Essential Skills for Effective Coaching

This week’s episode outlines some essential skills for effective coaching from everything from concepts of asking questions, and active listening, to challenging your clients when needed, Em and Lex drop some tips for essential skills to have for an effective coaching strategy that will help solidify your time with your clients. 

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

• Skills to have as a coach 
• The art of active listening with your clients
• Different types of solution mapping
• Actionable steps to give your clients 
• Being able to take control of sessions with clients and keeping everyone on track
• Differences between coaching and therapy 
• Questions that can be helpful to ask their clients
• Ways to keep clients on track and hold clients accountable
• And more tips on essential skills for coaching

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

 Essential Skills for Effective Coaching - Podcast Transcript

Speakers:

Lexie Smith, Emily Merrell

Lexie Smith  

Hi, Hi, Emily. Hello, everyone listening. How are you today? Emily Merrell.

Emily Merrell  

I'm the problem. It's me. I think every day I can say this, and it works. It literally works. Lax, I'm really struggling actually. I'm trying to figure out gifts for my husband. And actually, luckily, most of the people in my life are like, Can we not do gifts this year? So I'm like, phew. Yeah, great. I hate gift giving fun fact I'm terrible at gift giving. It gives me so much anxiety and stress.

Lexie Smith  

So you know what's interesting about that is I have historically been so good at gift giving, that it has set a very high bar in my family that everyone expects me to come up with a super creative and thoughtful gift. That becomes harder and harder, the more holidays and years that pass. And so where I used to really enjoy it now, as I am short on time this holiday season, it is stressing me the hell out

Emily Merrell  

of you. Yeah, that's a hard one. Especially if you have high expectations. Do you like receiving gifts?

Lexie Smith  

I get really uncomfortable when I unwrap them if I like receiving them by myself, like if a client gift were to send to me and I can open it by myself with no one watching me, then yeah, it love gifts. But the whole everyone stared at me while I open this gift fix me like sweat.

Emily Merrell  

I like receiving gifts, too. But then when I do get a client gift, I'm like dammit, they were so thoughtful. I need to like then I think of how I should have gotten a better plan gift and I start going through like a spiral of

Lexie Smith  

wedding gifts is a big one like CJ and I every time a wedding comes up. Now we're like what they get us for our wedding. Oh, they spent like $200 Shit, we have to spend $200 and I hate that it's become this like, what is the word I'm looking for it like

Emily Merrell  

different like a competition, not a competition but like a, like an equalizer like you have to be equal in your spending for per the spending that they did for you. So yeah, and I feel like I think the good thing about having kids this year is like a lot of the attention is going to be on them. And I don't think people are going to roast us or Seamus for being fat or giving gifts.

Lexie Smith  

I just I've so I put Okay, let me ask you this. What's the favorite? What's the gift you're most proud of? Like the most creative gift you've ever come up with?

Emily Merrell  

Literally can't think of anything like nothing. No, actually, that's a lie. That's a lie. Last year, I got Jack, I got Greg, a Hawaiian shirt with Jackson's face on it. Adorable. And this year, I'm getting Greg. No getting Jackson, a Hawaiian shirt with Greg's face on it.

Lexie Smith  

Then 100% Stealing that idea. You will also when I was pregnant I received in the mail like a pregnancy journal and like pregnancy lollipop things. It was super, super thoughtful. So you're you're better than you're giving yourself credit.

Emily Merrell  

Thank you. I think well, Amazon makes it really easy to which is terrible. I'm like, oh, free shipping. I literally have this, this book open that has like Greg's name and Jackson's name in it. And it's 1199 for shipping. And it's like a $50 book now, and I don't know if I'm gonna get it like the shipping is weird.

Lexie Smith  

All the time, which

Emily Merrell  

I think is a good teachable moment right now in terms of coaching. If there are hidden costs, like shipping, bake it into your program? Yes, yes.

Lexie Smith  

Yes, I would rather pay $40 for wine than pay $20 for wine with $20 shipping. I don't have to

Emily Merrell  

present. Yeah, yeah. So think about that term in terms of like psychology to AI. It's the same thing with credit card like I'd rather eat the credit card fees and make it easier for people to shop with me then have them be like Oh, no, my checking account doesn't have the money right now or, or whatnot.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, let me brag real quick about one gift that is coming. That is so random. And it's probably not the best gift I've ever given. But it's popping into my brain. So and now I'm like feeling deja vu I probably told you this already. anyways, I'm gonna share it now. Okay, so that was gonna go live abroad for six months. My mom was really sad. One of the reasons she was really sad is even when I was in college, we would FaceTime and I'd help her pick out all of her outfits. So she's going abroad okay, I didn't tell you this.

Emily Merrell  

They told me you told me that I don't think you told them.

Lexie Smith  

And so what I did is when I was home for Christmas break, I snuck into her closet and I took a bunch of pictures of pre designed outfits so like I matched her tops with her bottoms and picked shoes and I I put all these photos into like a fashion book for her and told her like when to wear this outfit how to wear this outfit how to do her hair with this outfit and basically a whole styling guide. From me to her for when I was abroad and not gonna have like technology.

Emily Merrell  

I love that I would like one of those please for me for my life right now styling guide and operating manual of how to live my life Lex. So

Lexie Smith  

high expectations for little Lexie

Emily Merrell  

that big was the thing that I did. My number one favorite gift back in the day was making scrapbooks for people love and I would like spend hours cutting out magazines and like putting funny things they'd photocopy all of them, and then give him all my girlfriends. Yeah,

Lexie Smith  

that's see That's so thoughtful. So thoughtful. And speaking of being thoughtful. Um, here are our thoughts on fundamental coaching skills. That's all I got today, guys. We're talking today about the essential skills for effective coaching.

Emily Merrell  

You did great. I love it as as I'm literally like running my hands through my hair and hair is just falling off. All around me. This is fun.

Lexie Smith  

Yes, she is. We're giving you guys a visual. So Emily, speaking of falling off your hair located near your ears. What is the first essential skill that you should have as a coach wine? Where I was going?

Emily Merrell  

No, just kidding. But but it does help. For active listening. I

Lexie Smith  

continue. All joking aside by active listening, please don't

Emily Merrell  

drink wine while coaching. It is dangerous. No, it was insult all seriousness, the first thing that you should do as a coach is be an active listener. And that means being present, being in the moment with the client, being able to soak in what they're saying to you and actively reflect it back to them with strategic and thoughtful questions moving forward. Which

Lexie Smith  

segues us perfectly into the next fundamental skill of a coach. And that's being able to ask questions, we're talking thought provoking questions, guiding questions, open ended questions, these questions can come from active listening. So it's a great tie in there.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, and I think one of the things that's important to know when being a coach or when when coaching is that you're not supposed to, they're supposed to whatever's but it's not a time to be agreeable for everything. This is an opportunity for you to be challenging, when and where needed. And also to provide strategic feedback for development, and thought provoking questions to help them with that development. Why don't we throw out some questions for them to think about?

Lexie Smith  

Yes. Okay. So maybe your question is, what do you think your next best step is?

Emily Merrell  

or identifying a particular time? Like, when is there? When are you feeling the least motivated in your day, if you're a business coach, and you're helping them streamline the systems that they're doing in their business and maximizing their day?

Lexie Smith  

In sometimes it's taking one question and just asking it in a different way. So if they can't necessarily think about the time they release motivated, can you switch the question and say, when were you feeling the most motivated at moments in your business?

Emily Merrell  

And then from there, you can take that that answer, and you can map out a plan, you can map out a solution to the problem.

Lexie Smith  

And that's another fundamental skill. So really, we like to call it solution mapping. So solution mapping looks like a variety of things. One, it can be pulling from what you know, has worked for you, or what you know, has worked for others, or once again, going back to a process of asking questions that leads to a solution. So you can do a bit of guiding but also make sure you're including them in the process as well.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, I love that lacks and I always like to add on a layer of accountability there to where there's a lot of talking that can happen, but you want them to actually take action in their life. So how can you do that? It could be by assigning them homework with more deeper reflection or templates to fill out or, you know, an actionable thing that if they were going to launch their website, maybe you you have created a template. It's like how to write your entire website. And they've do it and you're holding them accountable, and you're assigning them a deadline to launch that gosh darn website.

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 for 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 full time, if you

Emily Merrell  

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

Lexie Smith  

applications are now open for our 2023 cohort. Yeah, you're in them keep on track. And actually, within a given coaching session, that's another fundamental skill is being able to from a coaching standpoint, really taking control of the session, and keeping everyone in the room on track. So squirrel squirrel moments will happen. But let them happen for a certain amount of time, then bring everyone back into the main intention and the main focus. So as a coach, whether you're coaching one on one, or you're coaching a group, make sure you're taking control of the room and bringing people back to the core purpose of why they're there.

Emily Merrell  

And you have to remember, these people are paying money to be held and to get the support they need. This is not the the Emily Merrill or the Lexie Smith show, this is an opportunity for that person to really take up space and take up time. But at the end of the day, you are still the conductor of that space. And that time. And through it all, you want to make sure that you're showing empathy, you're showing support, you're being respectful of their ideas, even if you don't think they're necessarily the right ideas, and truly work to build a trusting rapport and help him and help them come up with those concrete next steps forward.

Lexie Smith  

And I actually think there's a really good example within what you just said m of the difference between therapy and coaching, sometimes for therapy, you really do just want to go into a therapist office and pour your heart out for 45 minutes. And that's fine. If that's all that's accomplished in that day, in a coaching container. Again, the coach needs to take control and guide them towards a more productive solution. It's more solution based rather than let's work through your your trauma and just let it sit there. Right coaching is, again, how can we move this back towards these starting objectives that we originally outlined when we started this together?

Emily Merrell  

And I think that's a great thing to point out to the difference between coaching and therapy, there might be moments where some behaviors start moving into a category that you're not equipped for, and recognize that and no one you can outsource that, that trauma. So if you are a business coach, and you're seeing some like alcoholic tendencies come in, or you see some childhood trauma coming in, no, that just because that person hired you doesn't mean you have to fix all of their problems, and you can refer them out to someone else. Yes, such

Lexie Smith  

such a good point. On that no, a good fundamental coaching skill is to always leave a session or a group with concrete next steps forward. And to loop back in the whole concept of asking questions, we advise that you ask your client, okay, considering all that we've talked about today, what are your next steps forward?

Emily Merrell  

That's one of my favorite things to ask. And also, like, what was your biggest takeaway from today's session? Because we talk, you know, you might talk about a whole bunch of things. It's nice to hear in their words, out of all the things that you talked about, maybe it's the mindset or like I really needed that pep talk and I needed that reframe, or Oh, I'm so glad I I have a to do list and I know what next steps I need to do to move forward. But having them repeat back or, or take a take an overview of what they learned and give it back to you is helpful moving forward?

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, you're having them take inventory and having them reflect back, right. It's actually like further solidifying your time together, not letting them just go in one ear out the other. So those are two questions that can be really, really helpful in in coaching

Emily Merrell  

and lax. I think this was a helpful tip. And I'd always love to hear from, from our listeners, like, if they're coaches, what are some of their favorite things that they like to do?

Lexie Smith  

To coach their clients? Yeah, yeah. And before we go into homework, I'm just going to recap real quick. I'm gonna like boat speed, read through the tips that GEMINI SHARED today. So these are essential skills for effective coaching, active listening, asking questions, right, thought provoking questions, guiding questions, open ended questions, challenging and providing feedback for development, sharing solutions, coming up with solutions, showing empathy, support, respect, and really working to build true report, always pointing us back to the session or the point or the objective at hand and guiding them with next steps forward and holding them accountable and holding boundaries for a given container.

Emily Merrell  

Amen. I think you nailed all of them. Lex, what's the homework today? All right. So

Lexie Smith  

because we reiterated at multiple points through this episode, that a good coach is a great question asker we want you to outline three to five of your go to questions to take with you in your next coaching session. Start with a beginning question, a reflective question, and an ending session question.

Emily Merrell  

I think that's wonderful homework, and we can't wait to hear how it goes. So again, shoot us a note set on Instagram. Leave us a review, and we'll see you the next time on The Ready Set code coach podcast. They if you're enjoying the ReadySet coach podcast, please leave a review wherever you are listening. For more information about ReadySet coach, visit ReadySet coach program.com