Four Essentials In Making Group Coaching Work for You

Group Coaching can be a great addition for coaches who love working within the group context, and who get energy off of working with more than one person. Over the last ten years as I'v worked with hundreds of great coaches in the Group Coaching Essentials teleseminar program, I've encouraged people to think about what systems are going to support them in accelerating their work.

Four key areas, or essentials, I think are critical to consider when stepping into group coaching, or expanding your work are these:

1. Marketing - Where do you want to spend your time and energy in marketing, and letting others know about what you have to offer in the group context. Marketing is about consistent action over time, so consider what activities will leverage your strengths, be enjoyable to undertake and can also be built upon, or repurposed for other medium. In my program, Marketing Tips for Team and Group Programs, I go through four hours of video tips, and a dozen worksheets, to support you in developing your marketing strategy, and exploring several approaches (blogging, article writing) that you might want to incorporate.

2. Registration - Enabling people to easily register in a way that works well for them is key. Consider where your market is. What's going to make it easy to register? For years I have stayed with PayPal as my registration system of choice, in part because it is a global brand and makes it much easier for those outside of North America to utilize, and two, because it allows me to invoice easily in myriad of currencies.
What registration systems work best for your business. What do you have in place to not only register people, but also accept the financial part of the transaction quickly and securely?

3. Supports for you- Not all of us bring experience in the myriad of areas which make a great group program - facilitation, coaching, logistics, program design, workbook design, activities. Who can you add to your team (even as a sub-contractor) to help you create programs you are proud of. I know that having several exceptional graphic designers around me have helped up the ante in several of our programs in the past few years, including designing brilliant worksheets for programs such as the Inner Biz Leader(TM) Virtual Business Planning Retreat.
As facilitators we need support too. Consider what is going to keep you renewed and at your best every time you work with groups.

4. Platforms for Building Community - Supporting alumni, individually, and collectively, from my programs has been key in the work I've done since opening our doors in 2004. Every quarter I host community calls for the alumni of the Group Coaching Essentials programs, and late last year I experimented with using Blabs as a way to connect with more people.
This year the Learning Lab and Design Studio is a robust, and growing, community of group program practitioners who are coming together for a series of group and individual calls throughout the year.  This year long group (which you can join for a month, six months or a year) is gaining traction after our first month. We meet on Fridays (usually at 12 noon ET) for a blend of group calls, facilitation labs (next one this Friday Feb 26th), and some 1-1 coaching. Check it out.

What other systems and focus areas will help you in making group coaching work for you?

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
GroupCoachingEssentials.com | Potentials Realized
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: 416-996-8326
The next Group Coaching Essentials telseminar program starts April 6. the next Advanced Group coaching Practicum starts Thursday March 31st (10 CCEs)