In Praise of Plan-As-We-Go Speech Coaching
“Wait, what’s so bad about cookie-cutter service?”
Prospective students often ask me how many coaching sessions we’ll have. Subtext being, “how long is it going to take for me to reach my speaking goals, and how much is that going to cost?” Both 100% valid questions! To which I usually give the unsatisfying initial answer, “it depends.” But I would argue that if you want the best learning experience, it has to depend.* If it doesn’t, you’re likely getting an inferior, cookie-cutter service.
In this article, I’ll explain what It Depends on, why flexibility in session planning is key, and why personalized coaching takes less time and costs less than many expect.
Let me get this out of the way first, though: If the question is, “How long until I start seeing some results?” This should be immediately—starting right away in session, and certainly in your at-home practice (more on this below), then finally in real-life settings. The material is designed to be highly actionable & easy to put into use, so you should start noticing little (or perhaps big!) wins right away.
Now back to the main event:
What the number of sessions depends on
Several things:
How many different things you’re working on.
Some students are generally happy with their speaking, & just want focused coaching in one area. Others look at the list of things I help folks with, & say “oh man, I think I need all of those.” Or they leave that assessment to me, & I notice a lot of growth areas. The latter pair are naturally going to require more time/meetings to get to where they want to be.
“I’ve never presented in public before, and I’m looking to become a once-in-a-century rhetorical rockstar.”
How ambitious your goals are
Would you be happy to just curb your worst speaking tendencies, or are you trying to wow audiences with truly outstanding rhetoric? If nerves are your focus, do you just want to be able to get through a presentation without feeling ill, or do you want to flip that fear all the way into an outright love of public speaking? The loftier the goals, the longer the road up to them.
How far away you’re starting from those goals
Are we talking minor tweaks & finishing touches? Or a ground-up overhaul of your whole speaking style, perhaps developing new skills basically out of whole cloth?
Whether you’re doing the homework
This is a biggie! An hour of coaching every week or two isn’t very much, time-wise. So practice outside of session is key, & the correlation between students who get a lot of it in and students who make great progress is extremely high.**
How fast you’re progressing
Could be fast! Could be slow! Or medium! & I’ll adapt the pace in-session accordingly. To quote my very own self from a different article:
As we go through sessions, I adjust how much time we spend on various speaking areas based on how difficult or easy they are for you to improve in. So, if you’re making rapid progress in (say) reducing fillers, then I’ll skim over the rest of my material there and focus on other things. If, on the other hand, inflection is especially tough for you, then I’ll reach further into the grab bag of tips & exercises to give you more tools to tackle it.
Naturally that second scenario will take more time. Which is how it should be! This is ...
E.g., almost no one wants to do my yodeling module for some reason.
2. Why flexibility is crucial
I think that rather uniquely in the public speaking coaching space, I don’t have a set Program or Curriculum that every student goes through. Instead, again, I continuously adapt the content to each student—if it’s relevant to you, we talk about it. If not, we don’t! Which means ...
3. There may be fewer sessions than you think
What with all this Customization & Continuous Adaptation, we can save a lot of time, & therefore dollars! Consider the alternative of a non-tailored speaking class or program: It might contain the info & training you’re looking for, but mixed in with a bunch of other superfluous content. That’s time & money wasted.
Now, despite the student-to-student variation described above, I can confidently forecast that you should see very visible, material improvements in your speaking within 3 - 5 coaching sessions,*** and it’s pretty uncommon for students to still need help past like 7 - 8 of them (if we get that far). At that point, they’ve likely made tons of progress in all the areas we’ve worked on, and they know how to clean up whatever residual imperfections remain, using the tools & knowledge from our meetings. & at that point, I’m happy to graduate them! Because ...
4. I never prolong sessions longer than needed
“Welcome to your 2,500th session, Mr. Williamson! Ready to present about your great-grandkids again?”
When I’m running low on new things to teach you, believe me, I’ll be the first to mention it. Why? Because I’m trying to get you ready to self-coach, not get you stuck on a perpetual coaching hamster wheel. Besides, teaching people material they don’t need or have already heard is no more fun to me than being on the receiving end would be for you. So when I think the student has heard all they need to, and we’re both happy with their degree of improvement, I’ll “graduate” them—which is to say, suggest that unless they want to keep me around for occasional practice, we part ways.
Now, I’m always happy to be a practice/feedback buddy, & many students do stick around for that; or, for random ad hoc help should a(nother) big speaking situation pop up. But in general, graduation means a cordial farewell—and hopefully a satisfied review!
By now, I hope I’ve convinced you that “it depends” is the best possible answer to “how long will this take?” To discover what personalized coaching looks like, book a free consultation with me, where I’ll ask you a bunch of questions that kickstart the customization process.
Thanks for reading!
* Consultants reading this are nodding their approval.
** Now, some people are radically busy & simply don’t have any time to practice. This is understandable, & I can work with it—usually by doing more review & practice in our sessions. This will slow us down some, though.
*** Some fortunate and/or dedicated students totally transform their speaking in like two sessions & are done, just like that! But not very many, so don’t get your hopes too far up.
