The Coaching Drive Through Is Closed - Leading Advisor

Here is a copy of letter that we sent out to our clients on Monday, December 04, 2006.

Re: Important Policy Change to Appointment Changes

Dear ______,

I hope that you had a great weekend and that you are looking forward to December & the Holiday Season and to a brand New Year.

This is an important e-mail regarding missed appointments. If you make your appointments on time then this e-mail does not apply to you. The e-mail is still worth the read as it demonstrates the standards that we wish to set in our pursuit of working with you to meet and exceed your goals by eliminating patterns that are not serving you.

Please note that the clients that have the highest income levels, income levels of $500,000 – $2,000,000 are the clients that consistently make their appointments on time, time after time.

Please note the following Policy to Appointment Changes as of December 5, 2006.

Appointment Changes: On Monday, please make sure that you have your coaching appointment scheduled. Does the appointment fit your schedule for the week? If not, please re-schedule your coaching appointment on Monday with Laura @ lreilly@leadingadvisor.com or 250-248-6012 / 1-877-248-6012. If you need to reschedule your call, please give us at least a 48 hour notice. Appointments that are cancelled with less than 48 hours notice will be charged for. If you have a family or medical emergency then you will not be charged. If you have to cancel our appointment because you choose to schedule time with your clients instead, please calculate the cost of your missed coaching appointment in your budget or cost of sale – in other words, if you are cancelling an appointment with us to make an appointment with a client then please ensure that you charge enough for the client appointment to cover the cost of the missed appointment that you cancelled with us.

Please find the appointment reminder e-mail for this week’s appointment and your On-Line Coaching Call Client Prep Form.

For more insight –

Laura and I really appreciate the opportunity to work with you to meet and exceed your goals.

We are pleased to tell you that we are sold out of 1:1 coaching sessions and we are limiting the amount of 1:1 coaching sessions so that we can leave room to provide excellent service without overselling, for running the business, product development, business development, speaking and writing.

One of our challenges is that we have one asset and that is time. Once it is gone, it is gone and it cannot be replaced.

Please note the following Policy to Appointment Changes, previous to December 4, 2006.

Appointment Changes: If you need to reschedule your call, please give us at least a 24-hour notice. If you have an emergency, we’ll work around it. If you must cancel a call, we will make it up to have complete your number of coaching calls per month.

When the practice was smaller, in the event that you had to make an appointment change it was relatively easy for us as we had the space.

With being blessed with an increase in the number of clients that we serve, which was a must to stay in business, we don’t have the luxury of having a lot of extra appointments spaces to make up for missed appointments, especially when they are cancelled on little or no notice.

Last week brought a considerable amount of appointment cancellations with little or no notice.

I realize that while we do our best to make it as easy for you to remember to make your appointments by Monday e-mail reminders about your appointment; we are also enabling you not to make your appointment because there is no-penalty for missing an appointment. It is real easy to slough us off at the last minute.

Last week brought nearly 20% of our clients cancelling at the last minute, which I am sure were for very good reasons, yet at the same time the appointments are virtually impossible to re-schedule on short notice.

At the same time, I don’t what to run a practice providing “Drive Through Coaching”.

It is like trying to herd cats.

I want to work with clients that value the time that we have together because they realize that this is one of the few places in their business and personal lives where they create the space to both clear their roadblocks and lay a clear pathway to their continued success.

While we are on the eve of turning business away and with all the talk of Client Segmentation I have to ask myself:

What would be the criteria that I would use to segment my clients?

– Your coach enjoys working with you
– You make every effort to keep your pre-scheduled coaching telephone call and you are on time for your coaching call
– You make payment for your coaching on time
– You complete your assignments and e-mail or fax them in advance of your coaching session
– You complete your Coaching Call Client Form and e-mail or fax it in advance of your coaching session
– You arrive at your coaching session with an open frame of mind
– You don’t try to use your coaching session as a bitch session

Please note the following Policy to Appointment Changes as of December 5, 2006.

Please note that the clients that have the highest income levels, income levels of $500,000 – $2,000,000 are the clients that consistently make their appointments on time, time after time.

Thank you for understanding and we look forward to working with you to meet and exceed your goals for 2007.

Simon Reilly

International Values and Behavioral Analyst, Business Coach, Speaker and Author

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