This Gutsy Coaching Moment is from Susan Bagyura, London, England.
Eric was fairly new to sales having been a mortgage advisor for only 9 months when he came to me for coaching. Prior to that, although he has his Bachelor’s Degree in finance, he had been working in the shipping department of a transportation company for 13 years. Without the benefit of any sales training, in his new career he had been able to bring in some respectable deals, but knew that he needed something more in order to increase his monthly revenues, as well as his income.
Using the Coaching RoadMap as a guide, Eric and I put together a plan for him to increase his revenue stream initially by 15%. The most important aspect of the goal to Eric was to make certain that he consistently achieved that increase.
Like many people, Eric would sometimes confuse activity with action and when this would happen; there would be a dip in his weekly performance. However, because we had taken all of his statistics and worked out exactly what he needed to do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis in order to achieve his goal, it was easy for him to get back on track.
After a month of working together, two of the key performance inhibitors that we dealt with were ‘worry and guilt.’ I used the DreamMakers/DreamBrakers worksheets in order to find out what was blocking Eric. He admitted that he was skeptical that this would make any difference, but he did it anyway.
The result was quite surprising to Eric. He saw that his biggest drag, and what was holding him back from enjoying various aspects of his life, had to do with some window frames that needed to be painted. His wife was very unhappy that the work had not been done. The window frames were the source of some arguments. A stunned and surprised Eric said, “I have been so busy building a business, learning new skills, supporting a family on a commission-only income after coming off a salaried job, and trying to spend quality time with his family, that I kept putting off doing anything with the window frames. I never realized how much guilt I have been carrying around and how it has been affecting everything that I do.” Eric was unaware that he was burdened with guilt. You cannot deal with or tackle something that you don’t even know is present.
Once it had been identified through the DreamMakers/DreamBrakers worksheet, we started a dialog of what could be done. We came up with 3 or 4 ways of handling the job from hiring someone to do it to making it a project to do with his son. Suddenly it was like a weight had been lifted off of Eric’s shoulders! He saw that there were options and said, “I can get my wife involved in helping with the decision of what to do about the windows. We can share equally in the decision of how my free time is spent — with the family or painting window frames.”
What was most important about this exercise was the fact that Eric identified the problem, acknowledged his feelings, saw that he was wasting valuable energy worrying about the windows and put together a plan to eliminate the worry and guilt from his life. Once that happened, he was again free to work confidently.
The first month Eric hit his goal. The second month, he exceeded his goal. By the third month, Eric saw that he could easily make that goal and therefore wanted to increase his goal. At the end of 90 days and having achieved more than a 500% increase in his earnings, he said that his greatest learnings were to:
1) Continually review my actions and see that they are in line with my goals,
2) Review my goals daily to keep me focused,
3) Reach my goals easily by breaking them down to daily actions,
4) Do the most important thing first.
And my greatest learnings were:
1) The DreamMakers/DreamBrakers audit is a simple but ridiculously powerful tool. Players don’t always recognize that when it is offered to them. Encourage them to do it anyway.
2) The Coaching RoadMap works!
Susan Bagura is a business coach and practices in the UK.
She earned her coaching certification through CoachLab. The Coaching RoadMap and DreamMakers/DreamBrakers Audit that Susan uses are part of the CoachLab International Archived Tools & Techniques which can be downloaded by any CLI member. A detailed description of the use of these tools can be found in the book, “COACH ANYONE ABOUT ANYTHING,” Wharton Publishing.
Gutsy Coaching Moments™ is published monthly by CoachLab® International for its members.
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