Ep #17: The Truth About Strategy

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 17.

To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hey coaches, what’s going on today? I just want to dive right in. Today, I want to talk about strategy and how this is an important part of every coaching business, even if right now you’re thinking, “But Lindsay, no, no, I’m a mindset coach. I don’t teach my clients strategy. I don’t have strategy.” I want to convince you today that you actually do have a strategy and that knowing how to talk about it can be very, very beneficial to your coaching and to your business.

Now, in one of my first episodes of this podcast, maybe episode one or two, I talk about knowing your coaching method. And strategy is very similar, but the way I’m going to describe it, it just goes a little deeper than just explaining what the general method you use is.

So, knowing your method is really just learning how to explain exactly what coaching is, how to just talk about coaching in a way that if someone was like, “Hey, tell me what coaching is, I don’t understand. What is it?” You could just explain it to them simply.

But strategy just goes a little deeper than that. It’s the things that you actually use with your clients. So, first, I just want to give you my definition of strategy, or at least the way I think about it in terms of coaching.

So, I define it as any tools, processes, or materials that you use or teach your clients in order to help them achieve the results they’re looking for. More simply, the strategy is the how of your coaching. And the reasons to know your strategy are important. Here’s two of them.

One, it keeps you clear and focused when you’re working with your clients. And two, this is what you will tell a client or potential client about how you are going to help them.

As coaches, we understand how we’re going to help our clients. It might be as simple as we’re honestly just going to show them how their thoughts create their results. Like, if you’re a mindset coach, it might be that simple. But normal humans just walking around out in the world, they don’t know what that means. You only know what that means because you’re a coach and you have learned specific ways of how to do it.

So, some of you listening might have 100 strategies, depending on what type of coach you are. But I would encourage you to just get really clear about your main few strategies, which hopefully I will help you do throughout this podcast.

So, first I want to start with a quick story. And this story really makes me laugh now. But at the time, it was so terrible. A lot of you will probably relate to it and think of a time when you felt very similar.

So, when I was writing notes for this episode, I had a flashback of something that happened to me when I was a brand-new coach. I don’t really remember how long I’d been a coach. But maybe a few months. I had maybe one or two clients and I was really just going out into the world, practicing telling people that I was a coach.

But this is such good proof of why you need to be able to describe strategies you use with your clients. So, I was at a networking event. It was a fairly large networking event. And it was some kind of special event. So it was four hours long and there were lots of people and there were guest speakers, and you know, just not your normal hour-long socialize, meet everyone networking kind of thing.

So, I went. I was actually there with my coach at the time who happened to be one of the speakers. I was feeling great. I was having fun. I was meeting all these people.

And at one point, we had a break and everyone was up walking around and mingling. And this woman actually walked up to me and said, “Oh my goodness, are you Lindsay? Someone over there…” she pointed, “Just told me that you’re a life coach and I have to come talk to you.”

And then she said the words that we all dream of someone saying to us at a networking event. She said, “I’ve been thinking that maybe I need a coach. And also, I love your shoes.”

I will never forget that she said, “I love your shoes,” because it was what immediately made me love her. I love shoes. It just felt like it was all meant to be. And so, we were chatting and she was so great and she was really funny. She also had amazing shoes and I just knew that we were going to be, you know, soulmates. She was going to be my client. She was going to hire me. And we were going to be best friends and it was just like rainbows and daisies, shit popping up all over the room.

Again, this is what you want to happen at networking events. So, we keep chatting and we just have a few minutes left. And she says, “So, tell me really quickly, what do you do? Do you work with people like me?”

And so, of course, because I’m very graspy at this point because I’m new and I only have a couple of clients I’m like, “Oh my gosh, yes. And I’m a life coach, so basically I just show you how your thoughts create your results and how to create new results.”

And immediately, I had this little inkling of, like, I don’t know if that was the right answer, but it felt okay because she was still interested and still asking me questions. And then she said, “Oh, okay, so how do you do that?” And I’m pretty sure, at that point, I said something like, “Well, you know, I – so first we start by looking at your thoughts – no, first we start by, you know, setting goals and deciding what you want and…” right, that’s how it went. And then, I’m pretty sure I blacked out because everything after that, I don’t remember.

The only thing I really remember is hearing her very kindly excuse herself and walk away. And I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. A lot of you have probably had some sort of similar experience. But the problem was, in that moment, I didn’t know how to really describe to someone how I worked with my clients and what specifically I did.

So, the reason I tell you this is that even if you’re a mindset coach, which is what I was at the time, that’ show I would have described myself, I just was a general life coach, people want to know your strategy. It can be so simple. Like, I want you to be able to say it in the most plain, human, non-coach terms.

And sidenote here, I actually think about this a lot, I think this is one of the reasons that a lot of coaches decide very early in their coaching businesses that they want to work with coaches. Even if they maybe even have a niche that has nothing to do specifically with coaches, but it’s like maybe your niche is weight loss or marriage or something. I have seen a lot of clients of mine do this where they come to me and they say, “I’m thinking I want to be a marriage coach for coaches.”

And I’m like, but why? Why would you narrow it down to such a small group of people when, with your niche, there’s no specific reason to do that. But I think this is one of the reasons why. Because when you’re working with coaches or when coaches hire you, you don’t have to be able to tell them exactly what’s going to happen or what you’re going to do because they kind of already know.

If they’re a coach too, you can just say, “I’m going to coach you. I’m going to coach your mind.” And they will know what you’re talking about. Let me be very clear, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with working with coaches, obviously. I do that. But you just don’t want to do it for this reason. It is a really bad one. So, just consider that. If you are, just ask yourself why.

Okay, so looking back, what I would probably say to her now if she, at that networking event, that woman walks up to me and we’re talking, and she asks me, you know, what does that mean? What do you do? I would probably say something very simple like, “First I help my clients decide what they want to work on and we talk about their specific goals and we create a plan to make it happen. All while paying close attention to your thoughts and the way you’re feeling along the way. And I just help you learn to use your brain for you instead of against you.”

And I would just go from there and see what happens. But at least those words would come out and then it would give her an opportunity to say, “Oh, tell me more. That’s interesting,” and ask more questions. But of course, in the moment, none of those words came to my mind.

So, I want to think about a few more examples of why knowing your main strategies are important. And I want to think about it from the position of you, I want you to put yourself in the position of being the client that’s hiring a coach.

So, even if you aren’t looking to hire these types of coaches, just kind of pretend with me for a minute. So, let’s say you’re going to hire a weight loss or a nutrition coach and you’re looking at three different coaches. What you’re going to be probably curious about is what strategies do they use with their clients.

So, when I say strategies, these are the kinds of things I’m talking about. So, maybe the first coach, she helps you create a very specific eating plan or you cut out certain things, like maybe gluten and dairy, and it includes intermittent fasting. Like, that is all strategy.

The second coach maybe she teaches you how to count macros and includes daily high-intensity workouts and weights. All strategy. And then maybe the third coach focuses more on learning to love your body and she has specific exercises for that and she teaches you how to recognize actual hunger, like maybe uses a hunger scale, and how to be more mindful throughout the day.

Those are all strategies, all very different. None of them are right or wrong, but as the client, you would be attracted to maybe one type over the others. Or you’d even rule out one or two because they wouldn’t work for you.

So, for example, if you are injured and you are looking to just maintain a healthy weight and eat healthy but you have an injury, the daily workouts and heavy weights, that one wouldn’t be for you. So, you would immediately say, “Okay, that strategy is not going to work for me,” so you wouldn’t hire that coach.

And you would want to know it. You would want to know before you hired the coach because it’s really going to be a bummer if you hire them and then you can’t do half of the things that they want you to do.

So, here’s the second example. As coaches, I’m assuming most of you listening are coaches and all of you can probably relate to this one. So, let’s say you’re hiring a business coach. And again, let’s think about three different choices.

So, maybe one of them focuses on really teaching you Facebook ads and webinars along with building your business. Maybe one of them teaches you how to show up on social media and build a specific organic following. Like she has methods for that. And then the third one, maybe they help you with your copy and maybe that coach has you pitch yourself, like she teaches you a pitch for podcast interviews.

Those are all realty specific strategies and if you’re the one hiring the coach, you might have an opinion about certain things that you want to do or don’t want to do while you’re building your business that would influence your decision of who you’re going to hire.

Now, I want to give you a much more general example. So, let’s say you just want to hire a life coach for your life to coach you on anything and everything. You would be curious about what strategies they use.

You might wonder, are they more of a mindset coach? Do they have more of a spiritual practice? Do they use very specific strategies and tools in their coaching?

So, some examples that come to mind, as far as strategies that general life coaches use, are mindfulness and meditation. That is a strategy. I know, some of you might be like, “Wait, what?” But that is a strategy. It’s something you teach your clients or a tool you use with your clients that helps them get the results that they want.

Personality tests or any kind of assessment that you do with a client, human design, EFT, emotional freedom therapy, AKA tapping, that is a strategy that you use with clients. Teaching them to process emotions, there are lots of different strategies for that. Specific scheduling techniques, the model or any other coaching technique that is mindset-based, that in itself is a strategy.

So, sometimes when coaches get so confused and caught up in strategy versus mindset, what if mindset just is a strategy. I’m just trying to break your brain a little bit because I just want you to consider all of these things are strategies. And I could go on and on and on, right?

There are so many. I’m sure right now, some of you that have very specific tools that you use with your clients are like, “Oh, and this and this and this.” I could just keep going.

But what I think is so powerful about knowing what strategies you use and how to talk about them is that it truly is what sets you apart from other coaches. It’s the thing that you can tell your client or potential client that makes them say, “Oh my gosh, yes, I want to do that.” Or even, “No thank you, that’s definitely not something I’m looking for.”

So, here are some questions you can ask yourself. You know I love to give you a list of questions. Here you go. What are the main strategies you use in your coaching, in your business? Can you explain what they are to any regular human? How can you explain them in the most simple terms?

So, here’s a quick example of that, that I think is really powerful. So, in my mastermind this past week, one of the amazing coaches – shoutout to Malene Dollerup – she was talking about – we were talking all about strategies and she was talking about a strategy that she uses with her weight loss clients.

And we kept breaking it down and making it more and more and more simple. And what she came up with eventually was, “I help you stop eating when you’re not hungry.” Isn’t that just the best, most simple way to describe it?

Now, of course, what she does is actually a lot more detailed than that. Like, her actual strategy has steps to it and it’s a process and it includes more things. But when you’re just talking to someone in the world and you just say, “I help you stop eating when you’re not hungry,” that’s so powerful because literally every human can understand what that means. Because probably all of us have been there. We can think of a time, right now it is available to us to think of a time we’ve eaten where we weren’t at all hungry.

Alright, next question. Can I say it without using any coach speak? And I think this one is important, even if you work with coaches. Because even in a specialized niche, like coaches, you could still be using words that part of that population might not use or they might have a different word for it. So, I just think it’s really powerful to be able to say it without using very specific words that would only be known by a small percentage of people.

And last, just for fun, can you make a list of all of the strategies you use? Even the smaller more intricate ones that you may not use with all of your clients or that are too specific or detailed to include in your main list that you would tell someone when you are telling them what you do. But can you just make a list and just keep a running list of all of the strategies that you know that you use with your clients?

I do this. And I think what’s so fun about just having the running list and always adding to it is that sometimes I look back and I’m like, “Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that one.”

Maybe it was something I used for a while with some clients and it hasn’t come up for a while in coaching and so I haven’t used it. But I can look back at my list and say, “Oh yeah, remember that specific scheduling technique that I learned and I taught some of my clients?” or you know, whatever it is.

Okay, thank you, thank you, I hope you learned something today and I will talk to you next week. And P.S. as of now, at least while I’m recording this, I do still have a couple spots open in Coaching Masters. We begin March 3^rd and you can go to my website for more information or to apply. I hope to see you there. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. See you next week.