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Today, I want to show you how coaching team building can help you scale your business and build a real empire. If you want to know the exact steps to take to identify the type of coach you should be hiring, learn how to onboard them correctly, and even manage your new team, watch the video below or simply read on.
Hiring team coaches has been one of the key steps I’ve taken to grow and scale my coaching business. Just a couple of years ago, I remember feeling really maxed out – and wishing I could just clone myself! I also felt conflicted – because I wanted to coach more clients and have more time, but I also felt hesitant and resistant to handing my clients over to someone else. It’s hard to trust someone else with something so important – and I’m sure you can relate to feeling the same way. You’re asking yourself, “How can someone else coach my clients the way I would coach them? How can I be sure that my clients will be taken care of and happy with someone else?” Trust me, I do understand it’s a big step, but it’s hiring team coaches is also critical if you want to grow and scale your business, earn more income, and get time back on your schedule.
So today, I’m going to show you an amazing way to hire supporting coaches that you can trust, rely on, and that will help you get even better client results. Let’s take a look at the important steps you need to take to identify the type of coach you want to hire, and then find, select, onboard, and manage them to make sure they’re performing and creating amazing results and outcomes for your coaching clients.
You have two different options: you can hire a complementary coach or a supplementary coach.
A complementary coach is someone who can offer services and skills that will complement the services that your clients are already receiving from you. As an example from my business, I’m a business coach. So I could hire a marketing coach, a sales coach, a mindset coach, or a tech coach, for example, to offer my clients complementary skills and services that will help them get better results. And that’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve hired a sales coach, a marketing coach, mindset coaches, copy coaches, and tech experts. We have people in all those different areas because we know our clients need help there, so they don’t just get my expertise, but they receive coaching from experts in all of these complementary fields.
Option number two is to hire a supplementary coach who could actually replace you or help you coach in the same area that you specialize in. This enables clients to get results when you’re not there, and can also help you to take on even more clients. In my business, for example, I hired a business coach who can coach on the same topics that I’m coaching on. So, I’m essentially duplicating myself so that we can serve more people.
The next part of this step is for you to figure out what you actually want your coach to do for you. Will they be hosting one to one coaching sessions? Will they be doing Q & A calls? Will they be answering emails? Figure out the type of services that your new coach will be offering to your coaching clients and how you would best utilize their skill set.
You can take it very slowly by “test driving” your new coach during a trial period. In this case, you would give your prospective coach just one coaching client and then ask that client for feedback on what their experience was like in working with that coach. This ensures that your customers are receiving the top-notch service that they’re used to.
As with any hiring process, you want to begin selection with a job description, also known as a 4R. The 4 Rs are Results, Requirements, Responsibilities, and Role. Together, these four criteria provide the applicant with an overview of what the position looks like, so you want to be really clear in your description. You’ll want to think about the general description of the role, and the requirements you’ll have on them, as well as their background, experience, and schooling. You should provide a description of what their responsibilities will be – what is expected from the coach and how they will function within your business, as well as a really clear synopsis of the results you expect from that coach and how they will be measured. When you put all of that on paper, you will have a crystal clear picture of what you’re looking for, you’ll qualify the right candidates, and you’ll know exactly what you’re expecting from them.
Once you have a job description, of course, you have to get the word out. You can take a look at job boards and LinkedIn, but it’s also a great idea to look in your circles of influence, your friends, and your social media followers. You can send an email to your email list, ask your friends and family for referrals, and even ask your colleagues in a specific field to spread the word. These are key people that might be able to refer someone to you because they’re already connected to you and what you do, so any referral they are making is not completely cold.
Now, when you’re ready to have coaches apply for your position, make sure you ask them for three things.
Next, it’s time for you to select some candidates and bring them into a group interview. I used to be very hesitant to do group interviews, but I’ve found them to be super effective because you’re able to identify the candidates that really stand out from the others. For example, if you’re meeting with someone one on one, you want to like them and you may not notice certain aspects about them and their personality. But, when you’re meeting with an entire group of people, you might see that someone is more outgoing than someone else. So you should set up the group interview so that you and someone else in your business (maybe a business manager or someone that you really trust) can attend and meet with four or five of your candidates over Zoom or another video conferencing platform. This allows you to see them, how they act and how they respond, and how they show up for themselves in comparison to each other. Someone may be more outspoken, more confident, friendlier – you will notice all sorts of nuances in people that you may not pick up on when you interview them one to one.
Once you have selected the ideal candidate for a coaching position, now it’s time to onboard that person. Onboarding is extremely important for your new candidate to hit the ground running, give them an amazing experience, and allow them to be successful in the shortest amount of time possible. During this phase, you will spend a lot of time with them, but it’s well worth it because it optimizes your candidate’s chance for success.
To start, I’d recommend you meet with them daily for the first two weeks for 30 to 45 minutes each day. These daily meetings will allow your coach to get comfortable in the position and to build a relationship with you. You’ll have an open conversation, so you can have any problems fixed quickly and any questions answered fast – which also allows them to succeed fast.
In addition to your daily meetings, you should also have weekly meetings, not just with your new coach, but with your entire team. Make sure your new coach knows what their commitments are – review what they’ve completed the prior week, as well as the tasks that they’re going to be completing the following week, so you can get a clear picture of they’re committing to accomplishing. This is not to micromanage your coach, but to make sure that the entire organization knows exactly what everybody else is doing. It facilitates communication on the team and it helps everyone add more value – when they see other people do something they can help out, add content, and help make the entire team and business so much more productive.
In addition to in-person onboarding, I also recommend you give them a training library with SOPs and procedures where they can self study. Ideally, you want to create these materials and gather them into a Google Drive or Dropbox that you can simply share with your new coach so they can study everything on their own time.
During the onboarding phase, it’s also really important to let your coach shadow you. So include them in one to one coaching calls with clients (with the client’s permission, of course) and group coaching calls. Show them your plan for growth so they can really understand your vision and the big picture of what you expect and have created.
If you have a membership site, give them program access so your new coach can review your modules, your videos, and your workbooks to soak up and familiarize themselves with the information.
The last thing you should do is to review your new coaches’ coaching sessions. Ideally, you’ll have your coach record their one to one calls and group coaching calls, and you can check in on them by watching the replays to ensure their coaching is high quality. You’ll be able to see what’s going right and needs work, then you can help them fix those errors and do better next time. Again, your goal is not to micromanage them, but to support them, help them succeed as quickly as possible, and to reinforce that they’re doing a good job to make them happy and successful in their role. All of this will help you be more successful as well – because now that your new coach is well on their way to succeeding in effectively coaching your clients, you can move away from onboarding and into ongoing management.
To successfully manage your new coach, you should have periodic meetings with them to discuss clients. One of the biggest fears I had in the beginning was to lose track of my clients. So I have weekly meetings with my coaching team to discuss what’s happening with our clients – who is doing what, who is succeeding, what are their accomplishments, who is struggling, and how can we serve them better. This communication allows me to stay in touch with my clients, step in when I need to, and also, to help my coaches succeed in their coaching sessions. Our clients are so much more successful because of that.
I hope these tips have made you more comfortable with the idea of hiring help to coach your clients, and have also helped you develop a clear plan with the action steps needed to do so. And to further you on your team building journey, I want to give you my complete Coaching Business Hiring Guide. CLICK HERE to download this guide, where I will break down step-by-step all you need to do to hire A players for your coaching business. With this guide, I’ll show you how to not only hire support coaches, but hire business managers, a sales team, or any position in your coaching business. Do your due diligence and bring them on, onboard them, and manage them – and you’re going to be able to build an amazing team.
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