August 2005

What advice do you have for doing sample sessions?

by Judith Cohen

Dear Judith:
What advice do you have for the sample coaching call? I once read that you want to make the client hungry for coaching so try and make them feel badly if they never get to do the things that they say they want to do. I am curious about what your take is on the sample coaching call. What do you do?
S.B.

Dear S.B.:
While it appears that successful marketers often appeal to prospective clients’ pains, the whole point is to remove their pain not to create it. I try to set up the sample session as just that, a sample of what coaching is going to be like with me. Most new coaches frequently stand in the perspective that the client is interviewing them. However, I use the sample session as an opportunity to see whether I want to work with this prospective client. When I first started out, I would try to make myself into whatever I thought my client wanted. That often led to being hired by people with whom I really didn’t feel all that comfortable. It was no surprise that many of these people left as I became more authentic.

When people initially contact me for a sample session, I give them the homework assignment to let themselves feel their yearning for something that is really important to them. Sometimes they tell me that they don’t yearn for anything. That tells me that either they have a fantastic life and they have just the right mindset to create even more of what they want, or they have closed off their desire and are no longer in touch with their yearning. Either way, it’s a great place to begin a coaching conversation. Of course, if the prospective client already has a topic that they want coaching on, I will certainly coach that topic.

My most interesting sample session occurred with somebody who actually didn’t want a sample session. He felt that they were inauthentic encounters (fortunately, I had found my own authentic voice by then) and didn’t want to waste time doing that. We ended up getting into a philosophical discussion about coaching and about what we both loved and hated about the profession. That non-sample session led to a two-year coaching relationship.

In my experience, the most powerful sample sessions are those that allow clients to feel truly seen and heard, put clients in touch with powerful possibilities, and, most importantly, have them taste their own natural creativity, resourcefulness and wholeness. When that occurs, magic happens and you don’t need to sell anybody anything. They are already enrolled by their own magnificence.

It’s helpful to notice whether you want to work with this client because you need the money or because they really turn you on. Be honest with yourself. Even if your clients think they know nothing about intuition, they will definitely pick up what your true connection is to them during the sample session.

As I am writing all of this, I’m also realizing that I have shifted my thinking about sample sessions over the years. I used to think of them as a marketing tool. When they didn’t work, I felt very disappointed. Now I actually see them in a different way. Primarily, I see giving a sample session as my professional community service project. It can never hurt to offer coaching to people. They may or may not decide to become my client. However, in the end, I’ve given them a free gift, and most people are genuinely appreciative of that. Secondly, doing a sample session is only one of the ways that people choose to hire me, so I’m not attached to the outcome anymore.

Be yourself. Offer the person a powerful coaching session and let yourself get in touch with the level of engagement you truly share with this person. The sample session is the perfect opportunity for you to mutually assess whether you both want to work together.

The question of doing sample sessions has offered me a great opportunity to talk about a very important related subject: intimacy and courage. Personally, I believe that intimacy and courage are at the heart of any good coaching relationship. It takes a courageous coach to take the risk of being intimate with a client in the service of creating the magic that both coaches and clients want.

How willing are you to be intimate and courageous with your clients? One coach told me that she loved her client. I found this very interesting because in reading a transcript of her coaching session, that experience was not evident. When I asked the coach, “Have you told your client that you love her?” the coach responded, “No, that wouldn’t be professional.” When I asked what she loved about her client, she told me several things that would have been wonderful acknowledgements of her client, would have definitely served to deepen her client’s learning about herself and likely would have helped her move forward in her project. Telling her client that she loved her and then acknowledging some of her clients lovable ways of being would have sparked a more intimate interaction.

I would like to suggest that being “professional” as a coach means to bring our own authenticity and aliveness to our work with our clients. When we hold back, it robs both our clients and us of information and experience that could propel action and learning. Of course, this does not mean abandoning self-management and saying anything that you wish. As always, you must share your authenticity and aliveness in the service of your client. If in fact, your comments have an impact that you did not intend, then it is important to stay present in the interaction until any misunderstanding is cleared up.

Just this morning, the issue of intimacy came up in a coaching session that I had with a new client. I had never talked to this client before; he hired me for some exam preparation. I had a great deal of trouble hearing him, and I was embarrassed because I felt that asking him to repeat everything sounded very unprofessional. When I couldn’t stand my embarrassment any longer, I told him what was going on with me and immediately the magic appeared. The energy between us totally changed. Here was a person whom I had never met and yet from that moment on we were intimately connected. His energy also changed with my disclosure of my embarrassment and fear of sounding unprofessional. Even though I had to continuously ask him to repeat himself because I couldn’t hear him, he had no negative feelings about having to do so. In the end, our process together was a perfect metaphor for the coaching relationship. Intimacy occurs when one is willing to do whatever it takes to create authentic communication. The fact that I was unable to hear was not a barrier between us. If anything, paradoxically, it brought us closer because we were both willing to be intimate with our feelings about the situation.

Regardless of whether you are offering a sample session or working with a regular client, design your relationship to be authentic and intimate. The coaching relationship is a sacred space in which to call forth the best of each other. The magic spell is quite simple: be fully present, express yourself honestly and allow your client to do the same.