If you enter a room with 300 people, chances are you won’t find a single coach there. That’s why when I arrived at a local women’s networking group in a small town of York Pennsylvania, I was surprised to meet Barbara Hagler, a local life coach with a unique business name, Spa for the Soul.
Ask Barbara what she does, and she’ll say, “I empower women to create passionate, soul-satisfying lives.” It is every woman’s dream – a safe unconditional place where nobody is trying to fix you, judge you, and simply listen, understand and encourage.
Creating a book discussion group is just one of the ways Barbara helps women grow. I personally find this form of coaching very interesting. Everyone in the group has to read the same book, then come back and discuss it with the rest of the participants.
Book discussion groups not only make people look deeper at their lives, but bring them closer to the coach leading the group, as well.
“Some women may not be ready for one-on-one coaching sessions, so creating a book discussion group helps them experience life coaching in a different form”, says Barbara Hagler.
So what do you need to make your book discussion group a success?
1. Good book selection for your target audience. Make sure your participants can relate to the issues presented in the book (fiction, or non-fiction). The book must also make people think, laugh, or cry, to make any kind of impact on a person’s life.
2. Comfortable group situation. Whether you conduct it in person or over the telephone, make sure that all participants are comfortable sharing their opinions with you and each other. Introduce yourself during the first discussion, and ask every participant to introduce themselves. Share a personal experience, tell them what book you have chosen and why, and just make everyone feel at ease.
3. Participants! Of course, there can’t be a book discussion group if there are no people who want to participate in it. Treat your discussion group as a product that must be promoted. Announce it during a networking meeting, tell about it all your friends, neighbors and relatives, put it up on your web site, list it with teleclass.com, and send an announcement to your mailing list. Be sure to specify a limit on how many people can participate – you don’t want to end up with a huge group of people and not be able to connect with each one individually.
Before you create a book discussion group, you must clearly define your goal. In other words, what do you expect to get out of it? A new source of income? A new coaching client? More popularity among your target prospects? Or may be experiencing a personal and professional growth through connecting with interesting people, with their unique personalities and opinions?
After completing the book discussion, analyze your results and experience gained from it. Write a new article based on what you learned from your participants, and share it with your existing coaching clients.
When asked if she is going to do another book discussion group, Barbara Hagler says, “Of course! I had an amazing time with my participants, and according to their ‘thank-you’ notes, so did they.”
Milana Leshinsky is the author of “How To Market Your Practice On the Internet”. Download it FREE today at http://www.mycoachingwebsite.com.
