Just suppose…Just suppose you came by my office today for a coaching session. Would it be as eye opening as the Friday coaching session Shawn Tuma had with me a couple of years ago? You can see what we discussed in Shawn’s post: Are you like Clark Griswold or Ray Lewis?

What would you like to get out of a coaching session with me? What would you want to learn? What challenges would you like to overcome? If I asked you for an agenda, what would you put on it?

During our session I might ask you:

  1. What would you like to get out of our session today?
  2. What have you been working on?
  3. What are you excited about? (Stolen from a group that meets every Friday morning)
  4. What are you doing to raise your profile (visibility and credibility)?
  5. What are you doing to build stronger relationships?
  6. Is there one thing you are not doing now, that would make you more valuable to your clients and potential clients?
  7. Finally, when it comes to client development, what are you doing that you enjoy the most?

If you are a regular reader, you know that this year I am doing group telephone coaching. It is inexpensive and I limit the size of each group to 6. During our sessions we go over questions like the ones above and I give a 15-20 minute talk on a client development topic.

You can create your own group coaching program without necessarily having a coach. If you can find a few other lawyers in your firm or city, you could create your own group. If you meet monthly, consider using the questions above to generate discussion.