Pastoral Care For Coaches

(Pastoral care; a warm snuggly blanket of security to wrap up in when we need it. Well, that’s my definition! So what exactly is pastoral care for coaches?)

Want -v- Need Concept

There’s a great rule of thumb to bear in mind when you are selling something and that’s to sell people what they want, and deliver what they need. Those two things are not necessarily the same.

What They Want Versus What They Need

For example, if you’re a career coach, your potential client might want a polished CV (resume), support with job applications and help with interview technique. That’s what they want because it’s what they believe they need. It’s very straightforward for them. They don’t want to be where they are and they know that to get somewhere else, they need those three key things; CV, application support, and interview technique.

You, the career coach know that they actually need a whole lot more than that. They need to figure out what’s important to them, where their priorities lie and what the perfect job would look like before they even touch their CV. Helping your clients to identify their core values, for example, is an important first part of your work and you move forward from there.

However – and this is important – the client doesn’t think that understanding their values is anywhere near as important as a spiffy CV and sparkling interview technique.

So you, the clever career coach, sell them a coaching package that will entail them updating their CV, improving application form filling skills and increasing confidence in interviews, but you provide them with a coaching package that is so much more than that.

You wrap what they need up with what they want so that by the time they finish their coaching programme, they have all their boxes ticked – and loads of other boxes ticked too. Boxes that they didn’t even know they had, let alone that needed ticking!

Pastoral Care For Coaches

What my potential clients (qualified coaches) want is paying clients. Specifically, they want clients who will pay them a professional rate for their coaching services. My potential clients usually understand that this means they need to market, so they also want to learn how to market to find those clients. However, the most important thing that they want is paying clients.

What they actually need, is knowledge, emotional support, a sense of belonging, a tribe of like-minded champions to support them and a whole bunch of coaching – as well as the knowledge – to help them get beyond their mind monkeys and build a thriving coaching business.

Some will also need additional 1:1 support when they find that personal stuff comes up in the process of learning how to market. It happens, and the 1:1 coaching is very effective in helping our clients move on successfully.

So we provide all that.

We wrap what they want – knowledge and skills – in what they need; the support to implement them.

What Does Pastoral Care Look Like?

• It looks like an online community where the coach can ask questions, see what others are doing and how this whole marketing thing works and get daily help with a framework for each day’s marketing efforts.
• It looks like a daily Zoom Cafe, not for work, but just to hang out – a place where online anonymous names become first colleagues, then collaborators, then friends. Think of it as a virtual watercooler.
• It looks like a bi-weekly co-working space. Two x two-hour blocks of time to work intently, with the accountability of other coaches doing the same thing.
• It looks like a weekly accountability call to set up the week for success.
• It looks like group coaching (in addition to the training) so that we can shine a light on those mind monkeys that are standing in the way of your success.
• It looks like weekly group classes (in addition to the training) on business-building topics, and where you have input into the topics covered.
• It looks like additional 1:1 coaching for when coaching throws up some personal development stuff – which happens surprisingly often.

We provide all this and better yet, it’s included in the price.

We care for coaches…

There’s a reason we’re called The Coaching Revolution, and it’s that we’re revolutionising the business of coaching!