Susie wanted to grow her business, Hello Social Media, but was unsure how to do this. She was overthinking everything and going round in circles and so not doing anything. Susie reached out to me to be her business coach. Creating some clear actionable ideas meant Susie could become focused and explore a few ideas at a time, evaluate if they would work for her and quickly either progress or move on. Here is her coaching journey!

Client

Susie is a marketing and social media guru! Susie provides social media management, consultations, audits and training to small to medium sized businesses.

Susie’s goals

Susie came to me for coaching to gain direction and certainty. She wanted a plan of how to grow her business, whilst maintaining her lifestyle. Susie wanted to have clarity in her business decisions and direction and to have more confidence to put herself out there.

Susie has been successfully running her own business for 3 years and loves the freedom of choosing who to work with and building those relationships. With her daughter about to start school, Susie realised she had a choice to make - to grow her business or get a job! She has chosen to grow her business and is unsure about what direction to take it - which is why she thought coaching may support her.

Measure of success

I sent a welcome pack for completion ahead of starting coaching to help focus Susie’s thinking to ensure she got the most out of the sessions. Susie had stated that in 12 weeks time she wanted to build her confidence professionally, have clarity in her business decisions and have determination to push forward. Susie wants to be able to put her prices up and know that they are good value.

First session

The first session involved reviewing the Everything DiSC® profile in depth and working through the welcome pack. Everything DiSC® is a powerful and accurate psychometric tool that gives individuals an in depth view of strengths, motivations, communication style, as well as ideas and strategies when working with individuals that are a different style. When reviewing Susie’s profile with her, she agreed with everything except 2 elements - but this then lead to further insights and deeper self awareness as Susie had the opportunity to explore and explain why these 2 points didn’t resonate with her.

Objectives for the future coaching sessions were confirmed with more clarity discussed about what is required financially by Susie, as well as ideally the work she wants to do and where she wants her business to go, digging deeper into her ‘why’ and agreeing some next steps to complete before the next session.

Subsequent sessions

There is always a review of the previous sessions actions that were agreed to. Some things progressed, some things didn’t. Where things didn’t progress though, there was always learnings. Maybe on reflection Susie realised it wasn’t the right time/the right thing to do; maybe other revenue generating tasks took priority; maybe the idea when tried wasn’t going to push the business forward so it was stopped; maybe there was procrastination - which led to some great conversations to understand why and discuss ways to overcome this in the future. Susie is the expert in her business and, as the coach, my role is to support her to get from where she is now, to where she wants to be, but the journey is hers so although I hold her accountable, there is always flexibility when there are legitimate reasons!

An area we did focus heavily on was when Susie felt she couldn’t charge her worth. I could see the value Susie brought to her clients, her experience and knowledge but Susie needed to realise this. We worked through some coaching questions that helped Susie objectively see the value she gave to her clients, and systematically worked through her objections with ‘facts’ that supported how great she is.

Between sessions Susie had increased prices but still didn’t feel comfortable owning this. Clients hadn’t baulked at her prices, but she was concerned that they hadn’t said yes either. I tested if Susie was confident of the value she was delivering against the price being charged to ensure everything was aligned - it was. Remembering her ultimate goal - of growing her business - Susie realised she couldn’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Before the end of the final session, Susie had clients [happily] paying her new rates.

The coaching journey

Coaching is a journey and at about the mid-point, we further explored Susie’s self-doubt as she was still feeling unsure of the direction of her business. Through coaching techniques Susie felt she needed to stop overthinking and apply the same strategies she would apply to her clients businesses to her own. It was holding the space so Susie could explore, was when she realised that if she doubled or quadrupled the effort she was putting into her own marketing and growth plans she would start to see the same results her clients are seeing.

Through coaching, Susie gained clarity in terms of the number of 1:1 clients required, number of training workshops per month and number of mastermind workshops per month to make her business viable for her lifestyle aspirations. An online training course is something she is going to consider for 2019 to further expand her business reach. Susie took the commitment to keep trying to grow her facebook group (which was started and grew by more than 150% whilst we were coaching!) as well as book 6 months worth of course dates.

The value of coaching

Susie says she leaves coaching sessions feeling motivated and with an action plan which helps her conquer her self doubt because she is taking action and moving herself and her business forward - instead of overthinking and analysing everything, she does her thinking in the sessions and then has a clear way forward to follow through on between sessions. She likes that ideas are questioned as it reassures her that something is a good idea - or she realises quickly that it isn’t going to work for her, so can stop wasting energy on it! However, it is the accountability that Susie finds most useful in coaching - knowing she is showing up each fortnight to report on progress and to be discussing the next steps required to keep the forward momentum.

The path may have some twists and turns

In our fifth session, Susie reported having a bit of a wobble as she had successfully planned out her workshop format and then when in the workshop felt the plan went out the window due to the differing needs of those in the room. When explored in more detail, Susie admitted she had great feedback and when I asked what would have happened if she stuck to the plan, it was noted that it would have been too technical for some attendees and not enough for others - so adapting on the day is what gave the value. I think this comes down to expectation over reality. We talked about how it is good to have an idea of how something will go, visualise this, but it is the outcome that is important; for Susie the outcome is to give maximum value to her clients. The actual execution of the workshop looked different to Susie’s expectation - but if it had gone to plan, the outcome wouldn’t have been achieved! Susie felt working through this and reconciling this so she would amend the workshop description so she felt it is more aligned to her style of having the knowledge and giving what is required to the individuals on the day is then aligning her and her attendees expectations.

During the last few weeks, Susie has learnt to ‘care less’ about the ‘how’ of her business and to focus on her real objectives - earning more money and her work/life balance. The work is different to what she had thought but she is enjoying it and there is a ‘buzz’ about what she is doing - a lot more engagement and enquiries. Susie is more confident to try things and to not be attached to the outcome - they may work, but if they don’t, that’s okay, she will evaluate, decide if she wants to try again, or move on.

The final session

In our final session, I wanted to check Susie had achieved her objectives for coaching. It was a resounding ‘yes’! Overthinking has been reduced, more action is being taken, Susie has confidence in her decision making and faith in herself. She told me she “doesn’t feel like a fraud”, has “loved the process” and has clear plans and ideas to keep motivated and pushing forward in her business. I left Susie with an exercise she can use if she ever doubts herself in the future to help give her a different perspective and empower her to know she is making the right decisions for her and her business.

Susie has been an amazing client and I am very grateful for her sharing her coaching journey with us in this case study!

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