Episode 324: 5 Reasons to consider group coaching
In this episode, Fiona discusses the importance of accountability in achieving goals and highlights the benefits of joining a Group Coaching program. She also talks about five key reasons why business owners should consider joining such a program. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
The importance of accountability in achieving personal and business goals
Benefits of participating in a group coaching program
The structure and features of the program
The value of friendships and connections within the group coaching program
Access to a business coach for continuous support and guidance
The importance of finishing tasks and projects in order to achieve success
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Accountability is huge. I say it all the time, we can make promises to other people and we keep them. We can make a million promises to ourselves and we will break every single one. Not all the time, but all other time. That's why they say in fitness and health, that it's good to do it with a partner or to do it with a friend or to have somebody meet you at the gym because you're more likely to turn up versus hitting the snooze button if you are just telling yourself that you'll do something. It's the same in business. There are so many things. I'm sure you are reading this thinking of at least a couple of things that you've told yourself you would do in this business that are still on the to-do list, that are still waiting there on that magical someday pile and you haven't got around to them yet.
Welcome to episode 324 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today is a coaching episode and if you are thinking about just up-leveling your business on the whole, or potentially breaking out of your friendship circle and making some new connections. Before I get stuck into that, I want to of course acknowledge that traditional owners and custodians and where I'm coming from, which is North Warrandyte and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that Group Coaching is officially open for enrollment. This is the last time that we'll be running this, this year. This group will start in August and carry on through until July 2024. If you are interested, get applying soon, you can do that over at mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching. We do cap the groups so that it's intimate, that everyone gets a chance to know each other, to get all of their points across, and to learn and grow with each other over the course of a year. We don't have these massive masterminds and things that I know I've seen where there'll be 40, 50 people in it. You just have a small group and we meet every two weeks on Zoom. We do always have people from overseas join us. Don't feel like, I can only do it if I'm in Australia. You can do it from anywhere in the world as long as you've got an internet connection. And we meet every two weeks for 12 months, in addition to meeting every two weeks for 12 months.
We also have a range of experts that come in from lawyers to financial advisors, through to SEO experts, Facebook, Pinterest, and advertising experts, and all sorts of people come in. Then you've got myself as well and you also get me one-on-one during the year as well. Just have private chats with me as well as the Group Coaching Program and you get access to all of our courses, including any that we bring out within that 12-month period that you're in the program. In addition to that, we also have the business book club. We have just so many things. It's a fantastic program if I do say so myself. We've had so many people go through this and we always hear such incredible feedback about it, which is lovely.
It's also just nice to see all these people make friends and connect with people and have this sense where they can be completely open, completely vulnerable, completely transparent about everything from their numbers to their finances, to their mindset and challenges they might be going through and do it all in a safe place. If you are keen, you can check out all the information at mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching. Please apply because we do interview people on a first come first serve basis. You don't want to wait right till the end. Just go over to mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching and you can apply there. If you've got any questions, feel free to just email us at hello@mydailybusiness.com, or you can hit me up on Instagram @mydailybusiness_. Let's get into today's coaching program.
Because we have just opened the enrollments for Group Coaching. I thought that today they talk you through five reasons why you might want to join a group coaching program. Now it could be my group coaching program, it could be somebody else's, it could be something that you've been umming narrowing about and you just want to know a little bit more about why you would potentially join a program like this. I just thought I'd run through the five top reasons that I think people join them. Also, I have joined them in the past anna myself as a student within them or as a member. These five things were also important to me. I think they are things that you'll get out of a group coaching program. I can't guarantee everyone's, but I know within my own Group Coaching program, these are things that you'll get from it.
I just wanted to go through them. Of course, there are so many other reasons that you might join a Group Coaching program or even a mastermind program, but I think that whatever program you may be looking at, whether it's mine or another one, you should be asking yourself, will it give me these five things? Because you should have those as a minimum plus all the other great things. In no particular order, I'm going to run through the five reasons why you might decide to join a group coaching program. You could take these five things and think about any opportunity that you're looking at as a business owner to invest in upskilling yourself and meeting people and connecting and all of those things. And try and think about whether would I be able to tick all five of those off because they are key to creating a successful and sustainable business that you are in alignment with when it comes to your values, your beliefs, and the way you want to live.
The first one, I would say that most people approach one-on-one coaching with this in mind as well, I am in my eighth year of business coaching. I did it not under the term business coaching prior to that as well but into my eighth year of coaching. I've coached thousands of people through workshops and speaking gigs and one-on-one coaching and group coaching programs and not just my own group coaching programs. I go into other people's masterminds and group coaching programs and do workshops and one-on-one coaching within those. But I think the number one thing that people seek out is accountability. That's number one here. Accountability is huge. I say it all the time, we can make promises to other people and we keep them. We can make a million promises to ourselves and we will break every single one.
Not all the time, but all other time. That's why they say in fitness and health, that it's good to do it with a partner or to do it with a friend or to have somebody meet you at the gym because you're more likely to turn up versus hitting the snooze button if you are just telling yourself that you'll do something. It's the same in business. There are so many things, I'm sure you're reading this thinking of at least a couple of things that you've told yourself you would do in this business that is still on the to-do list, that is still waiting there on that magical someday pile and you haven't got around to them yet. Having a group coaching program, by being enrolled in a group coaching program, forces you into accountability.
It forces you to say, I'm going to do this, and I've told a whole bunch of other people that I'm going to do it and they're going to keep me to it. Because it's not like I'm just telling people, let’s say on a podcast or on an Instagram post where a lot of the people that are reading, I don't know personally, and I'm not going to chase me up and be like, you said you were going to do that. Or if you do an Instagram post or you do a social media post, or even if you send a newsletter or you say it on a TikTok reel, you can say things and then no one knows if you're doing it or not. Whereas in a Group Coaching program, especially one like mine that lasts for 12 months, people know if you said you were going to do something three months ago and it's still not done, now it's been six months, you have a whole group around you that's not necessarily putting like negative pressure, but is putting some pressure on you to stay accountable to what you said you were going to do.
Likewise to yourself, to be able to get clarity on what am I trying to do in the next 12 months and beyond? And why do I want to stay accountable to them and how will I stay accountable to those goals and those ideas? Whenever I work with people and it's a one-on-one coach, at the end of whatever package that they're working on, we go through a bunch of reflection questions and one of them is always, how are you going to stay accountable now that you're finishing up coaching? Because it is easier when you are paying somebody to stay accountable. It is so much harder to do that on your own. I think this is why the group coaching program works so well is that people are coming together consistently every two weeks, and everyone is starting to understand each other's business. Everyone is starting to understand people's quirks or their own vulnerabilities or insecurities or challenges.
Also, there are incredible areas of strength that maybe sometimes you don't even see as the business owner, but a bunch of people around you are like, you're so good at this, did you know that? Or I think you're amazing, or you've got an incredible skillset at this, what if you took that and you put that into your business and did X, Y, Z? You've got a whole bunch of people there as your support team and that helps with the accountability. It helps you to stay true to what it is that you said you were going to do. That is the first one, accountability, is key for hitting the things that you want to hit, achieving the stuff that you want to achieve. And having this successful business, however you define success.
Number two, super important for long-term growth, curiosity, fulfilment and understanding who you are as a person, which is education. This education in my Group Coaching program comes from a range of sources. There's me and I bring 22 years of brand and content and systems and marketing and a whole bunch of knowledge. I'm coaching you and I'm helping you and I'm workshopping ideas and it's a conversation. It's not just me talking all the time. But in addition to that, we have these incredible experts and they're people that I've hand chosen because I've seen what they're capable of. I'm not like, this is the flavour of the month, I'm going to bring them into group coaching. I have people who just have incredible expertise at what they do, are good at it, down to earth. I think that everybody I choose to come into group coaching as an expert has a similar approach to me in business.
They're not out there for the fame and the glory. They're out there to do good work and to do it to a standard that they can feel proud of. They can know that they've helped people and I just absolutely love the guests that come in and the people that do group coaching. We have lawyers, financial advisors, collaboration experts, SEO experts a whole bunch of people that come in and you're getting that knowledge as well and you're able to ask them any question. Again, they're not coming in and running through a checklist or a slide deck or anything else. They're coming in to hear what is your challenge. How can I help you with it? You get that education, you get the education from myself, you also get all our courses and everything else, but you also get all of the combined education and knowledge of the other people in the group.
One of the things that I think is so brilliant about group coaching is that people open up, they open up about, this is what I've done. Let's say for example, that this always happens, I often attract people into the group that has a retail store. A physical shop, most have a physical and an online store. What you'll see is that I may bring in a framework or something that I'm teaching somebody in retail and the other retailers in the group will be like, that's useful for me too, but also I went through the same challenge that this person's gone through three years ago and this is what I did and this is how I've done it. You then create all these education hubs between 10 people sharing all their information with another 10 people.
You've just got so much knowledge and wisdom sharing within that space. In a way of course one-on-one coaching is amazing and brilliant and it's tailored and customized and everything specifically to that person who's doing it and their business. But group coaching and the way that I run it is also quite tailored to that group as well. We don't talk about things if they don't impact any of those businesses or we'll talk more about something that I think is important to that particular group, whether it's psychology or mindset or health or anything that comes up. We are creating a space where you are able to source knowledge from so many different outlets and it just makes for such an incredible experience. As I was saying, one-on-one coaching is awesome and fantastic, and I'm not at all detracting from that, but in group coaching, you get all the knowledge of the other people in there as well and you get to see the backend of their business and you get to see like, this is a new software program I'm using and let me show you and share the screen and I can see what we're doing.
Everyone gets to experience that together. It's not only your own learning, but it's the group learning together that you're a part of. I hope that makes sense. That is number two, just this wealth of education. Number three. I think this is an important thing. I know I've spoken about this before on the program, but we just hear so often about loneliness and how lonely people are. I think when you're running a small business and a lot of people run it by themselves, or even if they have staff, they're remote staff or they're a staff that are working maybe a day a week in the office or in the studio and then leaving. You're not surrounded by people as you are in a lot of employed roles. Even if you are surrounded by people sometimes as the leader of the business, you don't feel like you can necessarily say everything that you want to say.
You don't feel like you can be as vulnerable as potentially you can be with your friends or you can be in a safe environment such as a group coaching program. I guess all of this is to say that reason three for being in a group coaching program is friendships. The number of people that I've seen from actual genuine connections with each other who came into the program as complete strangers, and then they have left as good friends. And by friends, not just people that we might get on Zoom twice a year. I had one couple who came in as strangers and then one time towards the end of coaching, they were both in the car together, I think they were in a car or they were at a restaurant and they had travelled hours to see each other.
It was just such a lovely thing. They were both rural regional businesses and to be able to see them together. And that's happened so many times I've bumped into people at events and I'm like, “I didn't know that you guys were friends.” And they're like, “We're not, I mean we are now, but we only met through group coaching and now we're hanging out and we're having dinner and we're going out and we're seeing things together.” It's just such a wonderful thing to see those friendships blossom, especially as adults. I think it is difficult enough to make friends as an adult, even if you work in an employed role, but in an employed role, you have a lot of social activity. It's people's birthdays, people gather in the tea room for X, Y, Z or do things.
But when you are a small business owner, even if you have staff, and I hear this all the time from clients that I have that they'll organize social events, but they're not going to invite you necessarily because you're like their boss and they want to go out and have fun and do all the things and potentially it's maybe a bit awkward sometimes with their boss there. It's nothing against you, it's just the way that things are structured sometimes in society. As a small business owner, you don't always have the opportunity to make friends at work. And because sometimes your business is consuming a lot of your life, you may only feel like you just have your business and then you come home and you see the kids or see your family or do whatever or see your dogs, whatever it is.
It's on repeat. You're not getting this opportunity to meet other people and not just other people who you can be friends with who are maybe your age or live in a certain area or whatever, but people who you can be friends with and also understand the challenges that come with being a small business owner, particularly a creative small business owner. The third reason is friendships. I know firsthand, I have just got back from being in Mayoka. I went to Mayoka to do a business retreat with an amazing friend who I would count as one of my best friends and who I met as a result of us both being part of a group coaching program in the US. It is just such an incredible thing to be able to meet somebody who has lots of things in common with you, but also a big part of that is that they have a business.
You can talk about business, you can talk about your challenges, you can talk about other things like family and other things that are going on, but that business part sometimes you don't want to just talk to your partner or your best friend about it all the time, or your cousin or your sister. You want to talk to people who are also in the trenches and who are also doing the work. That comes with being a creative small business owner. Being in a group coaching program allows you to find people like that. In our program, we create buddies. In addition to the group, we also partner people with other people that we think they would be they would get along with, and it's up to them if they want to meet with those people more regularly.
Some of them might meet before our group coaching session, they might meet for like an hour before on Zoom, so they have a two-hour session every two weeks, an hour with their buddy, an hour with us, or they might meet in person if they live in the same state or the same country. That is number three. A third reason why you might want a group coaching program is the friendship aspect. A fourth reason that you may want to join a group coaching program is to have access to a business coach all year. As I said, our group coaching program is a 12-month program. I know there are lots out there in the market, some are like eight weeks, some 12 weeks, some six months. I chose to create a 12-month program because the first time I ran this group coaching program years ago, I thought it would be six months.
I thought six months would be sufficient. We ended up going for nine months and that didn't feel long enough. We then decided the next round we would go for 12 months and it's been 12 months ever since. I just love this because you get to see people through the whole year. You get to see them at the start of the year and then go through the different seasons, the different elements of their business, the busy periods, the quiet periods, you get all of it and you get to see a full year together with with the rest of the people in the group. In that, you also get access to me for that whole year. We have one-on-one sessions, we have all the group sessions and if you have questions in between, you're welcome to contact me.
We also have a peer-closed Facebook group and in some groups, they have a WhatsApp group as well. There's just plenty of chat, plenty of time to gather things, plenty of time to ask questions to be like, “Hey, what do you think about this?” Or I'm about to send this email, can I get some help on it? There's so much support and it's not just for this short amount of time. I mean it's the whole year. What ends up happening a lot of the time is that people who've done group coaching programs do it for a year, then they might go off and implement a lot of this stuff and then they come back. What's lovely is that I know their business, I know it very well. We've worked together for the whole year, I've seen the insides and outsides of their business, I've seen things that scare them, I've seen things that excite them.
If they come back for coaching, I fully understand their business, perhaps in a way that I haven't understood maybe businesses that have just done a one-off ad hoc session once and then maybe come back in three months and done another one. Yes, of course, I understand both businesses to a degree, but when you are spending a whole year with somebody, you get to see not just the things about their business, but the aspects of their personality and their fears, their dreams, their desires, all the things. It's just such a lovely position to be in as a coach, to be able to have that privilege to walk alongside people for a whole year in their business. But as I said, they also get access to me for that whole year, which is quite different I think to a lot of programs that are out there.
If you are thinking about whether it's my program or something else, think about what access will I get to people I know when I've done group coaching programs in the past, it has been frustrating to some degree to not have access in some of them to the person that's coaching like at all outside of that window of time. In others, there has been access to a point through Slack channels or things like that. But I try where I can I'm human as well, if someone is texting me 24/7 all the time, we might have to have a chat, but thankfully I attract people that respect boundaries, but they also know that I'm there if they need me.
I would also look at stuff like that if you are looking at a program how much support or interaction will you have from, the person that's running it? I recently heard from somebody who's joined a mastermind and I won't say too much on it, but the people that they thought were going to be running it are not necessarily running it. I would take that into account as well to be looking at what support I'm going to get and is the person running this program going to be the person who's delivering the program as well? Because a large part of that you're buying into it because you want that person's support or that person's knowledge or whatever it is. So that's number four.
Number five, the fifth reason that you might want to join a group coaching program is to finish things. To finish things off, which goes to accountability, but more so I know personally firsthand raising my hands here that we can have a million things on the boil as creative small business owners. We're not short of ideas at all. What potentially we are short of is executing and finishing that stuff off finishing what you started completing tasks, putting them off your to-do list, and completing things in a way that you feel excited by. I had a client just recently in Group Coaching, she's so sweet, who just launched her podcast and it's exciting. Her name is Beth Bieske, she's been on this podcast before and she has just launched the first episode of her own podcast, which is called the Design Dialogues podcast.
I think that's what it's called. We'll link to it in the show notes, but it was just wonderful to see and to hear from her and I'm sure she won't mind me saying this, but just hearing how she had a goal, she's a podcast is never finished, but getting it to a point where you can release episodes is massive. Anyone that has a podcast will tell you that a lot of huge hard work is done before episode one even airs. To get to that point was just huge. It was just such a wonderful moment to witness her pride in what she had done and her gratitude to the group for helping her get there. It was just such a perfect example of how a group coaching program can work well.
A group coaching program is as much as you put into it, you'll get out of it. I've found that the programs or the groups that work the best and get the most out of it are also the groups where people show up consistently, share their wins, share their challenges, share what's going on, and, and open up and I'm lucky that the majority of the groups that I've run and been a part of as a coach in other people's groups as well have attracted those types of people that want to get the most out of the experience. Not just because they're spending money, but they're also spending their time. You don't get time back, you can always make more money. That's number five to be finishing things and to have that support around you to finish things.
Those are the five reasons that I think most people join a group coaching program and to look out for making sure that you could tick all of those things. If you are going to invest in a program, whether it's a mastermind, whether it's a Group Coaching program, whether it's something else entirely, if you're going to put your hard-earned money into that and also your time, you want to be sure that those five things you can tick off. Just to recap, the five things that I mentioned are, number one, accountability, number two, education, and not just the person teaching, but also everybody else in the group. Number three is friendships, number four, having a business coach for a whole year, having that support person. And number five, being able to finish things and be like, that is done or that has been ticked. That big thing that I wanted to do has been finished.
If you are interested in Group Coaching, make sure you get in and apply for that. You can find all the information at mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching. As I said, if it's my group, if it's another person's group, just think about those things because it is an investment not just in your money, but it's a massive investment in time. I know when I was doing the US one, it was 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM calls every week for six months. That was difficult. I used to take the kettle out from my home into my office, which was outside the house, in the garden at that house. And I used to make sure that my kettle was there the night before because I was getting up at 3:00 AM in the morning to be part of these. I know that it is a real slog especially if you're doing it from another country and trying to cope with the time difference.
But it's also worth it because you get so much out of these programs. As I said, whether it's ours that is now open for enrollment or if it's another one, just really think about those five things and think about if you can honestly be ticking those off. Thank you so much for reading. As I said, if you're interested, check out everything over at mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching and if you found this useful or you found any of our podcasts useful, I would love it so much if you might leave a quick review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to this, it just helps other small business owners find this podcast. And maybe they're about to put their money down at a mastermind and they want to go, “No, let me double-check that.” I'm going to get these things as being part of it. If you wanted to go through today's podcast in text format, you can find that over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/324. Thank you so much for reading, I'll see you next time. Bye.
