending on the goals and coaching topic. You should strive for a weekly contact with your client which is usually through asynchronous written communication.
Those contacts include questionnaires, exercises, tools and worksheets that help your client to reflect on how things were going during the last week and what’s planned for the upcoming days.
Encourage them to keep a journal (weekly or daily) where they write down their experiences, success, fears, hurdles, thoughts, and ideas. This follow-up toolkit includes everything you need to provide a professional follow up coaching for almost every topic (see more).
Express appreciation for positive changes and milestones you notice. Only a few motivating words will let your client know she/he’s on the right way. Reschedule a coaching session if your client is in danger to fall back into old habits or routines.
What to charge for a follow-up coaching?
Obviously it depends on your coaching rates but in general, it’s recommended to collect a monthly fee from your clients, instead of charging an hourly rate.
Professional and structured follow up coaching sounds like a lot of extra work at the beginning. But the truth is using a software tool like CleverMemo makes it a matter of minutes per client and week. It allows you to send all the questionnaires and exercises with a few clicks. You provide your clients the luxury of looking back with the shared coaching stream.
Basically, you have a coaching system that uplevels your coaching programs. You gain a new revenue stream and happy clients who achieve lasting results. The basis of a thriving coaching business. Click here to find out more and start your free trial.
