Team coaching is not for everyone

Team coaching is a specialized niche within the broader range of coaching services. It takes an extra investment, both in practitioner skills and for the client to commit a whole team’s time and energy. The current niche position of team coaching is part of what makes it valuable – and it also makes it less obvious to potential clients. To craft and sign transformative team coaching contracts requires substantial business development skills, and it can’t be automated. There is no quick fix. All your relationship skill and systemic understanding is needed.

Both for you and for your clients, the early stages of a team coaching engagement are a bit like peering into a narrow opening and trying to decipher what else lies beyond – both visible and out of sight. The client ecosystem is large and you can’t see it all – even if their strategy and values and organogram are laid out plainly in front of you.

Discovery

Reflecting on our client experiences with members of the Enterprisecoach Network today, I was struck by how often the best team coaching work we have done was addressing a problem the client originally thought was insoluble. Or the solution the client came up with through team coaching was unimaginable prior to the start of the coaching.

This is in many ways the whole point of coaching, right? Professional coaches partner with the client (typically the coachee and their direct manager) to clarify their agenda. Then we challenge and support the client to find their best way forward. This is a fairly well established process for coaching individual leaders.

Team coaching clients are much more complex than individual coaching clients

However, when we are working with teams at an organizational level, then “the client” is not so clearly delineated, nor is there one single authority to define exactly what the agenda is. But it means that what the client is looking for is seldom in a neat box labelled “team coaching RFP.”

There’s a process, and to sell team coaching takes some new skills. It’s not unlike that of a detective’s work. We uncover the systemic issues out there, and build relationships with those who feel the pain and those who make the decisions. We partner strategically with our potential clients while working up to a contract designed to generate wider value for the client and their ecosystem. The value generated should go beyond the original pain point they felt.

This is a complex business development process. I have my doubts about the automated quick fix marketing that arrives uninvited in my inbox every week. Systemic team coaching business development takes skill that can be learned. Execution takes time and generates wider value.

Advanced business development programs for team coaches

To support team coaches in building viable client bases and winning the truly exciting transformative work we originally signed up for, I am offering both a comprehensive intermediate level business development program and a series of specialized advanced business development webinars, both starting September 2025. Inviting you to check them out!

If you are a team coach or consultant and would like help that somehow doesn’t seem to fit the programs posted above, please contact me about the assistance you’re seeking.