We’ve reached the lazy days of summer when you might be planning, enjoying, or returning from a much-deserved break. It’s also halfway through the year, and that makes it a great time to check in.
Coaches in our training programs tell me how much they want to keep improving their skills. They realize they need to keep monitoring themselves and be aware of what’s going on.
So let’s check in on how your coaching is going, and how your coaching business is going. In the second post in this series, we’ll check in on how you’re doing.
Check in on your business
There are all sorts of statistics you can get into, which can be fascinating as well as validating. This kind of “hard data” can be helpful to counter our thinking that we really haven’t done that much, or we’re not growing, or we’re not doing well.
That’s why taking stock is a good exercise—not just to identify any issues, but to see what’s gone well, and what you’ve accomplished.
You can pull data from Quicken or another bookkeeping program, or from your calendaring system, such as to see how many clients you’ve coached or how many coaching hours you put in. You can also calculate the percentage of clients who returned for additional coaching after your initial engagement, your business growth from one year to the next, or your conversion rate from initial conversation to signing up for your services.
There’s also important subjective data, like who are the clients you most enjoyed coaching? Who are you attracting? What is it like to coach them? I’ve trained a number of internal coaches and several of them have said things like, “I thought being an internal coach would be way easier than being an external coach, but this is really tiring. I know all these people. I see them all the time. It’s exhausting.”
You can use this awareness to adjust your marketing to better attract the clients you do want to work with. Speaking of marketing, do you have a marketing plan? It’s never too late! If you did set up marketing goals and objectives, have you met them? What can you do to improve your results, or how might you want to tweak your plan, now that you have half the year behind you?
I start collecting soft data about how my marketing is working as soon as someone reaches out to me. I might say, “I’m always curious. How did you learn about me?”
The mid-year point is also a great time to check in on the health of your finances. Are you on track? Have you earned approximately 50% of your annual income goal? Did you set an income goal for the year? Again, it’s not too late. Give yourself a target so you can clearly assess how your business is doing.
Check in on your coaching
You might also want to check in on continuing education and skills development. If you have a mentor coach, supervisor, or coaching buddy, work with them to determine your learning goals for the rest of the year.
Ongoing learning and training are so important for staying sharp. My mentor coach describes continuing education as an IV bag that just keeps dripping good stuff into your system. Hopefully you’ve allotted some funds in your annual budget for this, or you can add that into your financial check-in.
And keep in mind that continuing education doesn’t always have to cost a lot of money. How many books are on your shelf that you haven’t read, or could read again and probably get a host of new insights? Not to mention all of the documents, recordings, bookmarked websites, and other digital resources that you saved and have been meaning to look at but haven’t.
Don’t forget about your human resources: interesting people you’ve met, or presenters or teachers you’ve enjoyed who’d be more than happy to answer a question or two. And what about the people you’ve trained with? They may have a wealth of experiences and knowledge that could enrich your own coaching or business. Do a simple poll of some of these contacts to see which resources they recommend (newsletters, books, YouTube channels, TED talks, etc.).
A mid-year check-in allows you to make necessary adjustments, set new goals, and ensure that you’re on track for a successful year. So what do you think? Is it worth taking a deeper look at your hard and soft data from the first six months of this year? Have the ideas in this article already inspired any insights about what you want to create as the year winds down?
A Coaching Checklist: What to Remember and What to Forget – Part 2