Episode 347: Nurture Your Business: When to Coach, Support, or Stand Back in Business & Life

We love solving problems, but what happens when our clients need something else from us? Perhaps support or just someone who can listen to their problems? How can we identify ways to better serve our clients? When should we give advice and when should we just listen as a friend?

In this episode, I talk about when we're needed as coaches and when we should just sit back and acknowledge our clients issues.

The answer is not always to solve the problem. Sometimes, the answer is to listen. -Dana Malstaff

3 Things We Learned From This Episode

• As business owners on a sales call, the first instinct we have is to identify the problem, diagnose the root of it, and deliver the solution. But because we run a business, we need to stop solving problems for free. We should only give a free diagnosis.
• At times, our clients aren't necessarily looking for solutions to their problem. They just want someone to listen to them and acknowledge how hard the whole process is.
• Many of us are frustrated when we don't have people like us to engage with. This could happen to our clients as well. Maybe they need someone in their lives who they can vent to about their journey.

How do we know if we're helpful when our clients come to us? How do we identify if they need a solution or just someone who listens and supports them? One of the indicators of what clients need is how open they are to the idea of taking action. For example, consider a situation where we inform a client how to solve their problem but they ignore it. If they begin to vent, it's probably a sign that they need our support, not business advice.