Sunday, October 04, 2026
Chasing every lead in the run to year end is how you end up delivering the deals that cost you the most. Here is the Right-Fit Filter that catches a bad deal before you quote it.
Every coach has sat across from a client who talks for forty-five minutes about the symptom and never once mentions the cause. Search "what does a business coach do" and you'll find plenty about accountability and frameworks. Nobody mentions the precondition underneath all of it: a coaching relationship only works if you tell your coach the thing you'd rather not say out loud.
It's a natural instinct — presenting the polished version of your week, leading with the win, softening the real issue. Most owners do it without realising, the same way they'd answer "how's business?" at a networking event. The problem is that coaching isn't networking. Every minute spent managing your coach's impression of you is a minute not spent solving the actual problem you're paying to fix.
1. Name What You're Avoiding — Before each session, write down the one thing about the business — or about your own decisions — you'd rather not bring up. That's usually the real agenda.
2. Lead With It — Open the session with that item, not the update. Sessions that start with the hard thing get to a solution; sessions that end with it usually run out of time first.
3. Track the Pattern — If you notice you're avoiding the same topic three sessions running, that's not a coaching problem. That's the actual problem.
"Keeping me sane and focused during uncertain times."
— Rachel Williams, Icehouse Coaching Programme
Owners know, intellectually, that candour gets better results. What stops them is the same instinct that makes any of us curate what we share with someone whose opinion matters to us. A good coach isn't there to judge the decision — they're there to help you see it clearly enough to change it, which is exactly why the relationship has to survive being told the unflattering version.
If you've ever left a coaching session having talked around the real issue, that's worth naming before your next one.
...and you become the owner who uses every coaching session on the problem that matters.