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How can we preserve the achievements our clients made in coaching?
How to prevent that everyday life with all its old habits and routines takes over again after a short period?
How to ensure lasting client success?
There are two typical ways a coaching process ends:
A client’s goal was to decide whether she wants to change jobs and stay employed or if she wants to make a complete career change and start her own business. Once she made her decision the coaching process could be considered finished after the last session.
However, there are also cases where the coaching process continues for the client after the last session has ended. A typical example is an executive who suffered from burnout.
Through the insights gained in coaching, she has been able to cope much better with stress and eliminated the feeling of being constantly overwhelmed. Her time management has also improved significantly. Regular breaks are now an integral part of her daily routine. She overcame her perfectionism and no longer feels the urge to do every little task on her own. She is able to delegate things to colleagues whenever possible.
However, there is always a danger of falling back into old patterns and habits. She needs a high level of mindfulness, resilience, and discipline to permanently preserve all the achievements she made through the coaching.
In such cases, it makes sense to offer the client follow-up support that goes beyond the original coaching.
How to offer Follow-up Coaching to preserve the achievements?
Experience shows that most clients gladly accept the offer of a follow-up session. Depending on the topic, it makes sense to schedule it around 3-6 months after the last session. The best solution for the time until this appointment is follow-up coaching through questionnaires.
It’s a great way to preserve achievements without the direct involvement of the coach. The client fills out a reflection questionnaire via CleverMemo every 7 to 14 days. This is a proven and effective way to regularly check and document the progress and also setbacks. Typically, the tool includes questions such as:
How can I tell that I am moving in the right direction?
Where did I run the risk of falling back into old habits this week and how did I deal with it?
What did I do particularly well this week? What didn’t work out as expected?
What’s my takeaway for the next week?
Writing as a Key to More Clarity and Insights
Writing down their thoughts and progress allows clients to self-reflect in a calm atmosphere and at their own pace. Self-reflection creates clarity and often brings insights that would otherwise have been lost.
Consciously noticing progress increases motivation to continue to stick to one’s plans and goals. Becoming aware of roadblocks and setbacks at an early stage enables clients to get back on track immediately.
Sharing the questionnaires with the coach strengthens the commitment to actually fill them out. The coach acts as a sparring partner without being actively involved or present. A few words of motivation and a brief exchange about the progress are usually sufficient. Around 70% of clients gladly accept the offer of follow-up support to preserve their achievements.
After all, it’s the opportunity to continue working with the coach for a fixed monthly fee. The coach gets an additional source of income by supporting clients on their way to lasting success. Regular sessions are not necessary and this option is a win-win situation for both!
Clients have the opportunity to measure their successes and make progress visible. Regular reflection keeps the change process active and shows potential for further improvement.
The idea behind CleverMemo was to make Follow-Up Coaching effective and allow coaches to put it even on autopilot. Start a free trial here. The Follow-up Toolkit includes all the questionnaires and exercises needed for professional Follow-Up Coaching.
