Coaching Formula for Giving Yourself a Raise – Pain, Solution, Process, Mentor, & Action

I was in some serious pain. I lost all of my clients in one day. I received a  letter that told me the person who had given me access to the franchise owners of a large promotional products company was no longer employed in the corporate office. He had become a franchise owner himself. He was replaced by someone who wanted to take a different direction – and that included the decision not to use my services.

Identify the Pain

What was my pain?

Here I was a single mom with three kids, a mortgage to pay and I had just lost my source of income!

The real problem was that I had no idea how to get clients out side of the relationships that I had built in my former business as a promotional products distributor.

I had no income, and no idea how to get clients for my coaching busness – And it was just the beginning of the current “recession” that we’re in. All I could see was that NOBODY was spending money.

Identify the Solution

I realized that I needed to find customers that were already looking for a coach rather than trying to convince someone they should hire me when maybe they didn’t realize they needed a coach yet.

Before I could find the customers that were already looking for me (or at least already looking for life success solutions) & possibly a life success coach, I needed to define how to actually go about doing that on a bigger scale than in just my circle of influence – the people that I perceived as “not spending money”. What I needed is to have someone create a roadmap or a set of instructions for me to follow so that I could be found by my ideal prospect.

Identify the Block

The day that I sat there with the letter from corporate office in hand I was seized with fear. What if I couldn’t find any new clients? What if I couldn’t find the right instructions to help me understand what to do and how to reach the people that were already looking…someone – anyone…that was looking for life success training?

After I sold my promotional products business and took on clients from within that industry, I had never really left for uncharted territory, until the day that I received that letter, when I was forced to figure out what to do next.

Identify the Process

Here’s what I knew so far as I contemplated “What next?”:

• I needed to create an income for myself and my children, and fast!
• I needed to find prospects & clients with money to invest, that were looking for what I offered as a coach from a larger sphere of influence.
• I needed to overcome this fear of the unknown territory of how to find clients outside of the field in which I had just spent 16 years of my adult life.
• I needed a plan of action and a process I could follow from someone who successfully had found clients using the same plan.

In Discover of The Process

I had learned and implemented practices from several people on the Internet when building my promotional products business, so I had a really good place to start from. I went back to look up many of the individuals I had learned from who’s material had worked already for me.

I soon discovered that much had changed in online marketing in just a year or so. I needed to educate myself on many more tools that I had not used for my promotional products business. Things like blogs, social bookmarking, social networking, article marketing were all new to me. On my own I dabbled at each of them and wasn’t terribly impressed with the results.

I would post in my blog and watch my stats – but I wasn’t getting any visitors. I used the social bookmarking for my own personal benefit of finding and remembering the sites that were valuable to me. I didn’t understand the how and why of sharing links.

The one thing I did do that provided me with interesting results was start my own Internet Radio Show. I got brave enough to begin inviting guests from the group of people who’s material – email, telecourses, and blogs – that I learned from to join me as guests on my show. In fact, I started two shows – both of which started developing a following. In the beginning I didn’t realize that I could read the stats on TalkShoe.com to see how many people downloaded my show from the archives.  Sometimes I would record the show and no one but the guest and I would be on the call – but after the show was recorded, hundreds of people downloaded the show every week!

Even though I had discovered something that was finally getting attention and I even attracted clients from my radio show – it was hit or miss at best.

I needed a more cohesive process that would consistently work – and work whether or not I was working – 24/7 every day!

As a coach myself I knew the best use of my time would be to find a mentor, a coach, who had found a way to bring clients to them with a process that I could learn and duplicate.

Then one day I was invited to participate in a program that would change my life. It was a 60 day commitment that amounted to about two hours a day. I almost didn’t do it. I almost said I didn’t have the time because I was too busy trying to build my coaching business.

This program gave me the opportunity to look under the hood so to speak, to see the engine of thriving online marketing in practice and step by step put the practice to work for myself. This changed everything for me. Everything. I will always be grateful to the person that launched that program.

From Process to Action

What I see a lot of coaches doing is what I started out doing until I figured out what the step by step process is for running my business so that it attracts my ideal client – and that is dabbling in all the steps, never really understanding how they all work together.

Worse than that, I know many coaches, who know they should be doing certain things – but aren’t even doing what they know with any consistency. If every my business drops off I know it’s because I haven’t been consistently doing for myself what I know and teach my clients.

You must get started implementing what you know and discovering what you don’t know – and all the easier with a coach or mentor to guide on a path they have traveled.

This story describes a practice that can be used for many different situations to create successful outcome in the midst of change. These simple steps may help you in moving your coaching practice forward:

• Identify the pain
• Identify the solution
• Identify the block
• Identify the process
• Find a mentor to instruct you in the process
• Act on the process

This story is how these steps worked for me. Let me invite you download a report on “The Five Secrets to Making Change – Time Proven Questions to Ask Yourself Anytime You’re Starting a New Business Ventuere” from one of the most trusted names in online marketing (he has worked with T Harv Eker, Bob Proctor, Brian Tracy, Julie Andrews and many others) – Alex Mandossian.

Where are you at in this process? Are you dabbling at article marketing, random in your posting to your blog? Or does your audience here a clear strong consistent message and know where to find it?

Please share with me your questions, comments or thoughts on this. I love hearing from you.

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