The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 304: Should You Coach Your Friends?
Today, I am diving into whether or not you should be coaching your friends and family. Whether this is something you’ve been considering or something your family and friends have asked you about, we're going to dive into it today. I’m also going to be sharing some of my inside knowledge about including friends and family in your business programs.
SHOULD YOU COACH YOUR FRIENDS?
BY: MELISSA LIN
Welcome back to another episode of The Fierce Business Babe Podcast! Today is all about whether you should coach your friends, or even family for that matter, inside of your coaching programs, or your courses, or whatever it is that you offer inside of your business. Should you be coaching them? I'm really excited to get into this because, spoiler alert, I have coached friends and I want to give you my take and my experiences and what I would recommend if this is something you’ve considered or if you’ve had friends or family reach out to work with you.
So, let's get into today’s brand new episode. I'm going to be going into my take on coaching relationships with friends and family, what the type of relationship can look like, the different types of boundaries that can be added, and so much more.
So let's get into this brand new episode. I have some friends that I have coached over the years and I also have many, many clients that have become some of my very best friends after we wrap up our coaching together and I do believe that it's possible. However, I do recommend adding in some type of boundaries throughout the relationship together and we will be diving into all of that in today’s brand new episode.
MY TAKE ON COACHING FRIENDS AND FAMILY
So the first thing I want to get into is my take on coaching relationships with friends and family. I do believe it's possible to coach friends. I do believe it's possible to coach family members as well. I have nothing against either of them, even if they're going through courses, again, digital products, whatever that looks like for you and your business. I do believe it can work. I've seen it work. I've created the evidence that it can work and still have those friendships continue to bloom throughout the coaching relationship and after the coaching relationship as well.
I would say something to consider prior to coaching friends is really ask yourself, how supportive have they been throughout your journey? So for example, I have had a few past colleagues and friends in my past that were not nearly as supportive as I was hoping they would be with me leaving my engineering job quite a few years ago and really going all into my business and scaling my business. The support was lacking. Back then if they wanted some coaching or wanted to work with me I probably wouldn't have felt that it was a good fit coaching that friend because things weren't aligned. Values weren't aligned. We just weren't in the same space in terms of mindset and where we both wanted to go. So really look at your friendship and ask yourself how supportive they've been throughout your journey. I have friends who weren’t necessarily supportive in the very beginning because they just didn't understand and now they are some of the most supportive friends that I have by my side. So that’s something to keep in mind and consider.
CAN YOU SET BOUNDARIES?
The second thing is, will you be able to set boundaries? Will you be able to actually stick to those boundaries with your friends or with your family members? This is so, so, so critical and it's something that I highly recommend. If you don't feel that you can then it may not be the best idea for you and that friend or family member to get into a coaching relationship together and I will get into what that can look like a little later into today's episode. So again, I believe it can happen. I know it can happen. I know it works. I definitely would recommend a few things and we’re going to get into that next and what that relationship can really look like.
At the end of the day a coaching relationship gets to be a professional relationship. If you do have a friend or family member come into your coaching program, whether it’s one-on-one or group coaching or a mastermind or a course, we get to keep things professional as you normally would. This is what I would recommend. Keep things as professional as you normally would with any other client that came into your program, right? Something that I want you to kind of think about is let's say that you have a family member or friend in your program right now and let's say it's a group program. Ask yourself, are you treating them like any other client coming into your program? Are you holding them as accountable? We get to treat them as professionally as we would any other client inside of that coaching container.
So for example, any friends that I've coached in my past I always make sure that they still receive the same contracts all the other clients receive. They receive the same payment lengths. They do not get extra discounts. They go through the same onboarding process as anybody else. There’s definitely no family discount, no friend discount as well. I know how easy it can be to do that, and how for so many of us, especially in the very beginning stages, how so many of us want to give that friend discount and family discount. Something that I believe to be true is that the investment is part of your clients commitment. So, regardless, if they're a friend or family member, we want to keep that relationship professional. That even includes the investment for your program, your coaching, your one-on-one, your course, whatever that is for you and your business.
HOW I HANDLE COACH-CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS WITH FRIENDS
So, I'll share a few examples with you. Again, I have so many clients that have become such great friends after and we're still great friends to this day. I also have coached many friends that have been friends before the coaching relationship, during the coaching relationship, and after the coaching relationship. For example, one of my clients that I started working with quite a few years ago, after working together for a few years we continued our friendship and we even built a friendship during our coaching relationship. We kept things very separate. Business items happened and coaching happened inside the container on our coaching calls inside of the client communication container, whether that was Voxer or Slack. Any of our friendship calls and get-togethers would always be on our personal devices outside of the program container. We kept things very professional and very separate, same with my friends that I coach. During our coaching relationship, things were very professional, we kept things very separate. Then whenever that coaching relationship ended, whenever the program ended or the course ended, that's when the program and that client relationship would then move back into strictly friendship. It really gets to be whatever feels good to you at the end of the day, but I would recommend adding in some type of boundaries into what this could look like if you're thinking about coaching a friend or you're thinking about coaching a family member. Boundaries are going to really, really support both you and your client, even if that's a friend or a family member.
BOUNDARIES TO SET IN YOUR CLIENT-COACH RELATIONSHIP
Here are a few boundaries that you can add into your coaching client relationship. The first is to keep all business items within the program container as you normally would with any other client. If you are running a group coaching program and all of your clients are communicating and asking questions inside of a Slack container, like most of my coaching programs, then that's where those questions get to stay, even with your friends or family members. Keep it professional, keep all business items within the same program container as any other clients would.
Then the second boundary I would add in is keep all of your friendship conversations on your personal threads as well. If you're sharing friendship inside jokes from a few years ago inside of the slack container that probably gets to stay over in the friendship thread or on your personal cell phone, that's what I would recommend. I would never want any of my other clients to feel out of place or missing out on some kind of inside jokes. This gets to be, at least for me and my business, a safe community and a safe environment where everyone feels welcome. That's how I typically would recommend keeping friendship and then also client separate inside of a coaching container program. Then continue having the same friendship outside of your business as you normally would. If that looks like a friend catch up call every Friday afternoon, keep those. You are allowed to have friendships outside the coaching container. It can be girls night, you're allowed, again, to be friends with your clients if you want to be. You're allowed to have clients that are friends or have been friends your entire life or for a short period. You get to definitely spend time with whoever you want to and do whatever you want to do outside of that container. Continue having the same friendship. I kept having my weekly catch up calls with my girlfriends’ that I coached inside my containers and still had girls nights and still flew out to see my friends even though I was coaching them. We had a very separate friendship and a very separate business client coach relationship.
Again, keep things as separate as you can, just as you would keep your personal life separate from your business life. Same thing goes here with your business relationships and your personal relationships. Keep them as separate as you can. It’s just going to make things so much easier at the end of the day for you. I truly believe in abundance and know that there are so many clients available out there for me and so many clients out there available for you. Something I love doing with my close friends, and again with any of your business besties or great friends that you meet inside of masterminds or group coaching containers, wherever you meet somebody in the online space that you become friends, it’s so great to have other people to bounce strategies off of and chat about what's working for one person and what works for another person, because not everything is going to work for everyone. Something that works for me may not necessarily work for you. Something that works for you may not necessarily work for me. But again, abundance of clients everywhere, the only competition is you. You get to work with whoever you want to work with. Your friends, your family, whoever you connect with in the online space, this is your business and you get to make up the rules, which is so, so, so cool. One of my favorite parts about running my own online business is I'm the rule maker. I get to call the shots and you get to call the shots in your business as well.
So today we touched on my take on coaching relationships with friends and family, what the type of relationship can look like, types of boundaries that can be added in, and so, so, so much more.
Topics we cover include:
My take on coaching friends and family
The coach and client relationship
Setting boundaries with friends and family
And so much more!
FREEBIES:
4 Step Training to Start & Scale Your Online Coaching Business:
https://melissalincoaching.lpages.co/4-steps-to-starting-a-successful-coaching-business
Quiz: Your Next Business Strategy:
https://www.themelissalin.com/quiz
WORK WITH MELISSA:
Are you ready to take your online coaching business to the NEXT level? Have you been wanting to start coaching, finally start making a full time income doing what you love? The Fierce Business Academy might be the right fit for you! Head to the link below for more details and to hop on the waitlist!
The Fierce Business Academy:
https://www.themelissalin.com/academy
The 6 Figure Fierce Business Mastermind:
https://www.themelissalin.com/mastermind
The Caption Capsule
https://www.themelissalin.com/captioncapsule
Promo Code: PODCAST to save $$$ on The Caption Capsule!
Find me on social media for more daily content!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_melissalin/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melissa.lin.180410
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fiercebusinessbabes/
Fierce Business Academy: https://www.themelissalin.com/academy