Great clients bring out the best in themselves. Let me share with you an example from yesterday.
I met with Neil Harris at HRS Dental Care for a “Q4” review of what has been an exceptional year of development.
Having looked at this year’s performance, we then moved to 2019 and I was prompted to ask Neil a simple enough question:
“A year today, if we looked at each major area of your business and life, what progress would have the biggest impact?”
The next hour’s conversation was electric.
We created a series of headings (see below) and I asked Neil to give me the ONE THING that would make the biggest difference.
| Financial | |
| Lead generation (advertising/marketing) | |
| Lead conversion (treatment co-ordination) | |
| Patient Experience | |
| Operational | |
| Team | |
| Professional self | |
| Personal self |
His list is, of course, confidential but it is a special experience when both client and coach share a lightbulb moment, realising that he had identified exactly what he needed to do.
It’s at this point that the difference between a client new to coaching and a mature client manifests itself.
The new client asks “OK – so what do I do now?”
The mature client says “OK – so now I need to reverse-engineer these targets and determine my actions for Q1 of 2019.”
Correct. Effectively, at that point Neil is self-coaching – he knows what to do.
Next step in our meeting was to invite Practice Manager Claire Constant in to the conversation and begin the journey.
I was inspired to share that with you this morning – and close to the top of my task list has been added a new “infographic” to use with clients. I haven’t decided on the final name yet but it will be something along the lines of this screen shot of my meeting minutes:
