For our clients, working with a coach involves a commitment of time, money and energy – and for some it also takes a great deal of courage. A good enrolment process should leave your client feeling they’ve made a wise choice hiring a coach and that YOU were the right choice.

So when your clients sign-up with you, how do you make your clients feel good about their decision? What do they have to show for it when they sign up? What’s your enrolment process?

Well, here are 7 suggestions for an enrolment process that rocks!:

1. Make your Client feel Super-Welcome! Specifically tell your client that you’re excited to work with them. A welcome email is a great way to do this AND I would also recommend that you send a physical “Welcome Pack” or similar in the “‘snail mail”.  Include a hand-signed welcome letter and make the packet attractive. Include a small gift to surprise and delight them – something relevant to the coaching process is good – some post-its, a pen (I sent a pack of 10 multi-coloured pens), a book, an inspiring fridge magnet. You get the idea.
2. Get Personal! Personalize your initial client communications – include a quote, tool or exercise that’s relevant to their situation. Show that you’ve seen and heard them and of course, be warm and friendly. Have a newsletter? Why not include an article from your archives that’s relevant to them and their situation?
   
3. Tell them what’s going to happen next. In your email and physical welcome letter let them know the next steps: when their first session with you is, how to pay (if they haven’t already), what number to call, that they should call you, to complete and return the coaching agreement if you have one, any actions or homework they may have from a consultation with you and anything else you consider relevant. Spell it out. Make it clear and simple. This will make you look professional – and allay any fears or uncertainty the client may have.
4. Get them started! Make sure they begin the coaching process right away – keep them in a coaching frame of mind. One way to do this is to give them some homework (I like to call it homefun!). In the “Welcome Pack” include at least one coaching exercise – this could be as little as a simple set of “Powerful Questions” or you could like me also include a “Life Map” and/or “Wheel of Life”. You could also include something specific to their situation for that extra personal touch.
5. (This one’s for YOU) Standardize as much as possible. Create a checklist for yourself and list the steps you will follow. Create templates for your Welcome Email and Welcome Letter. Then, just like a cover letter when you apply for a job, simply customize for each client with little touches here and there. By creating a template for your communications you save yourself tons of time – and it’s less stress too because you won’t have to think each time what you need to include. TIP: Another thing I did was to print 10 copies of the Coaching Agreement and welcome packet coaching exercises at a time, so when it was time to put a welcome packet together it was much quicker!
6. Help them to feel good about their financial investment in coaching! Hiring a coach is no small investment – so help your clients feel they’ve spent wisely. Everything we’ve talked about so far will help with this. AND I also suggest you find some way to RATE how your clients are doing ‘out of 10′. You could use a Coaching Goals Sheet (ask how close they are to each goal out of 10) or a Wheel of Life (the scoring system is built into this exercise). Then when you’ve been coaching for a little while, review the scores and you can show them how far they’ve come! (We’ll talk about this a bit more in another article).
7. Make it easy for them to remember – and refer you. Put your branding on all the materials you include – whether it’s an electronic or paper-based welcome. The great thing about a physical welcome packet is that you can include extra business cards for them to hand to friends and even a voucher for a free session for their friends. TIP: And although I haven’t personally done this – you could also include a referral program where your client gets a reward when a new client they refer signs up with you.
8. (OK, so it’s 8 suggestions really) Make sure you get their contact details AT ENROLMENT. So, here’s my cautionary tale: After coaching for 8 years it was the first time I didn’t fill out the client info/contact form at enrolment. I thought, “Oh well, I’ll do it at our first session”. Two weeks later, I had an internet and power-cut for 3 days – right before and during our first session. I had no contact details for my client and I couldn’t even look her up online because I didn’t have her home address. It got worse – because I have an ‘internet phone’ – they would have called me and got no answer! Then I remembered that I had set the internet phone to forward to my cellphone in emergencies. Very luckily, this worked. I spoke to her at the appointed time and we rescheduled. But it was nearly disaster – because my cellphone battery was almost flat too! I felt very unprofessional – and learned my lesson…

Have a tip you’d like to share? What’s your enrolment process?
We’d love to hear and I’m sure everyone else would too – just comment below!

First of all, THANK-YOU! Your comments and suggestions have been EXTREMELY helpful – and we look forward to implementing many of them soon, some right away!

So, without further ado, here’s what you had to say!

1. So what kind of coaching do you do? (bearing in mind you could tick more than one box):

• 72% of you identified as Life Coaches
• 28% as Executive Coaches
• 28% as Business Coaches
• 24% as Career Coaches
• 21% as Spiritual Coaches
• 19% as Parent or Teen Coaches
• 7% as Health and/or Wellness Coaches
• 3% as ADHD Coaches
• The remainder were a scattering of great specialties like performance coaching, passion & purpose coaching, eating disorders recovery, relationship, caregiver, student, creativity coaching and more!

2. How long have you been coaching for? 

• 30% of you have been coaching from 6 months to 2 years
• 26% of you have been coaching from 2 to 5 years
• 24% of you have been coaching less than 6 months
• 11% of you have been coaching for 5 to 10 years
• and an impressive 9% have been coaching for more than 10 years
• And that doesn’t include the many of you say you have been coaching one way or another for a lot longer than that!

So, now for the juicy bits!

Well, when it comes to how we can do better, (depending on the question we asked) between 23% and 64% of you said “nothing” or “you loved it!” So, thank-you for all your kind and wonderful comments.

However, that also means 36-77% of you had some ideas and improvement suggestions, so read on…

3. The Top 3 themes where you said we could do better:

1. Make the newsletter clearer and easier to read – many of you felt the design was cluttered, unfocused, too busy and/or had too much information and too many distractions in it.
2. Make the newsletter more frequent – and briefer. While a couple of people said they liked the frequency of the emails, you repeatedly told me you’d like more regular, but briefer! emails. And some of you liked the article summaries while some of you wanted the whole article in the newsletter – so we need to do some thinking around this.
3. You told us to be bolder! And we are definitely liking this idea! Many of you also said to jazz up the newsletter title to pique your interest more…

• 46% of you said either the Coaching Tools or Free Coaching Tools!
• 28% of you said the variety and/or universal applicability of the articles
• 25% of you said the concrete practical information, tips and resources – especially “How Tos”
• 19% of you said you liked the new materials, fresh ideas – and ways to use tools
• 9.5% of you liked our energy, customer service and willingness to share
• 9% of you liked the shortness of the articles
• 5% of you said everything!
• And then there were many other individual likes including specific tools (many of you appreciated the wheel!) saving you time and effort, powerful questions, quotes, getting your questions answered and more.

5. What do you want more of?

• 28% of you said Tools (to help you get ideas, to use in session, start conversations or for workshops)
• 15% of you said Free Tools!
• 8% of you said Ideas, inspiration and new perspectives
• 6% of you said Concrete Tools and Information and how to use them
• 6% of you said Powerful Questions and prompts
• And a few of you suggested guest writers for different perspectives. Watch this space!

6. How can we help you more?

Wow – you have some really great ideas! For specific topic and subject requests see the next question. See below for the key themes where you said you would like more help:

1. Tools, more tools, ways to use them, how to use them most effectively, how to use them in groups (we’ve already started covering some of these so hope you like it!)
2. Tools to help build your business
3. Marketing ideas and help (although some of you said you DIDN’T want this!)
4. More sharing and camaraderie AND to be able to ask questions! Tip: Visit and like our Facebook Page and  ask your questions there. Please help out/reply to other people’s questions too! I’d love to see more dialogue, support, sharing and camaraderie!)
5. Create some “apps” or interactive tools. This is on our ideas list too!
6. A framework for working with clients from start to finish!
7. Powerful questions to help clients open up and look within
8. Mentoring 

7. Topics you wanted to know more about?

Well, there was a HUGE variety of suggestions – nearly 150 of them and about 80 different ones! And as many of you specifically like the variety and breadth of what we cover this is great! Roughly in order, the key themes were:

1. Coaching Tools, Activities & Exercises – especially for ideas, inspiration and practical “How Tos”
2. Marketing, Sales & Business Building (including getting started, niching, enrolling clients, effective marketing, conveying your message and more!)
   Tip: We have 2 articles from our back catalogue on niching here >>.
3. Questions, Questioning Skills, Techniques and Powerful conversations.
   Tip: Click on a “Category” in the sidebar to get all our back articles with a category of “Coaching Questions” or  ”Questioning Skills”. Here’s just one of our articles tagged “Coaching Questions”: 5 Catch-all Questions To Ask When You Freeze and Can’t Think What To Say Next!
4. Career and Business Coaching Tools
5. Motivation and Focus
6. Building Rapport and Trust
7. Goal-Setting, Visioning, Dreaming
8. Values and Beliefs - by the way, we recently did a short series of articles on Values starting here >>
9. NLP, neuroscience, emotional intelligence
10. A number of specific coaching areas including coaching Groups, Teens, Parents, Confidence, Leadership, Executives and more!
11. Putting together a Client Packet – how, what to go in, steps to take when you get hired!
12. Learning from other people’s mistakes and Case Studies (although an equal number of you said you didn’t want case studies!)

In Summary

I hope you found that as interesting and helpful as I did! Some of you said that our newsletter/blog helped you to feel that “you’re not alone”. And hopefully reading the survey results, you felt that too.

I’m excited – we have already begun to plan and implement some of these changes. Thank-you for your valuable time and input.

So, if you think we’ve missed something important, or you feel you have something to add to the information above, please email us OR comment below – we’d LOVE to hear from you!

AND lastly – we’ll be announcing the lucky survey winner of  OUR ENTIRE CATALOGUE of COACHING TOOLS! on our Facebook Page very soon. Watch this space!

In part 2 of this article I’m going to share with you 5 specific exercises I have regularly used in workshop situations – and why. I’ve tried to pick the most universal coaching exercises, and as mentioned in part 1 of this article on using coaching tools in workshops, remember to get people into groups to work through exercise sections or brainstorm and bounce ideas off each other.

5 Specific Coaching Tools & Exercises for Awesome Workshops:

1. “Energy Zappers” or “Tolerations (Free Tool)”. People are stressed, tired and overwhelmed. So, help your workshop attendees identify where their energy is being zapped or where they are being drained by things they are tolerating. After they identify their “Energy Zappers” or “Tolerations” it’s good to help people see which ones they can make a difference on right away. And MAKE SURE they leave the workshop with an action to boost their energy!
   Workshop Applications: Life-Balance, Health and Wellness, Self-Care, Moms and Parent Coaching (more energy helps us have more patience and time for our children), De-Stressing especially in the Business, Executive or Career Coaching worlds.
2. “Urgent/Important Matrix”. People are busy – and there is just more and more to fit into each day. Facebook, Twitter, the latest gripping TV shows and the internet has provided us with countless ways to spend time – jumping from one thing to the next.  People often don’t have an awareness around how they are spending – and wasting – their time. The Urgent-Important Matrix is a classic tool that quickly brings people to an awareness of the difference between important, urgent and how we get caught up doing urgent things (or time wasters) and don’t make time for the important things – and then the important things become urgent – an endless, tiring cycle.
   Workshop Applications: Time Management (of course) and Life Balance (they may need to get more organized). Great for Business, Career and Executive Coaches although executives may already be aware of this tool – in which case the “Action-Priority Matrix” is a good progression! ALSO, can be a great concept for Mom and Parent Coaching – helping people organize their time better and turn time “wasting” into constructive self-care time…
3. Meditation/Creative Visualisations. Well, we know people are busy and stressed. And we also know that people are not making the time to ponder, sit still and reflect. Most people, once they’re doing it, find meditation relaxing and calming. And then there are some people who love the idea, but can’t bring themselves to sit still – or find it hard to prioritise amongst their many other tasks and activities. Bringing meditation or creative visualisation into a seminar can be a great way to help people (re)experience the benefits for themselves.
   Workshop Applications: Life-Balance, Self-Care and Health and Wellness Seminars. Use to brainstorm ideas, help people connect to themselves or meet their ‘wise’ selves for inspiration, support and encouragement, help people get into their bodies and get distance from  their inner critics, understand the benefits of pondering and reflection time. Also use simple, short guided meditation in the business world to help workshop attendees calm down and get creative.
4. The Wheel of Life (Free Tool) Boring? I don’t think so – The Wheel of Life has SO many different applications and even if people have done it before, the scores are always different depending on their life-situations and how they’re feeling.
   Workshop Applications: No matter what realm of coaching you’re in, or what subject you’re covering, if you’re EVER stuck for an exercise, get a blank wheel of life and adapt it to your attendees’ situations. You may find this article 12 Awesome New Ways To Use The Wheel of Life in Your Coaching Practice helpful to get you started with just a few ideas of how the wheel can be adapted!
5. “Mentor Magic” or “Role Model Review”. People are often busy admiring others without realizing that we can’t recognize a quality in someone else unless we have that capability ourselves… “Mentor Magic” identifies mentors to give people career-building advice and “Role Model Review” inspires people to model and take action to integrate the qualities they admire in others.
   Workshop Applications: Careers Workshops, Youth Coaching, Confidence Workshops or any workshop where people feel stuck and you’d like another angle to find solutions (what would someone they admire do in a situation). I have used this with great success in both Confidence Building Workshops, and Stress Management workshops with Teens.

You may also like some of our  *FREE* Seminar-Related Coaching Forms like the Action Brainstorming  Worksheet, Seminar Feedback Form and more!

For me the essence of coaching is change, whether it’s something we do – or the way we think. Therefore I think it’s essential that people leave our coaching workshops with at least one action – and new perspectives. From the very beginning I used coaching tools and worksheets in workshops – handouts where people wrote down learnings about themselves and identified actions.

Because we all know that something happens when we take thoughts out of our heads and speak them aloud – or put them on paper. The form or worksheet provides a way to help people ‘see’ clearly what is going on inside of them. And then, when they take the form home, it becomes something they can refer back to. And remember to have your contact details on there so that if they have any questions or would like to follow-up, people know how to get in touch!

Now, one of the biggest things I learned early on about running workshops was that people didn’t want to hear me speak (much!). What I found from using this seminar feedback form available *free* here – was that people wanted to interact with each other more.

What I realized was that in a workshop, just like coaching, people learn best when they figure it out for themselves.

So I continued to use coaching exercises and forms as worksheets, but instead of me talking and then people filling out the appropriate part of the worksheet, I said less and put people into groups to develop their own answers and deeper learnings. I then got the groups to share their learnings/observations/thoughts with the entire group. And only THEN would I ask them to complete the corresponding part of the worksheets. I found so much richness – learning, re-inforcement, realising we are not alone – comes out of these discussions, that now I  won’t do workshops any other way.

 << Less of this                                          And more of this >> 

Workshops at work and in business: When the workshop is in a work context I have to be especially aware of politics, and issues around personal sharing. And depending on the client I may share more information (talk more!) as well as provide a ‘pure information’ handout in addition to the coaching exercises to summarise the key learnings. But it’s still the group discussion where people take a concept or learning and through listening, reflection and feedback with others, make it their own. And I always follow that with a coaching worksheet for them to summarise and clarify their thoughts and learnings.

In the beginning I did a lot of free workshops. Doing free workshops was a fantastic way for me to build an email list, fans and clients. The seminar feedback form I mentioned asks for their email address AND asks if they would like a consultation. It also asks for testimonials – which I collected for my website.  I learned so much about running seminars – that by the time I was paid to run seminars I was confident and able to deliver.

So, whatever worksheet exercise or tool you use, it should EMPOWER your attendees – leave them feeling better about themselves or their situation. This can be done by ensuring they always have at least one action to take away or by sharing a helpful new perspective on themselves, their life situation or the world.

In part 2 of this article I’m going to share with you the specific exercises I like best to use in a workshop situation and why.

Hi there,

This survey is now closed. You responded amazingly! Thank-you all for your time – we really appreciate it and once we’ve reviewed the results – we’ll be making changes to help you more!

Interested in the results? Check them out: Our First Ever Survey Results – We Asked How Can We Help You More?

We will also summarise  your responses on the blog for you soon so you can see what everyone has been saying.

If you read our blog or get our newsletter – we’d love to know what you think – and how we can help you more!  Please take our short survey here >> and tell us!

And enter your email address for a chance to win our ENTIRE Catalogue of  Coaching Tools!

Thank-you – your time and thoughts are greatly appreciated.

The subtitle of this book really says it all: “Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be and embrace who you are.”  

Brene Brown has a Ph.D. She’s a researcher and academic in the realms of emotion, shame and authenticity. And while the author presents 10 guideposts to living what she calls “a wholehearted life”, she illustrates each with personal examples from her own journey. So it’s also a memoir, the author’s very personal story of coming to terms with being herself.  And as she struggles with her own lack of worthiness and shame, she turns a personal breakdown into a spiritual awakening.

Those on a spiritual path already know we need to embrace ourselves as we are – that it requires courage, compassion, vulnerability, letting go. What I love is the honesty with which she shares her mistakes and flaws, modelling the courage and vulnerability that she encourages us to embrace. What’s different is that this book is written by a left-brained scientist in a way that left-brained analytical people can more readily identify with.

So, this book is perfect (if you’ll excuse the pun) for those hard-working, left-brained, perfectionist clients who are asking deeper questions about the meaning of their lives and where to go next. And if that’s you, then maybe you’ll enjoy it too.

Want to know more? You can get a great idea of what the book is like from Brene’s TED Talk on Courage and Vulnerability and Brene’s most recent TED talk about Shame.

If you liked this, check out our recommended books here >>

I am often asked which Coaching Tools and Exercises I like best, use most, would recommend or would not be without – so I thought this would be a useful article to write. Below, I share the tools that I think are most universally useful for coaches and our clients but, as I created them all, if I’m honest I really wouldn’t be without any of them! Please note that this is the second longer than usual article – and again, I have tried to jam-pack it with useful tips for you! Enjoy.

I’d also love to hear from you which tools and exercises you use most – or find most useful – in your practices! Anyhow, here are mine:

1. “The Wheel of Life” Coaching Exercise. The ultimate coaching tool, it’s endlessly usable for different applications. Also see our article with 12 different ways you can use the Wheel of Life here.
2. “What Makes My Heart Sing?” This coaching exercise draws out experiences where people are very present with themselves. You coach them to see how the experiences they’ve chosen are both easy to create and – usually – free! Great for helping people begin to understand what creates joy and happiness. Great for: life-coaching, spiritual workshops, one-on-one sessions and also for homework as part of values exploration. Ultimately this exercise helps our clients connect with what makes them truly happy and to see how easy it can be to create that.
3. The “Big Rocks” Coaching Exercise uses a powerful metaphor of trying to fit rocks, pebbles and sand in a jar and how we tend to fill our lives with sand and pebbles first and leave no room for our “Big Rocks” . The story and concept comes first and then a jar with “Big Rocks” is used as a visual to help them prioritise their activities and cement the learning. You coach them around identifying, learning to prioritise and action the “Big Rocks” first, and then to put their metaphorical pebbles and sand in AFTERwards. Great for: Anyone who struggles with many priorities and tasks – especially moms! Also great for business, executive, career coaches and corporate workshops to help with procrastination, improving productivity and being more focused.
4. “The Urgent Important Matrix”. This coaching tool helps people become very AWARE of how they could waste less time – and be more productive. So like “Big Rocks” it’s a great tool for business and corporate use. Great for: This coaching exercise is very versatile and helps absolutely everyone better understand how they currently spend their time – and to identify and eliminate their unique time-wasters. With the amount of television, internet and social media usage these days this tool couldn’t be more relevant!
5. “Spheres of Influence”. This coaching tool reminds me of the serenity prayer – to focus on what we have control over and let go of the rest. There are 3 concentric circles representing what we have 1) control, 2) influence and 3) everything else. The client focuses on a current issue and fills out the circles . This coaching exercise helps with identifying where and where NOT to spend their time and energy – and decide which actions to focus on. Great for: Life! OK, so any situation where your client is worrying over things they have no control over. Also, corporate situations where there’s a lot of change in the environment. This concept is a powerful take-home for workshops!
6. The “Personal SWOT” Coaching Tool. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is an age-old business tool that has been adapted for personal use. Who wouldn’t benefit from an inventory and understanding of their talents, skills and so-called ‘weaknesses’? Great for: Fantastic coaching opportunities around the client’s “opportunities” (goals) and “threats” (self-improvement and actions). AND this tool can also be used for confidence boosting – to help the client value themselves and spiritually to help them accept their weaknesses as part of the whole. I love this tool – while it’s great for career, executive and business coaches, it’s also great for life-coaching and self-awareness generally.
7. “Energy Zappers” or “Tolerations” Coaching Tool (Free). These are simple, powerful “list” tools that help clients identify literally what’s zapping their energy or what they are tolerating. The coaching is around eliminating these energy sucks and freeing up more energy for their goals and life. Great for: Anyone – because we all have things that are zapping our energy. A fun group exercise in workshops where you’d like your client to free up more energy, this coaching tool is helpful for any type of coach with any type of client!
8. “Life-Mapping Tool”. This visual coaching tool gives a helicopter overview of significant events in a client’s life. It specifically asks for events of importance to the CLIENT and not what others would think. And because it asks for what is significant for THEM (not just so-called achievements) it gives clues to values, meaningful goals, limiting beliefs and more! Great for: This is an awesome tool to start a coaching relationship with. It’s more fun and powerful than interviewing a client or getting them to write out events – and the relative “peaks” and troughs give an instant overview for both client and coach to move forwards from together.
9. “Detox Relationships”. We ALL have difficult people in our lives – and when it comes to family and work colleagues we may have little choice about it. This coaching exercise helps our clients assess who energises and who drains them. The coaching helps them find more time for people that energise them and less time or different strategies for those who drain them. Great for: Fabulous for individual coaching – whether in a career or broader life situation. Watch out: While it’s excellent for a teleseminar, use with care in a workshop situation if people know each other – who knows how they will appear on someone’s list or whether someone will feel they can be honest with a friend sat right next to them.

So, that’s the tools I think are most universal. But as I mentioned, we’d all love to hear from you which tools and exercises you use most – or find most useful – in your practices. Please add in your favourite tools and exercises by commenting below!

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]]> http://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/launchpad/coaching-tools-101-the-coaching-exercises-and-templates-i-would-not-be-without/feed/ 0 http://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/launchpad/coaching-tools-101-12-awesome-new-ways-to-use-the-wheel-of-life-in-your-coaching-practice/ http://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/launchpad/coaching-tools-101-12-awesome-new-ways-to-use-the-wheel-of-life-in-your-coaching-practice/#comments Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:31:42 +0000 Emma-Louise http://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/launchpad/?p=1248 Originally Posted on The Launchpad - The Coaching Tools Company Blog as Coaching Tools 101 – 12 Awesome New Ways To Use The Wheel of Life in Your Coaching Practice

Traditional "Wheel of Life" Coaching Tool

The “Wheel of Life” is a powerful coaching tool – and can be used in many different ways! In fact it may just be the best and most flexible coaching tool in our coaching toolbox – and that’s why I wrote this longer than usual article chock-full of [...]

Originally Posted on The Launchpad - The Coaching Tools Company Blog as Coaching Tools 101 – 12 Awesome New Ways To Use The Wheel of Life in Your Coaching Practice

Traditional "Wheel of Life" Coaching Tool

The “Wheel of Life” is a powerful coaching tool – and can be used in many different ways! In fact it may just be the best and most flexible coaching tool in our coaching toolbox – and that’s why I wrote this longer than usual article chock-full of new ideas of how you can use “The Wheel of Life” in your coaching practices!

As coaches, I think we get so used to seeing “The Wheel of Life” that we switch off. Oh – that old thing – AGAIN! But, while The Wheel of Life is ‘old hat’ to us, it’s still new for most of our clients. So, apart from the common use of this coaching exercise to look at life balance, how else can we use The Wheel of Life to help our clients? Well, here are some suggestions (and we’d love to hear what you do – just comment below):

1. The Wheel of Stress (or Wheel of Frustration). Start with a blank wheel and ask your clients to list the top 8 areas that stress them out or frustrate them most. And then ask them to score each area out of 10 as to how much it adds to the stress in their life. Then of course, review the results with them. Tip: Ask, which area frustrates or stresses them out the most? Are there any surprises? How could they lower their scores? What actions could they take?
2. The Wheel of Progress. When used on a regular basis The Wheel of Life is excellent to help your clients see how far they’ve come. Use it monthly or quarterly with your clients, as both a check-in to see how they’re doing AND as a way for them to see how they’ve improved and grown. Improved scores demonstrate concrete value from coaching and provide a discussion point to help clients see their learnings and progression. Tip: It’s a bit like looking back over an old journal and seeing how far you’ve come!
3. The Wheel of Happiness, Fun or even Excitement! Does your client need help to create more happiness, fun or excitement in their life? Well, ask them to identify 8 areas or things that are fun or make them excited or happy. There are different ways to score this – you could ask them to score how satisfied they are with each area, or how MUCH each area excites them, or how much they WANT to ‘do’ or feel drawn to each area. It depends on  the labels you’ve used. Then ask your client for an action or commitment for each segment. Tip: Ask what they notice. How could they bring more of each segment into their lives? Help them find multiple wins – where one action raises their score across a number of areas. Love this? You may also like “What Makes My Heart Sing?”
4. Getting a Deeper Understanding. Use the wheel to drill down into each area and help your clients understand their lives and issues more deeply. So, take one of the segments and ask them to write out a further 8 areas that make up that segment for them. Eg. a ‘Finance’ wheel could include saving for a house, budgeting, focusing on buying needs and not wants, saving for a rainy day, paying off debts, getting a pay-rise etc. Tip: This is great homework – to identify areas to bring to the session and work on.
5. The Wheel of Compassion. There are few of us who couldn’t do with more self-compassion. Ask for 8 areas where your client could be more kind or compassionate with themselves. Get them to score HOW compassionate they are currently – and to identify an action for the top 3 areas that need kindness or compassion most. Tip: Try this one on yourself. Where do YOU need to be kinder with yourself?
6. Set More Meaningful Goals. The Wheel of Life is a great way to help a client who is struggling to identify goals. Low scores point to areas where a goal could be identified to raise their score. And high scores suggest areas where a goal could really BOOST your client and skyrocket them in their lives. When we work on where we’re already doing well – this spins off into other areas in our lives and lifts them too. Tip: This is great for business and career/executive coaches – to ease clients into thinking about their personal lives – which we know will, of course, benefit their careers and businesses in the long run.
7. The Wheel of Priorities. Ask your client to label their Top 8 priorities – across work, home, relationships – basically their priorities in life overall. First, ask them to identify their Top 3 priorities. Then ask them to score their satisfaction out of 10 for all the areas. This approach can also be used to look at a specific area of life eg. career, finances or even to prioritise goals! Tip: What do they notice? How does the score for their Top 3 priorities compare to the lower priorities? Do they have their priorities ‘straight’ or do they need to shift their focus? What actions could they take?
8. The Wheel of Sales (or Wheel of Marketing). A wheel can also be used to help identify actions rather than identify and score ‘areas’ to work on. So, take a blank wheel and ask your clients to identify sales or marketing actions to complete in the next month (or key actions to complete in the coming year). I recommend having a Sales Wheel AND a Marketing Wheel as although they’re related they are different disciplines. Tip: You could also pre-fill some of the wheel for them so a Marketing Wheel might include social media, networking, advertising, workshops, a newsletter and a Sales Wheel might include clarifying a sales process or funnel, writing a script for complimentary sessions, calling enquiries back, creating an entry level product, reading about Sales. You might like to try this one for your coaching practice…
9. The “Skills and Knowledge Gap” Wheel. What are the Top 8 skills and knowledge gaps your client has that gets in the way of that job, promotion or new career? Ask your client to identify their gaps and then to score out of 10 where they are on the road to filling this gap. Finally identify action next steps for each ‘gap’. Tip: It helps to clarify whether each ‘gap’ is a skill or knowledge gap. AND it’s also important to do a ‘sanity’ check that the gap is  fillable and that it’s a skill they are able or WANT to fill!
10. General Action Planning. The visual wheel format is also great to make action planning more fun. So, using a blank wheel, write the goal or required outcome at the top of the page. Then ask your client to write out the next 8 actions or chunks of work that make up their goal. Tip: If you get them to put a date against each action – they can then use the ‘pieces of pie’ to record the % complete for each area! Using a wheel is also a great way to BREAK DOWN bigger actions into smaller more manageable chunks.
11. The Relationships Wheel. This is a wheel ABOUT relationships. Ask your client to list the 8 people that most energise or drain them and then score HOW energised or drained they feel after spending time with them. Then ask what they notice. Tip: Ask them what % of their time they currently spend with each person. For the energising people you could ask how they could spend MORE time with them? And for the drainers you could ask how they could spend less time – or change the way they spend time with them. Love this? You may also like our “Detox Your Relationships” Coaching Tool.
12. The “Finding Love” Wheel. Our final suggestion is to help your clients identify what they are looking for in a relationship. Ask your client to take the blank wheel and label the pieces of pie with the 8 essential qualities their  ideal partner would have. Then ask them to score how IMPORTANT out of 10 each quality is. This will help them identify which qualities are MOST valuable. Tip: It’s a good idea to set this one as homework and encourage them to think broadly about qualities that are REALLY important in a LIFE partner. And, depending on your client, by giving them a few examples to start with like “good listener”, “kind”, “spiritual” can get them thinking beyond “tall” or “good looking”.

So, obviously you can use as many segments as you like on your wheels, you’re not limited to 8 wheel segments – but it is easy to divide the wheel up this way!

Final Tip: And whatever we’ve used the wheel for I like to ask this question when complete, “So, if this wheel represented your life/relationship/career/marketing strategy, is it a bumpy ride?”

I hope this has given you some new ideas for using “The Wheel of Life” in your coaching practice. Why not give one a try – it’s wheely good! 

And remember - we’d LOVE to hear how YOU use The Wheel of Life – just comment on this post below!

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I don’t know why I haven’t answered this question earlier, but now is as good a time as any! I absolutely love coaching tools and believe that they are an essential supplement to the coaching relationship. Whether used in session, in workshops or as homework they provide extra opportunities to inform our clients and raise their awareness. They help our clients create time for reflection, solidify their learnings and move forwards, faster.

So, what IS a Coaching Tool or Exercise? Well, for me a coaching tool or exercise is ANYTHING we use to raise our client’s awareness or move them forwards. This could be by enhancing their understanding of themselves or by helping them make changes, decisions or take action in their lives.

Coaching tools can raise awareness in many ways; by asking a series of questions, getting our clients to draw things or by offering a reframe or new metaphor. We can also raise awareness by giving our clients useful and relevant information eg. time management tips or a new process or model like to help with conflict or writing a resume. NB. In the case of information transfer there must be a further step which asks, “What does this mean for me?” or “What am I going to do with this new information?”, otherwise for me it’s not a coaching tool, it’s training.

So, a coaching tool facilitates learning and change – it asks powerful questions or gives the client a reframe, a metaphor or some information – and it then solidifies the learning by specifically asking, “What have I learned?” or “Now what?”

For me, coaching tools also need to be enjoyable. After all coaching, when fully embraced, can be hard work! So by making coaching exercises lighthearted and fun, we make the whole coaching process lighter and easier for our clients too. After all, we all know that when we’re having fun we learn more and that the learning stays with us longer.

And while you pick and choose tools according to your client’s needs, they should be reusable with other clients – the best coaching tools and exercises deal with universal issues. Examples could include prioritising our time, setting meaningful goals, exploring what’s important to us, taking better care of our ‘selves’ or getting unstuck and taking action. 

So, what does a coaching tool look like? Well, a coaching tool can be as simple as sending a client away from a session with a powerful question, which they can ponder, meditate or journal around. And a coaching tool could also be a several session process with multiple steps with instructions over email – like establishing a client’s values and priorities. The coaching tools I have created are short, simple documents with plenty of colour and graphics to make the forms look fun to complete – they look appealing – but still pack a punch in the self-discovery process.

“The Wheel of Life” (available in our Free Coaching Tools) is probably the best known coaching exercise – and it’s amazingly flexible. Did you know that although it’s mostly used to help people see how balanced their life is, it can be adapted for many other purposes too? More about that here in our article with 12 Awesome Ways to Use the Wheel of Life!

Other great examples of coaching tools include the “Personal SWOT” Coaching Tool (to review our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats), “The Urgent/Important Matrix” Coaching Exercise to make more effective use of our time or our free gift with newsletter sign-up – “Troll Travels” where clients use the ‘device’ of a troll to decide which of their qualities they value the most (and it’s rarely what they expect!). Check out our Coaching Tools Catalogue for more examples.

But whatever coaching tools and exercises you use in your practice, they are not a substitute for coaching and the coaching relationship. Once the client has completed a tool, they bring the results back to you, their coach, and this is where you add your coaching magic! You ask questions, challenge them, delve deeper – and this helps create more  ”Aha!” moments which spur our clients on!

The Purpose of Coaching Tools? To enhance the experience for your client and help YOU help your client get the results they want – with more fun, faster!

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]]> http://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/launchpad/ok-so-what-are-coaching-tools-anyway/feed/ 0 http://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/launchpad/10-top-tips-to-help-your-clients-manage-rejection-like-a-pro/ http://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/launchpad/10-top-tips-to-help-your-clients-manage-rejection-like-a-pro/#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2012 08:37:20 +0000 Emma-Louise http://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/launchpad/?p=1045 Originally Posted on The Launchpad - The Coaching Tools Company Blog as 10 Top Tips to Help Your Clients Manage Rejection like a Pro!

Rejection is utterly unavoidable in life. So why do people spend so much time and energy trying?

Well, it hurts of course! But it doesn’t need to… In order to minimize the pain of rejection, we can help our clients find a way to avoid taking rejections personally. Here are 10 of my Top Tips [...]