A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN EXECUTIVE COACH

Welcome to the latest edition of the Association for Coaching’s (AC) Newsletter. This week:

• Discover what a typical day looks like for our executive coach, Simone Sweeney
• Join our upcoming ‘Marketing Made Simple’ webinar

This week, Simone Sweeney joins us to share what her typical day as an executive coach looks like.

?

Can you summarise your coaching practice for our readers?

?

I’m Simone Sweeney, an executive coach who focuses on helping people who are stretched, stressed, and feeling the pinch of work life and balancing their home life.

?

?

What motivates you and gets you up in the morning to work in your business?

The thing that gives me the most energy is helping people. So that ability to meet people where they are and hopefully help them create meaningful change is really rewarding for me, and one of the major reasons I moved to executive coaching from a corporate career.

?

?

You mentioned you are particularly focused on helping people who are feeling stressed and stretched. Where did your passion for this come from?

I worked for 25 years in the world of marketing for some big brands like Apple and Lego and I was trying to juggle the demands of work, which were many, and my family, and I'm divorced so the kids are reliant on me day to day. There were so many times I was so overwhelmed or stressed and couldn’t quite see the wood for the trees.

At various points in my career I had coaching, but about three years ago, I had a coach who worked to meet me in my reality and help me organize my time better, reflect on what was important, and make changes that were going to stick. These experiences helped me reframe things and discover I could help other people do it, by becoming a coach myself.

?

So, your coaching is very authentic as you coach people going through similar experiences that you did?

?

Yes, and that kind of authenticity and empathy, I think, are two key qualities for a coach to understand and help clients navigate the feelings they are experiencing. People can take work home and it impacts your private life.

?

Also, Covid made that a lot harder because everything blurred, and I think a lot of people are carrying forward that blurring. Demands are growing every day and I think a lot of people would benefit from support or interventions because work is so all-consuming.

?

?

With that work-life balance in mind, how do you manage your day?

I’m a kind of coaching solopreneur and it’s great to have the fluidity of being self-employed, so I can craft my time around the realities of my life. As a single mum of two kids, being able to work that way is fantastic.

My days are quite task-orientated. I start the day by checking emails and seeing what’s happening on the socials, mostly LinkedIn, and respond as I need to, then I look to see if I have any coaching sessions either that day or in the preceding or following days. I spend a fair amount of time planning out the sessions and delivering them. That’s my first priority.

Then, because I’m fairly early into having my own business, about a year and a bit, I spend a lot of time on client generation. I do orient a lot of my day between either serving the clients or creating more of them.

I am also a keen reader and I’m very curious, so I do a lot of CPD, probably less for CPD sake, more for my own growth and interests. I’m always doing a course, reading a book or looking at various articles, and love listening to podcasts! I listen to the AC ones all the time, but also on other relevant topics to me.

I’m also trying to make more time for self-care. I’m trying to get better at taking structured breaks in the day and squeezing in time to regularly go to the gym. When you’re trying to drive a business and your income is reliant on what you do it’s very tempting to work all the time, which was one of the reasons I gave up my corporate career.

For me, self-care is also networking. I’m quite extroverted. I get energy from talking with people, and bending ideas about so I do a fair amount of chatting with people, connecting and engaging with other people’s posts – which usually ends up with ‘hey, let’s jump on a call,’ which is great.

Do you have any marketing tips for coaches?

I’ve so many! Where can I start?

I think niching does help, even as a new coach. A good place to start when you think of your marketing is to identify what you are as a coach. It’s how you start to shape your niche: Who you are? Who are you coaching for? What problems are you trying to solve or what results are you trying to help them create? Then use that in your social media posts, your website, at a networking event or when a client approaches you.

Also, start with the network you already have. People you used to work with. Make your marketing message personal. Reach out to people who already value you and know what you bring.?

From your summary at the beginning, it looks like you put a lot of thought into your marketing message?

It’s fair to say, it’s literally taken me a year to get my marketing message, I’ve refined it so many times.

What’s the biggest challenges you’ve faced?

New client generation will be the main thing. The market is really tough right now. I think everywhere people don’t have a lot of discretionary spend.

A kind of side-line challenge is running my own business – managing the logistics and operational demands - it's quite time-consuming. I’m trying to understand what to invest in versus what I can do myself.?

Are you able to switch off from your business in the evening and at weekends?

Not as much as I used to when it wasn’t my work, but in a totally different way. When I’m thinking about my business and coaching, it’s with energy and enthusiasm. It’s positive, it’s not a stress and not dragging me down.

So, no regrets leaving your corporate career ?

No, none at all. I’m very grateful for it. My corporate career made me the person I am, I’ve had so many great experiences and it really helps me relate to my clients.?

Are there any final tips or pieces of inspiration you’d like to offer other coaches?

Yes. Believe in yourself. Be confident that your voice is something that someone needs to hear and that the perspective you offer is valuable. If no one seems to be doing what you’re doing already it doesn’t mean it isn’t right. It means you’re thinking of things that are different and are going to serve someone like you. And if you have an idea, be confident pursuing it. Follow your instincts and don’t be afraid to be yourself and to bring what you see as an opportunity into the world and into your coaching.

?

If you would like to contact Simone she is on LinkedIn here and her website here.

?Find out more and listen to Simone’s podcast series here

It’s time for our quarterly marketing workshops, with marketing gurus, Simon Batchelar and Francesca ?Khalastchi explicitly designed with coaches in mind. The webinar on Thursday, 11 April 2024, will help you narrow down who you can serve most effectively to get noticed by the right people and start having some meaningful conversations.

Join us for this interactive workshop where you can learn how to signpost to your ideal client that they're in the right place (and signal early on to those who are not the right fit that they're not).

Find out more and register here

You are also able to access all their previous webinars via our Digital Learning Hub.

And don’t forget our Creative Coaching Festival in April is only 2 weeks away! Find out more here.

We hope you enjoyed this newsletter and encourage you to explore our wide variety of resources on our website here. Or if you would like to go directly to our Digital Learning Hub click here. If you have any questions or would like to contribute to our podcast, digital learning, or magazine, please email us at?[email protected].

??

The Association for Coaching (AC) is a leading independent, not-for-profit global professional body dedicated to promoting best practices and raising awareness and standards of coaching worldwide. Our purpose is to inspire and champion coaching excellence, advance the coaching profession, and make a sustainable difference to individuals, organizations and society.