Coaches and Consultants, Are You Making This Mistake?
Last night I had a profound dream.
When I woke up I thought the dream was so important I had to share.
The Dream
There was this woman who was showing signs of physical distress. I quickly realized she was showing signs of a heart attack.
My panicked mind raced with what I should do. I decided I needed to dash off to a cardiology office. Right when I entered I started shouting, “Help, she’s having a heart attack!”
After questioning me about the patient a nurse started to scold me. I came to the wrong place! I realized my mistake and that she needed to go to the Emergency Room.
So I raced over the hospital. I entered the ER room and started shouting “Help, she’s having a heart attack!”
The ER staff just stared at me blankly. Finally someone asked “Where is the patient?”
That’s when I realized I should have called 911. By the time I ran all over town trying to get her help it was possibly too late.
My mistake in this dream was that I felt in order to help her I needed to go to the cardiologist FIRST in order to save her life. I expended a lot of energy looking for the right people to help her when all I needed to do was pick up a phone.
Of course this dream is an analogy of what was going on in my life professionally. I was so busy envisioning all the great possibilities for my clients I was failing to pay attention to the one thing they needed help with . . .
Their First Steps
In my dream the ailing woman’s first step was getting immediate medical help to save her life and get on the road to recovery.
Are you guilty of doing this in your business? In your desire to help your clients do you skip over the needed first steps to get your clients accomplish their goals faster?
An example would be a health and fitness coach who has a client that wants to lose weight. The coach could find out why the client is overweight first before they personalize a program they think the client needs. Weight gain is a very complex formula depending on the individual and the old model of calories in and calories out is outdated. Emotional, physical, and mental aspects of the clients could be addressed first for successful weight loss.
The problem with starting with the possible end results is that the person is suffering today and needs immediate steps to take before they can “recover and move forward.”
How about you? Have you noticed a disconnect between what your clients want and what they really need? Are you their best solution?
I realized I needed to make a choice. Focus what I offer on what my clients really need and not on what they think they want or refer them to someone else who better can help them.
Possible Solutions
Here are a few options that may help solve this issue.
- Create a group of coaches or consultants that focus on a different stage of development and create a referral system for each step.
- Create a series of programs that a client can follow, step by step.
- Focus on one step and be known as the expert in that step.
Photo Credit: Free Digital Photos
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That’s right! First things first. What a great analogy. More than that, a real thing depicted in your dream. Very helpful.
Gustavo| Frugal Science recently posted..Life tools: the best tip for making the distance.
Excellent analogy, Sherrie. I see this a lot as well. The key is that the advisor knows the correct first step and helps the client get on the right path. That’s often a big part of the value that a coach brings to the scene. In reality though, sometime it’s more important just to take a step. In a life and death situation such as the one you described in your dream, it’s much more critical to take the right step the first time. In business and in most other pursuits, the key is take a step, any step, to get some forward momentum. If it’s not the right step, be ready to course correct and keep moving. Too many people don’t take that first step because they are afraid of failing.
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