Best Practices

Useful bits and snippets on how to make a coaching relationship successful

How often do coaches and clients usually talk with each other?

When coaches sign up with us, their first question often is: How often am I supposed to check in on my clients?

And there is no universal response to this – that's the core of coaching. Clients seek out a coach for help with their problem. Sometimes that problem is a strategical one – something that needs to be unbundled over months, and talking every few days is the schedule that naturally evolves out of it.

Other clients need a push into the right direction, make some difficult decisions, it can make sense to talk daily in those cases.

How should we structure the first call?

The first interaction with a client is a warm-up. Just like when you start sprinting without stretching, diving in too hard can create tension and signals short-term thinking.

So, it can be advisable to use that first call to create a plan and figure out the way forward, instead of instantly jumping into a long session of coaching.

How long should the coaching relationship last?

Is my timeline OK? How long should I plan for to reach my goal? Can I reach a goal in a month?

How long a coaching is productive for is highly influenced by the goal you'd like to reach. Helping you wrap your head around a certain topic might take a month or two.

At CoachWith, we learned that having a timeline in the first place is a good thing to have. We also learned that with a timeline of under a month it's difficult to build a fruitful relationship.

Today, we see an average duration of 3.5 months from start until end of a coaching relationship. Reaching a goal doesn't mean that a coaching needs to end though, it's just the nature of a coaching relationship that changes.