17: Individual vs. Group Coaching

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Coach Wherever: Life Coach School Podcast

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My students often ask me, “What is more beneficial, individual or group coaching?” My answer is, “It depends.” It depends on the client and it depends on the coach. Clients in individual sessions can often feel comfortable faster than in a group setting. They may open up and share more personal information when it is one on one with the coach. Because of this they may progress faster and reach their goals in a shorter period of time. Also, new life coaches often feel more comfortable working with clients in individual sessions over groups. They still lack confidence and are just getting up to speed on using their skills. Throw them in a group coaching environment and they panic. Some report that it is too much to keep track of. For example, running a weight loss group with 8 clients can be more work for the life coach. They have to pay attention to verbal and non-verbal language of each client and keep the group moving along at a relaxed pace. This is in contrast to only focusing on one client and one set of issues. However, I prefer running groups because they can be more powerful than individual sessions. Clients not only learn from sharing and listening to you as the coach, but they get to learn from all of the other clients in the group. Members typically form a close bond and love the process. Another benefit is that you can scale your coaching practice faster by running groups. Your time is limited and if you wanted to see 8 clients in one day for one hour each, you just spent 8 hours. This is in contrast to running one group for one hour with 8 members. You served the same amount of clients in a much shorter time. And, let’s say that you wanted to run 7 more groups with 8 members each in the same day. The result is that you served 64 clients in one day instead of 8. You get the point. The dynamics of group coaching is very powerful and with the right skills you can make a great impact with the clients that you work with. Got questions? Feel free to email me at tim@coachwherever.com