Writing Often, Writing Relevant for Your Coaching Business

To be able to “coach the game” you have to “play the game“. In fact, you must “master the game“. You must be on the playing field with your players. That doesn’t mean you’re always “in the game” but your on the sidelines watching, and guiding the plays.

Writing Often (feel free to substitute writing with communicating)

The tools available in a profitable Internet marketing plan give you the opportunity to make your “Coaching Playbook” available in some format so that potential players at least know what game you coach. Like it or not you need to see your self in the publishing business because it is important to create multiple opportunities to connect, engage and make your offer. The tools for connecting, engaging and making your offer, to give your potential players the opportunity to discover you and your method for coaching the big games of life will most likely be:

• books – printed & ebook
• audio recordings – digital download or on CD
• video – online & DVD
• special reports – free & premium
• blog posts
• email – newsletters & auto-responders

Not only does creating these tools help potential players decide if you are the coach for them, but,  depending on your frequency, can give the feeling that you’re right along side them as they play the game.

All of these tools can give you the opportunity to create and maintain relevancy for your relationship with your players.

In 2010 I will be moving to a very prolific content creation and distribution schedule.  I have already moved to a daily email format which have caused many of my subscribers to unsubscribe. That’s a good thing. These readers were not my market and I applaud them for managing their intake of information. At the same time my subscriber number are growing daily because of the feedback I get on Twitter about the content in the emails as well as the fact that the emails are being forwarded to their colleagues. I am enjoying many personal responses with comments like, “I needed this message today…”, “This was so on target, it’s right where I’m at in building my business…”. or this one is the best, “When can I get started working with you?”.

Writing Relevant

In preparation for the massive amounts of content that I am creating for next year I have intentionally engaged with my potential players more frequently and more strategically. Here are some of the things that I am doing to keep me relevant and how I use the information to help me identify & attract my perfect paying client – and develop future products as well:

Client Calls: With permission I record nearly all of my coaching sessions. I have a high level of trust with my clients since most come from word of mouth. I am very clear that the purpose of the recording is so that my client can listen to the call as often as he or she wants to take notes and learn from, as well as be able to hear themselves outside of the moment for their own observations.  I also let them know that I will be listening to the call again and it will help me coach them better being able to listen out of the moment of the call. It’s kinda like how sports coaches use video tapes of practice and game to correct or learn new plays.

From these recordings I am also able to pick up on patterns and common threads of questions or mind sets that show up not in just one client but in many of my clients.  When I write emails, articles, or posts for my blog I’ve got lots of juicey content stirring inside because of real live stories that I am connecting with.

My famous “No Strings, No Cost Laser Coaching” calls that I offer on Twitter & Facebook. I usually do about two of these calls a week if my schedule permits. This gives a prospective player the opportunity to have another perspective of the business side of their coaching. I have mastered the ability to take a look at the overall picture of their business and point out possible gaps in their client path. They leave the call with a recording that they can listen to over & over – not just about some obscure strategy they could be implementing but a very specific personalized assessment they can take immediate action on.

When I offer these sessions, often an sense of imbalance is created. The prospective client wants to know what they can do for me. First of all this tells me they have already made the decision that this was a valuable session. If there is enough value in what I offer on the call to the point of making them want to do something in return – I know I’ve done my job. This helps me hone my skills and know that I am right on target with the issues that coaches building their business are facing right now. And, I always let my clients know that from my perspective the call is R & D. It keeps me in touch with my market. When they realize that they’ve helped me by keeping me in touch with my market they can see the value in that for me and it balances the scale.

I also get new clients this way. After a No Strings, No Cost Laser Coaching session it frequently leads to a perfect paying client relationship. And since I said “no strings” I do not attempt to sell them on anything in the future, but because I hold nothing back, giving them whatever I can in the way of guidance or perspective in a single 60 minute session – they almost always want to take it to the next step which would be to work with me on going as a paying client.

Response to my daily email: Since I now send out daily emails 5 – 6 days a week I get lots of replies. I reply to as many as I can. I get questions for more information about a topic or get positive feedback when my message struck a cord.  Quite often my reply will inspire a new writing project. In fact this blog post is an inspiration from on of my readers comments.

Finally…

I get the best response to the content I deliver – email, articles, blog posts, etc – when I am “in state“. For me “in state” is that energy I feel when I am perfectly connected with a client and together we’re perfecting the “plays” of the game. It is when I recognize what is needed by my client to move forward and I help them see it through the view of their current mindset and it moves them into a new mindset for growth. Many of the things I have described above either get me “in state” or move me back into state if I am listening to a recording of a previous session.

The creation of the Coaches Profit Wheel has come out of regular, relevant engagement with my perfect paying prospects & clients. I’ve been told that my emails seem as if I am reading their minds. I think that means I am “in tune” and writing relevant.

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