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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Are you a Master Coach? Only 10,000 hours to Mastery…how ’bout it?

The story of success can be created in about 10,000 hours.

Yep, thats it. Just 10,000 hours to mastery of just about anything. That’s approximately 4 hours a day, only 5 days a week…every single one of the 52 weeks in the year…for the next 10 years! Wow!

In Malcome Gladwell’s book The Outliers - (outliers -  the people who lie on the outside of ordinary experiences. People who have achieved amazing results.) Gladwell talks about this in his book “The Outliers: The Story of Success”; he references a study done by scientists that discovered that violin students who practiced 3 to 4  hours a day, with increase in hours over 20 years, students who practiced an accumulation of 10,000 where the masterful players, with those students who only played an accumulation of 8,000 hours were merely “really good players”.

He defines failure as “not getting your 10,000 hours in” – doesn’t mean that your not good, but you just need to put more hours into perfecting your passion.

Gladwell talks about the Beatles. Early in their career they played eight hours a night, seven days a week – by the time they hit it big they had performed 1200 times – more than most bands play in their entire careers!

I read that Anthony Robbins wrote in his book Awaken the Giant, writes about how he booked himself 3 times a day to anyone would listen. When other speakers would speak maybe 48 times in a year – Tony would have spoken that many times in two weeks! With the 10,000 hour rule Tony gave him self a decades worth of growth as a motivational speaker in just one year – by comparison to his peers. This practiced catapulted him way ahead of other speakers.

One of my own personal practices is that I am always coaching. When I started my business, and no one was hiring me because I was new and my confidence was not greater than my clients need – I coached for free – in exchange for feedback. This is a powerful business building tool.

• Builds Mastery of your Coaching Method
• Gives you insight into the needs of your ideal prospect
• Exercises your creative problem solving skills
• Increases your intuitive skills
• Boosts your confidence
• Bonus – record and edit your sessions (depending on the nature of the content) and create books, classes, blog posts, articles, and more!

Don’t worry about clients not wanting to pay you – trust me the more you coach – the better you become and your clients will be begging to exchange value with you.

Even now I do what I call “tithe coaching”, that is I give away an hour of no cost, no strings coaching as a gift to my Creator on behalf of the gift He has given me in the passion for coaching. At the end of the session my clients always ask me, “what can I do for You?” Some want to continue and hire me on the spot – everyone turns in to raving evangelists for the value they’ve received.

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It’s time to take intelligent, bold action to empower your life and career…

How long have you wanted to, planned to, hoped for and even ached to write your own book?

In these competitive times, a book with your name on it increases your market value, your credibility, your opportunities and your professional profile in every way. Not to mention, the process of becoming an author is incredibly fun and fulfilling! And now, the popularity of ebooks is out-pacing traditional books!

Join me and Maritza Parra (the Product Creation Queen) on Get More Business Show as we discuss how to draw out your expertise and deliver it in various information products that connect with your ideal prospect – deliver your own special coaching process and offer compelling proof to your audience that makes them HAVE TO purchase your solution.

You simply must have a variety of “entry level” products

• for your ideal prospect to experience your coaching method and solution.
• to create a healthy cash flow to keep you in business

What do I mean by “entry level”?

It’s a big leap for some of your ideal prospects to go from knowing you, and liking you – to parting with $500 a month or $150+ per session (or whatever you happen to charge). As a coach it is important for both you and your ideal prospects that you give them different levels of entry into your coaching method. It is much easier to start your ideal prospects out at $9.97 or $27 on an ebook or an audio CD.

It’s good for your ideal prospect because it gives them temporary relief with your coaching solution and at the same time builds their appetite for more of your expertise. It also give him or her the opportunity to decide if you’re the right coach for them at a much smaller investment.

For you - by providing different low cost entry levels for your prospects you have the opportunity to let the individual qualify themselves. If they’ve experienced your coaching method and solution in a book or on CD – and still come back for more there’s an improved chance that coaching with them will be successful. And, here’s the biggie, you will have multiple streams of cash flow outside of your one on one or group coaching. This is important for sustainability of your business. You don’t want to quit before you get a full practice and you don’t want to have an overly full practice just to pay the bills and burn out.

Do I have your attention now? I hope so. Get your pen and notepad out; be prepared to take notes on today’s call with Maritza Parra. Here’s an outline of what we’re going to talk about on the show.

1. Crafting your Story – How to Tap into Your Story to Help Others.. (& yes, YOU have a Story that can help other people)
   • Why you’re qualified
   • Connection with people or not – won’t make everybody happy
2. Context for your content – How to Get Your Audience on the Same Page… (So they can actually use your stuff)
3. Why your information works Creating your Free Stuff to Give Away
4. How your Coaching Method works (this is where you deliver BIG VALUE for your prospect )
   • processes
   • recipe for success
5. Show ‘em how it works
   • examples
   • case studies
   • testimonials
6. Edutainment (Educating + Entertainment)

Join in live and chat at http://www.GetMoreBusinessShow.com – I will have the archive up for one month from time of original live show and then this will be available as part of the Coaches Profit Wheel subscription

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Why Booklets Are Valuable Marketing Tools

Booklets are one of the streams of income that I recommend in the Coaches Profit Wheel group coaching.

First let me say, “Someday” is not on the calendar. Now is time to launch products that demonstrate your coaching solution. It’s much more than writing the tip booklet. Paulette has simplified how to create the tip booklet AND market it for maximum exposure.

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Why Booklets Are Valuable Marketing Tools – by Paulette Ensign

Does writing a booklet give you author status? Yes, it does. That is one of several key reasons to write a tips booklet – author status as an expert on your topic. Author status opens many other doors for you and for your business. It takes much less time, money, and stress to write a booklet than writing a full-length book, and can bring you as many or more benefits. Contributing to a collaborative tips booklet takes even less time, and gives you all the advantages.

Here’s a few of the doors this opens for you:

• Speaking engagements
• Sales of your other products
• Radio, television, airline, and print interviews
• Consulting services
• Training sessions
• Quantity sales of the booklet
• Leveraging of the booklet contents to other formats
• Joint sales/marketing ventures

A booklet is a profit center unto itself as well as a marketing tool. Every time you sell a copy of your booklet to anyone, that booklet serves both purposes. It brings in direct revenue while promoting you to a larger audience.

There are times it makes sense to give the booklet away free, especially to centers of influence that can send you high-quality referrals or open publicity doors for you. Based on your own goals, there will be times to sell the booklet and times to distribute it at no cost. Your own business requirements will dictate when to sell the booklet or when to give it away.

Booklets are best written in short action steps, giving the reader a jump-start within your topic, with some good concrete information. The best length of a booklet is also short, between 16 and 24 interior pages.

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As your reader experiences any success from what they read in your booklet, your own credibility increases. They want more of you and more of what you are about. The booklet gives them an opportunity to test drive you.

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Their next steps will need to match their budget, learning style, and overall requirements. Your next step is to help identify what it is they really need and want. When your business has a full menu of related products and services, you will jointly be able to unearth what that need is. The tips booklet is the ideal starting place.

Every person who reads your booklet can be a ready-made marketing representative for you and your company without your realizing it. As a single-copy buyer of either a hard copy or downloadable digital copy, they could, in fact, be a decision-maker for buying large quantities of your booklet to use for their company’s promotional purposes.

They may also be or know of a reporter or producer to schedule you for an interview. The reader might have contacts in another country or a community in your own country who have interest in licensing your booklet into another language or a different physical format. You may be just the person a group was looking for to consult or train on an issue they need to resolve. Any of that and much more can and does happen from a booklet.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to how a booklet can be a marketing tool, a profit center, or both for your business. Everyone has something they want the world to know about. A tips booklet can be a great way to do that, whether you do one by yourself or as a collaborative venture with others.

© 2008, Paulette Ensign

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Paulette Ensign has sold over a million copies of her own tips booklet without spending a penny on advertising. For information on creating your own tips booklet and leveraging a booklet manuscript into other products, contact Paulette Ensign, Tips Products International 858-481-0890, San Diego, CA

Paulette has a complete home study course designed to provide overviews of writing, producing and marketing your booklets, and for in-depth marketing and delivery methods. We have another course focused on the advanced level of licensing. Choose one or both courses, depending on your comfort level, experiences, budget, and learning style.

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It’s Your Turn!

If you’ve been attempting to write the post, articles and facilitate the teleseminars but it’s not working it could be that you’re missing some vital behind the scenes info. The Coaches Profit Wheel Online Business Audit could help you identify what’s missing.

Tell me, what are you working on now? Leave me a comment – I still can’t read your mind!

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10 Steps to Getting Paid for Your Marketing Materials

If you’re a parenting coach, imagine creating a booklet of your top 100 tips that is distributed by a large corporation of learning toys or diapers in order to promote their product. Your information for your coaching solution, contact information and website for thousands to see will go out to thousands of parents – and you’ll get paid for your booklet!

Pay attention to this information! Paulette will be my guest on the Get More Business Show on May 15, 2009 at 9 am Pacific. Plan to listen live and join the chat or call to ask questions.

by Paulette Ensign

How many times have you heard the same sound bites come out of your mouth to your clients, prospects, and audiences, almost boring yourself to tears in the process? Imagine generating money directly from those sound bites, from those pearls of wisdom that effortlessly trip off your tongue. Yes, it is completely possible, and here’s how to do it.

1. Capture those tidbits of information as soon as they come to mind. Jot them down in a notebook or get them into a Word document. They can be in a raw format, with just enough information to jog your thinking about what you mean. There will be time to refine them later.
2. Let a couple weeks go by, allowing most of the information to surface in your thoughts. It rarely happens by declaring two hours on a Thursday afternoon to sit at your computer to think of it all.
3. Refine and organize the tips. Divide them into categories and edit the text. Use a writing style similar to what you are reading here.
4. Be sure to include your contact details so readers can easily reach you. Add a brief section about your background so people will know your qualifications for presenting the information.
5. Hire a graphic designer to make the words look good on the page. Your completed product will be a tips booklet measuring about 3 ½ inches by 8 ½ inches when printed. The designer will create their part of the finished product as a PDF file.
6. Send the PDF file from your graphic designer to a printing company. Do an initial print run of 1,000 copies.
7. Think about who can benefit from using your booklet to promote their own product, service, or cause. Send them a sample of your booklet and a cover letter describing some of the ways they can increase their sales or further their cause by using your booklet as a promotional tool.
8. Consider corporations, associations, publications, and any other group that seems appropriate for the topic of your booklet. Reach out to as many of them as you can, on whatever budget of time and money you have available to you.
9. Realize that every time one of the large-quantity buyers sends out your booklet to promote their own product, service, or cause, they are also marketing your business. Your contact information in the booklet allows the reader to reach you directly.
10. Enjoy the expansion of your customer base and your checking account. You are now reaching a larger audience than you are likely to do single-handedly, thanks to the large-quantity buyers of your booklet. And you have been paid by your buyers to reach those new people.

Those sound bites you have been saying for years are now reaching far beyond your current clients, helping your buyers, their clients, and your own business. It doesn’t get a lot better than getting paid for your marketing materials.

© 2005, Paulette Ensign

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Paulette Ensign has sold over a million copies of her own tips booklet without spending a penny on advertising. For information on creating your own tips booklet and leveraging a booklet manuscript into other products, contact Paulette Ensign, Tips Products International 858-481-0890, San Diego, CA

Paulette has a complete home study course designed to provide overviews of writing, producing and marketing your booklets, and for in-depth marketing and delivery methods. We have another course focused on the advanced level of licensing. Choose one or both courses, depending on your comfort level, experiences, budget, and learning style.

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It’s Your Turn!

• What is stopping you from creating your first “tip booklet”?
• What questions do you have about creating, marketing and distributing a booklet with all of your best tips??

I really want to hear from you – please leave me a comment (there’s a link in it for ya, back to your site)

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Product Creation Advice – What Exactly is an Ebook?

Maritza Parra conducts free weekly teleseminars on product creation – including ebook and video ebooks – You are invited to join her  Weekly Product Creation Teleseminars.

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It’s Your Turn!

What’s holding you back from creating product from your valuable coaching message?

Leave me a comment – I really want to hear from you.

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Prolific Product Creation – or – Work Once, Profit Forever!

An important thing to note that content creation for your coaching business is not about doing something everyday…unless that is what you want to do – build the habit of doing a certain thing everyday.

This week I created 4 pieces of content from one.

• One “3 Common Mistakes” Article
• (3 posts) Three part series  on my blog

Please take note of this. While content creation is an important tool for business building – coaching is what I do – product creation is what I do. I don’t want to get so busy creating the content that I never actually get to the coaching and product creation and SELLING. So if I am able to take one longer piece of content and publish it in as many formats as possible it can serve my pupose in many ways.

Today though technically I am ahead of my 100 Day Challenge - I am going to take the three common mistakes article and create 3 audio pieces for iTunes / Talkshoe. Next would be to create video recordings for my You Tube Account.

To create the audio pieces for iTunes I will use Audacity, Audio Editor & Recording software to record myself reading (without sounding like I’m reading) one of the common mistakes. Then I will go to Royalty Free Music and download a clip of complimentary background music and add it as a second track to play in the background of my reading. I will announce myself at the beginning of the recording and again at the end with where to find out more about “Building Your Coaching Business” so that the listener will know where to find me if they’re interested in further information. I will upload this to Talkshoe and to iTunes. Everyday, all day these audios will do my sales for me.

I will do more on this audio and video creation for promoting your coaching message and for product creation.

As often as you can – work once and profit forever.

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