Best Practices for Must-Have Coaching Workflows

In this episode, Em and Lex drop their tips on coaching workflows and streamlining systems to be successful once landing your client. They break it down on the timing of certain onboarding items to complete and provide suggestions for a successful onboarding session with new clients as well as a successful graduation and offboarding with clients when you wrap up a program. 

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

• Some of their favorite systems for signing clients officially
• Systems and software for invoicing once you land your client - to get paid!
• Hear their suggestions for documenting your process of onboarding 
• Learn tips on setting expectations for you and your clients
• Tips on systems for setting expectations for work with a client
• Ideas on creating a memorable off-boarding experience for your clients
• And More!

Follow Em & Lex on Instagram at @readysetcoachprogram

Learn more about the Ready Set Coach Program at Readysetcoachprogram.com

Learn more about Six Degrees Society and THEPRBAR inc.

Transcript

Best Practices for Must-Have Coaching Workflows - Podcast Transcript 

Emily Merrell

Hi Lex. How's it going?

Lexie Smith  

Good. I wanted to beat you to the first time.

Emily Merrell  

Well, you when you're not competitive at all?

Lexie Smith  

Not at all. So guys, we're recording this the morning after Halloween. So naturally, we have to talk about Halloween. Emily? What were you what was little J man talk us through the costumes.

Emily Merrell  

I feel like we're on the Hollywood Reporter And we're reporting live from the red carpet. Jackson was the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man which I really didn't know what that was until I had rewatch Ghostbusters. All I knew is my husband very much invested in our costumes getting this all like the jumpsuits which maybe I'll wear out in the world. Who knows? Probably not. And the backpacks like, their actual backpacks that I was kind of nervous. Traveling with because they look like bombs, but they're they catch it gets ghost. They catch ghosts. And then so we did that he was the Stay Puft marshmallow man and he was a trooper. He looked like he had just been in like a bodybuilding competition. You're so puffy. And then yesterday he was a bat.

Lexie Smith  

Bat little Batman was a little bat.

Emily Merrell  

Not that man. He was just a string right?

Lexie Smith  

Like a bat. And then there was he was a bad little man. Little Man, but the costumes

Emily Merrell  

are wonderful. I love this is my first time ever seen trick or treaters? Yeah, I mean, we always lived in apartment so this was definitely a novelty. What about you? What were you guys?

Lexie Smith  

super basic. But so eventually I plan to create actions costumes. That's a tradition my mom and I had growing up but being a fashion was just born this year and I'm behind in life. I just didn't get to it. So I found this insanely adorable. It was Pottery Barn pumpkin costume in a consignment store and just think of like a big orange sparkling LUFA that you put a seven month in and so it was a pumpkin but it was adorable. And so then CJ and I just got pumpkin onesies so not very creative, but feel free to stalk my Instagram and you'll see see a picture there and then yesterday because that orange loofa pumpkin costume was not very comfortable. I pulled out a bear onesie that now fits her like this white there. And it was freaking cute. And we sat on the porch and she started hoarding all the candy from the bowl instead of passing it out and then wishes a lovely, wholesome evening I ordered Domino's Pizza for the first time for the first time since giving birth to Ashlynn because I have not been allowed to eat dairy Quick, quick rant while breastfeeding. But now I can again so I ordered Domino's Pizza and it was phenomenal. I ate a full medium and a half to myself. That's amazing. Oh I'm so happy

Emily Merrell  

with that. Okay, you can eat dairy again. That's good. So when I visit like we can actually have cheese

Lexie Smith  

Yes. Oh my god life Life is good. Once again.

Emily Merrell  

Back to the dairy farm she goes I have to say it is so it was fun to see like the different creativity levels of costumes and then I don't know if you saw this too There was like a good amount of teenagers that that came through that like this one get up like late at night. Yeah, like a proper mustache. I'm like you're not you're not entitled. Or maybe you are and you're just 12 and like have this very you know molest stash kind of thing happening.

Lexie Smith  

But I have a Facebook group for our neighborhood here and this morning someone posted a video caught on the ring camera of a teenager coming up and legitimately stealing and taking the entire candy bowl and walking away. What? Yeah, yep.

Emily Merrell  

Wow. No, wait. So that was my question for you. That's what I meant to ask you. Are you someone that when you answer the door, do you give them candy or do you let them select their own?

Lexie Smith  

I let them select their own meat you? Yeah. Like it's funny to see to like the kids that are very polite. And then there's the age old kids who grew up like 20 hand, handfuls, but then I'm also like, good for you, you know you want so yeah,

Emily Merrell  

well, this, you're gonna appreciate this. So we had last Halloween candy and I, I don't know, I guess I just hoarded it. And then I moved with it from California to Denver. We still have it, like above our fridge, and I had put the new candy there as well. We ran out of the new candy. So Greg picked up the Old Candy, which expired like March 2022, basically. And the Twizzler is like a straight up murder weapon. Like it's like hard, hard. Twizzler. And so we told him this after he had mixed into the bowl where like, you probably shouldn't give out that candy. It's like expired and stale. So he goes outside, and he he's so cute with the little kids. He's like, Oh, a spooky witch don't put a spell on me. And he asked one of the girls, he was like, so what's your favorite candy? And she's like, Twizzlers. And he's like, Okay, anything but Twizzlers? You know, as she's like, he's like, sorry, that's expired. We can't give that to you.

Lexie Smith  

Did she cry?

Emily Merrell  

No, but like, I'm sure if her parents are within earshot, when he was there, probably like,

Lexie Smith  

what is this family

Emily Merrell  

do?

Lexie Smith  

Our last trick or treaters of the night? Were two little boys. And they said, Do you only have chocolate, so we only had chocolate left. And then the other little boy offered? He's like, so really, you only have chocolate. I was like, wow, okay, the parents were embarrassed. But what we're talking about here is, you know, our unique processes for handing out candy, and the process of, you know, making those impressions on the treaters. And that's so timely and relevant to what we're going to be talking about today, which is workflows of coaching.

Emily Merrell  

Wow. You did it. I'm proud of you. That was that was good. Yeah. I mean, I think that actually was a pretty good transition thinking like, you know, how do I how do you streamline the handing out of the candy? To optimize your time and energy and the experience for the trick or

Lexie Smith  

treaters, boom, it's like you finally get that how Yes, you can pass out candy. Now what now? Let's bring it back to coaching. You finally get that hell yes. I'm hiring you as a coach. Emily, what do we do now?

Emily Merrell  

Besides do a little happy dance, celebrate and run around the house and tell everyone that you know, I think what you do next is you make it official kind of like dating, you know, you change your state, your Facebook status and everything. No, just kidding. You don't do that. But you do make it official. So you want to make it official in a in a few ways. One of the ways that you want to make it official, you don't want to give them a ring, but you probably want to submit it or hand. Gosh words, Emily words, you want to send out a contract? And do you want to send out that invoice so you can get that payment ASAP?

Lexie Smith  

And what are some of our favorite systems here.

Emily Merrell  

Our favorite systems for legal contracts include Hello sign, Adobe sign HoneyBook Docusign. Basically, with anything with the word sign in it, that makes it really helpful, but lacks after we get this contract, ready to rock and roll what happens next,

Lexie Smith  

we got to get paid. So again, go to make it great. Um, so a couple invoicing software's that you guys can look at, We've danced around and played with a few of these stripe is really, really great. There's no free, there's no fee to access the foundational or basic level, you know, there's a credit card processing fee, but there's no subscription fee to utilize a service. You can also use something like fresh books or QuickBooks. Again, honey book is a nice platform as well. You can also look at things like Sam cart or thrive cart, all great options. Right now we've already set coach are on QuickBooks, and we still use stripe as well. So we're kind of the kind of do hybrid we we appreciate that. There are some functions of stripe that are just really easy to use that QuickBook hasn't made easy yet. So we probably should streamline that. But we're evolving, keeping it real.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, we are keeping it real. We don't we don't have things perfect. But in terms of the onboarding workflow, I think some of the considerations you need to have are like, what happens on the front end and what happens on the back end? So Lex, can you tell us a little bit more some of your favorite considerations?

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, so guys, step one, make it official. Step two is we want you to sit down and outline your official onboarding process. So like I said, there's front end and back end here for the front end. What is the welcome email, right so they sign the contracts they pay you they should get some sort of email right you can template this and in fact, we highly suggest you do so. What is your welcome email? Are there any links or intake forms you want to send out? Again, we highly say Just you can use something to suppose Google Forms here, then you want to make sure you're setting expectations. We'd like to do this initially with a really pretty welcome packet that we've designed in Canva. And then also, is there a quick gift you want to send out? So quick recap welcome email, links to intake forms, setting expectations, we do this via a welcome packet. And then client gifts

Emily Merrell  

and lacks I know a lot of people can get caught up with the client gifting. They're like, Oh, God, like what what is a gift entail? Should it be personalized? Can it be the same for each person? Do you have any, you know, experience gifting with the PR bar that you want to share?

Lexie Smith  

Well, I do. And we do for Ready Set coach to for the PR bar, I celebrate streamlined. To be honest, I really enjoy this part of the process. So and I have very punny gifts. So for pop fizz clean, which is one of my programs, there's like a whole custom box that I curate, and you have a mini champagne for wine club, I give wine. But it's a lot more moving pieces to coordinate. For ReadySet coach, we gift everyone a really badass sweatshirt that I'm pretty pretty damn proud of I also rocket quite a lot to

Emily Merrell  

Oh, it's my favorite sweatshirt. And I think and I'll say also for for my one on one clients in mastermind, I usually like to look internally with the six degree society community and see what vendors there are within the community and to buy from them. So I bought beautiful candles before from merchants of beauty. I've bought amazing pottery, little succulents from Tolkien, Tolkien moment. So definitely like to start there first, before going out to like at sea or whatnot, and, you know, support the people I know.

Lexie Smith  

That's great. Um, so on the front end, right? That we went over, there's the back end. So kind of, as we mentioned, if you're going to send out links or intake forms, pick a platform. Also, we really, really suggest creating a sop here. So document your process of onboarding, this will allow you to scale potentially outsource or at least automate some of the process. So a lot of the things we talked about on the front end of onboarding, we also just want to document on the back end.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, and I think that's a great, great, great reminder, just to stay super organized, you can also keep everything in like a Trello, you could keep things in a Google Drive, like an onboarding, SOP linking to all the templates. Or if you like the plugin streak, you can also have everything pre written right then in there. And you know, once you get off the call, or once you get off of once they hire you, you just have it ready to populate and customize right then in there.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, and we have a whole episode guys on different tools and systems you can use as a coach. So if this is something you're wanting to buckle down on or for your business, go ahead and listen to that. So after onboarding, we go into the active client workflow, and what should we consider or think about here?

Emily Merrell  

I think you really need to consider the first interaction. So this is this is the housekeeping the here's the kind of nitty gritty of working with you. Like, what's the first what's the expectation of your first call? Is it going to be scheduled immediately at the same time, every single week? Or is it they have to, they have to schedule it? With your particular Calendly link moving forward by this particular date? What expectations are there? Are they going to be able to reach you via slack or Voxer? And if so, when are they going to get a response from you? Is it going to be on demand? Is it going to be two in the morning? Is it going to be within 24 hours, this is your opportunity to really set boundaries for your client, which is super, super duper important to do right out of the gate? And then lastly, is there going to be homework? And if you are going to assign homework, how are you going to assign it? Are you going to check their homework? Are you going to nudge them about the homework, talk through all of the housekeeping things before your first interaction.

Lexie Smith  

And we suggest that first interaction especially in coaching be a kickoff call, right or an onboarding call. So quickly our onboarding process So stage one onboarding is conducted via email. We have supporting resources like links and PDFs such as our welcome packet, what I'm just talk through is that first call, what is happening on that first call. So you might have outlined all of these details in a welcome email, but we highly suggest going through all those items verbally as well, just to talk through and cement it in both client and your minds. So that's your first call. Beyond that, what happens? Host that call again. Here's where you can start to document your sis stuff. So if you just talk them through, you know, we're going to use Slack or Voxer to communicate. And here's where you access the content for this program. How is that going to be delivered post that call? Here's where, again, active client workflows become really, really important to write down.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, and I love that. I love that reminder, Lex because we assume that one call, everything's gonna be soaked in and they'll, they'll get it right the first time. But you even think about all the different programs or communities we're a part of. And we're struggling to find the logins and whatnot. So like, the easier and more streamlined you can make it, especially if you're utilizing something like Trello, and slack and Google Drive, like you want to make sure it is is something that is easy to access versus frustrating and overwhelming to access.

Lexie Smith  

If you're an ambitious, professional consultant, or business owner, who is feeling called to do more, be more or make more, we'd like to invite you to learn more about Ready Set coach,

Emily Merrell  

do you feel called to create change, help others do something outside of your day to day that generates true impact?

Lexie Smith  

While you may or may not be content with your day job or existing business? Do you feel called to dip your toes into something more? Whether it's tapping into another zone of genius, or the side hustle is calling your name? Are you ready to explore what the more would look like?

Emily Merrell  

Do you feel like your business or career is leaving money on the table, or you're looking to launch a new revenue stream or side hustle,

Lexie Smith  

turning your expertise into a coaching revenue stream or side hustle is rewarding, impactful, and a great business model. It's the triple threat, multibillion dollar industry that Perhaps you've been looking for this whole time,

Emily Merrell  

if you want to explore more on how to add a coaching revenue stream into your life, we invite you to explore our website ReadySet coach program.com

Lexie Smith  

applications are now open for our 2023 cohort. So yeah, let's say you now have in that first call identified, you're gonna have bi weekly calls, coaching calls, and on the off weeks, you're gonna have modules and homework assignment, make sure that this is clearly articulated somewhere else that they can read, whether it be you know, you send them a recap, in a calendar invite or its PDF, you pin to the Slack channel, you want it to become routine, you want this to be something that your client knows the order of operation, they know the drill, right? They know what to expect. So make sure that when you're having a client actively work with you that it's really buttoned up, they're always coming first, and there is no guessing games about how you're going to interact with them.

Emily Merrell  

Yes, yes, I think you nailed it. Okay. So last, lastly, we should talk about what happens when we end with client like how do we how do we stop working with them? How do we wrap up our program? So this for us is our off boarding, off boarding off boarding considerations. So like, how do you like wrap up a client? And how do we do it with ReadySet? Coach?

Lexie Smith  

We have a graduation. Right. So first off, we have graduation call. I should preface this before the graduation call, we prepare everyone that graduation is coming up, right? What do they need to have ready? What are the last things that they should have on their to do list coming into graduation? Then on graduation, we address what's next? We always try to make it as memorable as possible. I'm going to not give away everything we do on our graduation calls. Sorry, that's that's saved for our cohorts. But we really do take the time to make it special to each and every one of our group members. We make sure all of their questions are answered. And they feel really really good about their experience. That's one of the keys here, right?

Emily Merrell  

And I think postgraduation something to consider as well as you just had four transformative months with this individual. And they are on a high, they had just left your course. How do you capitalize on their excitement of working with you? So this is your time where you can or you can reach out to them and get feedback and ask for a review or a testimonial? From your course.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, perfect. So to kind of recap what we just talked about client says hell yes. Step one, the first workflow, you guys, this is your homework, okay. First step is to outline you're making it official workflow. So what's the contract going out? Or where's the contract going out from? Same with your invoicing step to outline your onboarding process? That's your second workflow. Step three, what is your active client workflow? What do you need to consider on the front end and back end? And then finally, what is your onboarding workflow? though for workflows for you there.

Emily Merrell  

I think those are perfect perfection perfection. Well, Lex, I hope that our listeners got a lot out of thinking through their future clients after saying yes and their workflows, and I guess we'll see you the next time. On the Ready, ready

Lexie Smith  

set coach podcast

Emily Merrell  

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