So, of course communication is one of those major factors, uh,
that can really make or break kind of the client experience and of course your
experience with coaching that person.
So the first thing we wanna look at is just simply setting expectations, right?
It's always gonna be better to under promise and over-deliver than vice versa.
So a big part of that is understanding what their expectations are of you,
and then letting them know what your expectations are of them.
Sometimes you may have people coming in that have somewhat unrealistic
expectations. Maybe that's partially to blame from social media. You know,
they see all those 12 week transformations or 16 week transformations
and maybe don't realize that the majority of what they're seeing are the
outliers, the people that got better than average results.
And then they start to associate those as what the average results should be for
most people, right? So it can set some unrealistic expectations for them,
obviously causing some frustration when they're not meeting, uh,
those goals that they have set in their head.
So our job is gonna be kind of assessing where they are, um,
where they need to go, and figuring out what a realistic, you know,
timeline is for their particular goal, right?
So not everyone is gonna be, uh, maybe in the right spot to, you know,
dive into an aggressive fat loss phase, right? If they've been, you know,
undereating for months or even years, in some cases,
they might be in a spot that they can't move their calories any lower.
The weight's not going down, adding more training volume,
they don't have a nutrition to recover from.
So we actually have to take time and, you know,
backtrack them to prepare them to start a fat loss phase.
So understanding your client, uh,
and your skillset well enough to be able to communicate that with them is gonna
go much better than you just kind of, you know, trying to do the fat loss thing.
It's not working, or starting on the other end,
trying to back them out of it and them not understanding what's going on, right?
Same thing for muscle gain. Even like you have a,
a person who maybe is still struggling on just executing movements, well,
even if they've been training for two or three years, it's hard to push,
you know,
failure and volume in things without destroying them if their execution isn't on
point. Um, and that's a topic for another day.
So first we're gonna focus on what we do have control over. So that is,
you know, writing the program itself, um,
because we can't always control all of their lifestyle factors,
whatever that may be for the individual client, right?
So the other thing we can do is look at what type of results they've achieved in
the past to give us an idea of, you know, every,
everything from how well they can stick to a plan,
to how they've respond to a deficit or a surplus if they have that information
available. Um, looking at do they have underlying, uh,
issues or obstacles that we might need to we work on first? That could be, uh,
sleep quality, digestion. Again, if those things are in your skillset. Um,
and then how experienced are they? Obviously execution, like I mentioned,
are they, you know, good and already
Proficient at prepping their meals, lifestyle factors, you know,
they're not someone who's, you know,
drinking probably more times per week than you'd like them to be and want to get
shredded for summer. Maybe not the best, uh,
way to go about that goal efficiently. So keeping those things in mind.
And then the next thing we can do is just, again, letting,
keeping that communication channel open,
letting them know what they can expect from you,
what your responsibilities are in this, you know, process. Um,
as far as you know, the program itself,
what kind of information they can expect, your feedback.
Are you doing video stuff to help them with their execution?
What type of response time they can expect so they don't, you know,
send you an email and they're like, two hours later, why haven't you responded?
You let them know, Hey, I have whatever, a 24 hour response time, or,
these are the days I respond to check-in questions, things like that.
Setting that structure up that we talked about in the time management unit and
relaying that to them so that everybody's on the same page. Other side of that,
what do you expect from them? Like, if you need a specific check-in day,
emphasize that you know, you know, if you check in on, you know,
your check-in day is Saturday and I check do check-ins on Sunday.
If you submit your stuff on Monday, you miss the check-in day,
you're gonna have to wait, or something like that,
depending on how you're gonna run, uh, your business there. Uh,
checkin forms, uh, you know, what they're, how they, how they fill 'em out.
When they fill 'em out, do they email you, uh, their photos?
Do they submit them in a Dropbox? Just trying to make this,
the process as clear and streamlined as possible.
And then obviously their effort and compliance in the plan, giving them, uh,
you know, kind of the heads up that, hey, if you stick to this, you know, 70%,
you're not gonna get a hundred percent of the plan results.
Basic stuff like that. Um,
so just be honest with them about like what your strengths and what your actual
limitations of control over this process are, and then emphasize to them where,
uh, the ownership shifts over to them.
So the mediums of communication are just as important.
So email is my preferred one. It's easiest to track,
archive, look through what you've sent them, uh, what they've sent you. Um,
you can certainly do obviously type searches, send links, attachments,
resources, uh, to be, um, you know,
as comprehensive as possible and give them all those resources that they need.
So that's my preferred method. Um,
also kind of gives you a bit of a time buffer. You know,
people are typically not re expecting a, you know,
one hour response time on emails. They're a little more, um,
accommodating when it comes to time. They're expecting, you know, 20, 24 hours,
48 hours, something like that.
It's kind of par for the course when you start getting into texting,
messenger apps, things like that. People are naturally, um,
attuned to getting more rapid responses. So that might not work in your favor.
The other things are, they can be convenient for a quick response,
but obviously you can't search them. You can't really categorize, organize them,
um, and it's just not as
Efficient. Um,
the other part is we tend to put a lot more thought into writing an email than
sending a quick text. So if you wanna keep that level of, you know,
communication on a professional level,
probably email or something where you can spend a little more time giving a
detail, or, you know, comprehensive answer is gonna be better.
I do not like dms. Um, whether that's in, you know,
what Max Messenger is in Facebook, Instagram, whatever, um,
they have basically all the downsides of text,
but also include another layer of distraction, right?
The before you even get there,
there's a whole bunch of other things in your way. Um, and, uh,
I just find that, you know,
what happens too is when the clients are on there for, you know,
not coaching related purposes,
they maybe see other things and they want to,
they get a quick thought and they're like, oh, I'll just send this to my coach,
or whatever, and they're not maybe well thought out questions either,
which makes it harder on us.
So trying to push everyone to sending those emails or questions in emails,
you tend to get better questions and you can give better responses. And overall,
keeps the experience higher and more professional.
I find boundaries is a really big one. Um,
this can be a massive headache if not taken care of right from
the beginning. Um, and this will save frustration for everyone.
So be very clear, uh, in our communication boundaries too. So, again,
telling them, you know, expectations for response times, um,
keep your questions either whatever,
through emails only on checking days once every 24 hours,
so you're not getting multiple emails per day. Um, don't whatever,
don't send me questions and stuff through dms or text messages or anything like
that, unless of course, maybe you're doing, you know,
a prep and you make an exception for text messages as during pep prep week or
something like that. Um,
but make sure you're setting these from the very beginning and do not deviate
from them. Um, just because it's, oh,
it's just one time I'll do this cuz that can really easily start a cascade of
them basically going other routes of communication, um,
and basically just creates a headache for everyone.
So set all of those boundaries, write 'em out,
make sure you communicate them to your client because ultimately you are being,
you are a coach. You're not, you know, just their, their slave,
their servant to respond to every little whim and question and everything that
pops into their brain. Um, we want to keep this, again,
a very professional experience.