What is a Half Day INtensive?

Investing in a long term coach is a great solution for many people, but it can be a costly investment too. If you’re not ready for that kind of a jump yet, I’d suggest something like a Half Day INtensive. In my business, the Half Day INtensive is the smallest package that you can get to work with me one-on-one. Of course, unless you’ve been a client before!

The Half Day INtensive sounds exactly like what it is—a half day. However, more than just the hours that we spend together and the face-to-face time we spend together, this package is power packed, super driven and focused on the things that you want most in your business.

Before we even start, we have to determine that you’re a good fit for this program and that I can support you for the things that you really need in your business. A lot of people want to be able to get clarity around their projects or what’s happening in their businesses. So many of my clients will come to me confused, feeling like they want to figure out how to focus on something. More often than not, I hear the phrase “I feel like a chicken with my head cut off.”

We create a space in the Half Day INtensive where you get to spend the time that you need to figure out what is more important to you. From there, we do a deep dive. Yet before we even get to that time where we are face-to-face on a Zoom call, I have all of my clients do a “getting to know you” interview. This is really an opportunity for me to get the behind-the-scenes of your business, understand where your trouble spots are and where you might need a little more help or support in your business. Even just talking through your issues is a huge help!

Sometimes I think about coaching as a tangle of necklaces. You know when you travel and you have all your necklaces in a bag and it gets all tangled up? It’s so tight and you just can’t undo it. Totally frustrating, right? Coaching is a little bit of the detangling process. Instead of having to untangle the necklaces with your fingers, coaching is like having a pair of tweezers to help you. It’s like being able to take things apart and show you that you can do whatever you have your mind set on. It accelerates that process for you.

Before you even get to the coaching session, we’ll have you fill out the “getting to know you” form so I can get to know what the problems are, what you’re experiencing and how we can best leverage our time together. A lot of my clients will notice that the Half Day INtensive really starts when you sign the contract and pay the invoice. We start communicating right away—either via Google Docs or people will ask me questions and we’re really just getting ready, ready, ready so I have a clear focus of where to take you in the process of our coaching.

Coaching has been described as so many different things by so many different people. However, in my business—after all, I am a certified coach—I love to look at your business and your personal life. Without looking at both, you’re really not living to your full potential. You can’t have one without the other. You have to be both a business owner and a person.

So, we get ready. There’s an agenda before we even get on a call. Once we get on that call, we really decide if this is the right direction we want to go for the next four and a half hours. We carve out 4.5 hours knowing that we’ll need a snack break, a coffee break and maybe a little stretch. It’s not four straight hours where we don’t have any fun! It’s an opportunity for us to connect, check-in and make sure that you’re feeling great about the direction we’re heading.

Often, people will say to me that they got so much clarity from the Half Day INtensive. They feel crystal clear about where to go next and that they have a firm plan in place. Furthermore, they feel understood, like someone heard them when no one else in their lives really did. This is an opportunity for you to think about you. If you’re someone without many “business buddies”, this is a great way to really sort everything out and talk it through.

Nothing in this coaching space is judged. I really hold a space of confidentiality in these INtensives—and in any of my coaching. This is so you’re able to process anything without judgement. My philosophy is that you have the answers within you. It’s my job to untangle some of those things. We want to pull out what is really important to you and align those actions with the values that you have for your life and your business.

Some people might come to me for launching a product or creating a timeline—those things are very important! But to me, what’s more important is to know clearly that this is in line with the kinds of goals that you have for the bigger picture of your business and your personal life. It’s just the way that I like to be able to support people in a very short period of time. You’d be surprised how much you can actually get done in 4.5 hours!

I had one client who had a vision of her ideal cafe. Yet, she hadn’t done any of the background work—or even had a name! By the end of our session, we had a solid name with a whole vision of what the brand would look like. I’m not a branding designer by any means! But we brainstormed together what kind of things she could be taking to her brand designer. She had solid next steps of what to do with her business plan and what to do in terms of who to communicate with for brand design, etc.

The topics that we cover in Half Day INtensives really run the gamut. They range from:

• What do I want to be known for?
• How do I organize my content?
• How do I focus my attention?

We even deal with more specific questions, too. For example, if you want to get on a certain number or podcasts, how do you do that?

It’s my job to be able to draw out what resources you have within yourself already and work on a strategy from there. We want to make sure that strategy aligns with how you want to show up and to create a process around that so that you have a rock solid plan for when you move forward.

After our Half Day INtensive we have two weeks of email support where you can ask me all the questions you need to so that you can stay accountable to what we just talked about. It would be such a loss if you left our Half Day INtensive and then ended up not doing any work!

The power is in your accountability and the actions that you take after the fact. You know what these are aligned with, what you want, how you want to feel and what you want to get accomplished—and in what order.

A Half Day INtensive is for you if you have a big project (or even a few) that you want help figuring out what the most important step is, what you need to do first. Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest from the trees when it’s your own business. Coaching is an opportunity for you to get it all out and for someone to help you figure out your next steps. My job is to make sure that you are making progress with the things that will make the most difference.

Some of my clients come to me with more personal things. For example, I had a few moms who were about to either go on maternity leave or have another child. For the one going on maternity leave, we talked about her fears of business and about what was going to happen as a result of going on maternity leave. We created systems for her to be able to rely on and ensure that she was hiring the right people so that her business wouldn’t collapse! We chatted about everything from the emotions of being a business owner, the fears of becoming a mother for the first time, as well as talking about the more strategic and tactical side of having a business.

For my other client who was about to have baby #2, we talked about what it was going to be like to become a mom for the second time around—what it was going to be like for the kid she already had and how her dynamics would change in the household.

Some people actually call me a business therapist because we also get into this emotional stuff and it’s not uncommon for me to make people cry during our sessions. It’s definitely not my intention though! We just get into the deeper parts and people often don’t think about that.

Then, at the end people will walk away with a complete strategy. They’ll have a plan. They’ll feel rock solid about the things that we talked about. I’m not going to let you leave unraveled or feeling defeated! We will make sure that you have something that you can more forward on and work towards.

I take on a maximum of two Half Day INtensive clients per month to make sure that my current clients and my Half Day INtensive clients don’t get overcrowded. I need to make sure that I’m able to prepare the best strategies for the people who need the support.

To be able to do a Half Day INtensive with people is such a delight. I get to see snapshots of people’s businesses and then they go off and do the cool, amazing, great things that we planned. Half Day INtensives are so rewarding for both me and my clients. You would not believe the quality of work that we get to do during that time.

Currently, I’m taking Half Day INtensive clients by application, which you can find here.