FTSR Ed.31: How you can overcome facilitator roadblocks

Over the years, I've worked with and trained a lot of facilitators, and I’ve noticed a pattern. The people who benefit the most from my approach - the ones who take the learnings and frameworks and just run with them - tend to fall into two distinct groups.?

These aren’t completely different people, but rather facilitators at different stages of their journey. And each stage has a unique set of challenges.?

Which one sounds like you?

Just started on the facilitation journey? Here’s what you’re missing

These people are usually working full or part-time for a company in the strategy space as a consultant or a coach. And now they are branching out into facilitation and building their own business.

And when they do that they face 2 common problems:

Problem 1: A lack skills and knowledge

They’ve read the relevant books on strategy, they’ve had a few sessions with clients, but nothing’s really clicking yet. The breakthrough success that they and their clients want, just isn’t happening.?

There are a couple of reasons why this happens.

1. They lack the right skills needed to be a facilitator and not a coach or consultant. The two are quite different skill sets and unless you’ve been trained on how to facilitate, you’re going to try and consult - not what the client needs.
2. They lack a deep knowledge and understanding of strategy, what it is and how to create it. Often the obstacles their clients are experiencing is caused by an unclear idea of what a strategy is.

At this point, you can either just give up OR you learn what’s needed for you to help your clients.?

It all comes down to this: Do you understand the problems of your clients and can you help them resolve those problems and be relevant for them as an external partner - as a facilitator?

Problem 2: They don’t understand how to market themselves

Up to now, the people in this group have been employed. Now they want to start their own business, get their own clients and be more independent. The challenge is a mindset shift - pricing, positioning, and building a business are all unfamiliar territory.

When you’re re-positioning yourself as a facilitator and building your own business, you need to mentally get from “I'm a part-time coach” to “I’m a full-time facilitator.” There are certain steps you need to take in between these two, and when you’re just starting your facilitation journey, it’s often unclear what those steps are - how to position yourself as a trusted partner, how to price your services.

Here are some of the key steps to focus on:

• Build a network that gives you work: You won’t have time to focus on marketing and sales all the time, so it’s important to create a network as a freelancer that regularly brings in work.
• Nurture relationships: The people you build relationships with may move on to different companies. If you’ve done great work for them in the past, they’ll often bring you along to new opportunities, creating a new client pipeline without requiring constant outreach.
• Have confidence in your skills: Once you’ve built a strong network and gained a reputation as a trusted partner in strategy, you can confidently increase your rates—sometimes 5x your daily or hourly rate. At that point, you’ll be in a position to transition from a part-time role to launching your full-time facilitation business.

In the 1:1 sessions I have with 9EOI students, we often discuss these exact steps, exploring what they need to do to move from part-time consulting to full-time facilitation.

Experienced but stuck? Here’s how to break through.

The other type of facilitator that I see is one who has been working in their field for a while, has had some success - but is feeling a bit frustrated and wants to do better.?

These people have had a number of clients and are starting to build their network, but their business isn’t really taking off. They’ve often been using other strategy frameworks, for example Roger Martin's Playing To Win, or Good To Great by Jim Collins, to name but two.?

These are all great frameworks and those who have been using them have seen progress, but something is still missing.

These frameworks often focus on one specific area - tools, analysis methods, or a single aspect of strategy - but they don’t provide the full picture you need when facilitating. As a result, facilitators feel limited because critical elements like culture, leadership, and a deeper understanding of strategy are missing.

I know exactly how they feel because this is the limitation I felt too, and why I created 9EOI for myself first - to bring all the pieces together into one framework.

When you’re facilitating strategy, your clients need all these components; otherwise, both you and they will face ongoing limitations. You may feel like you’ve read the books and followed the frameworks, but none fully addresses your clients' challenges holistically.

To truly progress, you need a framework that ties everything together and delivers more tangible results for your clients.

Did you recognize yourself here? Were you nodding along while reading this? Then I’d love to help. Because these challenges that you’re facing are exactly why I created the 9EOI Strategy Facilitator Certification. Click here to find out more.

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How to you overcome facilitator roadblocks? Let me know in the comments.

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