Paying for a coach or a mentor
Paid coaching or mentoring provides dedicated time and professional support for career or business challenges. Choosing support involves clarifying the help needed, the working relationship and the practitioner’s approach.
Purpose and scope
Working with a writing coach can be worth considering when a writer wants to jump-start a career. For one medical and children’s writer, coaching identified where she was selling herself short and clarified her priorities and the next steps towards her goals.
Questions to explore before working with a coach include the following.
- How can a writer decide whether working with a coach would be beneficial?
- What sorts of goals or skills are addressed with a client?
- What lies outside the client–coach relationship?
- What are the mechanics of a coaching relationship?
Dedicated time and shared experience
A freelancer struggling with an issue often needs two things.
- Time to focus on the issue and find potential solutions.
- A sounding board to discuss ideas.
Paying for support dedicates time to the issue and encourages the freelancer to take that commitment to themselves and their business more seriously than when trying to solve it alone. The reserved time and professional support help ensure the freelancer attends and works on the issue; once the session starts, other commitments can fade into the background, making progress on specific challenges more likely. Talking with someone who has faced similar challenges or supported others through them also provides pooled experience rather than requiring the freelancer to find a way through every setback alone.
Coaching and mentoring
A coach has more general training to support reflection and help the client find their own way through a challenge. The roles overlap, with mentors using coaching techniques and coaches using elements of mentoring.
A coach may help when a client knows something is not working but cannot define the challenge precisely, by helping them understand themselves, define what they want and identify how to move towards it. Coaching can also address challenges beyond medical communications, including burnout, motivation, productivity, work-life balance and broader mindset or business issues.
A mentor usually has direct experience relevant to the client’s challenges and uses it to support skills development, explore possible directions and identify tools for overcoming difficulties. A paid medical-communications mentoring practice explores possibilities with clients, assesses their fit and develops practical steps against a realistic timeframe.
Challenges addressed in that practice include the following groups.
| Group | Challenges |
|---|---|
| Skills gaps | Approaching a particular project type; handling multiple freelance clients |
| Confidence gaps | Approaching potential clients outside existing contacts; discussing contracts or finances with clients |
| Career crossroads | Designing and implementing a sustainable freelance strategy suited to personal values and requirements; finding permanent employment that would suit the client better than freelancing |
Choosing paid support
In 2023, coaching and mentoring were an unregulated industry, with most professionals outlining their credentials, ethos and approach on their websites. Many offer a free consultation to discuss their methodology and get to know each other before a decision; these resources can help establish a personal fit before signing up for paid sessions. Paying for mentoring is not essential.