Chris Barrow’s Blog

Its been a predictably exhausting three days and I’m blogging at 2.00pm local time as the coaches spend some time individually creating their goals and actions for the next 90 days.

Reviewing the mind map of objectives that we began with on Thursday I think I can allow myself a pat on the back for helping everyone to get to their finish line later today.

All of Friday was spent working 1:1 with each coach’s immediate issues – and, as always, the conversations were relevant to everyone’s situation.

I made the mistake of going out for dinner last night – after 2 days of coaching I was exhausted and lousy company – proven by the fact that they had created a matrix of alcohol intake v. sociability and placed me in the lower left quadrant – a sober, anti-social based on last night’s performance.

Well I give it out – so I have to take it now and then.

Lesson learned – on 3-day Intensives go out for dinner with the clients on one evening and then chill the rest.

Its been a blast here in Toronto – now I’m going to take some time off to rest, recharge and renew my enthusiasm.

Over lunch today an interesting conversation about “raising your game” – which we defined as what happens when you reduce your tolerations and increase your expectations. And how that can make you periodically unpopular and isolated.

Three days working with 10 coaches at The Grand Hotel and the first day flew by.

We began by creating a mind map to answer the question “where do you want to be by 5.00pm on Saturday?”.

The I updated the group on my own business progress since we last met.

In the afternoon we began the process of deconstructing each individual coaches business and determining “what has to happen next?”

The themes emerging from the day were:

1. The desire to do the type of coaching we love to do with the people we love to coach;
2. The importance of delegating ALL of the work to a support team;
3. The value of robust marketing systems and
4. The necessity to create a sales-driven business.

We also evolved a facinating conversation on the distinction between:

Marketing – a robust business system and

Branding – what happens when clients seek you out to confirm their own identity and end their isolation.

That’s a very unusual distinction and I’m working on a matrix as we speak!

After our formal meeting I enjoyed catching up with Michael Bungay Stanier for drinks – he is one of the most inspirational guys I know and my biggest ever candidate for “the next Thomas Leonard”. You can delight in his work at http://www.boxofcrayons.biz/index.php.

We were also joined for dinner at Il Fornello on the Waterfront by Rosemary Davies-Janes of http://www.miboso.com/.

Rosemary helped me to create the personal branding statement that you can read via one of the links on the right hand side of this blog page.

Wednesday morning at Heathrow, waiting to catch a flight to Toronto, where I will be facilitating a mastermind group meeting of coaches for 3 days.

They were all originally my clients in The Coaching Business School and have now formed their own alumni and meet a couple of times a year.

My job will be to ask “how can I help?” tomorrow morning and we will see where we go from there.

Yesterday was a marketing team meeting with Tim Thackrah at Elmsleigh House Dental Clinic.

Their new web site is finally live and worth a look at www.elmsleighhouse.co.uk.

We spent the day reviewing all of their internal and external marketing systems and driving forward a process that began in January – there has been significant progress in the development of Patient Journey systems but we now have to make those systems embedded habits within the business – that’s the hard part – and I will be back there in 2 weeks to help begin some team training.

I enjoyed watching Sweden 2 England 2 last night at the Heathrow Hilton – a fairly large Swedish contingent in good spirit and lots of confused Americans who just don’t get the rules no matter how many times you explain them.

Two wonderful goals from Joe Cole and Steve Gerrard made for a night of pure football pleasure. The other team scored as well – boo!

I have a small loan with MBNA bank and the last payment by direct debit was missed because of a mess up with my current account bankers at HSBC.

So yesterday my mobile phone rings and its another call centre in the Indian sub-continent. They have been very lucky to catch me.

MBNA: “Hello Mr Barrow, this is (undecipherable) from MBNA and I would like to speak to you about your loan. Before I begin could you please help me to clear you through security and tell me your date of birth.”

CB: “How do I know who you are?”

MBNA: “Excuse me?”

CB: “Well how do I know that you are really MBNA – you could be anybody.”

MBNA: “Well I am from MBNA and I have all your details in front of me on the computer.”

CB: “Well tell me some of the details so that I know who you are.”

MBNA: “Well to do that you have to go through my security check and tell me your date of birth.”

CB: “If I tell you my date of birth and you are not really MBNA I would just be giving you more information.”

MBNA: “But I already know your date of birth Mr Barrow.”

CB: “Well why are you asking me then?”

MBNA:Â “To check you through security.”

CB: “But how do I know who you are?”

The conversation carried on like that for a while – I was walking down the street and had nothing else to do – they were paying for an international call to my mobile (ouch) and I enjoyed listening as she frantically ran her fingers down flow charts in a hopeless attempt to know what to say next.

After a while I did her give her my DOB but refused to clear the outstanding payment by giving her my credit card details over the phone – the cheque is in the post.

When will corporates realise that outsourcing their call centres to the Far East just makes customers irritated and ready to move on somewhere else?

For now – I’m going to enjoy wasting their time and money.

I’ve discovered Oliver Sweeney shoes http://www.oliversweeney.com/

Having bought a pair for my workshops a few weeks ago:

I have now invested in another pair for casual wear.

I am in love with my shoes.