When I was a kid, there was a dog in our neighbourhood named Candy.
She was a cute black and white one – Australian Shepherd, I think.
She would come around our house whenever me, my brother and the local kids were outside playing baseball.
She would stay until night fell, and follow us everywhere we went. She was the most loyal dog I’ve ever seen, especially since we weren’t her owners!
At first, Candy was a lot of fun.
She would fetch the balls that we hit, and eagerly bring them back. We had our very own “ball retrieval system”.
But after awhile, things weren’t so rosy with Candy.
First, she was a slobber-machine. The balls that she brought back felt like they spent a month in the Atlantic Ocean.
Then, she started getting closer and closer to the kid hitting the baseball, so she could get it sooner than usual.
Fearful that we would kill Candy with a line-drive to the noggin, we had to switch from regular baseballs to hitting tennis balls (which wasn’t ideal – the slobber issue was made even worse).
Candy was an eager beaver. But she become too eager, and we began to resent her being around for our baseball games.
So what does an overly-eager, slobbering dog like Candy have to do with coaches?
A lot of coaches are overly-eager and slobbering (in a sense).
It begins in the prospecting phase, as they’re eager to get the client. If the person hires them, this slobbering continues.
I once heard a coach brag to me that she checks in with her clients every single day to see how they’re doing. She viewed it as great customer service, and wore it like a badge of honour.
Daily check-ins may work in some situations. If you’re helping someone with an upcoming launch with tight deadlines, you want to keep a close eye on things. I’ve done some 30 day accountability coaching for clients starting to do daily emails, where I included quick (email) check-ins daily to make sure they were on track (but I was compensated well for that level of involvement).
But in most cases, you want your client to have some room to grow on their own.
Suffocating them with daily (or multiple check-ins daily) is the same as Candy the dog, jumping to get the ball the second it flies off the bat. It didn’t give us kids a chance to grow as batters.
And it won’t give your clients a chance to grow.
If you want to see how to grow a coaching business where you don’t have to hover over clients 24/7, check out my ink and paper Secret Coach Club newsletter:
