Every expert consultant needs a set of coaching tools. Every coach needs tried and true tools and methods on what works to help them solve their customers’ problems.
So what coaching tools are you going to have in your toolkit to help people? What is your list of resources, and why is that important?
When someone comes to you for help, they’re going to need some good advice and your special way of doing it. But they’re also going to want to know, how do I get there faster? How did you do it?
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We’ve been forming this idea of a personal branding framework. At its most basic, it’s a three-pronged process:
The message helps you find your voice and become known for something. Your community brings people together so you can engage and talk to them and help figure out what their problems are. Impact means you are figuring out solutions to those problems based on your experience and things you’ve tried.
Now, within making an impact is this idea of building a coaching framework. Part of that process is building the personal coaching tools that you use to help people.
YOUR COACHING TOOLS, THEIR BENEFIT
When you start to look back at what you do, you’ll find a lot of resources you’ve used to move you along. These are tools you use every day in your business that you think are very normal and assume everyone knows how to use.
But maybe someone who’s starting out doesn’t know what to pick. They haven’t done the research you did, so the coaching tools you are offering are a fast pass. It’s a quicker way of getting from A to B, without that customer having to do the research himself.
You’ve already done the work. Why not share it with your customers? “Here are the tools I use. These are my trusted vendors. Here are my resources. Here’s how I did it.”
When you can do that, you’ve saved them a ton of time, which is a massive value to them right off the bat. And they trust you because you’re using these things yourself.
Sometimes we take these tools for granted, too. We do them as habit. But when you start creating these coaching tools, you’re making your own business faster while creating resources that you can build into your coaching business. So there’s massive value all around.
There’s no reason not to do this as soon as possible. It’s going to help everyone out, and that resource sets you apart from the rest of the competition out there.
I like to categorize these coaching tools and resources into three things:
- Favorites
- Templates
- Skill builders
PICK YOUR FAVORITES
Favorites are the tools you’ve done the research on. You’ve tested them, read about them in-depth, and use them.
So, when someone asks you what they should use, you can tell them, “I use this one, and here’s why.” That way they can decide, “Well, based on what my coach told me, I can just pick this one, because I know that this is going to be suitable for my needs.”
In most fields, there will be multiple options. By figuring out your favorites, you can list and categorize them into a template you can send people so they don’t have to go searching.
Here’s an example. When people want to know how to start a podcast, I have a ton of these resources already built.
I get asked the same questions. “What equipment should I use?” Here’s my PDF that shows the microphones I think you should use. Here’s the price and a link to where to buy them. Here are the headphones you should buy. Here’s a link to a boom arm you can buy on Amazon. Here’s the microphone pop filter so you don’t have all these loud “s” sounds coming through.
Optionally, here are some extras you might want.
That equipment list helps people quickly move through and just make the decision. They can eyeball this list and say, “OK, I understand what resources I’m going to need, and I can budget for that and have a better sense of what this stuff really is going to cost.”
People appreciate that. So think about all the resources you use on a daily basis. I use a lot of software: programs and tools for marketing, an email marketing system, a creative tool template, hosting providers for my podcasts… Having those recommendations is just as useful.
SHOWCASE YOUR EXPERIENCE
Now, if people have questions, they can just ask you: “Hey, how do you use this thing?” Whether that’s built into your training or not, it’s one more piece of value you’re giving them. You’re using the same software, so you can ask things like, “What did you put in this form? “How did you set up this thing?”
You can walk them through it. That’s one more layer of value you offer because not only do you use these things, but you’ve been using them longer. By default, you have more experience and can help them with it.
Even better, you can build affiliate relationships with a lot of these tools and softwares. That way, you’re able to offer a discount on these services to your clients and you can get a little bit of referral money from it, too. It’s not gonna be tons of money, but every dollar counts.
And if clients are going to pay for it anyway, you might as well both benefit. So that’s a win win for everybody on everyone’s side.
You can’t do that right off the bat, but you should at least start building familiarity with your resources. It removes all the fear and doubt and confusion that comes when people are trying to learn something new, and the more you can make it a simple win, the more likely the people you bring into your world are going to have real transformations.
You’re removing the hurdles, the fear, the things that make things hard, and you’re giving them quick wins that say, “Boom, boom, boom. I know exactly what I need.” That clarity alone is super valuable.
BUILD YOUR TEMPLATES
The second step in building your coaching tools is to figure out what templates you can share. You need to have things first-timers can refer to and see how you did it. You’re walking them through your steps, the forms to use, and how you go through and think about these things.
For me, podcasters do a lot of interviews. So a good resource would be a template for a good interview.
Or, when you are coming up with your target audience, what are the questions you need to answer to fully describe that customer? How do you reach out to high-quality guests and get them to be on your show? What’s the template for a bio?
For all these questions, you can just say “Here are the actual things I say that you can work into your own business. I use these things all the time.”
There are a hundred ways to do most things. People just want to follow a model that’s been proven successful. If you can offer that model, it’s hugely valuable to your clients.
So think about how you can build a template your clients can just model to skip the learning curve.
They might not even know they need these things until you provide it.
For example, I’ve got a podcasting pre-show checklist. Just knowing, “I should have something I consistently do every time I start a show” is important. Why? Because it builds consistency into your program. It lets the guests know you’re professional and you have confidence going in because you know exactly how you’re going to start the show.
That little thing, maybe your client wouldn’t have thought of. But now that you’ve built it for them, they have it in their toolkit, too.
CREATE SKILL BUILDERS
The third step in developing coaching tools is to identify skill builders. Skill builders are the things your customers need to practice.
Anything you do is probably going to be bad the first time. You can create spaces for people to practice the things they need to be better at, to successfully accomplish them. You’re providing them a safe space to get things wrong and work the kinks out.
For me in podcasting, a good skill builder is giving someone a space to practice interviewing or run through interview questions. Then we look through it together and say, “This is what I would change.”
Those kinds of skill builders are great because I know what’s important for podcasts.
WHAT CAN YOU TEACH?
Let’s say you have good interview skills. Can you teach? Yes, you can. You can teach clients that certain things make more sense to ask and lead to better conversations.
Look at every stage in your process and ask, “At this level, what’s the thing I need to know? What’s the skill I need to know?”
How can you help develop that?
For my clients who have gotten going, I can coach them through finding their voice. I can tell them, “Just start recording episodes. If you didn’t have clarity before, you’ll start to find your voice. You don’t have to release all these episodes, but you’re getting in the process of creating them.”
I can start to help them get used to that system of creating. We can go through and write out their show intro and define what their show is about.
Going through the exercise of defining your show really helps you understand how to explain it to other people. So look for those opportunities. What skills are valuable in doing your thing really well?
You don’t just want clients to be able to do it. You want them to be able to do it well, and you want them to be able to get there more quickly than you did by stumbling through it. Every time you help them skip a mistake you made, you’re adding tremendous value.
You’re creating transformations. Let me say that word over and over and over again because that’s what this is all about. If you want to make an impact in someone’s life, you want to actually create transformation. You have to give value. That value comes through when you give them this toolkit full of resources that move them forward faster.
START BUILDING YOUR COACHING TOOLS
Your set of coaching tools is cumulative. I’ve been at this a long time, so I’ve got a lot in mine. I’ve got tools and resources, an equipment list, a pre- and post-show checklist, an interview question template, an interview model, an avatar worksheet, a clarity worksheet. We have an intro scripting model and a list of preferred partners and templates of the actual emails we write to you.
I didn’t have all of this in the beginning, but as I started working through the program with people, I would build these things to help them. Everything you add to the business is one more thing that sets you apart and helps people move through faster.
All of these pieces contribute to the impact you’re having in someone else’s life. Start building those things one by one. When you’re actually going through your framework and trying to optimize and test the things you’re doing, and you’re working with one person at a time, write down what you’re doing, make it better, and then make it repeatable.
BUILD COACHING TOOLS AS YOU GO
As you’re doing that, you’ll say, “Oh, I need a tool here. I need a resource here.” Don’t try to out-think it. I know some of you analytic types, like myself, are out there trying to overthink everything and say, “How do I plan this out from the beginning so my very first coaching experience is perfect?”
If you do that, it’ll never get started. The best thing I can tell you is to get out there. Get one person that’s willing to work with you for free and help them and walk through what you think your coaching program is with them.
Then start to build these models and templates. If you’re not confident again yet, do it with one more person for free and walk them through it. Once you’ve built some tools and some models, and you have the framework built, maybe that’s the point to try to work with someone on a paid basis, maybe at a low discounted cost \like a beta group?
It might take you months, but working through it with an actual person is what you need because that confidence of executing something and engaging in the work will create the clarity you need.
You don’t create clarity through ideating and writing things down. You don’t do it through brainstorming. Clarity comes through actual work. Engagement creates clarity so do the work, figure out what’s working, and then you’ll be clearer on how you help people and how to do this the right way.
And that will build confidence you wouldn’t believe.
MORE ADVICE AND INTERVIEWS
If you’d like my full plan for how to build your content marketing strategy, check out my free Content Marketing Starter Guide.
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Talk soon!