Her former client's last note is short and kind, and it comes the evening after their final session.
"Thank you for all of it. One more thing, if you don't mind: could you delete whatever you wrote down about me?"
Ilse writes back that she will. Then she sits on the sofa and tries to work out where "whatever you wrote down" actually is.
There's a notebook in her bag with the first three sessions in it. There are voice memos she recorded to herself in the car park afterwards. There's a notes app that, she now remembers, syncs to the family tablet. There's an email thread with the agreement attached, a photo of a whiteboard from session two, and a chat that holds the bookings, two reschedules and one long message about the client's mother.
And there's the spreadsheet she started for her ICF log, with the client's name, number, dates and hours in it. That row, she suspects, isn't something to delete without a word.
Ilse is a composite, eight months into a one-person practice. In our experience, almost nothing on that list is unusual for a coach in year one.
What does a one-person coaching practice need from day one?
Five jobs done the same way every time: a way for clients to book, a signed agreement, session notes kept in one place, a log of coaching hours in the form ICF asks for, and a rule for how long client information is kept and when it's deleted. Any tool that does those jobs reliably is enough to start.
Notice what isn't on the list: a members' area, an automated email sequence, a platform with twelve features you'll use two of. Those may come later, or never. The five jobs can't wait, because the first client who asks "where are my notes?" is asking about the past.
Do you need a CRM for a coaching business?
A CRM, customer relationship management software, keeps contacts, conversations and dates in one place. For a practice with three clients it's one way to do the five jobs, and not the only one. In our experience, a coach in year one does better with a few plain tools used every time than with a powerful one opened twice a month.
Here's what each job asks of whatever you choose.
Booking. Clients should be able to see when you're free and choose a time without six messages. Keep bookings and reschedules apart from the thread where a client tells you about their week, so the logistics don't bury the conversation. The conversation before any booking gets a guide of its own: the coaching discovery call.
The agreement. One signed copy per client, stored where you can find it in under a minute, with the date it was agreed and any changes since. What goes into it is covered in our coaching agreement template.
Session notes. One place, one format, the same few headings every time. Notes spread across a notebook, a car park and a family tablet can't be kept private, and they can't be deleted properly when someone asks.
The ICF log. A separate record from your notes, holding only what ICF asks for. Our guide to the ICF coaching log explains what counts as an hour.
Client information. Name, contact details and anything else you hold, each with a rule for when it goes.
Whether those five live in one paid system or in a calendar, a private folder and a spreadsheet matters far less than whether you use them after every session. We don't recommend any product.
Wondering whether RSCI suits the practice you're picturing? One of our RS Method Master Coaches offers a free conversation on Zoom, set at "Approximately 20 to 40 minutes" on the apply page. Request a slot. Or read on.
What should you record, and what should you let go?
Two kinds of record, kept apart, for different reasons.
The first is the log line. ICF's experience requirements page (coachingfederation.org, checked on 27 October 2026) lists what to log for each individual client: the client's name, the contact information you use to reach them, "The start and end date of the coaching relationship" and "The number of paid and pro bono hours that you coached the client". No session content belongs there. In its section on audits, the same page asks coaches to "Ensure you have obtained consent from clients to store their information securely."
The second is everything else: session notes, voice memos, the long message about a mother. These exist to help you coach. Once the coaching ends, keep them only as long as you've told the client you will.
ICF's Code of Ethics puts the duty in a single standard. Standard 2.4 asks coaches to "Maintain, store, and dispose of any records, including electronic files and communications, in a manner that promotes confidentiality, security, and privacy". Look at the third verb. Deleting well is part of the work. This guide is general, and it isn't legal advice.
So when Ilse's client asks her to delete what she wrote, the clean answer comes in two parts. The notes go, from every place they live, and she says when they're gone. The log line is different: it's what she'd need to verify her hours if ICF audits her application, so she explains what it holds and asks whether the client is comfortable with it staying. Better still, she'd have said both things at the start, in the agreement, so that the request at the end is a confirmation rather than a surprise.
Why do new coaches put off the systems?
In our experience, rarely for lack of time. Ilse has the time. What she hasn't had is any wish to open a setup screen.
For nine years before Dubai, she worked on the IT service desk of a bank in Frankfurt. Her days ran on a queue: a screen of rows, each one a person somewhere waiting for her, the overdue ones in red. She left to work with people rather than tickets, and she arrived with two suitcases and a box of books.
Something else made the trip. When she opens a booking tool, or a blank spreadsheet with headed columns, a heavy drop starts low in her stomach, the one the red rows used to start, and within a minute she has closed the tab and decided that a coach who keeps things personal doesn't need systems. The notes app, the car park and the chat are what that decision looks like eight months on.
That drop in the stomach can go, in her, at the root. Once it's gone, a screen of rows stops meaning a queue. The same screen can hold three people she enjoys working with, their next sessions, and one line each for ICF, and she can spend twenty minutes on it on a Sunday afternoon and get up when she's finished.
Small as it looks, this is exactly the kind of thing our trainees meet in themselves before anyone else, because at RSCI the trainee's own reactions are the first material we work with: the practitioner is transformed before the practitioner is trained.
If you recognise the closed tab, bring it up while you're still comparing trainings. You can raise it with one of our RS Method Master Coaches on a free Zoom call, where the question on the table is whether RSCI is the right place for you to train. Pick a date.
How do you set up the basics in one afternoon?
Set aside one afternoon before your next new client. Work through these in order, and stop when they're done, not when they're perfect.
- Find everything. List every place client information lives now: notebooks, phone notes, voice memos, chats, email, photos, cloud folders, shared devices. Write the list down.
- Choose one home for notes. One location, on a device only you use, behind a password. Move or transcribe what's scattered, then delete the scattered copies.
- Make a notes template. Four headings are enough: date and length, what the client brought, what was agreed for next time, and anything you've promised to send. Keep labels and diagnoses out of it.
- Separate the log. A table with only the fields ICF lists, one row per client. Nothing from a session goes in it.
- Set up booking. One link, or one message template, that shows your available times, so scheduling stays out of your coaching conversations.
- File the agreements. One signed agreement per client, in one folder, named the same way every time, with the date.
- Write your keeping rule. One paragraph: what you keep, where, for how long after the coaching ends, and what you delete and when. Put it in your agreement so every new client reads it before the first session.
- Put a monthly date in the calendar. Fifteen minutes to check that notes, log and folder agree, and to delete whatever your rule says should go.
Then answer any deletion request you've been sitting on, and say plainly what's gone and what stays.
Which parts of a practice belong in coach training?
Three things, with the session at the centre. Here's how each one looks at RSCI.
- How a practice runs, as well as how a session runs. Among what RS Method Coach includes, our training page lists "Client-session structure and professional practice" and "Guidance for building your coaching practice".
- The avoidances, met in training. The pulls that make you avoid a setup screen, rush a client or say too much in a report are met in you first, with your cohort and a supervisor, before they reach a client.
- A clear ICF route. Level 1 education comes inside RS Method Coach and points toward the ACC. Level 2 comes inside RS Method Complete, on the route to the ACC or, once you meet ICF's PCC requirements, the PCC.
RS Method Coach costs AED 18,000 with ICF education included, and RS Method Complete costs AED 35,000 with ICF education included. The ICF-accredited education inside our programmes is designed, delivered and certified by the Institute of Coaching and Mentoring (IICM), an ICF-accredited organisation. The ACC and PCC credentials are awarded only by the ICF.
The coaching itself happens in the room, which is where our razor applies. To witness. To hold. To walk them home.
One line from Erin Kurt, on her own business: "My business literally tripled within 6 months."
For the full list of what's in each programme, and the fees, see our life coach training page.
Robert Simic, training the next generation.
P.S. If your client notes live in more than one app tonight, that's common in year one. When you're ready to compare the programmes, start with our life coach training page.