4 Ways to Make Coaching Difficult Clients Easier

When coaching there may clients that are difficult to deal with for whatever reason. The behaviour itself varies from anger, denial to silence and you need to develop a strategy for dealing with these moments.

1 – Be committed to their success but don’t let it go too far. You want to be there for your clients and you want them to succeed, but if you invest too much of yourself in their success, you are going to be crushed if they don’t make it. Don’t allow the outcome of a particular coaching project make you feel emotional or responsible.

2 – Watch out for warning signs: There are often warning signs that you can look out for when you are working with clients to spot a problem long before it happens. Of course, this does take some experience, but just learn from each one and look for those warning signs in future clients so that you can cut them off before it goes too far. Make sure that before you start coaching, you know that the client has a clear problem or challenge they want to work on are committed to moving forward.

3 – When your energy is waning, cut them loose: If you have a client that is just draining you of your energy every time you talk to them, even if they aren’t doing it intentionally, you may want to consider cutting them loose.

4 – Say what you need to say: Make sure that you are saying what you need to say and not being indirect or vague. Make sure that people understand you, and that you have laid down firm ground rules and are calling people on their smoke screens when they need it. In addition, if you have a client that you no longer think is a good fit for your coaching, speak up and tell them rather than letting it continue because youíre not doing either of you any favours.