Ep #175: Celebrating 2 Years of The Coach Lab: Behind the Scenes

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 175. To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hey coach, I am so happy you’re here today. First of all, how is it March? What is even happening? Like where did the beginning of the year go? I honestly don’t know. I think that I blinked and January was just gone. I don’t know what happened.

Actually I do know what happened. I traveled and then, well in the beginning my kids were off school and so I was off work for a little bit the first week or so or a little less. And then I traveled two times back to back for work, for coaching events and then I came home, my daughter got Covid, then I got Covid and yeah, it was just like a blur.

So February has just been good, like a lot of fun work but also a lot of work. I’ve just been trying to catch up. So here we are, it is March. When you’re listening to this it’s March, when I’m recording it it’s the end of February but it still feels like I can’t even believe, even if it’s only the end of February in real time as I’m recording I still can’t believe that that’s where we are because I don’t know what happened. How did we get here? How’s your year going? Tell me everything.

So something very exciting is happening for March and that’s what we’re going to talk about on the podcast today. If you listened last week, you may have heard me give this a little teaser but here’s what I’m going to do today. This month, March is the two year – I don’t know why, this feels like a really big deal. I don’t remember feeling like this the first full year, but I am feeling it at two years.

It is the second full year, it’s the two-year anniversary of when I launched The Coach Lab which is a foundational skills program, a lifetime access program for coaches where I just support coaches in the day-to-day of, first of all, learning coaching skills but also just everything that happens. Like the real life things that happen in coaching sessions and in coaching, like things that just come up that you’re like I don’t know if I was prepared for this.

So on one hand, skills. On the other hand just, again, the day-to-day of like oh this is what it takes to actually run a coaching business, actually coach real-life clients in real sessions in real time. That’s what I’m coaching on every week and I could not love it more.

So for those of you that aren’t familiar, actually first I’m going to say this is what I’m going to do in this episode, here’s the purpose of it. First I’m just celebrating, I’m feeling myself, like I am so excited that it has been two years. I can’t even believe it. And also it feels like we’ve covered so much ground on the inside of The Coach Lab that I kind of can’t believe it.

But here’s what I want to do with this episode. I want to answer, first of all, for those of you that aren’t familiar I’m going to tell you what it is, what the structure of it is and just kind of break down like what does it look like inside when you join The Coach Lab.

Whether you’re thinking of joining or not, I’m going to talk about it from the perspective of you listening, trying to decide, “Is this space for me? Would I want to be in this space?” And for those of you that are already in the space I’m going to be talking about why I made the decisions that I made when I set it up, why I continue to make the decisions that I make, how I make the decisions, what are the decisions, the structure of it.

So I’m going to kind of look at it from, first of all, here’s what it is, here’s what we do on the inside, for those of you that don’t know. And then also on the other side really breaking it down and telling you here’s why I made some of these decisions and answering questions.

First, questions that I get often on social media or to my inbox, like my email, just the questions that I get often about The Coach Lab. And then also questions that I get from my clients who are in The Coach Lab or who are in my advanced certification when they’re curious about the structure of it, like how I created it and why I created it the way I did. All right? Does that sound fun? I hope so.

So the point of me kind of setting that up and telling you is just to kind of let you know, even if you’re already in this space, like this isn’t just going to be one big Coach Lab promotion. Although hopefully by the end of the episode I’ll have you convinced that now’s the time to join. We are doing some big celebrations inside The Coach Lab this month just for Coach Lab clients, doing some happy hours and some socials and just different things that I’ve never done before.

So if you’ve been waiting, if you’re like I know I want to be there but you’re just not there yet, now’s the time. So just keep that in mind as you listen. But this is also for, again, this isn’t just a promotional episode. It’s also for anyone that’s already in there that is thinking of creating things like this just to kind of borrow, if you want, my thought process of creating it, okay? So let’s dive in.

Here’s what I have, I just have a list of questions that I get often. So the first ones are, like I said, ones that I get that people send me often about The Coach Lab. And then some of them are questions that I answer often to my clients inside The Coach Lab or usually more likely inside of the advanced certification because those clients are maybe thinking of creating something like The Coach Lab or their own version of a program or membership or something like that. Like that’s just where they are in their coaching practices.

Okay, so I’m just going to read the questions and then I’m going to answer them. And the first one is just the most simple, it is what is The Coach Lab? So I’m just going to break it down for you very simply. What it is, it’s a lifetime access program for any coach who wants to be in a community and in a space where you are supported 100% in your coaching, like your day-to-day coaching. Learning coaching skills, specifically learning foundational coaching skills, the skills that I think every coach needs to know.

And not just like here’s one very specific tool. I think this is something that sets The Coach Lab apart from – I’ve been hearing this feedback a lot from people that have also been in other coaching spaces. I think one thing that sets The Coach Lab apart is that I’m not just teaching like here’s a tool, kind of like a math equation, like here’s a tool you just plug the things in and that’s what coaching is.

I do teach tools and skills, focusing more on the skill not like the one specific way to use a skill or to use a tool. But I teach coaching theory as well. I think of it as, I was telling someone this the other day, I think of it as like the example would be if you were learning how to do – This is going to be maybe a silly example, especially if you’re someone that knows about this, has more information about it than I do.

But let’s just say, let’s just pretend like it’s this simple, okay? If you were learning how to – If you’re a physician and you’re a surgeon and you’re learning how to do heart surgery for like one specific thing, for whatever it is. And you get the step-by-step, right? Here are the steps. Let’s just pretend like there are 10 main steps in the surgery.

And so you have the steps, you have them memorized, you practiced them over and over and over and over and over. Maybe not on a human, right, however they practice. And you just do the same thing over and over and over again and you memorize it. That’s how we all learn in the beginning of anything, right? You learn it from somewhere else, you practice it over and over and over, you get better, you improve each time you practice.

What I think about coaching is that there are a lot of places that you can go to learn those very specific tools and that you can learn to practice them over and over and over. You can memorize them. You get to practice maybe with your peers. You get to just practice doing the skill. It’s like learning how to do heart surgery and you’re just practicing over and over and over.

But what I see missing often in many spaces I’ve been in and just many spaces that I know about, is like what happens when something goes wrong, right? I don’t want you to just know how to perform the surgery, I want you to be able to still be the best surgeon, still be able to serve your patient in this scenario the best even when something goes wrong. Even when every patient is different. Even when… Right? Even when anything that could possibly happen, happens.

So I think about this for coaching too. I don’t just teach you a tool and say, okay, here’s the tool. Go practice it over and over and over, good luck. I teach theory. I teach all around the tool. I cover all of the bases so that you can take it and over time, over practicing and practicing, know how to handle any situation that comes up because you don’t have just a tool that you’ve memorized or a handful of tools that you’ve memorized.

You really have taken time to say, okay, but what happens when I take this tool and use it in the real world and use it with my real clients in everyday sessions? Or use it in my specific niche which might look a little different than someone else’s, or use tools when I combine them with an expertise or tools that I already have in a different field, right? Some coaches have a very specific expertise and then they’re combining coaching with it.

I’m thinking of maybe like my bookkeeper, for example, right? She has very specific tools that she brings to the table, bookkeeping tools. But she also is a coach, so she also knows how to coach my mind when it gets off track or thinks some not useful thoughts about the bookkeeping or about my money. That’s the kind of coaching I teach. That’s what we’re doing inside The Coach Lab.

So when you decide to join, what happens is you immediately get an email with a welcome, with like we’re so glad you’re here, of course. And you get a login to a portal. So what the portal is, it is your own personal login. You go into the portal and that’s where there’s just videos for you to consume as many times as you want over and over and over where I teach the foundational coaching skills.

So specifically if you’re a new coach, if you’re brand-new, if you’re just getting into coaching, if you’re thinking about just getting into coaching, those videos you’re probably going to want to watch over and over and over, right, really to learn them and then to go practice. Also inside the portal are all the replays from all the past calls.

So you can go in and you can also just watch coaching. You can watch me coach. You can watch and then pause it and say like, oh, why did she ask that question? What would I have asked here? Which direction would I have taken this? So there’s just two years worth of coaching that you can study, right? So if that’s what you’re into, you can study coaching inside the portal.

There’s also replays of all past workshops that we’ve done, which I’ll get to in a minute, I’ll talk about the workshops. And any training that I’ve done kind of outside The Coach Lab, I host it all in there. So you can watch past workshops and webinars and just things that I’ve done in the world for my clients.

I host something every year called Coach Week, which is super fun. If you’ve not heard of it, make sure to pay attention so that you can join us next year. But it’s just a week free of coach kind of training and a week full of topics that I put out into the world every year. I have hundreds of coaches come and join and it’s really fun. That’s usually in the fall. We plan to do it in the fall this year again too. And so the replays, all of those replays are also in there.

So basically you get a login, you immediately can log in and consume as little or as much coaching and learning as you want. There’s also a section called What To Do When, that if you’re watching this in real time I’m currently creating tons of videos for this section. But it is kind of like what to do when your client does this.

What to do when your client comes to a call and has no idea what they want coaching on. What to do when your client comes to a call and has 50 things they want coaching on or a bunch of things that are all kind of jumbled together. Like how do you separate them out? What to do when your client doesn’t show up for a call, right? And so many more, but those are just some examples.

So that’s the first thing, you get to log in and you log into the portal. Then one of my favorite things, of course, because I love coaching, it’s my favorite part of my business, is weekly coaching calls where anyone can come get the coaching that they need. And I really – There are two kinds of things that happen on these calls.

There’s either kind of theory coaching, which might be clients coming and saying I’m having a hard time explaining exactly what coaching is or talking about it with my clients. Or I’m having a hard time really digging into specifically what clients want from their sessions with me. So that’s kind of like a higher level, like theory type coaching.

And then there’s coaching that is what I would call – If you know what supervision is, you may have heard me talk about this previously. I have a podcast about this as well. But if you know what supervision is like in therapy or in those types of situations, therapists practice something called supervision which is not exactly what it sounds like it’s not me supervising you while you coach, but it’s a space where you can come and bring any question that you have about your coaching sessions.

Now, we don’t use names or give anything away that would be not beneficial to your clients, right? It’s all very confidential. But you can come and say this thing happened in a session, I didn’t know how to handle it. Or this thing happened, here’s how I handled it, here’s what the client said. Kind of just a breakdown of this is exactly what happened in my coaching session and I want a little bit of guidance or I need help.

Those are my favorite things to coach on every week and they’re always so good. Like sometimes there are days when I think, well, what new thing can clients bring? I don’t even know. And there’s always things. And they’re all things that every time I’m like, oh yeah, I remember this. I don’t do one-on-one coaching now, but when I did I remember things happening that I would be like, what am I supposed to do about this? And I wished I had a space like The Coach Lab. That’s exactly why I created it. And it’s happening, like that thing, that support that I was looking for happens every single week within The Coach Lab.

And then, one thing that we did recently, we asked for feedback. So tons of Coach Lab clients have been giving feedback. And one of my favorite things to read, because this is one of the reasons that I created The Coach Lab and one of the things that I was hoping would happen inside when there were clients and we were doing the coaching, one thing that I’ve seen on so many of the feedback forms is that one of my favorite things about being in The Coach Lab is seeing what clients ask about on the weekly coaching, whether I’m there live or watching the replay.

There are so many people that filled it out that I’ve never even seen on a call because they’re maybe in Australia or on the other side of the world in a different time zone, so they rarely can make it to the weekly call. But what they say is it doesn’t even matter because the people are bringing, first, the questions that I have. And second, it’s just so good to see, oh, this is normal. Like it just normalizes people being human, right? It normalizes your clients being clients, being messy, just showing up with all, I could say with all their humanness showing, on display, right?

Like with them being not as predictable as you thought they might be when you very first learned to coach or when you very first maybe even practiced coaching with colleagues or with other coaches who kind of know what’s going on, right? But then you work with a real client and you’re like, oh, it’s different. It’s a little different.

Some clients are easier than others and some clients can kind of give you a run for your money and you might need a space where you can come and say, what do I do about this? But just to see that that’s normal, that every coach is experiencing that, that is something that showed up on so many of the feedback forms that I was so excited, just delighted to see.

So the next thing, so we have weekly calls, then we have the monthly workshops. So the calls are on Thursdays. So usually, almost always, like 95% of the time every third Thursday we replace a regular coaching call with a workshop.

So what happens in the workshop, it’s a little bit longer, the normal coaching calls are about an hour. In the workshop we set aside 90 minutes and we just dig a little deeper into one of a couple things. Either, one, into a specific coaching skill that I teach. So we’ll take something specific from the portal and say like, okay, today’s call is specifically about how to help your clients make better decisions or how to walk your clients through the decision making process.

Now, even though that’s something I teach in the portal, the point of the workshop is for me to coach you on how it specifically shows up for you with your clients, right? And I’ll usually open up with a little bit of teaching. Assuming you’ve already watched the videos in the portal, I might say, “Here are some add-ons, here are some modifications, here are some ways I like to think about it.”

And then I’ll just open it up for questions and teaching or questions and coaching, right? So that any of my clients can ask specific questions or say I tried this on a call, here’s something that happened. Can you help me with that? Or here’s what I’m thinking, with my clients here’s where I get stuck. Maybe I need to modify this process a little bit, because everything that I teach is totally modifiable.

I don’t think that there’s one right perfect way to coach, ever. So everything I teach, I welcome clients to take it and to modify it for how they want to use it. So that’s something we do in workshops.

The other thing in workshops that I’ll do is I’ll bring in outside experts. So I’ll bring in coaches that will teach one-off workshops, something that they are really good at teaching. So I took notes of just a couple of them. We’ve had, at this point, remember we’re two years in and we have one once a month, so we have about 24 workshops in the portal.

But a couple examples are how to know when you’re people-pleasing your clients. So not just thinking about are your clients people-pleasers, which that’s something we talk about on occasion. But I had a people-pleasing expert come in and really talk to coaches, to my clients, about how might people-pleasing actually be showing up in your coaching practice, which is kind of a flip on it that I had never heard before and it was genius.

Someone came in and taught how to not use coaching against yourself or against your clients, right? Coaching is such an incredible tool, self-awareness is such an incredible tool, and just like any tool it can be used in ways that aren’t as useful or that could feel bad to you or to your clients. So that was one of the workshops. I had someone come in and teach a workshop on how to get into your body and be very present when you’re coaching and more of like a somatic type work.

And then some of them are very specific kind of coaching adjacent or business adjacent workshops, also taught by coaches or other experts. For example, coming up very soon we’re having a legal workshop talking all about contracts. Just the legality of your coaching business, covering it all because obviously I do not give legal advice. We’re having a lawyer come in, she’s actually a client of mine and she’s a coach. She’s coming in to really address all of the legal aspects of a coaching business and to answer all questions. So that’s coming up really soon.

And I’ve had someone come in and teach kind of how to help your specific style of coaching stand out in your marketing and in the way you talk about coaching. He was a genius, he was a big hit. All of my clients in the feedback for him, he was probably – That was like the number one workshop, I think, that most people talked about. It was also really recent, so it was on their minds. I also had someone come in and teach something called soul-centered communication. So that’s something that can actually be used standalone, like kind of in your life, but it can also be used with your clients and as kind of a coaching tool.

All right, those are lots of examples. So once a month we have workshops. And then the replays, obviously, all get stored in the portal, just like the coaching call replays.

Speaking of replays, the other thing that we offer is a private podcast. So what happens on the private podcast is basically everything that goes in the portal is also on the podcast. So you can listen on the go. I love podcasts. I mean, first of all, you’re listening to my podcast right now, so I’m gonna assume you also love a podcast. I love to listen when I’m showering. I love to listen when I’m driving. I love to listen when I’m doing laundry.

I just love the accessibility and that it’s portable, right? That I can literally take it anywhere. I don’t have to log into my portal, because even when you do that on your phone, I don’t know if we fixed this inside The Coach Lab, but I have been in other programs where even when you do that on your phone, it’s like when your phone screen locks then you can’t watch it anymore or it stops and you have to keep unlocking it, going back in and pushing play. I’m sure there’s a fix for that, I just don’t know it.

So anyway, we have a private podcast where you can listen to the weekly coaching, the monthly workshops, every video that’s in the portal, all of it is inside The Coach Lab private podcast.

Then we also have – And I know I said the coaching is my favorite part, this is probably my second favorite part. We have what I would call one of the best coaching communities in the business. I’m just going to say it, I’m just going to put it out there. I’m going to own it. I love our coaching community and here’s why, it serves so many purposes.

And one of the biggest purposes is that because what we offer is support for clients in their coaching, it serves as a 24/7 kind of portal for immediate help. Because I have clients all over the world in every different time zone, anyone that comes in and posts in the community asking for help, there’s always someone who’s willing to either point them towards the resource that they’re looking for or answer their question or ask some great questions, do some coaching or say like here’s a strategy I use or even like, yeah, here’s the email system that I use to do that or here’s how I record my videos or whatever it is.

People are always willing to jump in and help out, whatever the help is that the person posting is asking for. But then one thing that I think makes it really special and one of the reasons that I say I think it’s one of the best coaching, maybe the best coaching – I think that’s what I said – coaching community around is because it is full of coaches from all over the industry.

So some coaches are coming to The Coach Lab and learning to coach for the first time, but a lot of coaches that join The Coach Lab are really looking for, like they have already learned to coach somewhere or they’ve taken some trainings or they’ve already kind of learned to coach somewhere somehow and they’re just looking for ongoing support, which is what they get when they join The Coach Lab.

What that means is that there are coaches from all walks of the coaching industry with totally different coaching styles. And there’s a rule of like no coaching style is better than another. No coaching school, no coach training, no coach certification is better than another.

So just because some people are coming in with let’s say like Martha Beck certifications, I do tend to work with a lot of Martha Beck coaches in my spaces, or Life Coach School certifications or IPEC certifications or whatever other certifications, there are so many, some of them I’ve never heard of, those are just the ones that come to mind first. But just so many coaches from all over the industry come together to support each other.

And I think one reason that can happen is because of the way I teach the coaching skills and teach it a little more like theory, right, like talk about the theory of it, the purpose of it, the purpose of learning the skill, not just like here’s the exact tool here’s the 10 steps to use it I think anyone can come in and watch what I teach and apply it to what they already know what they’ve already learned.

So sometimes they’re going to learn some new stuff. I guarantee everyone that’s come in has learned something new, whether from watching the skills videos or just watching something I teach or even just watching me coach or watching someone else coach. But they also can, you know, it’s like a refresh for some coaches. They’re coming in, some coaches I know, they’ve told me, they’re like I learned to coach so long ago and it’s so amazing to be able to come in and just refresh, watch these videos as many times as I want so that I can remind myself of tools that I’ve used in the past.

So, okay, that was a very long answer but that was what The Coach Lab is. Those are all of the things, that’s everything you get when you join The Coach Lab. If you’re interested, now is the time. We’re at two years, we’re doing huge celebrations. And even if you’re listening in the future, now is still the time.

I will say as I’m recording this every answer I’m going to give from this point forward, or even in the description of The Coach Lab is going to be what it looks like now as I’m recording this. So just so you know in the future there could always be changes we’re always thinking about like how can this be better? So even what is inside The Coach Lab could change in the future, who knows?

But for now that’s what it is and it is incredible. There are hundreds of coaches all getting incredible results and I love hanging out in there. I love hanging out with the coaches, everyone is just so supportive and it just makes me so happy to see them getting the support that I wish I had had when I was growing my business.

Okay, this is a question I get often: what kind of coach is The Coach Lab for? Literally it is for any coach. Like I said before, it’s for a brand-new coach. It’s also for a more seasoned coach. We have some coaches that are like I’ve been a coach for so long, it’s almost like continuing education, right? So some industries require continuing education, some coaches use it like that. They just come in and they’re like, okay, let me just refresh myself on all of this stuff.

But because of the way I teach it where it’s more like theory versus here’s one tool and here’s the only way you can use the tool, because of that, you can come in with any niche, any type of coaching. So I have coaches that have a more spiritual bend to their coaching. I have coaches that include religion in their coaching. I have business coaches, marketing coaches, sales coaches, relationship coaches, over drinking coaches, general life coaches.

So many general life coaches because I love them and because that’s kind of what I did in the beginning. I didn’t even know about a niche. I didn’t know that I was supposed to have one. I just knew I knew how to coach and I couldn’t wait to coach all the people. I think because of that it’s very general life coach friendly, just because of the way I think about coaching. So again, any coach training, no matter where you are in any of that, The Coach Lab is the place for you.

The next question, is it for someone – I get this a lot on Instagram – is it for someone who’s just learning to coach? Yes, absolutely. You will get all of the skills training. You will get weekly coaching support. You will have an entire community of coaches and so much support. So yes, it is absolutely for brand-new coaches.

How much does it cost? So The Coach Lab is a lifetime access program, it’s $2,000 one time payment. Or $2,000, actually I think it’s $2,001 because we do offer a payment plan. If you want a payment plan it’s three payments of $667 over three months. And it’s always the same price, at least so far we’ve never offered discounts, we’ve never offered, like we’ve never changed the price except the very first, I think, like 48 hours that I offered it there was a founding member price. But since then we’ve never offered a discount and I don’t see that in the future. So don’t wait for the discount. If you’re ready to join, do it now.

Okay, the next question, this is one I get a lot from people considering joining and also from clients in The Coach Lab. Why is it not a certification? First of all, spoiler alert, it might be in the future. Get excited because there is something new coming, but it’s also not going to change what it is now.

So we are considering making it a certification, but what that will look like is something that’s an add-on. So for everyone that’s in there now and for everyone that wants to join for all of the reasons that I already said, that’s going to remain the same. And here’s why I made it the way I did, first because there are so many coach certifications, right? I don’t necessarily think that it being a certification adds value for everyone that wants the type of support that’s offered inside The Coach Lab.

So like I said, some coaches are coming with previous certifications, previous trainings and I didn’t want it to be like, oh, this is just another certification, I don’t know if I need that. I really wanted it to be a place where coaches from all over the industry could come and get the support they were looking for. And I knew if I made it a certification out of the gate, that would prevent that from happening or it would have people thinking about it differently, right? Like I don’t really know, I don’t need a certification, I already have one.

It’s also not a certification because I wanted to keep the price low enough that it feels accessible even to newer coaches. And I know that $2,000 is not, it’s not like it’s the cheapest thing ever, right? It’s not $100, it’s not a super low price, I do understand that. Because of the amount of support that we have inside The Coach Lab, it is as low as I can make it that made sense for my business, right? In order to provide the type of support that I wanted to provide, that’s the price it is.

And I made it lifetime access because of the very nature of what it is. I want coaches, I want it to be the place that you can always come back and get what you need, right? So even if you don’t come to calls every week, especially if you have been a coach for a while, if you’re a more seasoned coach, if you’re there for the community or you’re there for kind of the continuing education of it, maybe you don’t need the weekly support.

But let’s say down the line something does come up in your coaching sessions that you want support around, I always want it to be a place where people can come back and not feel weird about coming back. Because it’s not the same people on the calls every week, right? I would say at the time while I’m recording this I think there are about 450 Coach Lab members, so it’s an amazing community. But there are usually about maybe 50, at the most, people on the weekly calls.

And at this time, at least right now, as of the time I’m recording this everyone that wants to get coached on the calls is coached at this point. So even though there are 50 people on the calls, a lot of them are just there listening, kind of participating or listening while they’re doing other things. Maybe they have their camera off, maybe they’re going about their life but they want to be live on the call just to hear the coaching. And then there’s usually about maybe five to seven people who specifically want coaching, either in open coaching or coaching on the workshop topic.

But that’s why I didn’t make it a certification from the beginning, because I didn’t want it to be the place where you only come to say I’m a certified coach. Now, again, spoiler alert, why am I thinking of making that an add-on? Because now I’m attracting enough, like there are enough clients, there are enough brand-new coaches joining The Coach Lab, I don’t want them to feel like if they want a certification or even some of my clients work other places or contract coach for other coaches or contract coach in companies or they’re corporate coaches working inside of a company, and sometimes those places require certifications.

So if someone comes and they learn the tools that I teach in The Coach Lab, the skills that I teach, I don’t want them to have to go somewhere else to get the certification if they don’t want to. So is that something that’s coming? Yes, stay tuned. Hopefully later this year. It’s already something that’s in the works, we’re working it out. And when I say it’s going to be an add-on, here’s why.

Because I want to keep the price the same. I want to keep it that lower price for people coming in so that they can have the community that they want to have without the bigger price tag, right? There are some amazing coach communities that have ongoing support and they’re just a lot more expensive to continue to be a part of. I want you to just pay once or in your payments and then have that support as long as you need it where you can keep coming back.

But when I think about a certification, I take that really seriously, right? If I’m personally certifying people, if through my business people are being certified and we are putting the stamp on, yes, this person knows what they’re doing, they know how to coach, they’ve proven that they know the foundational skills that coaches need, that’s just going to take more money, more business support on my end, right? More client support.

I’m going to have to hire some people. I’m going to have to bring in some coaches to help me run it because of all the things, right? I’m just one person, and although I do have some contract coaches at this time in this moment, I don’t pay enough coaches on contracts that I could support lots of people wanting to be certified, right, if we’re watching coach submissions and giving more one-on-one time for the people that want to go through that type of program.

So it’ll just be extra. I have no idea what the cost is right now, so don’t ask me. But I’m just putting a pin in it just in case because I know some of you are going to be really excited because you’ve been asking about it. I get really excited just talking about it.

Okay, let’s see, why is it lifetime access? I think I already answered that, right? Because I just wanted people, I didn’t want that to be a roadblock like – Now, this format might change moving forward. Who knows? But right now it’s working really well and I want people to have that continued access if they want it.

I don’t want people to have to constantly make the decision like they would if it was more like a membership, right? Like do I still want this? Do I not? I don’t know, let me think about it. I just don’t want any of that. I just want it to be a place that coaches always know they can come to find the connection and community and support that they’re looking for.

And so sometimes I get this question, do you have guest coaches and why? And who are they? How do you choose them? So I get this question for several reasons. The answer, first of all, is yes, I’ve had them since the beginning. And my reasons are probably different than what you think they might be.

So if you’ve been in coaching programs before, a lot of coaches have guest coaches. First of all, you just kind of have to if you ever want to take a vacation or you’re going to have the week off or last minute you’re super sick. The options become you either have someone coach for you or you cancel the call. So my option, obviously, that I choose every time is like, no, I know 100% I always want my clients to have that support, we don’t cancel calls. I’ve never canceled a call in two years. I’ve had guest coaches step in for me at the last minute because, of course, I’ve been sick. I’ve had guest coaches that have been planned ahead of time to step in when I’m on vacation. But also remember, my favorite part of my business, which I talk about all the time, is coaching.

So if I can be there live on the call, I usually am because I love it. It’s my favorite thing, especially in The Coach Lab. It’s my favorite way to coach because you just never know on the open coaching calls what people are going to bring. The anticipation of it for me feels so fun.

But with that being said, I specifically planned for there to be guest coaches from the beginning because I wanted every coach who joined to see an example of someone who coaches like them. So I didn’t want everyone to come into The Coach Lab and think I need to coach just like Lindsay, right?

I have a very specific energy, as does everyone. I’m pretty calm. I have lots of compassion when I coach. I have kind of a gentle coaching approach, even when we’re coaching on something difficult. It doesn’t mean that it’s not deep coaching happening sometimes, I just have a bit of a gentle approach.

And I approach things, always, especially in The Coach Lab, from two angles. I approach the mindset. We’re going to look at the thoughts. We’re going to look at how you’re feeling about it. How does it feel in your body? We’re going to approach it from that side, whatever someone is bringing for coaching, but then we’re also going to approach it with strategy and a little bit of like let’s figure out how we’re going to solve this.

Like if it’s someone coming with this thing is happening in my coaching sessions, this specific thing, I don’t just coach their thoughts on the thing happening, although I do because usually that’s playing a part, right? Usually it’s like I’m feeling really frustrated because of this. Okay, well let’s address the frustration and get you out of that. But also let’s figure out how are you going to solve it? What are other options? What are things you haven’t considered? So I approach it from those angles.

But I also have guest coaches who, first of all, have learned to coach all over the industry from very different coaching backgrounds, very different coaching styles, very different just energies as humans, right? They just show up differently. Very different things going on in their background, very different setups, just all of it. Like different everything.

I specifically picked coaches who I knew were different from each other so that no matter what, no matter who joins The Coach Lab you’re going to see examples of someone who you relate to, right? Who you can say, like even if you’re like, okay, I love the way Lindsay coaches or teaches skills. I love being coached by her, but I’m really different, like my energy is way higher. Or I love to focus a little more on strategy. Or just whatever it is, right?

Whatever your approach is, I promise you there is a guest coach in The Coach Lab, a contract coach who coaches for me on occasion, that you’re going to see them coach and think, oh my gosh, that is an example of coaching that looks like, like it feels like it looks like me.

I already said we’re currently taking coaching feedback, right? We sent out a feedback link, people are turning it in. And one of my favorite things, so I asked very specifically, what do you like about the guest coaching? Has any of it stood out to you? Is there anything that you don’t like about it? Like just kind of give us feedback on the guest coaching.

So many people wrote something like I didn’t realize how important that was going to be for this program. I didn’t realize that that was an asset, I thought it was just, you know, so that Lindsay could go on vacation. And now I see it totally differently. And one of my favorite parts about it is that they all mention different names, right? They’ll say like this person, I love when she coaches. It really stands out to me. This person, when they coach I can really relate to that, right?

And sometimes they talk about the actual guest coaches that are always in there, like I have consistent guest coaches who are part of The Coach Lab. So they’re also in the community, they respond to a lot of things in the community threads.

And then some of them mentioned the outside coaches that I bring in because I’m also thinking when I’m bringing in people, I’m also thinking about their coaching style. How can I show something that’s just a little bit different than what I do, all while still following the way I teach the skills and the theory of coaching inside The Coach Lab?

Okay, why do I offer workshops instead of just weekly coaching? Someone was asking me, actually a colleague of mine was asking me, she was really curious about this. And I kind of already addressed this, but one of the main reasons is just so we can go a lot deeper on one topic, versus staying a little more surface level on a bunch of topics, right? Or kind of being like all over the place like open coaching.

I really love saying, okay, today we are coaching on this one specific thing. I’m going to do a little more in-depth teaching on it. I’m going to offer things that maybe I hadn’t thought about when I first made the videos that are in the portal. But then I’m going to help them, help you apply it specifically to your coaching, right? Which is very different. Like you can consume the video and watch the video of me teaching something a hundred times, but then coming to a coaching session and actually asking your own questions and learning how to apply it to what you do is a very different thing.

The next question, which I think is an incredible question, comes up a lot in my advanced certification. How do I decide, how do I, Lindsay, decide when and if to make changes to The Coach Lab? So one thing I told you is that we are currently collecting feedback, right? And I’m actually going to be doing a future podcast about getting feedback from your clients and why you do it and all of that. But we’re currently collecting feedback.

One of the things that I made very clear for my clients who are filling out the feedback forms is that I will love every suggestion, every opinion, everything, like I want to hear it all. And asterisk, right, that doesn’t mean we’ll be able to apply every single one. Some of them just won’t make sense. Some of them are like for the price point The Coach Lab is, we just can’t offer that type of support. Some of them are amazing ideas and I already kind of have them pinned for the future, we just haven’t been able to do it yet.

But here’s how I decide when and if I’m going to make any changes. First of all, I’m always thinking about, I’m getting really specific, what is the problem I’m solving for? So for example, right now we have weekly calls. We have one coaching call per week or one workshop per week. And so far that has worked fabulously. One thing that I know I want to offer in the future, that I actually thought I would already have done, but the need hasn’t come up. There could be more than one call per week in the future.

When it really starts to get to the point that a lot more people want coaching or when I have the capacity and the budget to have more than one call per week for different time zones, right, like that is something that’s on my mind. But when I am thinking about making a change like this, I’m thinking about – I always take my mind to the future.

So for example, right now I always ask myself is this going to work if there are a thousand members? Or how can I make sure it works, right? Not like, oh, well if there are a thousand then that would be hard, so we’re just not going to do it. That’s not always the answer. Sometimes it’s just let’s make sure that whatever solution we’re picking to solve a very specific problem, that it’s going to work for a while. That it’s not just like a quick band-aid, right?

Now, every once in a while we throw some band-aids on stuff only because we know it’s a quick solution, right? Like for a while we were having some issues with our private podcast and it was just like, okay, here’s the solution for now while we figure out how to make this work. Sometimes it’s necessary to do stuff like that.

And I’m very transparent about it, right? It’s like I’m going to be honest, we don’t have a perfect solution to solve this right now, here’s the band-aid. This is what we’re working with, here’s why we’re doing it and give us a little time and there’s going to be a much better solution. Right now as I’m recording this, I’m adding tons of content to The Coach Lab, which feels so fun. I am rethinking some of the skills and the videos that I put in the portal when I very first started it and I’m adding to it.

So I’m redoing some, I’m adding some, but I’m doing it all through the lens of still not making it too complicated, right? My thought about this always is more is not always better. Although some of my clients might disagree, a lot of them that’s one thing that I got a lot of feedback on was I love the simplicity of it. I love to come in and say, oh, today I really want to watch these videos about decision making or watch these videos about asking better questions or watch these specific videos because I know I have this call coming up about my client setting specific goals. I want to watch these, like do a little refresh so that I can go into that call feeling super prepared.

If I just created all the content that everybody wanted, every single thing that I could possibly think of that has to do with coaching and coaching businesses, it could be a portal full of like thousands of videos. And that just wouldn’t be useful, right?

So right now when you log in, it’s very clear that it’s divided up into different sections. You go to one place for all the replays. You go to one place for all the workshops. You go to one place for all of the foundational skill videos. And then you go to one place for all the problem solving videos.

So that’s always what I’m considering, is not only will it work now but is it going to work in the future? Is it going to provide my clients in the future, even if there are more people in the space, with the same level of support or better? That’s always what I’m looking for. I never want the support to go down, especially when the space is growing, right?

Now, with this type of program that’s not that hard to do because so much of it is like you log in, it’s kind of self-paced, it’s lifetime access so you can come back and keep getting as much as you want. So it’s a little different thinking about the way I make that decision versus the way I might make decisions like that if I was making it, for example, for my mastermind or my advanced certification, which is like a much smaller room. If I was thinking about like, okay, if that grows, what would that look like, that decision might just be a little different because it’s not lifetime access.

Okay, so I think – I’m just looking at my notes, I think that I have answered all of the questions that I have. All of the main questions that I get most of the time. If you are listening to this and you’re like, okay, I’m in. I have been putting it off, but now’s the time. We’re going to put the link in the show notes.

Also, if you join right now, there is a special bonus just for you that you only are going to find out about when you go to get more information or when you click the link because I don’t want to talk about it all on here and then it not be available in the future when someone’s listening.

So right now, if you’re listening in real time, there is a bonus waiting for you. And I just can’t wait to see you in The Coach Lab. If you’re already in there, if you’re my client, I can’t wait to see you next week in our coaching sessions. And if you’re just listening to this out of curiosity about how to create a program like The Coach Lab or how to create something like that for your clients in your own way, hopefully you learned a lot today.

If you have any questions, reach out. Find me on Instagram, send me a DM or send me a message or whatever you need to do to get a hold of me.

Actually, before I sign off I’ll give you a couple things so you know what’s coming. Over the next few weeks I’m going to, like this whole month because it’s The Coach Lab anniversary, all podcast episodes are going to be focused on The Coach Lab. So, very exciting. A few of the episodes are going to be kind of mini interviews, mini like M-I-N-I, not many like M-A-N-Y. Mini interviews with clients that are in The Coach Lab. And they’re going to come on and they’re going to kind of briefly teach you something that they’ve learned inside the lab.

Now, obviously we’re not going to give it all away. We can’t give hours and hours and hours of content away in 20 or 30 minute interviews. But I do know for sure that no matter who you are, no matter what your coaching practice looks like, if you watch these episodes you will learn something, guaranteed, because my clients are geniuses. They submitted what they want to talk about, I’ve already read them and I cannot wait for you to learn from them.

All right, so get in The Coach Lab, do it now, come celebrate with us. We have so much going on this month and otherwise I will talk to you next week. Goodbye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. See you next week.