How Often Should I Meet With A Business Coach?
As a multi-award winning business coach and bestselling author, I’m often asked how often you should meet with a business coach.
I know what it’s like to be on both sides of a coaching relationship, having spent well over $50k on coaching for myself so far in my career, so I’m well qualified to answer this question.
Here are some of the questions I’ll answer in this post:
Is it better to meet in person with a business coach or remotely?
How do I know when it’s time to stop working with a business coach?
So let’s get stuck in!
1) How often should I meet with a business coach?
How often you meet with a business coach will depend on your unique situation. You’ll need to consider things like how intensive you want or need your coaching to be? How much time do you have available to be able to implement the changes that result from your coaching sessions?
It will also depend on the style of your coach and the packages they offer. Are you signing up for 1:1 sessions, a group program, or a mixture of the two?
I typically work with my clients directly once a month, although if we are onboarding, or if a client is going through a particularly challenging time, it might be more like once a fortnight.
In between times, we’re in regular contact by email or voicemail, like Voxxer, and this tends to work well for most people.
The actions that result from the conversations we have can be broad and wide-reaching for your company, and some of the actions you’ll need to take as a result can take some time and effort to implement. It’s important that you can also implement the strategies and takeaways from sessions, and see progress, so it doesn’t make sense for them to be too frequent.
2) How long should business coaching sessions last?
Typically, a series of 1:1 coaching sessions with a business coach will be 1-2 hours long. This is generally enough, because these sessions are intense. You should come away from a session with your business coach with clarity and a plan of action, which you now have to implement.
If you’re participating in group mastermind sessions, those may last a little longer, especially if they are in person, as they tend not to focus so intensively on just one person. There’s more time for all members of the group to contribute.
Some coaches offer intensive one-day business strategy sessions, where they will sit down with you for a half day or even whole day, and go through whatever aspect of your business you need a short, sharp shot in the arm for.
It’s really important to use your knowledge of yourself and how you work best, in order to select the best style of coaching for yourself. Some people find half and full days of coaching too intense, and gain diminishing benefits as the sessions go on, and therefore are wise to choose shorter, ongoing 1:1 sessions rather than one-off extended meetings or group coaching.
The main thing to remember is that in order to gain maximum benefit from any coaching session, you should prepare well for each session, highlight to your coach the areas you want to focus on, and attend the session with no distractions. See this link for how best to prepare for a coaching session.
3) Is it better to meet in person with a business coach or remotely?
Of course, there’s no right or wrong answer here. Some people thrive on in-person meetings, others find them draining and exhausting.
In some cases, your options will be limited to what your coach offers, and in others, by geographical location.
If you’re based in the USA and your coach is in Australia, you probably won’t meet face-to-face that often (but it isn’t out of the question!). But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get maximum benefit from online coaching calls with them.
When I work with clients, almost all my sessions are online these days, as I work best that way (hello fellow introverts!), and that’s how I deliver the most value for my clients.
However, I also regularly organize in-person Retreats for high-achieving business owners in the Boston area. Some of these are by invitation only and others are open to new contacts. If you sign up to my newsletter, you’ll be the first to hear about these when they’re launched (and be warned: they fill up fast!)
4) How long should I continue working with a business coach?
Some people find working with a coach on an ongoing basis an absolute essential for their own personal growth and success. Others prefer to work with coaches through particularly intense or challenging periods of time, when they need some extra support, and then pause that support when they’re through that challenging time.
You should never feel pressured to continue working with someone beyond the scope of your original contract with them.
If you start to feel bored or uninspired by coaching calls, that can mean it’s time to take a pause, but it can also mean that perhaps you aren’t digging deep enough in your sessions, so you might need to take a harder look at why you aren’t finding sessions challenging before you call your sessions to a halt. However, a good coach will often sense when the time is right for you to call a halt to your sessions, and may in fact realise this before you do!
You should work with a coach as long as is right for you and your business. As long as you are still getting benefit from the relationship, and your business is continuing to develop, there’s always benefit to having someone champion you and your work, to help you to refine your processes, develop new shortcuts, or make those important hiring decisions.
I am biased, of course, but I know first hand the power of having continued, ongoing support. I’m always working with my own coach in one format or another, even through the times of stability and ease – it’s partly what I have to thank for those times!
5) How do I know when it’s time to stop working with a business coach?
There are certain external circumstances when you might choose to end working with a coach. Here are a few examples:
When circumstances in your business or personal life change in a significant and material way, which make coaching no longer a high priority for you.
When you no longer have the time to put in the time to commit to coaching calls and implementing big changes in your business.
When you haven’t put in the work and aren’t seeing the results you’d hoped.
When you’ve upleveled so much that you’re no longer benefiting from sessions with your coach in the way you once did.
This last point is absolutely a reason to celebrate! A good coach will be happy for you and will be proud to see the progress you have made with them, rather than trying to cling onto you as a client.
6) How can we work together?
Thanks for stopping by my website and reading this article. I hope it was helpful.
As you’ll have learned, I’m a multi-award-winning business coach and entrepreneur in my own right, based in Boston, MA.
If you liked what you read here, here’s how you can get more support from me to become the best entrepreneur you can be:
Accelerate your growth with this free handy download
Read my bestselling book, The Uplevel Project
Join my group accountability program: Business Growth Achievers
Work with me: Book a 1:1 consultation with me here
If you’re in Boston yourself, you might also enjoy this: Wanted: Business coach, Boston.
