Need some career advice? Perhaps "visiting" an e-coach from your desk could work.
Along-distance relationship changed Jason Herbert's life but it had nothing to do with love and romance. The relationship was with his business coach, Shaun O'Gorman, from Brisbane-based Live It Up Personal Development. The chief executive of a successful catering business, Herbert, 40, lives and works in Canberra.
Virtual or e-coaching, as it is sometimes known, has grown exponentially in the past five years as communication technology such as Skype and Apple's FaceTime have gained popularity and joined the mobile phone and internet to further shrink the globe.
O'Gorman provides guidance to Herbert in matters of life and work via weekly telephone appointments, Skype and email. They meet face-to-face just twice a year and that's how Herbert likes it.
He was going through a marriage separation and was battling self-doubt when he engaged O'Gorman to help him work out how to continue growing a profitable business and be a full-time father to his two young sons when they stayed with him every second week.
"I wanted a bit of distance from whoever I was talking to," Herbert says. "Because it was on a very personal level I didn't want someone I was going to run into down the street."
O'Gorman helped him focus on what he wanted and worked with him on strategies to make those things reality. Since beginning the program, Herbert has regained his confidence, successfully acquired another business, taken his first holiday in 10 years and even met a new partner.
The fact he and O'Gorman rarely meet has been irrelevant.
"I think seeing someone in person is no more beneficial than talking to someone on the phone. For me, it's what you do with the information," Herbert says.
A director of the Institute of Executive Coaching, Chip McFarlane, defines coaching as "growing adults" using adult learning principles. "My job as a coach is really to help create an environment and ask questions for someone to recognise their own greatness," he says.
He works with CEOs and senior executives throughout Australia, the US, Japan and China from his base in Sydney and says technology such as Skype, videoconferencing and instant messaging offer another means of connecting.
"Because [my clients] don't interact with me face to face that often, it's been crucial as a way to maintain and strengthen the relationship," he says.
"When we begin blending different elements together to make it more personable, it adds to the level of touch."
Electronic communication enables McFarlane to continue working with clients as they progress through their careers even if they relocate; however, he stresses that e-coaching is not a type of coaching, just a way of delivering the coaching relationship. It is the relationship that's paramount.
"It's about the coach and the coaching counterpart; that's the centre of everything," he says.
The director of strategic learning and teaching innovation at Charles Sturt University, Professor Philip Uys, agrees that learning success depends on the people involved, not the way the teaching is delivered.
"A bad teacher with a good set of tools is still going to be a bad teacher," he says.
He says the great advantage of cyber communication is that learning is more accessible, flexible and convenient than ever before. Skyping your coach using an iPad on the bus is no longer the stuff of futuristic fantasy.
For 30-something Dilek Saticieli, however, a telephone is sufficient. She owns a beauty and wellness centre, Radiance, in Sydney's inner west and was having trouble juggling business with caring for her three-year-old son.
A few months ago she employed the virtual business coach Graham King, of Rexov Professional Development, to help her strike a balance and achieve her goals.
"I knew what I had to do but I was overwhelmed with which steps to take next," she says.
All of Saticieli's weekly meetings with King are conducted by phone. He then emails her worksheets that she must complete and return ready for discussion at their next appointment. For Saticieli, e-coaching was easier to fit into her schedule and more affordable than traditional business coaching. King charges as little as $25 for a 15-minute session.
Each week they cover a different facet of her business from structure and products to finances and marketing. He helps her prioritise the necessary steps and holds her accountable to taking them.
"When you have your own business you don't really have anyone giving you deadlines on anything ... you could just chug along without anything changing," she says.
King helped her stay on track.
"An outside person can look at your business in an objective way," she says. "No matter how good you are at what you do, if you're too emotionally invested in the outcome, it's really hard to make the right decisions. That's when a coach can really help you."