Working with a coach

When Noah and I made the decision to start working together we hired a business coach.  Having a neutral third party to assist us in building the business has been crucial. We had a coaching call this morning and the focus was on marketing, specifically setting up educational presentations.  

We begin each coaching session discussing how we feel about our business. Followed by a recap of what new steps we took over the last month.  After going through the metrics her conclusion was for me to book presentations. That I should be making 10 phone calls a day to places inquiring if they had educational events. This was not the first time we had discussed me making phone calls and yet I have only made one call. My resistance to doing this has not been a secret.

When our coach began questioning me why I haven’t made the calls, I went into panic.  My body immediately went into a textbook response of: fight, flight, freeze mode. I was unable to identify the thought that was leading to the feeling of panic, however the emotion was coming on strong and I began to shutdown.  Noah immediately stepped in as my savior offering to make the calls. Without skipping a beat he began asking who should be called, while simultaneously doing a Google search of potential locations near our office. That’s how Noah works, jumping right in to get more information as quickly as possible.

Our coach took a step back and began discussing the rationale.  She validated that I have been successful at one-to-one connection and have been increasing our contacts. She also pointed out that I hit the weekly newsletter goal she had set in February.  In May I wrote four blogs and sent newsletters weekly for the first time. Our newsletters have a good open rate (thank you for reading and learning more about us) and we are increasing our house list.

Part of my job is the marketing and with that the responsibility of setting up presentations.  We ended the call with 3 actions items. One involves me making these 10 calls a day with a goal of setting up two presentations.

After the call Noah went to meet a chamber member for coffee and I sat down to mediate and journal.  Taking 30 minutes to center myself, I ended with a list of the things I like about working with Noah.

I like that we spend more time together now then we have for the 24 years we have known each other.  I like that we are learning to really enjoy spending time together. I like that we are learning new things together. We have been to some really interesting lunch-and-learns and the communication training we went to in Colorado was fantastic. I like that we are talking to families together, bringing our different skills together and listening in a new way. We have always known that we are different, opposites in so many ways.

However, I like that we are now being given a space to practice working together. We are using our differences to cover all of the bases. Long ago a therapist pointed out that we make decisions differently. He used a pie analogy to explain this. We can split the pie in half or work together to have the whole pie . We are using the whole pie perspective to help families make some really hard decisions, I like that.

We hired a coach to help us keep our vision and make clear goals to reach it.  She also pushes us to make those goals. If Noah had been the one, and he has, to suggest I make the calls, it would have decreased my enjoyment of working with him.  We are making a lot of changes working together and my job description has changed dramatically. With the guidance of our coach I will continue to grow as I have with attending networking lunches and writing.

So, I don’t like making phone calls.  Once I post this blog, I am going to make some anyway.