The tech industry is currently rife with acronyms describing business types ending in “aaS”, which stands for “as a Service”. Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and so on.
If you’re a coach, I humbly submit that you are, among other things, in the Caring as a Service business, CaaS.
Part of the (not always executed) magic of coaching is the experience that someone out there cares about you: cares that you succeed, cares that you follow through, cares that you’re moving towards your dreams. This caring is a powerful antidote to apathy, resignation, hopelessness, and even comfortable coasting. It is valuable.
It is part of what your clients come for, whether they realize it or not.
In the course of a coaching relationship, there are ways to indicate that you care, and there are ways to indicate the opposite.
Ways by which you indicate that you care include:
Writing up and sharing what you think was most important in a session. Doing so makes it clear you were paying attention, are able to add value by distilling the insights, and shows you were willing to take the time.
Staying aware of and looping back to your clients’ big picture aims. Doing so makes it clear you are aware of what really matters to this person, and that your listening is inside of the broader context of the unique individual.
Calling them out on missed deadlines or promises. Doing so makes it clear you’re actually paying attention to what they said they were committed to, and gives them the gift of listening them as big: capable of fulfilling on what they say matters.
Celebrating the wins, and not just when prompted. Anyone can give due props as a reaction to a routine update. Exceptional coaches notice and call out when a certain KPI reaches the target number, or how certain steps count towards something bigger. Doing so shows that you are aware of what they set out to accomplish, and are paying enough attention to recognize progress.
Giving them a practice of session prep. Clients filling out a brief questionnaire can be powerfully orienting, lending focus and intentionality to the session itself. When you make this part of the prep work for your sessions, you make it clear that you expect them to take their sessions with you seriously. Moreover it gives you the chance the chance to come better prepared based on what they write.
Checking in to ensure they’re getting what they came for. Too often any check into this comes only as the engagement ends and the question of re-upping is on the table. Exceptional coaches create occasions for a client to weigh in on this along the way. Doing so shows your commitment to them getting their money’s worth, and demonstrates you have the courage to hear whatever is so and course correct as needed.
Ways by which you convey, even unintentionally, that you don’t care include:
Being a blank slate for every session. It seems like great customer service to be flexible enough to meet them wherever they’re at that day. In reality it shows you’re not tracking with how things are unfolding, and are showing up having done zero prep work and little regard for the broader arc of their progress.
Being endlessly accommodating and gentle around missed deadlines or broken promises. By doing so you subtly intone that it doesn’t matter, and/or that they are incapable. Either way, ouch.
Disappearing between sessions. If, to your clients, you don’t exist when you’re not on the clock fulfilling those coaching hours, it shows and carries a particular feeling.
Waiting until the end of the current contract to check in on satisfaction. When you do this, it’s too late for any course correction. When you do this within the context of a conversation to re-up or not, you’re basically saying “Money’s at stake now, so now is when I care about whether or not you’re happy.”
The caring that you give you your clients is a subtle yet profound part of the value you provide. Be aware of how you show up.
