Coaching vs. Mentoring (and what’s right for you!)
Episode Summary:
First up in the episode today I want to define what coaching is, because I feel like that was a big question for me when I entered the online space. At the start of my business, what is coaching? Is this a scam? Is this ethical? If I'm a therapist, am I also allowed to coach? I spent like 900 years Googling and I really wish someone would have defined for me what coaching was and ALSO the difference between coaching and mentoring which will lead us into the second part of the episode. Whether you're a coach, an online service provider, a course provider, or you provide DFY services, you are going to have to use the skill of coaching and you're going to use the skill of mentoring, so I want to talk about both. Before you listen to the episode, I want you to ask yourself this question: when I work with my clients, what percentage is coaching and what percentage is mentoring? This will help give you some initial clarity as you listen, and remember, there is no wrong answer!
Topics Discussed:
The two types of coaching frameworks – traditional and flexible – and which one you should implement in your business
Why a lack of clarity around the results of online courses often lead to small conversion and completion rates
The timeline you should take when it comes to creating your framework and creating your course (and knowing what to include!)
Finding clarity around the percentage of coaching and mentoring you want to do in your business for each container you offer
Looking for ways to challenge yourself and step outside of the box to increase your coaching skills
Giving yourself the permission to diversify your income stream to fit your current circumstances
Episode Resources:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Stitcher
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Anna Rapp (00:02):
Today I wanna talk about the difference between, well, I wanna define what is coaching, because I feel like that was a big question for me when I entered the online space. In addition, in addition to Googling, what is coaching? Is this a scam? Is this ethical? If I'm a therapist, am I also allowed to coach like I spent like 900 years Googling? Okay. and I really wish someone would've defined for me what coaching was and also the difference between coaching and mentoring, coaching and strategy. Because whether you're a coach or whether you are an online service provider, a course provider, you do done for you services like social media management, OBM work, right? You are going to have, you're going to use the skill of coaching and you're going to use the skill of mentoring. And I wanna talk about them both. And the question I wanna ask for you today, just to give yourself a little bit of clarity, when I work with my clients, how much of what I do, what percentage is coaching and what percentage is mentoring?
Anna Rapp (01:04):
And there's no wrong answer. Okay? Everyone is gonna have a different amount that they do in different containers. And the reason I think this is so useful to define is remembering that all are valuable and nothing is wrong. But what is important for you to do is to communicate to your audience what you do and how much you do of it, right? Or if you're a done for you provider, it might also be useful for you to say, what percentage do I do things for my clients? Am I actually in there and doing work on their behalf? Right? and the reason I bring this up, 'cause a lot of the women that I work with that are like VAs or OBMs, they realize like, oh my gosh, I'm actually doing some strategy and some mentoring with my clients and maybe I wanna start charging that charging for that and creating, you know, some one-off coaching sessions so that I can be compensated for that, right?
Anna Rapp (01:49):
Or conversely, sometimes my coaching clients will realize like, actually I kind of wanna get in there and like get nitty gritty and do things for people or, you know what I mean? I don't mind listening to women and their problems and asking them questions. But what I really like to do is teach, I really like to give people advice. I really like to, to break things down into frameworks and doable steps and say do these six things and get this result, right? And maybe you feel like you're born to be a teacher, right? And then some of my other clients are like, you know what? I actually don't really resonate with the framework in my program getting coach. I really talk about two types of frameworks, right? There's the traditional framework and then there's the flexible framework. And I think both can be valuable when you're in a one-on-one relationship with a client.
Anna Rapp (02:36):
Hi. Hi sweet Kim, how are you? Happy Tuesday. Gimme an update on you when you are with a client in like a three month coaching container. You might have a flexible coaching framework, which means during our three months together, these are some of the things that we can cover based on your needs, right? I do this with my one-on-one clients. I have six categories. I give the these, they're actually C's I say I have six C's, right? And in my one-on-one mentorship, I say, these are the six things we can cover together. I will bring up some things, I have some resources, but also feel free to bring up if you need support in one of these areas. And I find for a lot of my clients that really lean into the coaching element, they love having a flexible framework and no one's given them permission to have a framework that is flexible, right?
Anna Rapp (03:24):
But again, some of my clients really thrive under teaching. And if you're someone that wants to have courses for my programs that are courses and containers like my mastermind, like my group coaching program, I do not have a flexible framework. I have a traditional framework <laugh>, right? Where I'm like, these are the 12 steps you need to take in this order in order to get this result, right? Like in my program getting coach, it's 12 weeks every single week has a worksheet. Every single week has an objective, right? And I think this is where people get courses wrong, excuse me, is they go into a course. And the reason I think the online completion rate for courses is so low is they're approaching it backwards, right? They're really thinking through like what are all the fun things I wanna include in my course, right? Instead of what's the result I want someone to get after these 12 weeks in my course and how can I break down the steps that get them to that end result?
Anna Rapp (04:20):
And how do I take anything else that doesn't help get them that result? And how do I throw it away, right? My favorite book on oh, what's it called? I'll put it in the notes, but it's by Marian Elwell. She writes on memoir and writing and biographies and stuff like that and she has this phrase Kill your Darlings, right? Which basically means like we need to be able to leave our ego at the door and when we're creating a course or a book, right? Delete things that aren't necessary, even if we kind of like it, if it's not gonna help our client get the result we want, it doesn't belong in the course, right? One of the first courses I created very early on Visible Impact, I had more than less in that course and I've since gone back and really stripped it down to six core parts and everything else I put in a resource library, right?
Anna Rapp (05:05):
Because I really realized, oh, people need to have that directive. And when I went to go create, get and Coach that 12 week program, the reason I'm seeing women get such wild results in that program is I really boiled down these are the 12 exact steps people need to take. And even beyond that, there's phase one and phase two, right? Phase one is getting clients for six weeks and here's those specific six steps and here's the specific templates they can use, right? Phase two is once you have the clients, how do you satisfy them and do good coaching work with them? And here's the six things you can do to onboard them well to offboard and upsell them so that they work with you again, right? Here's the coaching skills and techniques so that you know what to do in session, here's what to say if the session goes over, right?
Anna Rapp (05:50):
I found that as I've created courses over time, I've created several, they've gotten better as I've really looked at, you know, creating either, you know, flexible framework in my one-on-one work or a really solidified traditional framework for my courses. And again, creating the framework before you create the course, okay, <laugh>, it's so important. And not that you can't create resources for your one-on-one clients and then form them later. I definitely did that too when I worked with my one-on-one clients, I created, you know, worksheets and videos and really started to scale that way so I didn't have to repeat myself as much. But then I really looked at like, okay, what fits and what doesn't and I don't have to squeeze everything in, right? Okay, so back to this conversation of done for you versus mentoring versus coaching. I put some like little words under each of them that I feel like it's gonna help you.
Anna Rapp (06:41):
So that I can really define and explain what this is. So what is coaching? This is just my definition, okay? When I think about coaching, I think about for me, am I asking good questions, right? Am I helping the person connect with their intuition? Am I helping the person clear their fears and clear their blocks and get out of their own way, really empowering. Am I listening? Am I reflecting back what I'm hearing and seeing and feeling in the room, right? That is coaching. Coaching really is you being a a, I can't think of the word, a tool for your client to be the their best self and you're really getting outta the way and it's really why we can coach people that are ahead of you, right? I have clients that have million dollar businesses and I don't yet, and that is because I'm a great coach and I ask really good questions and I can help women progress and get results in whatever is blocking them, right?
Anna Rapp (07:42):
When I think about mentoring, some words I think of under this bracket are giving tips, giving advice, giving strategies, and teaching, right? For this side, it is useful that you've done what your clients want to do, right? That you have accomplished, that you have experienced, that you have studied, that you have learned, right? And getting really clear on that, for me, I actually show up in diff wearing different hats in different programs, right? So I would say that in my one-on-one containers, I do probably 70% coaching and 30% strategy or like mentorship, right? Though I would say it depends on the client and it also depends on what they need in each moment. You know, it was just telling a client this, this morning that sometimes in our life we need mindset work. We need someone to listen, we need someone to baby us, we need someone to listen to our fears and just witness us and help us be our best selves.
Anna Rapp (08:39):
And other times we need someone to motivate us and say like, stop overthinking it. Just take the action in your mindset, catch up, right? And I think a good service provider knows what each client needs in each moment and you can trust yourself for that, right? Versus in my programs, I would say in my mastermind, I would say I'm about 50% coach and 50% mentor in my getting coach program for newbies, I would say I'm about 80% teacher, 80% mentor, 20% coach. And that is just because I think in different phases of business we need different things. I think when we're at the start of business, we do really need someone to say stop overthinking and just like do the thing. Learn the rules to break them. Have you heard that before? I actually love that phrase. I think it's like when we learn to dance, when we learn to ride a bike, right?
Anna Rapp (09:27):
Like we kind of have to learn the rules first. We have to learn someone's strategy, we have to try something on for size. And then I really think that helps us figure out what works and doesn't work for us, right? But when we're trying to create our own thing from the beginning, I find that it can be very paralyzing, right? Because when you build a business, there's so many options and that's why I think it can be useful to have a little cookie cutter at the start and to try things on. And that's why getting coach, that program has the most templates of any of my programs. I literally have swipe files that people can copy, can copy and paste. And some people might say like, oh, why are you spoonfeeding people? Or that's disempowering. But I think when you're at the start of a new venture, like I think about this, I just did a CrossFit class last week just because I really wanna try like getting back into like heavier weight lifting again and they really spoon feed you.
Anna Rapp (10:17):
They really like baby you. They really tell you like, do this, do not do that, right? Because when you're the start of learning something new, you kind of wanna learn the formula. Like you wanna learn the, the recipe, you wanna learn to make cookies from the recipe and then you can start to modify it. I feel like that's the fastest way to grow. So that's why in that program I have like a lot of templates and a lot of like, don't overthink it. Make your coaching package 90 days nine sessions, make your sessions 45 minute long, right? Like I really tell you what to do so you can try it on and then you can be like, actually I wanna meet with my clients longer. Actually I wanna try that, right? So again, really asking yourself what percentage. This is a great reflection question, right?
Anna Rapp (11:00):
Like what percentage do I want to be of each of these things? When I think about done for you, when I think about teaching my role as a teacher, when I think about my role as a coach, and maybe it depends on my container, maybe it depends on each of my programs, I think about my program visible impact. Now that's a hundred percent mentoring and 0% teach sorry, coaching because it's self-study and it took a lot of courage for me. I'm someone that's a natural coach and I actually enjoy coaching. I love the skill of coaching, right? So it took a lot of courage for me to baby step into teaching. It really felt unnatural at first. It really felt like, but are people gonna pay for like a self-study course when like I'm not there to help them. Like what are my programs if I'm not in them?
Anna Rapp (11:44):
And I think as you scale your business, you need to be willing to pull yourself out a little bit in a way. And that was very intimidating for me, me. So I just wanna normalize that. And also vice versa for my clients that are done for you gals, I find that they get really intimidated by trying a little mentoring, trying a little bit coaching, right? Adding on like if maybe you're an OBM and you're like, actually I do a lot of business strategy, I wanna charge for like a one hour strategic consult, but what people just pay me to give them ideas and I'm not doing anything for them, right? Like, we get intimidated by whatever is outside of our box. So my challenge for you is what can you do to number one, own your preferences when it comes to the percentage of coaching and mentoring and teaching and everything like that.
Anna Rapp (12:28):
But what can you do to like push yourself outside the box? Right? When I started creating courses, like when I first started my online business and I was doing coaching, I kind of told myself the story that I'm never gonna have courses and I'm never gonna teach, right? I just, I I just wanna coach. Like, I just really like that. And it took a lot of like, I was like, well, I can't bash it until I try it, right? And now I actually do enjoy creating Google Doc worksheets and I found a way to make it my own, right? Like my courses are very interactive, right? So my students complete worksheets, but they're Google docs so I can give them private and personal feedback on their worksheet. So you notice they're like, how I'm teaching, but I'm also sneaking in coaching because I, I wanna be involved, right?
Anna Rapp (13:13):
But again, like that's just me and my preference, but maybe you're someone who doesn't wanna be involved, right? I've also like encouraged some of my clients that have come to me when they've had courses and I have them add on a coaching session, right? And they're like, but what are people gonna ask me? Or what's like, so again, like this is just a call to action to really stretch yourself. Okay? So yeah, those are those two things I wanna hear from you. Email me and tell me, number one, what percentage do you consider yourself a coach versus a mentor versus a done for you and does it vary per container? And what do you wanna try a little more this year to step outside of your comfort zone? And if it is coaching, you know, if you want to play with the skill of coaching, know that I love to teach that skill.
Anna Rapp (13:56):
I have a workbook in my program Getting coach that teaches you 30 coaching skills, right? Like how, what does it mean to listen? What does it mean to reflect back, right? When you do the program, the first half again helps you get clients, but the second help half helps you coach clients and teach clients. And part of the way that I teach you to be a coach is you get a certificate at the end when you pick three of the 30 skills to master, right? You say, okay, of these 30 skills, I'm gonna try. And it's so fun. I just heard from one of my clients this morning saying like, Anna in my group call, I tried one of the skills you taught me and it was really rewarding, right? And I think just remembering if no, if you've never coached before, maybe you've never been taught, maybe you've never learned that and it's okay to, you know, invest in something that's gonna help you learn those skills and feel more confident in those skills. 'cause IF find for my clients when they feel more confident in their
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Ability to coach and the product that they offer as a coach, like you are the product. So you're really increasing your skillset there and learning new things. That's when they sign clients a lot easier, right? And so it's kind of like this chicken and the egg thing. Like do you get more clients and then become a better coach? Or do you become a better coach so that you can feel more confident to sign clients? And I think it's both. We can work on both, right? Anyway, I have a free webinar if you're interested in this. It is 20 minutes long. I spent a long time narrowing it down to 20 minutes so that it's just what you need. Also, of course it comes with the Google Doc worksheet so that you can fill it out as you go. And if you fill out the worksheet, I give you $3 coffee money so that you can go to Starbucks and take action on what you are learning.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
And the workshop is called Sign Your Next Five Coaching Clients with one Simple Strategy. And you're gonna love it. It's gonna change your life. And I am so proud of this training, again, training, but a little bit of coaching because I have that worksheet there. And just know that it's my honor and privilege to invite you to this and let me know if you have any questions. But as always, just thank you for being in the Heart Center entrepreneur community. It is such a blessing and giving you credit. I know it can be a stretch to like, you know, play with different streams of income to play with coaching, consulting, done for you teaching, right? But I just wanna remind you that as a woman, it's safe for you to have multiple streams of income, right? I am a coach, right? But again, I have played with a stream of income of teaching and I kind of fell in love with it, right?
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I have played with the income stream of done for you work, right? And I just think it can, a lot of times people say like, oh, but if I'm a done for you provider and I have a coaching offer, am I diluting my message? Or like, I think it's safe for us to sell what's important to sell one thing at a time, but I think it's okay for us to play with different ways of making money that feel the easiest to us at any given time, right? You are a money making machine and it's safe for you to call in money with lots of different skill sets in your life. Let me leave you with that. Have a beautiful day.
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