Why Coaching via WhatsApp Might Be the Most Honest Conversation You Ever Have

There is a moment that most people who have ever been on a coaching call will recognise. You are on Zoom, camera on, trying to articulate something that feels complicated and half-formed, and you are simultaneously aware of your own face in the corner of the screen, the slight delay on the connection, and the fact that you have approximately 45 minutes to cover everything before you need to end the call and someone else is being coached.

It is not exactly the conditions under which people do their best thinking.

Coaching has traditionally lived in that format and hell that’s how my one to one coaching offer works. The scheduled call, the structured agenda, the block of time carved out of a busy week. And for most of my one to one clients, that works. But for plenty of others, it creates a performance dynamic that gets in the way of the very thing coaching is supposed to do: help you think clearly, say the thing you have been avoiding, and figure out what to do next.

Message-based coaching flips that entirely. You might also hear it called asynchronous coaching or self paced coaching, which simply means the conversation does not happen in real time. You send a message or a voice note when something comes up. Your coach responds when they are available. No diary slot, no simultaneous presence required, no camera. And more coaches and mentors than you might realise are now delivering their work this way.  You might hear it called a Day or Month of Voxer – where you get coached for a specific period of time.

So how does it actually work?

Tools like Voxer have been popular in coaching circles for a while, particularly in the US market. It is a walkie-talkie style app that allows voice messages to be sent and received like a conversation, but without the pressure of a live call. I have never gotten on well with Voxer – because you need a good wifi signal. It also reminds me of military communication radio’s…

Google Chat, Slack, and various other platforms have also been used in similar ways.  I was using Practice with my one to one clients for this service but the CRM closed in 2025 and so have moved to WhatsApp.

But increasingly, coaches and mentors are simply using WhatsApp – myself included. Not because it is a sophisticated coaching platform, but because it is the one app almost everyone already has open on their phone, every single day, without having to think about it. There is no logging in, no separate account, no friction between the thought and the conversation. You think of something, you send it.  I also love that there is a desktop app – so actually I can type my response on a proper keyboard.

The camera-off effect

Here is something that does not get talked about enough. Being visible changes what people say.

When you are on a call, you are managing more than just the conversation. You are managing how you come across. You are watching your own expression. You are aware of whether you look like someone who has their business together, or someone who is genuinely struggling. For many people, particularly those who are used to presenting a capable, professional front, that visibility creates a subtle but real barrier to honesty.  Some clients worry about being vulnerable on camera.

The question that feels too basic to ask out loud. The situation that feels embarrassing to admit. The decision you have been avoiding because saying it to another person makes it real. These are often the things that most need to come out in a coaching conversation, and they are also the things that a live call can inadvertently suppress.

Voice note or texted note coaching removes a significant amount of that pressure. You are not being watched. You are not performing competence in real time. You can record a voice note, say the messy, complicated, honest version of what is going on, and send it before you have time to edit yourself into a tidier version.

That is not a workaround. That is genuinely useful.

The thinking time advantage

There is another benefit that is easy to overlook. When your coach responds in their own time, you get time to sit with what they have said before you reply.

On a live call, the pace of conversation means you are often responding before you have fully processed the question or the observation. You give the first answer that comes to mind, which is not always the most honest or useful one. The conversation moves on. The insight that might have landed if you had had five minutes to think about it gets skipped over.

With on-demand coaching, you can listen to a voice note three times if you need to. You can go for a walk and think about it. You can come back to it the following morning when something has settled. That reflection time is not dead time. It is often where the real work happens.

Text or voice: using what fits the moment

One of the practical strengths of this format is the flexibility between text and voice. Neither is better. They serve different purposes, and being able to move between them depending on what you need is quietly powerful.

Voice notes work well when the situation is complicated, emotional, or difficult to summarise. When you need to talk something through rather than write it out. When you are in the car between appointments and something has just happened with a client that you want to get out of your head and into a conversation. The act of speaking it often brings clarity that typing does not.

Text works well for specific, concrete questions. Sharing a document or a piece of copy for a second opinion. Asking a direct question that has a direct answer. Checking in on a decision you have already largely made but want a sense-check on.

Being able to use both, in the same channel, without switching platforms or changing the format of the relationship, is one of the reasons drop-in coaching like this works so well in practice.

It fits around an actual working life

This is not a small thing. Most people accessing coaching are doing so alongside running a business, managing clients, and getting on with a life that does not pause for a scheduled call.  I find a number of my clients use it while driving the school run – as they are in the car and think “ooh, I need to ask about Amanda about…”

Flexible coaching like this does not ask you to find a recurring slot in a diary that is already full. It does not require you to be camera-ready at 10am on a Thursday. It does not mean saving everything up for one conversation a fortnight and hoping you can remember the context by the time you get there.

It means that when the tricky client situation lands on a Tuesday afternoon, you can get input on it on Tuesday afternoon. When the pricing question surfaces at 7am before your day starts, you can ask it at 7am. The support is there when the need is there, not two weeks later when the moment has passed and you have already muddled through on your own.

Who is this for?

If you are a current one-to-one coaching client, Back Pocket Coaching is already part of what you have access to. But this offer exists completely on its own terms too.

You do not need to have worked with me before. You do not need to be enrolled in any of my programmes or courses. You can come to this completely fresh, with no prior relationship with the VA Training Academy, and it works just as well. Equally, if you are already inside one of my programmes and want an additional layer of direct, personal support alongside it, you can add this on as a bolt-on without any complicated joining process.

What I have found is that some of the best use of this kind of support comes from people who simply need somewhere safe to ask the stuff they are not sure they should be asking. The question that feels too small for a proper coaching programme. The situation they do not want to put in a Facebook group. The decision that has been sitting in the back of their mind for weeks because there has been no obvious place to take it. That is exactly what this is for. No judgement, no agenda, just honest input when you need it.

Is it right for everyone?

No coaching method suits everyone, and this format is no different.

If you process best in live conversation, if you need the energy of a real-time back-and-forth to think clearly, or if your situation requires deep, sustained focus over several hours, then a different format may serve you better.

But if you are someone who thinks well in writing or in voice, who finds camera calls more draining than useful, who wants support that meets you where you are rather than requiring you to show up on someone else’s schedule, then coaching in your pocket is worth serious consideration.

The best coaching conversation is not necessarily the most polished one. It is the most honest one. And sometimes the conditions that produce the most honest conversation are a private WhatsApp channel, a voice note recorded between one thing and the next, and the knowledge that no one is watching your face while you figure it out.

If you have been nodding along reading this and thinking “that is exactly what I need,” then stop putting it off. Back Pocket Coaching is £150 a month, no long-term contract, and you can get started today. Find out more by clicking here.