Ep #37: Coaching Agreements Checklist

Hey coach, do you have a coaching agreement in place, or is this something you felt a little unsure of how to handle like a pro? Coaching agreements are the one area I see coaches go wrong time and time again. They skip creating coaching agreements, maybe because they're uncomfortable setting boundaries, or they don't know what to put into a coaching agreement. 

I'm Kendall. Tune in to today's episode where I'm going to illuminate for you exactly what you want to include in your coaching agreements. Plus, I'm going to share with you the purpose and the energy of coaching agreements.

Now, if you love checklist, oh my gosh, grab your pen and notepad because this episode includes tons of checklists to help you make your coaching agreements easy to create, giving you that professional look and feel that you want in your business. It's all here for you in this episode of The Money Coach School Podcast. Let's dive in. 

Welcome to The Money Coach School Podcast. To really excel at coaching women, you have to be skilled, confident, and even fearless at money coaching. If you're passionate about women holding genuine money power and love supporting women entrepreneurs, then this is the show for you. Now, here's your host, money feminist Kendall SummerHawk.

Hello, beautiful coach. I'm going to reveal my inner geek here a little bit with you. When I was a little girl, I never played with dolls. In fact, I've actually always been afraid of dolls. They scare the heck out of me. But what I played with instead were horse statues, of course, and I played business.

I would pretend to have a business. I would dream about being my own boss, even though in my little girl's brain, I phrased it a little differently. Now, I'm a ruler in my sacred money archetypes. So it's natural that I wanted to make money doing things that I loved. Yes, I was the kid with the lemonade stand. I was the one going door to door selling cookies, even though I was terrified of knocking at the doors. I was the one who loved putting together that cookie order, adding up the money to send in. I loved when the cookies came in, and I got to deliver them because everyone was so happy to receive them. 

So yes, I'm a bit of a business geek. But that geekiness has served me so well, because when I started my coaching business over 22 years ago, I applied that same innocent childlike joy of playing business to creating the back end of my business. 

What may surprise you is that by having a strong back end, it saved me tons of time. It dialed down the drama of many wacky client situations that are bound to come up when you run a coaching business that serves hundreds of clients at a time like mine does. Having that strong back end created all those feelings of peace and grace and ease that my soul always craves. Which leads me to our topic today of creating coaching agreements. 

Now, one of the best actions you can take with your business is, first of all, having coaching agreements. Hello. Second of all, making sure that the agreements you use, they are simple, they are thorough, and they're easy to understand by both you and your clients. The coaching agreements are the one area I see coaches going wrong time after time again. They skip creating coaching agreements. I think maybe it's because they're uncomfortable setting boundaries, or they just don't know what to put into a coaching agreement. 

But not having agreements leaves you vulnerable. It leaves you vulnerable to misunderstandings. It leaves you vulnerable to boundaries being stepped over. It leaves you vulnerable to over-delivering and not getting paid. It leaves you vulnerable to not feeling legitimate in your business. My philosophy about coaching agreements is that they have both purpose and an energy to them. I'm going to talk about that here today.

Those two things, plus a few simple basics like what's in the checklist I'm giving you here today, will create relationship with your clients. A relationship that is clean and gives you that professionalism that you're looking for, which is just one more way that I teach to banish imposter syndrome. 

So today I'm going to cover how to think about your coaching agreements, plus give you a checklist or two or three of the basics it should cover. Because while coaching is absolutely the dream business to run, it is a business, and every business needs agreements in place. You are never too busy or too new to start using a basic coaching agreement. You're going to feel so much better about your business when you do. This is one of the many ways that you are being a leader for yourself, a leader for your business and for your clients. 

Now, the primary agreements that you'll have in your coaching business are your one on one and your group coaching. There's very little difference between those two. What I recommend is starting with your one on one agreement, getting it to where you're happy with it, and then modifying it slightly to fit your group coaching when you start offering group coaching in your business. 

All right. So number one, the purpose of agreements. The purpose of agreements is clarity. Agreements give you, number one, clarity about the program your client is purchasing. Number two, clarity about their payment responsibility. Number three, clarity about their commitment and yours. Number four, clarity about coaching session cancellation. Number five, clarity about coaching program termination.

So without these five specific pieces of clarity, you are vulnerable to misunderstandings, to being taken advantage of, to over-delivering, to feeling resentful, to not being paid, not being respected as a professional, and some very potential messy situations with no way to effectively handle them. Your coaching agreement is like a beacon. It is like the light that lights the way of how to effectively handle situations as they come up.

What I love about a coaching agreement is that the business aspect is out in the open. Nothing is presumed or mistakenly assumed. There really is no room for misunderstandings. Now, early in my coaching career, I felt like I was being kind of a bad guy, maybe, by having clients sign the agreement. But I flipped that mindset into believing that agreements keep the energy positive, clear, and elevated. Isn't that a better mindset to have? 

When I enroll coaching clients, once we're into that area of the conversation where it's yes, we are going to be coaching together, that's when I briefly touch on the key points of the agreement. I like to cover those key points in a way that is conversational and paints the picture for my client of what the expectations are for both of us. 

I remember when I was a new coach, I would get really anxious and really insecure that a client would change their mind once they saw the agreement. I know that may sound silly, but I was new. I was still a little in awe that people were signing up to coach with me. 

So that's when I started letting clients know right in the enrollment process that part of our getting started was that they would receive the coaching agreement. That's also when I started going through the key points of the agreement right in that enrolling conversation so that at the end when I said I would be sending over an agreement that covers everything we just talked about, it wasn't a surprise. It just flowed, and it felt natural for me and easy for them. 

Now, for our certification trainings, the agreements are part of our terms and conditions. They're right on the enrollment page. So there's no secrecy. Everything is right in the open. When a client enrolls in certification, signing the agreement is part of the checkout process. So I don't have to chase anyone down to get the agreement signed. If they're in training, the agreement is signed. This keeps everything so simple and easy. So that's number one, the purpose of agreements is clarity. 

Number two, the energy of agreements is boundaries. Boundaries are the rules that you put into place that create that freedom and that ease that you want in your business. Boundaries also define how you want to be treated.  I believe they reflect self-respect and self-worth. 

So the mindset that I always keep in mind is this. You standing in your power with clear boundaries models for your clients to do the same. Specifically, your coaching agreements set up boundaries about money and time. So your coaching agreement is where you decide on these basics.

Number one, when you expect payment. Number two, how you handle scheduling. Number three, your policy on last-minute cancellations and if you offer makeup sessions. Number four, how you handle refunds or cancellations. Number five, that your client is self-responsible for their own results. 

Yes, this requires you to make a few basic decisions about how you want your business to flow and how you want your business to work for you. Now, for me, it's simple. I expect clients to honor their financial agreement no matter what. I am happy to accommodate rescheduling whenever I possibly can because I understand that things come up. But no, I do not accommodate being ghosted. 

Now, at this stage in my business and for what I charge for coaching, no one is going to ghost me. But in the early days, it did happen. No, being new or only having a few clients is not a reason to skip having a basic agreement like this in place. 

So the decisions you're going to make are, are you open for rescheduling a last-minute cancellation, or is this a hard no for you? The next decision, how much is a client investing in coaching with you? In other words, what is the amount, right? The next one what is your coaching program termination policy? Meaning if somebody wants to stop coaching midway through the agreement, what's your policy on that? 

My policy is they can stop coaching if they want, but they still have the financial commitment. So in other words, someone can't say oh, I don't want to do this anymore, and I don't want to pay. That violates the agreement. The next decision is defining your refund policy, even if there are no refunds. We don't give refunds for most things in my business, and our agreements do say that. So we're very clear. In other words, we don't omit it because we don't give refunds. We say very clearly in multiple places that there are no refunds. 

Lastly, one decision you're going to make is clearly stating that the agreement is for the coaching program in full, no matter what changes happen for a client. So this ties back to my expectation that when someone signs an agreement, they're committing financially, even if things in their life change. So clearly stating these things in your agreement is creating clear boundaries.

Then if a client runs into a situation and wants to make some changes there, you can go back to the agreement that they signed. The agreement is your agreement between the two of you. So you can reference the agreement and work out a fair and equitable path going forward based on the agreement.

I want to give you a big tip here. I keep my coaching agreements all the same, regardless of what type of coaching program I'm offering. What this does, it means that it keeps the need to modify an agreement to a rare occurrence. In other words, while I list the length and the investment of the coaching, I don't list every little thing included. You can do that in a separate program one sheet.

So keeping the details out of the agreement means I can change up my coaching program offers without having to change the coaching agreement every single time. So that saves a lot of time and confusion. 

So here's another checklist. Definitely write this down. I know I've already given you quite a few checklists, but this is what you want your coaching agreement to include. You want to include a basic description of the coaching program. You want to include authorization of payment, and that includes payment responsibility, even if the client decides to stop coaching before completion. You want it to include the commitment period. This is the length of the coaching agreement, whether it's 90 days or a VIP day or six months or one year, whatever it is.

You want to include a coaching session cancellation policy. You want to include a refund policy, even if it's that there are no refunds. I always put in a confidentiality piece and a disclaimer that the client is responsible for their own results.

All right, let's go on to number three, the result of agreements. So we've had the purpose. We've had the energy. Now the result. The result of agreements is trust. When you've put into writing what it looks like for a client to be in your world through your agreement, you can relax knowing that you've got your basics covered. Agreements create certainty, and your clients will feel that as well.

People relax when they know what is expected of them. That trust and relaxing helps clients get better results coaching with you. It ensures that both of you are on the same page, and you both can feel that sense of trust and trustworthiness that is so important in a coaching relationship. Now, I always say that I'm the most trustworthy person on the planet, and my agreements are an expression of how I can be trusted.

An additional tip that I want to give you is that when you're hiring a coach, be sure to read the agreement. Please read the agreement, make sure you understand what you are signing. A lot of coaches make the mistake of downloading a free agreement from the internet. 

But those free downloadable agreements, they're usually poorly written. They're unclear about what's what, and they often either don't cover what needs to be covered or they overly covered what isn't important, and it comes off too complicated and too harsh, too much legalese. Like I'm really proud of our agreements because they are really simple. They are very, very simple to understand.

The other tip I want to share with you is if you see something in a coaching agreement that doesn't work for you, don't hesitate to ask if it can be changed. So, for example, a lot of coaches put in their agreement because it's a boilerplate template that they can use your words or your story as a testimonial. 

Now, that's something I'm not comfortable with unless I am asked first. I don't want to just give blanket permission that somebody can use me as a testimonial. My word is like gold, and I want to make sure that I'm being quoted properly and that I'm giving a testimonial at a time and a place when I feel confident doing that with the coaching that I've received. So I typically ask that to be removed from the agreement, and I've never been told no. Everybody always says oh, that's fine.

So inside of our flagship certification training, we include sample agreements that I had my business attorney write up specifically for our certification students to take and to use as their own. These are modeled after my own agreement. So they are proven and tested to work. It's part of the business coaching toolkit that we provide as a bonus inside of certification, and our students absolutely love it. They know that the sample agreements are high quality. Plus, I actually give a detailed training on what each piece of the agreement means and why it's important so that the certification student can feel confident giving it to their clients and confident standing behind it. 

Now, if you're curious to find out more about getting certified to coach women entrepreneurs, I'll link to our Money Breakthrough Business Coach certified coach training in the show notes. This is our 15th year of running certification, which I am so freaking proud of. 15 years. That's a long time of running certification and Money Breakthrough Business Coach is the only certified coach training that fully trains and certifies you to become a soul driven business coach for women entrepreneurs, the best niche on the planet, so that you can make money, make an impact, and enjoy time freedom. So, again, I'll link to that in the show notes, and you can definitely check that out. 

All right, thank you so much for listening and spending time with me here today. Be sure and drop an email to me and ask any question you want about money, pricing, coaching, running your coaching business. I am here for you. The email address is podcast@kendallsummerhawk.com. I will see you next week for our next episode together.

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