Hannah McNamara

They say that 'no man is an island'.

The chances are that if you coach people around work or business issues that the subject of delegation comes up from time to time. In other words you may encourage clients to stop overloading themselves and think about who can help them to make their goals happen.

Don't you think it's ironic that in my experience, coaches can be some of the worse delegators out there! (And I'm speaking from personal experience here too). What's all this about then?

Almost all of the self-help books and coaching manuals seem to tell us that if we want to make something happen, we need to take ownership, take action and MAKE it happen. All true, but it's almost as if we're told that we can't rely on anyone else.

That can make it tough when you're getting your business off the ground or moving it to the next level.

In that classic business book 'The E-Myth Revisited', the author Michael E. Gerber talks about the importance of systemisation and delegation in a business. In 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' by Stephen R. Covey the message comes through loud and clear that we must 'start with the end in mind'. These are both great books.

The problem that I see facing many new and established coaches is that we often don't know what the 'end' looks like or we keep receiving mixed messages about how we 'should' run our coaching practices. In almost every case we came into this profession because, well, we love to coach.

Many of us didn't come into it for the money (although it's always nice to have) or because we wanted to be an overnight millionaire.

Talk of having a coaching 'business' jars a little, so we can resist making our coaching practices look like a business in the conventional sense. Many of us don't want the overhead or the responsibility of staff, and we rarely start out with a huge budget for activities such as marketing, sales or administration.

So what's a coach to do?

If you look to other professions, such as dentistry, accountancy or consultancy, while there are lots of 'one-man-bands' you typically find that the professional has a number of people who help them out for example a receptionist/administrator or a book-keeper. They also have a network of people who know them and refer clients to them.

"All very nice", you might say "but I can't afford that and I'm not well-known enough yet to have people refer clients to me".

In reality, it really doesn't have to cost the earth to get the right help and support, and building a network of referrers is more a matter of time rather than money.

Personally, I have been making some big changes to the way I run my business this year. Most has been about shifting my mind set from "I have to do it all myself or I'm a failure" to "I know what I'm good at and I'll get help with what I'm not".

Being aware of your weaknesses or when you're not the right person to do something is not the same as having a limiting belief about your capabilities. Does the coaching world need a large helping of reality in this matter? Probably.

You know when you're most in flow and when you're not. The trick is to find people who are most in flow doing the things that just aren't you.

• If you're a detail person who can think through and prepare for all eventualities, get someone to help you with big picture visioning or partner with someone whose vision you support.
• If you spot opportunities but lack the patience or the logistical skills to turn your ideas into something tangible, work with someone who loves making things happen.
• If you're a people person who detests paperwork with a passion, get support from someone who takes pride in being thorough and reliable.

We need to accept that if we want to spend time coaching clients, running workshops or tele-seminars, or creating products to help our clients, we need to get help with the other aspects of running a professional practice or business.

There are numerous virtual assistant or PA services out there that can help you with administration and book-keeping. There are marketing consultants and copywriters who can work on letting people know about what you do. There may even be other people who share the same vision and mission as you who want to let their customers and clients know about the other services and resources available.

These don't require a huge investment as many will work for an hourly rate (often lower than you would charge for your coaching time) and you can keep your marketing overheads low by working with people who will promote you in exchange for a percentage of the sales generated by their activities.

It's ok to be clear about what you love and your own role in your business. It frees you to do more of what you were born to do.

© Copyright Hannah McNamara