What Are the Four Components of Coaching?

Within a coaching contract, professional coaches can set out their coaching philosophy and approach, ensuring prospective clients understand the services on offer, what they can hope to achieve, and why the coach might formulate their sessions in a certain way.

What is the coaching contract process? The best option is to consult with a client first, adjust the contract to their requirements or focus areas, and then allow them sufficient time to digest the content of the agreement before they commit.

The four primary elements of coaching are your objectives, your approach, the values you apply, and your principles, all of which help formulate your strategic methodology and how you interact with every client you onboard.

Why Do I Need a Coaching Philosophy?

Coaching is normally a one-to-one service, varying from coaching clients in the form of counseling sessions to mentoring and acting as a business consultant for entrepreneurs and newly qualified professionals. As such, your philosophy is important because it explains what your coaching business is all about and helps clients evaluate whether you're the right match for them and vice versa.

What is a coaching session agreement, and should it include my full philosophy? A session agreement acts as a roadmap, plotting out your planned sessions and what you will cover in each.

You don't necessarily need to publish your philosophy as a written manifesto, but it might be useful to use your contracts to clarify and ensure your coaching approach is aligned with your client's aspirations. Coaches can develop a great philosophy by working through their strategy for success and defining what they do differently to set them apart.

How Does a Coaching Philosophy Tie Into Business Strategy?

Once you have a clear philosophy, you are in a good place to apply this to your strategy and decide how best to attract new coaching clients and grow your business. A tried and tested approach is to consider the following:

• Your perfect client: Your client base might be engaged in a specific profession or sector, be at a certain stage of their career, or be focused on developing skills, professional capabilities, or interpersonal talents.
• Their primary goals: Successful coaches are goal-driven, although those aims might be qualitative as well as quantitative! If you have a set number of problems you can help a client solve, you can narrow down the way you coach to overcome those obstacles.
• The target outcome: Coaching clients should be able to explain what they’d like to achieve, whether improving efficiency, earning more, or working out better approaches. Clarifying the target is a good way to adapt your coaching offer to appeal to your ideal client.

Finally, your philosophy and coaching services form the foundations of your offer, which is the coaching you deliver that adds value to your client or provides knowledge and insights they cannot obtain elsewhere.

Clients who are engaged in your offer, understand your approach, and have a clear set of contracts that set out what you intend to achieve together will be invested in the process and comprehend exactly what they are committing to–and at what cost.