Let's cut to the chase!

This article is not about how to get rich quick.

It describes a coaching tool, Strategy Sessions, that can help you win more business. And keep winning more business with your client companies.

A lot more business!

This approach will take time and effort to learn but, crucially:

It plays to your strengths as a coach!

Of course, whether you double your earnings, depends on how much you typically make. But if you currently earn £25K a year from your coaching then Strategy Sessions can certainly help you earn £50K (approximately US $85,000). Which I would say is the absolute minimum a professional coach should be earning working with corporates.

With practice and appropriate pricing, you can earn £75-100K (approx. US $125-170K) or more per year.

At Accelerated Success we conducted a Strategy Session with the VP EMEA of a global ICT company. He got a huge amount out of his session but he didn’t buy immediately. Instead he asked us to conduct Strategy Sessions with his management team.

We eventually won £40K worth of business from the VP.

In addition, over the next 4 years we won a further £130K worth of business from the same VP, and £150K worth of business via referral to other leaders.

That’s a total of £320K.

And it’s all down to Strategy Sessions.

What’s a Strategy Session?

We’ve always offered a free coaching session to potential clients. The trouble was that nobody, and I mean not a single person, ever took us up on the offer. This was because we didn’t promote the value of the session to them.

In fact, we weren’t clear on what the value of the free session was.

Ten years down the line we are clear on the value.

A Strategy Session is a 90 minute meeting with a potential client, where you help them understand their vision for their part of the business, the challenges they face and what they need to get better at.

Your potential client leaves the Strategy Session having had an experience of your service and wanting more.

You leave knowing whether your coaching can help them or not.

But you can’t achieve these outcomes if you don’t deliver the session properly.

We have identified five stages that you need to go through to deliver a successful Strategy Session:

Qualifying your potential client

Clients pay for a solution to a problem.

Therefore, if you want to convert a prospect to a paying client, you need to be clear on who your ideal client is, the problems they face and the outcomes they want that you can help them achieve.

If you offer Strategy Sessions to everyone you meet, you will experience repeated rejection. On the other hand, if you find out whether a Strategy Session will be of use to your potential client before you make the offer, there’s a good chance they will accept.

Crucially, therefore, you need a way of finding out whether the people you meet fit your client profile or not. Some useful questions are:

Could you tell me more about your role?

I know the company is focused on doing 'A' at the moment. Is that something that comes under your remit?

Tell me more.

And how is that affecting you?

What does it stop you doing?

What’s the impact of not being able to do this?

How important is it for you to attend to this issue?

If they don’t fit your profile, it was nice speaking to them.

However, if they do fit your profile, your aim should not be to sell them a coaching programme but to get them to agree to a Strategy Session.

Can I make a suggestion? How would it be if we set aside some time for you to think about this issue in more detail? I’m in London 3 days a week and I offer a free, 90 minute consultation.

Clearly, there is more to nurturing a potential client than that. It may involve offering them an article about your services, and multiple phone calls, emails and meetings.

The key is to be clear about what you’re trying to achieve.

You want them to agree to a Strategy Session.

Preparation for a winning Strategy Session

To deliver a great Strategy Session you need to prepare, and give your potential client the chance to prepare also.

Send them a brief questionnaire, which they should complete and return prior to the session.

If they don’t return it, resist the temptation to go ahead with the session anyway. Always reschedule and get them to complete the questionnaire.

This demonstrates you have a professional and structured approach, and requires them to demonstrate commitment in return.

In addition, completed questionnaires provide you with valuable information that will enable you to maximise the value your potential client gets from the session.

The questions we use at Accelerated Success are:

1.  What's the purpose of your part of the business?

2.  Describe how you fit into the organisation, including who you report to, the size of your team, and budget / revenue generation responsibilities.

3.  What’s your vision for your part of the business?

4.  What are your key objectives for the next 12-18 months?

5.  What are the 3 or 4 most important and challenging areas of your role in fully achieving these objectives?

6.  What would it be most important for you to get better at, to significantly improve performance in these areas? Try to select something that will extend your capability as a leader.

Delivering a winning Strategy Session

In the Strategy Session itself, you need to explain the process to your potential client:

We will spend 1 hr 15 minutes talking through your answers in the questionnaire in more detail.

I will then tell you a bit more about my coaching programme and answer any questions you have.

We will then schedule a date for the report back meeting, where I will take you through a written summary of our discussion.

How does that sound to you?

You then go ahead as you’ve described.

Take each question in turn and ask the potential client to tell you more.

In particular, after question 6, dig into the PAIN the potential client is experiencing in their role – if there is no pain, the chances are there is no need for your coaching.

Then, having dug into the PAIN, you need to help them identify the outcomes they want in their work situation and unearth the GAIN they will experience in achieving them.

Resist the temptation to start coaching them to identify solutions. At this stage you are discovering their vision, challenges and outcomes they want, and also whether they have a need for your coaching.

And don’t forget!

Schedule your report back meeting before you leave.

Reporting back on the Strategy Session

After the Strategy Session, write up a brief summary of the discussion around the potential clients completed questionnaire. Don’t attempt to analyse or draw conclusions from what they said.

Just summarise.

A couple of sheets of A4 at most.

And add on at the end further information about your coaching services.

Then send a copy of the report to your potential clients a day or so prior to your report back meeting.

You did remember to schedule this at the end of the Strategy Session didn’t you?

The report back meeting is 30-40 minutes long. During the meeting, take your potential client through the report and ask them if it reflects what they said and if they have any further thoughts.

At the end of the report back meeting is when you move on to the:

SCARY BIT!

Otherwise known as the sales conversation.

Closing the deal

Yes, that’s right!

At some stage you need to start the sales conversation.

But I’m a coach, not a salesperson!

Well, carry on as a coach then. It’s just a simple question:

Are you in a position yet to make a decision on whether to go ahead with a full coaching programme?

If they say yes, great!

Move on to when you will start, how you will get paid and other admin.

If they say no, coach them to gain clarity:

What needs to happen for you to make a decision?

Help the potential client map out the steps they need to take to get to a decision, and schedule in when you will follow up.

Be patient at this stage.

There may be all sorts of hoops for your potential client and you to jump through to win their business. This is perfectly normal in large companies.

Don’t be fazed by any delays.

Remember, if you can win the client here, it could be the start of a long-term and highly productive relationship with the client company, where you win further business year on year.

It will be worth your time and effort in the long run.

So that’s a whistle-stop tour of how to use Strategy Sessions to grow your coaching practice.

They are incredibly powerful.

They add value to your potential clients. They add value to you for marketing purposes. And they play to your strengths as a coach.

As a parting thought, why not check out with your existing contacts if they would like a Strategy Session:

Would you be prepared to help me try out a new coaching tool with you? The value to you is …

That’s exactly how we started at Accelerated Success.

We’re still working with the same client company today!

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