Have a seat and make yourself at home, I’m delighted that you found me. This is the Debrief Digest, my weekly-ish post from the world of Rev Ops and Coaching. Before we get started let me introduce myself properly: I’m Lynne and I’ve spent over 15 years inside growing tech companies; in sales operations, strategy & enablement, completed a short stint in recruitment and I've founded two businesses. A tech start up and The Debrief Space. I’m also an EMCC accredited business and executive coach. Which is really just a long winded way of saying that I understand what it’s like to grow a tech business and the messy, ambiguous, sometimes chaotic and always exciting experience of working in a growing tech business. I also understand what it’s like to have a non-linear, squiggly, career path and a CV that reads more like a series of interesting projects than a “proper” CV! But more on that later…

I started the Debrief Space because I recognised a couple of gaps in the Rev Ops market that I knew I could fill while also giving myself some flexibility in how I work. The gaps are simple: smaller tech companies often rush to hire their first senior sales person but then don’t really understand what they are asking them to run, while larger tech companies grow so fast that their size outpaces their revenue engine and the existing team need help to catch up. These may seem like vastly different problems but they have something in common, what used to work has stopped working, resulting in broken processes, frustrated teams and numbers that don’t add up.

When I started working with my first set of clients I also learned that the thing they valued most wasn’t a new process or framework or technique. It was the space: the time to think, room to talk and explore ideas with someone who really listens. Most of them hadn't experienced that in years and my client meetings quickly became part advisory and part coaching; advisory for how your business grows and coaching for you, for your team, for the people that run the engine. Which takes me to…

The number one question I get from clients and prospective clients is “What is coaching?” quickly followed by “…and how do I know when I need it?” The official definition of coaching is: coaching is a process that enables a client to grow or develop professionally and personally. In plain English that means that it is a conversation or series of conversations, with an experienced, accredited coach, that help you to change your behaviour, your job or your career.

Maybe you are dealing with a specific obstacle, person or decision, or you know that you need to make a change but you are not sure what or how or perhaps you’ve just had a bad day at work. Either way working with a coach can help.
A coach’s role is to create the environment, physically and mentally, that will stir up creativity and help you to explore and eventually uncover the solutions that you need to move forward.

Nope. A coach will not solve something for you, if you need advice then it’s best to hire a consultant or mentor. A coach is a thinking partner who facilitates you in finding the solution. That can include asking insightful or challenging questions, noticing your body language when you speak about the issue or using creative ways for you to get out of ruminating and into how your body feels.

Coaching costs vary depending on the coach, their level of experience and who they are coaching. In Ireland and the UK, coaches typically charge from €3,000 - €15,000 for corporate packages and €150 - €500 per session for individual, self funded clients. Many coaches wrap their services up in a programme or include a number of add-ons like access to private communities, assessments or messaging access to your coach between sessions, for an extra fee. This can mean that the people that coaching is of most benefit to (those who have not yet reached exec level) are excluded from getting coaching because it is unaffordable. lf you are between roles, in a non-exec role or are struggling please reach out directly to me and we can agree on an offer that works for you./

Each of my coaching sessions is bespoke to the client, your sessions are largely guided by the issue or obstacle that you are dealing with and your current state. That said, your first session is always a complementary, introductory session. It is important that we both feel that we can work together and to do that we need to build trust. We’ll talk about your reason for coming to coaching, your history and we’ll set some rules for how we interact, what we can and cannot talk about in each session and, if your employer is funding your coaching, what they will know about each session. If at the end of the session you feel like we can work together we’ll set up a regular meeting time.