What’s on your “to do” list? A day in the life of your Coaching Business

“We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but we will also be truly effective only when we begin with the end in mind.” Stephen Covey

I sent the following out in Monday’s Business Building Practice Email:

Successful Coaches understand that their activities must have a track-able return on investment.

Take a look at the activities you have on tomorrow’s to do list. If you continue to do those activities, will they bring you closer to a full practice and a living income?

An even better practice is to make a list of desired outcomes and ask yourself, what activities will take me towards this goal?

You list might look like this:

• To be known as an expert coach in my field (corporate, small business, business, parenting, health, fitness, etc)
• To build a large list of loyal followers & subscribers
• To build a full practice of two clients a day 4 days a week.
• One quarterly teleclass series with 20 students.
• Create one new digital product per quarter from the teleclass recordings & transcripts.

What will you do tomorrow that will take you towards any of these goals? Work from the end result backwards to today’s task.

If we take just the first thing on the list, what are the daily activities that you could do to be known as an expert in your field? First you must know the following:

1. What is the problem or problem set that you solve? or what is the quality of life that you inspire?
2. Who, specifically, needs this solution or quality of life?
3. How do you solve the problem? How do you provide the solution? How to you help the client improve the quality of their life?
4. Where can you showcase your solution in as many forms as possible to be seen by the person that needs – desires the solution and or the improved quality of life?

To establish yourself as “the expert” in your field, your daily activities should comprise of exposing your solution to those individuals that are actively looking to solve a problem. You should be providing the information so that the active seekers can find them any time of the day or night – at their convenience.

A comprehensive Internet Marketing strategy allows for a comprehensive approach to connect with the people that are actively looking for a solution that you offer.

• Blog posting
• Blog commenting
• Article publishing
• Internet radio – host & guest
• Video
• Teleseminars / Webinars
• Social Networking
• Social Publicity

Each of the tools listed above gives you the opportunity to demonstrate the solutions and be found by active seekers. Each time you post to your blog or publish an article you demonstrate the solution or a piece of the solution – and if properly crafted the words themselves act as tiny magnets to draw the seekers to your message (this is the purpose of SEO).

This week as you prepare your calendar of activities -whether or not you have clients, you must decide how much of your day will be invested in creating or continuing your expert reputation. Not all of your content creation needs to be done daily – some of it can be done once and spread out over several days. Other pieces can be repurposed – for example – turn session recordings into blog posts or articles, which allows you to have time for coaching or leading groups while your content is doing the work for you.

What’s on your to-do list? How is it moving you towards your business building goals?

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“When words fail music speaks.” -Hans Christian Anderson

Marketing is like singing your song (your coaching message) and your ideal prospect senses that your song resonates and joins in to form a harmonious relationship where the prospect becomes a happy client and benefits, and you get paid for the value you bring to the relationship. The following is not a perfect analogy, but I am hoping you will help me by adding to the comparison of music and marketing.

1. If you don’t define your market niche you’re marketing will be like an out of tune instrument with random sounds that don’t resonate pure sound with anything – your marketing becomes “noise” in the marketplace.
2. The better you have defined your ideal prospect and you begin to tell your story, or in this case “sing your song” your voice is pure clear sound and your ideal prospect joins in. Your coaching message and the clients need harmonize, just like using a tuning fork for the starting key of a song or to tune an instrument.
3. Your marketing should, just like the turning fork, harmonize with whoever is “in key” with your song. Prospects that read your marketing material and move on are not in harmony with your message.

If we look at marketing as music it seems to me that it would just be easier to think of it as music that harmonizes well or not, or, different genre’s of music that appeals to different listeners.

So if you’re a coach that hates marketing, maybe you’re not tuned in to a genre of marketing that makes you and your ideal prospects heart sing.

I would love to hear your thoughts about this. Please leave me a comment.

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Get More Business Show – Shut up about the economy at work!

Today’s guest, Rajesh Setty, author of Upbeat: Cultivating the Right Attitude to Thrive in Tough Times, tells his employees not to talk about the news at work. It’s not productive and doesn’t help them move forward in their business.

As a coach you will appreciate Raj’s approach to the nine environments of You to create a consistently UpBeat attitude and business approach. Raj has been asking himself and his peers, colleagues and employees the right questions for quite a few years – you can see the benefits in his business and life. This has EVERYTHING to do with Getting More Business.

Join me on today’s call – Get More Business Show

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Coaching & Business or Coaching as a Business

In order for your practice of coaching to be profitable you must operate it like a business, otherwise it’s just an avocation or a hobby.

av-o-ca-tion – n. An activity taken up in addition to one’s regular work or profession, usually for enjoyment; a hobby.

A business is profitable when operated with certain best practices. Yet many coaches who have trained and certified as coaches don’t make the time or the investment to learn profitable business practices. Many coaches actually avoid the very practices that would bring them the profit they are seeking.

Milana Leshinsky,  of Coaching Millions, in her New Coaching Manifesto talks about the 91% of coaches who are failing miserably as business owners because they spend way too much time trying to define or defend the profession of coaching rather than focusing on creating value and problem solving for a culture of people that really need a coach – but don’t yet understand the true value of coaching.

Here are the problems as I see it:

Unsuccessful coaches…

1. think “coaching” is their niche
2. do not have a message that clearly communicates value or solution to a particular prospect
3. avoid marketing like it is something painful
4. have no clear path for the prospect to become a paying customer
5. do not ask for the business
6. wait for clients to find them
7. have only one product – either one on one coaching or group coaching

Think about other businesses or professions.

Would you go to a restaurant that had a sign in the window that said, “We serve food”?

How about if you saw a business open in your community that had no sign, no way at all of knowing what the business had to offer – just a commercial building with the doors open? Would you go there to do business?

What about a business with an open sign but when you went inside, no one was there?

What are some of the practices of other professions, ones that you do business with?

Successful businesses have an easily identified product or service with an ideal client or customer in mind. A way to get their attention and offer their product or service for an exchange of money.

Let’s consider the example of the restaurant – no one is offended if the owner announces, even advertises that it serves only Mexican food. People that don’t like Mexican food can choose another restaurant. No one is offended when they receive advertisements about the restaurant or when a commercial comes on during their favorite evening show on television.

Yet, many coaches are struggling because “they serve coaching” (so what?!), and they don’t actually want to market their business – in fact they don’t know who they are solving a problem for and how to let anyone at all know that they solve a problem.

So what am I saying?

To be successful as a coach you must implement sound business practices. You must

• know who your ideal prospect is
• have a clear message of what problem you solve  or value you create
• a unique method for creating the solution
• have systems for attracting and communicating with your ideal prospect
• ask for the business
• have multiple entry levels for the client to do business with you and experience your method and solution

If coaching is something you feel passionate about, something you love to do – but unless you implement good business practices, it will be impossible to make a decent living, nor will it fund the life of your dreams.

Is coaching your business? What will you do about it?

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The Measure of Success for a Coaching Business

I just got off the phone with a high paid corporate growth consultant who used to be a coach. She asked, “How is the coaching industry these days?” Commenting that the only coaches she ever knew of that made money were those that work as corporate coaches or that coach other coaches; and the reason she moved to consulting in the corporate world and away from coaching was because she felt she could more successfully serve that market because they measured success by results – she could sell her services more effectively by making a promise of a set of outcomes.

This ought to be true of coaches on other topics.

The measure of your success is increasing the number of times you can effectively deliver on a very specific promise to a market that realizes they want what you deliver.

Did you get that? Let me say that another way.

• You must make a promise
• To a specific group of people that realize they need what you deliver and are willing to pay you to deliver.
• Get really good at creating that intersection – Promise to need in exchange for payment.
• Duplicate that many times in a variety of different packages (info products, groups, one on one coaching) and different price points – and then you will have the formula for success in your Coaching Business.

I would like to hear from the successful ($100,000 annual plus) coaches who are NOT

• a corporate coach
• a coach who coaches coaches

I would love it if you would leave a comment. Next season of Get More Business Show will feature some of these successful coaches to discover what practices helped to develop a successful coaching business.

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The “M” Word – what’s up with that?

I have become increasingly aware that there a many coaches that hate the “m” word. You know

I don’t get it – well I sort of get it because I used to feel the same way. What I have learned is that nothing significant will happen for your business without continuous marketing.

The problem is that many people think of marketing as “hype”, which is defined as exaggerated or extravagant claims made especially in advertising or promotional material, or something deliberately misleading: a deception.

The truth is that not all marketing is hype (exaggerated, extravagant claims, or deception). Let me share a fresh “coach friendly perspective” about marketing.

Your marketing messages should

• demonstrate the clarity you have as a coach for them & their needs. This helps to build trust. People tend to trust people that identify with them.
• engage your ideal client in their emotions around that clearly defined need. Every buying decision starts with emotions and is supported by logic or facts.
• get your ideal client to imagine themselves within your solution and enjoying the benefits. The value of your solution must exceed the prospects need to hold on to their wealth. Your ideal client will part with their wealth (money)  if they will increase their wealth (value in some other area of their life)  in another form by acquiring your product or service.
• guide your ideal prospect to take action

If you do the above well you will create “harmonic resonance” which will provide a buying environment for your ideal prospect to become a client now or at some time in the future.

You are doing your prospects a disservice by not taking the time to understand what they need to create a buying environment for them to choose you to provide a solution.

Somebody needs what you offer – it’s up to you to discover how they want to buy it and help them make the match.

Consider this – you can have two different coaches with similar sales pages for a program that both make similar claims – for the one coach, every word could be an exaggerated lie – that is hype. For the other coach every single word, and emotionally engaging sentence can be 100% true – that is marketing – creating a buying environment – helping your prospect get “in state” with their problem and your solution so that they are motivated to make a choice.

The conflict in marketing is when something is out of harmony on some level. The disharmony could come from exaggerated claims or not enough proof such as testimonials in the copy – or the disharmony could be the simple discomfort of the client’s inability to take action because of lack of funds. There are times that the prospect can see how parting with their money to acquire the product or service would be a good thing but does not have access to the funds required and does not know how to find the money to invest in the product or service – so it is easier to call the marketing “hype” because it is out of reach.

Would love to hear what you think about this. Do you agree or not? If not, why.

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Can you pick out your ideal client in a crowded room?

People cannot describe what they want. How will they ever recognize it when it turns up? ~ Thomas Leonard, founder of Coachville, from A Course about People.

Your ideal client may not have a clear vision of what will bring them satisfaction.

We leave it up to whoever our ideal prospect is to have a crystal clear picture of who they’re looking for so that hopefully they can identify that we are the answer to their problem or the inspiration for their passion – when in reality most of our ideal prospects cannot identify their solution – they in the process of developing an awareness of their problem, challenge or the need to make a move, follow their passion or eliminate tolerations. The fact that your ideal prospects focus is on themselves and their desire or need is a good indication that they may  not be aware of the solution that their looking for – or at least they may not be aware of the many options there are to achieve satisfaction.

A Coach with a clear understanding of their ideal client, the clients yearnings & how to satisfy the yearnings will get hired first over a coach with a resume’s and certificates – every time.

Many coaches do not have a clear description of who their ideal client is and specifically what solution and skill set to practice to acheive transformation.

The newbie coach

• starts with non-descript wisdom and life experiences that can have multiple applications.
• approach their market with “I know this…experienced in that…and can coach around the following topics based on life experiences.”
• expect the prospect to make the correlation between the prospect’s own need and the coaches experience & education to make a hiring decision.

An unclear prospect with a need will rarely if ever match up with an unclear or “under clear” coach no matter how highly educated or experienced.

If this describes you and your coaching business it is ridiculous to expect your prospect to choose and hire you for your credentials. I am not knocking credentials or certification – but you cannot expect your prospect to discover their solution or inspiration in your credentials.

Did your mother ever tell you that “Two wrongs never make a right”; well let me say that two confused or unclear individuals never produce clarity. The impetus is on the coach, not the prospect to define the clarified solution to initiate the coach/client relationship.

The image to the left is a crystal clear vision of the reader of Latina Magazine. Not only does the magazine understand who their readers are but this beautiful image is a tool provided to advertisers to help them

• decide if this magazine provides the connections for future transactions
• create marketing campaign that match the readers of the magazine.

Your coaching message must be designed with a similar approach.

Can you pick your ideal prospect out of your social networking friends, followers & fans?

The more exclusively specific you are in identifying your ideal client – the more clients you will have, or the more fewer select clients will be willing to pay you

The more broad and inclusive you are in identifying your ideal client – the fewer clients you will have at any price.

Once you see your path clearly, the whole universe will support your efforts. ~ Greg Mooers, Founder of LifeCAMP.com

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September 23, 2009 Final 100 Day Challenge 2009 – Will you join me?

We all began this year at GO, and all roads lead to a final rendezvous; the difference is what we’ve done en route. Goals set, actions taken, and results realized determine if you get to call this year a success or not.

September 23rd is an important date as it marks the 100 day countdown of 2009.

With that in mind, I have put together a number of questions for you to consider as you progress toward the finish line and call this year a wrap:

1. What specific results have you achieved so far this year?
2. Are you healthier, wealthier, and wiser?
3. Are you winning, losing or just holding ground?
4. What results are you committed to achieve by the end of the year?
5. How have you grown and what have you learned this year?
6. Is there any unfinished business that needs to be tended to in your life?
7. Are you actively pursuing what’s most important on a daily basis?
8. What habits do you need to change to ensure better results?
9. What is the key issue that inhibits your ability to perform at your best?

You must live to answer and honor these questions, because when it comes to the last 100 days of the year, every day and everything you do counts.

With that in mind, I wanted to share with you an exciting opportunity to finish the year strong—it’s called the 100 Day Finish Strong Challenge!

Learn more here.

One thing we all have in common is that we all love a challenge. For some it could be a goal that puts you to the test, an obstacle that says you can’t beat me, a belief system that is begging for a breakthrough, or even a mountain that just dares you to climb it.

Whatever it is, you’re attitude should be BRING IT ON, as there’s nothing quite like a good old fashioned challenge to see what you’re made, to push the boundaries and tests your limits as it is ONLY when we overcome these trials that we get to reap the sweetest rewards.

Gary Ryan Blair, otherwise know as The Goals Guy has put together what I believe to be the most comprehensive approach to goal setting and performance enhancement.

The 100 Day Finish Strong Challenge is a structured 14-week performance improvement program where challengers compete against themselves to achieve a number of challenging goals and finish the year strong.

You and other competitors from around the world will be provided with a performance plan, a disciplined implementation process, daily measurement systems, and a very unique accountability tool along with specific tactics and strategies to attain your goals.

Free Special Report

Gary is offering a powerful special report for free which is titled: How to Create Your Own Big Bang!

Get your free special report here.

This report in my opinion is worth its weight in gold as it shows you how to create monumental performance gains. I encourage you to get your copy right now.

So what are you waiting for? The clock is ticking and if you want to seriously improve your life and corresponding results, I encourage you to check out the 100 Day Finish Strong Challenge today as it will be one of the smartest decisions you’ll make all year.

I wish you a great home stretch during these last 100 days and encourage you to dream big dreams and take the necessary actions to make them reality.

Is this YOUR time to SHINE?

We will be doing the 100 Day Challenge on Coaches Community – you are welcome to join us there to participate with other like-minded coaches.

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Preparing for a New Season. I’m Getting Ready, Are You?

Clarity is powerfully attractive; being clear on who you desire to work with will help you attract them.

I am launching the planning phase of my year which precedes the kick off of my 4th Season of the Get More Season Show.

I’ve always secretly wanted to be Oprah when I grew up. I was inspired by watching the kick off of her 24th Season this year for the preparation of my own show. After more than something like 125 episodes of the Get More Business Show I am inspired to take this platform to a whole new level.

I was inspired by the following thoughts / ideas:

• Oprah has developed a passionately engaged market because she realized that she had a powerful platform to inspire, educate and influence.
• Oprah knows and understands her market and gives them more of what they want – which includes guidance & inspiration
• Lots of planning & proactive effort goes into investing into developing & protecting that powerful influence – everything is intentional.

After spending a good portion of this year listening to coaches, participating on forums, I am tuning into themes of desire of what coaches want for their business. This combined with the fact that the Get More Business Show is one of my best sources for attracting my ideal client, which helps to inspire the delight that builds in me every week when I do my show has inspired me to give the Get More Business Show more of a central focus for my business.

Starting with the last two thoughts of inspiration that I distilled from my observation Oprah’s Influence – that is I am in the discovery and knowing of my own market which are Coaches, Speakers & Authors, and I can build on that by planning & proactive effort in developing an influential persona & image for the Get More Business Show.

At this stage I am preparing a full year of inspiration & educational resources that specifically focus on Getting More Business for Coaches Speakers & Authors – with each month providing in depth information on a specific facet of business building. The goal I am going for is to create a show that helps to connect all the dots of the many different tools available on the Internet and how to use each in a cohesive strategy while watching your reach to your ideal prospect grow.

Watch for more information on this exiting new season. I am going to be looking for new guests, inviting sponsors to participate and increasing my virtual team.

What is on your drawing board?

Do you have a “planning season” for delivering your message to your ideal prospect in exciting & an engaging manner?

Talk to me. I’d love to hear what you’re up to.

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Energize Growth Now: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company

Implementation, not ideation, is the essence of entrepreneurship – Guy Kawasaki, Forward to Energize Growth Now: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company.

Business is not built on ideas alone. In fact, many of us could be millionaires many times over just on our ideas. What separates the enthusiastic dreamer from the pack of successful entrepreneurs is acting on the initial idea and taking the idea successfully into the growth phase.

This is true even, especially for those of us that are a part of the inspiration economy as coaches.  Once we get comfortable with the message, method and promise we bring to a very specific market and begin to get hired by our clients – both individual & groups – we need to see beyond this start up stage and see where we are going from there. It’s important to get clear on what wealth and market success really mean to you.

I have been reading the book Energize Growth Now: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Comany which is written for a broader market of small business owners, rather than the narrow micro-niche of a coaching business. However, there are several key perspectives that I really like and believe are absolutely relevant to building your coaching business.

The author, Lisa Nirell, has identified 11 planning steps that are key to keeping your business energized for growth in all phases. There are two key principles from the book identified in the foreword by Guy Kawasaki that really stood out to me as it relates to the coaching business:

• You cannot serve everyone. Don’t even try. Avoid distractions and use this field guide (Lisa’s book) to help you focus.
• You can only do so much to position your products and services, so come to grips with the fact that you are not in total control of your positioning. It’s okay to position what you offer in a certain way, but ultimately the customers (or clients) will do it for you. Use the practical positioning tools in this book  to get you started and then see how the customer reacts.

I see these two principles as the most important principles as you develop your coaching message. Everything else will be much more successful when you get a handle on these.

This book just has so many good meaty parts to it. It’s not necessarily a book that a coach would pick up but it is filled with foundational principles that will start you out on the right path for growth and will keep you growing.

One of the things is that she asks her readers to look at marketing differently – rather than like a faucet to turn on every time your business needs a boost – make it an integral part of your over all business operation – part of your everyday routine.  And I would add to this – get over your fear of marketing! Face it and create a marketing plan that you can do. That is the only way you will really stay in (a profitable) business.

At the end of each of the chapter that explains each of the 11 planning steps this Lisa Nirell’s method is based on she has an “Energy Booster” – Let me give you a peek into why I think this book is perfect for coaches building their business:

Energy Booster 1 – What market changes & internal limitations post the biggest threats to your growth plan?

Energy Booster 2 – What steps can we take now to minimize the top limiting beliefs in our company (or in your coaching career)?

Energy Booster 3 – What shiny pennies are distracting us from our potential?

Energy Booster 4 – How do we rate our company’s current Wealth Quotient, and which of the seven areas need the most improvement (Wealth Quotient – think socially responsible business – doing business for the greater good of our world)

Energy Booster 5 – What industry, competitive, market and client information are we lacking and how will we find it?

Energy Booster 6 – What percentage of our team can clearly explain our vision, values and elevator statement on the fly? (if you’re a solo coach – can you do this compelling and with clarity?)

Energy Booster 7 – What stage of growth are we experiencing, and what can we do to scale the next wall? (Do you know what the stages of growth are for the coaching industry and what stage you’re in? Maybe you’re attempting to leap over a wall you’re not ready to scale – but you’re succeeding in a growth are you haven’t recognized.)

Energy Booster 8 – What success measures really count, and how will we track them? (no, you cannot ignore this one, well not if you want to grow your business).

Energy Booster 9 – What is our brand promise – and how can we fulfill that promise even more consistently? (yes, even you, a coach – no especially you a coach, needs a brand promise.)

Energy Booster 10 – What can we do to immediately to expand our perception of our value and attract clients who will pay us commensurate with that value? (in other words, more revenues, fewer clients, less trading time for dollars.)

In my opinion this is one of the most difficult topics for many coaches to wrap their minds around. The whole package – that coaching is a business and businesses require integrated marketing, understanding of the marketplace, and what competes for their dollars (not necessarily other coaches); and developing an attractive brand image with a powerful promise that demands a premium price because of it’s extreme value.

Lisa Nirell’s book Energize Growth Now: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company lays out a framework to build on for taking your coaching business through the appropriate stages of growth – setting you free to celebrate success at every stage, because you recognize each stage and have a plan to take you to the next.

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (June 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470413921
• ISBN-13: 978-0470413920
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches

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