Blog

What digital coaching is for, and what it is not

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“Digital coaching” can mean a lot of things. Here is what I mean by it.

What digital coaching is for

Helping a marketing manager who is technically good but new in the role. They know the tools. They do not yet have the judgement that comes from running a few cycles. Coaching shortens that cycle. They get to the right decisions faster than they would alone.

Pressure-testing decisions before they get expensive. The internal team has narrowed it down to two options. They want a credible outsider to argue for and against each option. Sometimes I confirm what they had decided. Sometimes I push back. Either way, the decision is better.

Catching mistakes that the team cannot see because they are too close. Marketing strategies tend to drift toward what is comfortable. The agency you have used for years. The channel that performed well two years ago. An outsider asks “why are we still doing this” and the answer is sometimes “we are not sure”.

Translating between functions. The marketing team thinks the developers are slow. The developers think the marketing requests are unclear. A coach who has been on both sides can move conversations forward.

What digital coaching is not for

Doing the work. If you need someone to write the campaign, run the ad spend, build the dashboards, you need an agency or a hire. A coach does not replace doing the work.

Building consensus. Coaching is not group therapy. If the team is fundamentally misaligned about goals, that is a leadership problem to resolve. Coaching can support the conversation. It cannot replace it.

Doing strategy from scratch. A coach is most useful when you have a strategy and need help executing it well. If you do not have a strategy at all, you need a different kind of engagement.

The honest version: digital coaching is a service for teams that are mostly good and want help being better at the specific things they are working on this quarter.

If that is your team, we should talk.

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