You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Welcome to The Coaching Inn. I'm Claire Pedrick and today I have the company of two very experienced coaches, my friends Leslie Cave and Anne Archer, because somebody said, wouldn't it be amazing if you talked to people who had a lot of experience in the coaching world? So Leslie and Anne certainly do have that. So Leslie, why don't you start and just tell us.
briefly what your coaching journey is, then we'll hear from Anne and then we'll see what we know or don't know. Okay, thank you for having me. So Leslie Cave, I came out of a senior role in the NHS about 12 years ago. And at that point decided I wanted to be a coach and I actually worked with a coach at the time. We brought together my preferred JD. and all the things I wanted to do versus all the things I didn't really want to do anymore, even though I could.
And coaching was absolutely the answer. And 12 years later, I stand by that decision. Fantastic. Well, welcome, Leslie and Anne. Well, a slightly different journey. Going back into the mid 80s, I was working in NatWest and an occupational psychologist was brought in to set up this thing called coaching. in that West, but actually it was about taking people through manuals, procedure manuals and helping them to do it. So very performance oriented, task oriented, but that really whet my appetite.
And then through professional services, I've had many sort of people roles internationally. And it just got me on this idea of what if you knew the answers yourself, but you just need someone to help you? And so I decided to really invest in finding out how to do that and coaching came along. So I qualified as a exec coach in 2007 and it's just built on that really. Yeah, like Leslie, stand by it. It's a really good choice. Yeah, yeah.
And my journey was quite different because I set myself up as a training consultant in 1995. discovered coaching in about 97, realized I'd been doing it since before I set myself up as a training consultant and then rebranded as a coach then and I stand by it. Excellent. Stand by your coach. I won't sing because I'm not a singer, but it's like not stand by your man, it's stand by your coach. Indeed, indeed. So what are we learning? in these years. that people don't listen very often.
And as a consequence, we don't realize just what we know inside ourselves. And when somebody gives us the opportunity to do that and learn that we can, it's amazing. Yeah, yeah. And I've learned it works and you can take some wrong turns on the route and that's still okay. Take some wrong turns. actually you can set out your plan, you can work it out from within, you can have somebody there metaphorically holding your hand and being your cheerleader and waving your flag.
But as Anne says, that listening piece, so, special. Yeah. And there's something, isn't there, about the coaching, the conversation. And there's also something about the business. And actually, one of the things I've learned about the business is that I've made so many mistakes and I've tried out things and thought, no. And then I've tried out other things and they've suddenly flown and that's okay.
And I can remember years ago, probably in the very early 2000s, talking to people who I trained with, and somebody told us a story and said, if you take a football stadium, there are about as many coaches then in the UK as there are in a British football stadium and English football, I don't know how many thousands that was, but they said in one corner you'll find a group who are
serious about coaching and next year you'll find another group in the same corner but they won't be the same people because almost everybody will have moved through and left and actually I think one of the things that's happened in the last 20 years is that people stay, many people stay. Not everybody, but many people stay. Is that your experience? I still work regularly with at least half of the people I trained with in a coaching capacity. And that was 2006. yeah, I think it was 2006.
I set up my business in 2007. Yeah, that was in 2006. And, and we still do CPD, we still do peer supervision, we still go into clients together, you know, as an affiliation. So, yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. Because just last night, actually, I was looking at, or just thinking about my training and who I'd trained with, and how many of them are still in my network. And some very, very, very closely and tightly in the network, and obviously some slightly more on the periphery.
But a real sense that if I ever wanted to pick the phone up and chat and chew something over I could. Which is very special. There's something about trust there for me. Because we trust people when we've seen them working, don't we? And we trust them when we've worked together. And that level of knowing is part of feeling confident. if somebody asks you to do something or if you ask them to do something that you can go into an organisation together.
I think something I'm really grateful for is that opportunity to get it wrong and that opportunity to be with people and say, do you know what, I really mucked up on that and I could really do with just talking it through. And it's not particularly supervision that I'm looking for. I just want to say, this is what I think I did wrong and what I could have done differently, but not. not to feel judged and just to really learn from that experience.
And I think good coaching really enables you to tune in to yourself in a way that many other conversations don't seem to allow you to do. And I think that's, if you get that, think that's where you can really stick, know, stay around for a long time, because it's priceless. for clients. And I think some of those people that I might want to act in the way you're talking about there, Anne, I think one of their first questions to me would be, what do you need?
And you know, at that point that you're to be listened to in the way you need to be listened to. And that just makes so much difference. Yeah. And it's the knowing that there's not going to be judgment and knowing that they can listen to you with their coaching hat on without coaching back. That makes it safe, doesn't it, to say I messed up here? Yes, and I love that actually what you've just said there is it's nice to be held without being coached sometimes you don't want to be coached back.
But I was just in a session this morning and faculty for a coach training course. And this is exactly what we were talking about as being able to be with peers and keep growing and keep learning. And I think those people that were in the corner of the stadium those years ago are the ones that keep developing, know, don't get above themselves. Don't think, well, I know it all now because I've been around so long. You know, that constant learning and growing, I think.
It taps into mindset and value set, I think as well around being humble with what you've got and being humble in how you share it when it needs when and if it needs sharing, because it doesn't always need sharing. Sometimes you just need to be you. I just started a WhatsApp group with a few people who run coaching training organizations like I do. it's called, well, it's at the moment, it's because you can only get a certain number of characters in WhatsApp.
It's actually called peer support or something, but actually what we decided to call it was what on earth, something's happened. What on earth am I going to do? And it's interesting at this stage in my life, I need a group like that. of people who do what I do at the level that I know in the space that I now do it in another other places.
And somebody rang me up with a question and said, this isn't a coaching question or supervision question, but can I just ask you a kind of wisdom question, I guess. And we were talking about it. And then at the end of it, said, I think you want to join this group. Something's happened. What on am I going to do? yes, please. Because we all need somewhere to go, don't we?
And I think we need somewhere to go as coaches or we need somewhere to go as supervisors or we need somewhere to go as people with a business challenge that's specific to the kind of space that we operate in. I wonder whether you have business plans? My answer would be sort of. sort of, because I came, well I said I came out of the NHS, the NHS does business plans, it does a lot of strategic planning and things, doesn't always execute it, but the planning is there.
So I think because of the type of person I am, I do, but I don't think I would describe it as conventional. So, by way of an example, I have things like my age plotted on it and my son's age plotted on it and milestones like, if I was very, very lucky when I might have a grandchild, who knows, to sort of guide me and guide some of my decision making and some of the things that... to me are very important like my CPD. So I will keep an eye because I am ICF accredited.
I will keep an eye on my 40 hour CPD and things like that that need to happen. it's a one pager for me and it's in a circle and it's just got lots of segments. So there is some planning I do. Do you have a business plan Anne? Yes, I would say Three years ago, no, not really. It was very much emergent and I was very fortunate to have long-term clients and that was absolutely fabulous.
And sorry, I'm laughing if anyone's listening because my lovely granddaughter just needed to go and get her clothes and she crawled along behind me so that nobody saw her, which is hilarious. We're all laughing and I can't be sensible now, but we were talking about business plans. So I will be sensible. So, so Brexit came along and my biggest client, who was a European company was talking about locally sourcing people.
And I suddenly thought overnight I lost, I could have lost potentially a significant chunk of my business. And it was a complete jolt for me to say, that's not good enough. You know, if you want longevity and you want to be around for however many more years, that's not okay. There needs to be a plan. So it came from that position of actual fear because I thought, I've been really lucky for all this time and the money's kept coming in. It's been a really good business.
And then suddenly almost like overnight there was the potential that it would have gone. So out of that came quite late in my business process. I thought of I need to do something about this. So I hired myself a business mentor and I went through the process of creating a business plan. But it's a bit like what you were saying, Leslie. don't feel... it would win any MBA awards, but it's a plan about, you know, some things I'm aiming for, why I'm doing it.
There's a lot about, you know, what really gives me the passion and the drive and quite a bit about my values. And I also had quite a pivot in the last couple of years. So thinking about how that was going to translate also came into it. So it became quite a helpful process. So it was out of necessity. And now I actually find it quite helpful to have a plan. And I also have a cashflow forecast that I really do pay attention to, because this came from the mentoring advice, the business advice.
And actually that's really given me a lot of confidence actually in what I'm doing. Because I'm measuring things in a different way. I'm thinking about, yeah, I'm a business owner actually. And I do have associates that come in to work. So actually I need to be quite mature about that and think about them properly and think about contracts as well and those sorts of So yeah.
Yeah. I find mine gives me a personal resilience and a personal reassurance that because I've got the next few years set out that I then make good decisions in the direction of them as well. And actually I don't have to sweat the small stuff if an opportunity comes up. because I'm actually already quite clear whether it's right or wrong. makes some of my decision-making processes really easy. So a deciding filter. I like that, Sorry. Yeah. It's really interesting.
I'm struck by several things you said. One is the CPD thing. Because I think anyone who's in the ICF tribe where you have to need 40 hours. every three years to read credential. One of the questions I often ask people in my team and actually ask myself is, is this a big chunk for this three year cycle? Are you looking for a big chunk? And if you are, what's it for? Or are you actually looking in this cycle for bits and pieces to fill different kinds of gaps?
Cause I think that that enables us to make good decisions. I've never had a business plan, but our, our administrator left about 18 months ago after many, years and she'd always managed the money and I wasn't very interested. And the accountant was always slightly concerned that I wasn't very interested, but I thought, well, if there's enough money, that's okay. But I've taken over being the kind of financed. So Nest does the day-to-day money stuff, but I actually, I'm in the accounts every day.
And when you go back to what you said there on about cashflow, I actually know where the money's coming from. I know where we're spending it. I know how much our overheads are. And that's been a really growing up thing in a useful way. if anyone wants a tip from my experience, my top tip is for me, I never borrowed any money. And it looks like neither did either of you. And I think that meant that work wasn't needed to repay the loans that I'd borrowed.
And I think that that has made a significant difference to my feeling about the business. I never borrowed, just built from the ground up and still have really a mentality of pebble throwing. So, you know, if the forecast is looking a bit tighter, I chuck a load of pebbles out somewhere and see what comes. And I've just built that knowledge that something does come out on my ripples and the pebble throwing. Yeah. Can I ask a technical question about pebble throwing?
I'm not sure I'll answer it, but yeah. I'm just curious about whether you have an early warning system about throwing pebbles. I it's called, I mean, it's called my accounts and it's also called my gut. Yeah. And looking at my diary, my diary is always color coded. So my diary is, Green days in my diary are the days I love, which are my coaching and my supervision type days. So if I can't see enough green in there, something's going on and it just triggers action.
I'd say mine is my cashflow, my cashflow forecast because what that also does is gives me that sort of freedom to think, that's okay. There's two weeks there. It's got nothing in it. all right. No problem. You know, it's covered either now or will be, you know, and that's really allowed me to let go of that feeling of, I've got to keep taking things.
You know, as you say, it's the decision points, you know, apart from knowing what I believe in and my value and my joy, it's that sort of, actually the money's there too, the profits bear, I'm okay, I can, you know, keep living. Yeah, very much so. So I have a... I have a target in my head for what I would like to invoice ideally each month. Most months I succeed, not all months. But overall, I know, and again, I work on the principle of enough.
It's enough if I can get in and around there, I've got enough and then I can sit back and not worry. One of the things that I've done from the beginning is to only expect to be earning 10 months a year. And that's always been useful. So to say, I've always said no money will come in in August and no money will come in in December. That's not actually true, but it means they're both always going to be much lower income months.
It depends whether you talk about when you invoice or when you deliver the work, doesn't it? But knowing that and knowing that actually that doesn't matter because that's choice has been a really useful thing. Yeah, I also, the other technique I learned very early on is I go back to what I call half time.
So when I'm under more pressure, there isn't quite the flow, which isn't that often these days to be fair, because I find there's a momentum these days, which I perhaps didn't have in my early days of coaching. But when it looks a bit more spacious, I suppose, the other thing I do is I go... Okay, so let's get myself up to half time or part time. And then, because it's a smaller chunk to worry about than the whole chunk.
And then after that, once I've got a bit of momentum behind my half chunk, I can go for the full chunk. So that kind of chunking principle's been held its place for me as well, which has been helpful. I think something that sort of links to that, that I found really made a difference over the last few years is being more consistent with that reaching out and pebble throwing.
rather than it being, that's looking really bad, just actually consistently keeping in contact with people and making that a constant process rather than stop, start, stop, start. And that's really paying dividends now. You know, just really putting out value or making contact with people or whatever it is you're doing, but just consistently doing that, because I think that's really helped me.
Yeah. And I notice both of you do that a whole lot better than I do, because I'm my little introvert that sits in her little shell and doesn't come out as often, and just every now and then we'll come out. Whereas I notice, you know, on LinkedIn and places like that, that you both have a much better presence, because you work at it. And it's something that... probably one of my weak spots. So my Achilles heel where, where I don't work at it the same.
I really appreciate what you've said there, Leslie, because three years ago when I hit my, my goodness, my biggest client is disappearing under what am going to do panic? And I'm, I'm an introvert and people laugh at me because I don't like talking about myself. So I put myself on a year long marketing program. to actually learn how to not be afraid of putting myself out there as a way of people understanding what value I can add, rather than I don't want to sell anything.
And for me, that shift, you know, and then learning how to do it. And there's a lot of things people do that I think, my goodness, I couldn't do that. But I do feel quite authentic now in what I do. But it was a good, probably, five months into the year long programme that I started to feel, actually, this is okay. This is about building relationships. This is about helping people understand how you can support them.
This is about understanding what people need and whether or not I might be able to help them. And once that happened, I started to think, actually, I just, I don't need to worry so much. Yeah. It's also about finding your own sales language. Because my You know, all the learning, the little learning I've done around marketing is, where I ought to apologise to any marketeers at all because I just don't fit the mould at all.
But the one thing I learnt somewhere on my journey was it was about me selling the way I needed to sell authentically and talk and actually selling doesn't really come into it for me. Although if you, I think if you looked at it forensically, it would equate to selling. Yes, I had a few messages that I was replying to today and I'm now, it's crazy isn't it, that it's taken all these years to realise it. I'm now seeing that might be an indication that person might want to do some work.
And I go, let's talk about it then, shall we? But yeah, I mean, for me, I was given some advice in the late 1990s that a blog would be a good idea. And in those days, weren't many out there around coaching. And so in fact, this season, my blog is a thousand episode is a thousand thingies. So I've done it for 20 years pretty much. And I think it was a disciplined way of writing a short amount of stuff. And, also it's once a week, I share something that isn't salesy.
And I There were many years when you could trace back almost every piece of work that we had to somebody who was reading the blog, either because they wanted the work or they forwarded it to somebody else who then came back. So it's been a really reliable thing, but it's The best feedback I've ever got was your blog's really good, except when you didn't have a very good idea. Which is completely true.
But I think the interesting thing is it's written because of this is what I learnt this week, rather than I'm going to tell you a story and inside the story I'm going to try and sell you something which isn't me. Yeah, and that's not me either, Claire. And I really concur with that. I went through a phase where I was being guided by a company that did marketing, where it was all about make sure you put out your call to action, make sure you put your course in that you want to sell.
I no longer work with them because I just didn't feel authentic about it. And my numbers have gone up. So I think there really is something about the people who, as long as people can find you and they know, like, and trust you and they can see that you can bring value. you can get a really high conversion rate. But if you try and push something out, maybe it's because I don't feel comfortable with it. Tony Robbins does it all the time and he's a multi-billionaire or whatever.
So maybe it is about being authentic and that's what clients like. But you have got to go out. That's what we're all saying, isn't it? You've got to be outward facing into wise places. and communicating something. Yes. And I also think you don't have to get too complicated about it. For years I was told you need a website and I've resisted and resisted and resisted. I now have one because I want one. But it wasn't the website that worked.
I mean, it now serves a purpose, but you know, there's something about just be simple about it as well. And with LinkedIn now and the way people use LinkedIn, actually, you can do a good piece of work with just a LinkedIn profile, can't you? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely. We talked about cashflow. I'm quite interested in talking about time off. What have we learned about time off? Because one of the things that I noticed when I'm talking to fairly new coaches is their endless availability.
And it bothers me. And I want to say to them, it would be okay to take two weeks off and not check anything and the world would not fall over. What's your thoughts or experience about that? I think my language would be, I'm getting there still. I think if I'm being really, really honest, but, and in the getting there, I've learned a lot.
And again, I'm learning that if I get too tired, I don't coach well, end up taking on clients that perhaps don't get the best value out of me, if I'm perfectly honest. And particularly out of hours work, I've got really, really clear now about where my boundaries are. And I'm holding them more. I think that's great to hear. For me, I think it's an integral part of how I can be present, how I can show up, how I can do my best work, how I can be at my most spontaneous and creative.
And if I don't have space, and it's really important to me that my time off is not just about two weeks holiday, because I don't particularly like two weeks holiday, but I do like having weekends where there is nothing, there is no commitment, there is nobody asking me to be somewhere or do something. Even if it's family and friends, know, I, I need, so it's, think it's really important that we recognize what we need and it won't necessarily be, I need, you know, two weeks holiday or whatever.
Somebody once said to me, every three months, make sure you take a four day break. And that was right at the start. And I found that really helpful. But I think we all only have 168 hours and we need to spend the time wisely. for us to do our best work. So I think it's a really important thing that you work out. Just another point to Leslie's point about times as well. I work globally, so I have to honor time zones. And I sometimes do night shifts for other stuff.
And I pay real attention to knowing that if I've done a night shift or if I've done an early morning or a late night, I can't work. for sort of 24 hours nonstop or 18 hours nonstop. So I think it's really about what's right for you to do your best work. Yes, I've just been doing some planning this afternoon and realized that I've got a day, a long day, and I've just blocked out until 11 o'clock the following morning.
And I've put an appointment in my work diary that all my colleagues can see that says, lie in. Brilliant. And I might not choose to lie in. But I've chosen to block my diary so that nobody else can book into that because I use a, we use a booking system, which means people can book into stuff, but we've done a whole load of work on blocking so that people can only actually book into blocks. They can't book in anywhere. And that's, that's worked really well for me.
So I have two days a week when I do one to one work. And, you know, that doesn't mean I don't do one to work. one work on the other day, but it means that that's my priority. I remember when I started, I'd say to people, where would you like to meet? And when would you like to meet? And I drive miles for a one hour appointment because I thought I had to, and I kind of liked it, but it wasn't very efficient. And now I know that actually I can say to people, does Tuesday at 10 work for you?
Latterly before COVID, I used to say we can meet on Zoom or we can meet in London, which is your preference. Rather than saying, would you like me to get in my car and drive to Ipswich or Northampton or wherever? Yeah, definitely. Claire, the thing, the podcast isn't catching or waking up here. And I just want to say for any audience that's listening. is the three of us are sitting here like nodding dogs agreeing with each other with this wisdom.
And I just think it's really interesting the shared body language we've got here in the noticings and the conversation we're having. Yeah. Just link, absolutely. And just linking to what you've said there, Claire. So three years ago, my European clients were fairly insistent that the majority of the coaching took place in their home territory. So that was somewhere in Europe, which would mean a flight. COVID hit and people started to say, well, we don't have to stop the coaching.
So we'll have to try this zoom thing or teams or Google meets or whatever, or maybe the phone. And now the interesting difference is it would be nice to spend some time with you. How can we fit it in and how can we make it work so that we don't waste too much time either of us. traveling or, you know, arriving and airports and all that other stuff. So the thing about efficiency, I think we can helpfully say to a client without it having the same sort of resistance that we had three years ago.
Yeah, because now people are saying I don't need to travel to China. No, you don't actually. Funny, you can do it. I'm not saying you don't ever go, but And there's something about efficiency and there's something about recovery, isn't there? And being able to then take... So I walk for two hours every day. So I walk for an hour before work and then I walk for an hour at lunchtime. could never... And I was on site last week, really unusually, and I didn't get either of my walks in.
And actually that had quite a big impact on how I felt about the day. And knowing how much what goes back to what you said on about needing space, you how much space do we need and where does the space we need need to be for it to be really useful for us? Yeah. Yeah. And I go off my dog walk every morning, which is a really important part of the routine before I settle in for any work as well. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to pick up on something that that you said earlier.
You didn't say it directly, but. I have a similar experience. I think we've paid for business advice. That's been really worthwhile. And we've also paid for business advice that wasn't useful. And that's all part of the falling over and picking yourself up again, isn't it? Yeah, I think we need to choose our support carefully actually and get recommendations and speak to people and do a bit of due diligence.
Because there will be people who will say, you know, I did this, this and this and you should do it too because I know it works. And that's fine if you're, for example, an extrovert who loves nothing more. than going to in-person networking events and standing up and talking to people about what you want to sell them and do it with confidence and aplomb. And I think having a business advisor who said, who are you and how's that gonna work? That was transformatory, know, really, really, yeah.
Because some of the duff advice can really, like for example, I'd have loved to have had my business mentor when I started to say, just be careful that you don't just have one really big client that you come to rely on like a salary because they pay so much every year because they might go away. And if they do, you're really stuffed. I wish I'd that foresight as it was. It was OK. But it was a very, very difficult year three years ago when I was super stressed about crikey.
Can I can I meet the bills? You know, that was horrible. and it was through not having really good advice. I've always had diversity. We've always had diversity in the work that we do. So we work in different sectors. And one of the things that I've noticed as we bounce through the sessions is that when one dips, another one rises. And that's been quite useful, that spread. So it's about more than one customer, but you know, more than one sector, I think also helps.
Yeah. And also for those of us internationally, more than one geography. Yes. Because territories can be influenced. So I think it's helpful just to, yeah, I like that idea of diversity. Yeah. So all of those things are sorts of some of the other segments I have on my business plan. So I keep an eye on where those bits of work are coming from as well. I mean, I'm not so big on the international stuff. I've not particularly gone out there, but those other sectors and what's the spread.
And again, not because I do anything very, very active about it, but they're on my own systemic radar, I guess, so that I've got an eye on them. And that's a kind of risk management, isn't it? Yeah. So we've been talking for ages. I could talk all night. This is just a beautiful conversation. I have one other question and that is about associates and associate relationships. What's your question? Well, I'll just fess up. I've done some really, I've had some really good experiences of that.
And I've also made decisions about things where actually there wasn't ever really going to be any work. Either in the end, I wasn't able to give work to others, or indeed I've matched up with others who've not given me any work. and I've set up alliances that have been extraordinary and I've set up alliances which have been lots of cups of coffee and no invoice. And you know, all of those are learning journeys, aren't they?
But I think there's something about wanting to say to our listeners, you're not gonna get it right every time. I've, I took on two associate roles when I first started out that I still have now. Don't do a huge amount of work. What I do love though is the companionship and the community and you know, the learning sessions. And I've had one associate role where it's really interesting work, but it's very up and down and You know, people have said, why do you stay with it?
And again, it's the people. There's something really lovely, because I did miss that from, you know, leaving corporate life. think there's another really big business decision in there as well, isn't there, about do you want to take on associates or not?
your work, you want to be, I think Anne used the word earlier on that, that grown up responsible person that needs to think through those business processes of having, you know, members of staff or contracted in associates, do you want to do that or not? And I think that's quite an important decision because it does bring another big chunk of work, different dynamics and some other really, really careful thinking you have to do in the process.
And it's different, isn't it, between hiring staff and having associates? Yeah. You know, which is again. Yeah. Yes, and I have both. And, you know, I spend quite a lot of my time. supporting others and responding to others. I have a rule about associates, which is if I wouldn't want to spend the weekend with them, I'm not going to have them as an associate.
And the reason for that is there's something, I don't know whether you experienced this, Anne and Leslie, but when people come to us as a business, they know something about who we are. And part of that is about who I am and who some of the other core members of the team are. therefore they're looking for that in us. and yeah, we need to be able to make, well, two things.
One is if anyone wants a top tip, if you're going to use associates, you need to start talking about we before we have, before you have any, I'm sure we can do that. We can find somebody who will be able to deliver that for you because if you say I, and you put in an associate, your customer is going to be really surprised. I think that's very interesting actually Claire, that idea of so often the client buys you, whoever you might be and so I think that's a very good top tip.
Yeah, I was talking to a customer today and we've been negotiating something for a little while and they were making a call to say we'd like the work, we'd like to give you the work and I said to them when we had the first conversation, it's not going to be me. And the first thing I said to them is, that's great. Alex will really enjoy delivering that for you. Because it was really important to make that absolutely clear.
And I think otherwise, I think we put our associates in a difficult position because they arrive and everybody wants it to be Leslie or Anne or Claire. And it's somebody, it's Dave or whoever. So, so an interesting one. One thing that popped into my head, which we haven't yet covered, but I think it's quite relevant to a coaching business is the referral process. Because I would say that 80%, 90 % of my business, it might even be 100 % to be honest, comes from referrals.
And there really is something about the nurturing and the thanking and just... paying attention to the relationships that are formed where somebody says, I'd really like to refer you to Anne or Claire or Leslie, because I think that's, it helps so much with the know, like and trust and the work that you do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Referrals are without a doubt, biggest chunk of my work. Yeah. And for people early on in their coaching journey.
mean, where I got my referrals from at the beginning was from places where I had credibility already. Yeah. And I would get referrals from people who I'd worked with in another role who knew that I was now a coach. Yeah. And I know not everybody has that. But but I think credibility in an area where you can build out can really, really help. Yeah, completely agree. Well, What a delight to spend this time with you both.
Just for everybody listeners, Leslie, Anne and I are all coach mentors and supervisors as well. So just so you, as well as business owners and I'll put contact details in the show notes. And as we finish, I guess, if you could say one thing to somebody who is starting out in coaching, what would it be? For me, sorry, Anne, go ahead. I was going say for me, it would be talking about aligning your core values with what you're trying to set up in relation to your business and staying true to those.
For me, I made a decision very early on not to have a coach because I didn't think I could afford it. And I think now I would say actually it would be a smart idea to have a coach who can help you with that very same question that you've just said there Leslie, know, somebody who's perhaps a little bit ahead of you that can support you to do the thinking that enables you to be a successful business owner. And that's about investing in your humanness in service of being able to do the rest, it?
And I guess my top tip is a bit more pragmatic and that's hold your nerve. Yeah. And look at a longer term view, you know, instead of looking at today or tomorrow, look at three months or six months, cause that gives you a much better indication of, the ups and downs. Well, Leslie Cave and Archer, thank you so much for your company. And Leslie, thank you for bringing your bottle of wine. Coaching in, I brought us a bottle of wine. Yes, very kind.
So what an absolute delight to spend some time with you both. so listeners, if you want to respond to anything you've said here, just pop a note in the LinkedIn. or Facebook or Twitter feeds and let's talk because there's some really interesting learning and I'm sure we've missed out all sorts of things, but hopefully this will start the conversation. So thank you all. And thanks Claire. Bye bye. Lovely seeing you. Podbean and all major podcast channels.
We look forward to welcoming you next time. You've been listening to The Coaching In, 3D Coaching's virtual pub. For more information, check out 3dcoaching.com.