Delighted with our first bridge calls of 2006

After a day of 15-minute laser coaching calls, last evening I attended our first client bridge calls of the year. We hold these once a month, an hour for coaches and an hour for dentists. The coaches are well versed with the technology and etiquette of a bridge call, so its easy enough for me to “show up” at the top of the hour and after Jen has greeted everyone ask the universal “how can I help?” question. As always with coaches, the calls are well attended and the questions flow quickly – the hour flashes by. With the dentists it can be different – they are not so savvy with the technology and, in January, when I have new clients for the coaching year, many of them have never attended a bridge call in their lives. So last night with the dentists we spent about 5 minutes saying “hello” and another 10 minutes explaining the usual etiquette of name use, quiet rooms and corded phones. Then comes the bungee jump, where I ask “how can I help?” and the pregnant silence falls. I was delighted for two reasons last night: 1. the attendance figures on both calls were high – and its great to hear so many dentists when last year’s attendance figures were drifting down; 2. the conversations on both calls were fascinating – I’m especially pleased that my own contribution to the dental call was quite limited – they picked up the baton and ran with it themselves, helping each other with questions on associate profitability, the viability of membership schemes and private conversion. That’s been a good start to the year.