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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You Bring Value to Your Perfect Clients because You are YOU…

Did you know that you have your own energetic signature that was defined at birth, and quite possibly before that? Throughout your life your stories that you created and lived through are all ultimately designed to work towards your perfect happiness & abundant life. It’s true! No matter what your journey here on this earth has been – every bit of it can work for your good.

“There are more people out there waiting to hear your message who can only hear it uniquely from you than you can ever get to in your lifetime.” Jeff Herring

As you begin to discover and perfect your coaching message, method and promise that you will deliver to your perfect client I would like you to look inward. Spend some time taking a personal inventory of you.

Let me invite you to sit down with pen & paper (no not at your computer for this exercise, please. Just trust me there is a purpose in this) and begin to write about your own personal wealth.

What? You say you have no personal wealth yet? Oh, but you do. Your life is rich with experience – both good and not so good. You have acquired knowledge, and you have both raw and developed talent. I’ll just bet if you’d give yourself permission, you could list many personal victories that you are actually quite proud of. Go on, give yourself permission to make a list of the “unique value of you”.

Let me give you some of the areas I would like you to think about as you make your list of what makes you so valuable:

1. Knowledge
2. Experience
3. Talent
4. Inspiration (what inspires YOU)
5. Community (friends & family at large)
6. Character & Values
7. Divine Connection – Spirituality
8. Relationships (close, significant)
9. Health
10. Finances

In each of these areas make an inventory list of what is unique to you. For example,

• Do you have a clear, intuitive connection with the Divine?
• Are you in tip top shape and healthy?
• Are you knowledgeable about nutrition with a wealth of experience in how to eat to keep yourself in optimum health?
• Are you a gifted musician or artist?
• Do you tune in to the needs of others quickly and pick up on what others miss?

Go ahead, spend some time with open heart and ready pen. You might be surprised at what you might discover about yourself. Remember you are looking for the value of the uniqueness of YOU.

I would love to hear from you on this. Tell me how this exercise goes. And yes, this has everything to do with building your successful coaching business.

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– How a book can build your business and how to create a successful book concept

Nancy Cleary has been an entrepreneur since 1992 when she relocated to Deadwood, Oregon, on the gorgeous Oregon coast.
With a background in graphic design, Nancy ran a design studio for six years before launching her publishing company in 1998. To date Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, named for her son and daughter, has helped well over 100 women to enjoy an empowered publishing experience, and has taught thousands more through classes, licensing, and her book about the publishing experience, A Book is Born: 24 Authors Tell All.

Listen to the show and find out how to get a copy of this book for free.

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Convert the Reputation & Attention You Get From Your Free Give-Away

“Free is not a magic bullet. Giving away what you do will not make you rich by itself. You have to think creatively about how to convert the reputation and attention you can get from Free into cash.” Chris Anderson, author of  Free: The Future of a Radical Price

Do you realize that “free” is a business strategy?

This quote from Chris Anderson’s book says it well. The powerful strategy behind the free giveaway that you give to new subscribers gives you the opportunity to build reputation and attention; your on-going strategy is to convert that into to cash.

You’re missing out if you’re not giving away something with enough value to build reputation and attention to your message, method, & promise.

Your emailing strategy is the “build” – continuation of what you started with your free special report, mini-guide, white paper, manifesto, audio, video -whatever your give away is – the backend is in the email follow up. You lose momentum and credibility if your giveaway and your follow emails don’t build your reputation and capture your prospects attention.

Take a look at your lead capture strategy. This is a pivotal piece in your marketing. A lot is riding on this.

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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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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 “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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What Makes Your Ideal Prospect Take Action?

Many great ideas go unexecuted, and many great executioners are without ideas. One without the other is worthless. ~Tim Blixseth

To be really effective in building your coaching practice as a viable business it’s imperative that you

• get your ideal prospect to take action to hire you as their coach, or to purchase your products so they can apply your coaching method
• develop an understanding of how to repeatedly get your ideal prospects to take action – so if you can get one new client, surely you can duplicate your efforts and enroll 10 new clients, right?

The reason some coaches have as many clients as they desire and sell thousands of dollars worth of product monthly (some even sell thousands of dollars worth of product daily!), and some coaches can barely get one client is because of the two statements above. The successful coach understands how to get their ideal client to make a decision and take action, and the successful coach knows how to repeat this formula for action to attract and enroll clients and/or sell more product.

Let me just say, there IS a formula. It is possible to make an outstanding income while inspiring others to take life changing action.

Psychological Triggers

Psychology is the study of the mind. There are many who have made a study of what causes prospects of particular markets make buying decisions. There are a few important keys when implemented as part of your product or service offering will cause your ideal client to effortlessly trade their money (yes, they will find the money even in this economy – sometimes especially in this economy) for your promise and your method of coaching.

Coach Dave of Coachville.com, is fond of saying, “A potential player, will only hire a Coach with more certainty than they have.”

There is a method for conveying your sense of certainty about your coaching method to develop the level of trust that your prospect needs to chose to become a client.

The human brain process is so many billion bits of information all day that it has developed efficient ways of processing information so that it can process quick enought to act in a timely fashion. For example, if you’re on a nature hike and something wiggles in the leaves you might jump with a start imagining a snake – but it might only be a twig. Your brain acted on the assumption that something wiggling in the leaves might be alive, possibly a snake and a quick leap away might save your life if it is indeed a snake.

We also process much of the information that comes to us in a buying experience. There are psychological triggers that quickly develop trust and confidence, as well as cause us to assume that this buying opportunity will supply us what we’re looking for.

As a business owner, a marketer – yes, coaches must be marketers to remain in business, must understand these psychological triggers to help the ideal prosect to take beneficial action.

No, I am not talking about manipulation.

This is the stuff that many of you that are NLP coaches understand. There is a language and action that will more often result in success with certainty.

I have coached brilliant coaches who run from any type of marketing and struggle the whole time to stay in business.

It is possible to understand the workings of the human mind and engage the triggers that help your ideal prospect to satisfy their own need with your method. You must help them take this action inorder to benefit from your coaching method. I would say if your message is of any value at all you have an obligation to deliver your information in the way that your ideal prospect needs it so they can take action.

This Friday on the Get More Business Show, I have invited MichelePW who is a master at getting ideal prosects to take action. She will share with me the 5 Psychological Triggers to Turn Prospects Into Clients (Warning: These are SO powerful you MUST promise to use them in an honest and ethical manner.)

I promise you that this is not about manipulation. This is about understanding human psychology and how we are “hard wired” to take action. I studied a few of MichelePW’s very successful sales pages for other coaches and have pinpointed these very triggers. I saw the formula over and over in each one. It is a beautiful process that is very complimentary to my ethics as a coach.

Join me on Friday, September 4th at 9 am Pacific / 12 pm Eastern on the www.GetMoreBusinessShow.com

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Back to School: Coaches Continue Education

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterward. ~Anatole France

I absolutely adore “back to school” time. Here in the United States our children get the summer months off from education and go back to school at the end of August or beginning of September depending on what part of the country the family lives in. I loved back to school even when I was a child. I loved learning, loved a schedule and loved measuring my success (getting good grades) and I really loved being with all the other students. I loved books, paper and libraries. And now that I have children – more specifically – teenagers, I love sharing this experience with them. All of my kids are great students and they actually like school as well.

And, then there’s the added benefit of having my kids otherwise occupied so I can focus on work for a few hours everyday. Kids and I are both happy about this.

Now that I am an adult, and a professional, I still love learning. Daily I cull juicy bits of practical online marketing wisdom from blog posts, articles and Internet radio expanding my thinking by evaluating what other marketing educators are saying.

I have also developed a love for teaching learners and passing on what I have learned and tested in my own practice. It is a real thrill to get feedback from readers and clients who implement a practice and develop a new marketing skill with successful results. It is so delightful that my “work” is really “pure play” for me.

I believe it’s important for coaches identify weak or non-productive areas of their business and implement an education plan that brings them closer to realizing a successful practice.

Many coaches are certified as a coach, or in a particular method but are not educated or prepared to operate their coaching practice as a business. Personally I think this has been a weakness in many of the coach training programs is that nothing is offered in the way of training coaches how to build their business.

I’ve interviewed a number of coaches who are struggling with their practice – they don’t know how to enroll new clients – or how to enroll as many new clients as they can handle. Yet, I hear, or read from many of the same coaches that they are sick of all the pitches from all the coaches who coach coaches.

Here is what I am observing:

• first, there are coaches struggling to make a go of  a “coaching business“. They are dabbling at many different activities but don’t really know what works.
• these same coaches seem to feel surrounded by coaches who coach coaches on how to create a business from coaching

It seems to me these coaches are attracting their answer and running from it at the same time! Not all of the offers for education will fit them and the struggling coaches won’t know which ones will fit them until they specifically define their need for more information and then evaluate the offers to see which one promises the answers they seek.

Across the board, business is rapidly changing and evolving at such a fast pace that one can not simply learn the basics and be “good to go”. It is imperative that each of us budget for continuing education on a regular basis.

One of my clients just upgraded their 3 page website to a multi-page blog format. While his website had met his expectations for his definition for success, I observed that it was beginning to fall behind because of the pace at which his competition was moving forward. The Internet is much more than a “web”; that descriptive word is far too static. Personally I find that a word more like “raging rapids” is more descriptive of the pace of business & learning online.

Don’t let that frighten you or keep you from learning to build your own coaching business online. It is possible to learn as you go and with growth, I strongly encourage you to build a virtual team to help you evolve your coaching into a thriving business.

I would really love to hear some feedback from you as to what you feel you are lacking in information or education on how to grow your coaching business. What would you like to read about here or in the email ecourse that would help to move you forward?

Tell me, how may I support your growth?

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The Language of Coaching: Enrolling New Clients to Play with You

What if Coaches ruled the World?

“The whole world would speak a different language.”

In July, ‘09, Coach Milana Leshinsky, posted an interesting question on her blog as a contest for her 2009 Coaching Millions Super Summit in Dallas, Texas, on October 23-25.  Coach Milana asked her followers:

If you’ve ever been in a room full of coaches, you would agree that we are a special kind. We see world differently that most people changing the world around us where ever we go.  Can you imagine if coaches actually ruled the world?

I didn’t enter the contest, but yesterday when I did the Get More Business Show with Nancy Marmolejo and we talk about turning Followers into Fans & Fans to Leads and then Clients, the thought came to me that a huge difference in the coach world is out language.

Our language (not the language of our nationality) is one of play and not work. We don’t provide our coaching groups with workbooks – we use playbooks. Our clients hire us to play with them not work with them.

The language of a Coach is about inspiration.

Just prior to yesterdays episode of Get More Business Show with Nancy Marmolejo I listened to her preview call with Natasha Allrich, Soft Sell with Social Media, and listened to Natasha talk with Nancy about her clients enrolling themselves into her programs. She does not sell her programs to her clients – which is the language of coersion. Let me invite you to listen in to this conversation between Nancy & Natasha, I think you’ll find the conversation to be refreshing as they speak the language of Coaches; the language of compassion not coersion.

As I mentioned in my last post, Nancy’s program last August was transformational for me. I literally went from social media obscurity to being on the list of 50 Most Influential Women in Social Media in just a few months with the information that I learned from Nancy’s webinar last August. I fully expect this new program with Natasha will be every bit the Grand Slam as her last end of summer game.

On yesterday’s episode, Nancy made the comment, “Don’t let the spammers, and pushy marketers take over social networking and spoiling this beautiful method of connecting with our ideal prospect!” (my paraphrase, not actual word for word quote – but you get the idea, right?) It occured to me that we coaches really do have a powerful responsibility to be influencers in this world.

Coaches may never rule the world as in taking on the title of President, or Prime Minister, or Ruler of any official title – or one of us might – but we all have the power to be influencers. One of our primary tools is our words and how we use them. Let’s set ourselves apart and speak the language of inspiration especially in business.

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