Coaching Biz Tips

If you can't define your market, it doesn't exist

POP QUIZ: Define your target market in 10 words or less.

I WORK WITH...

3 down, 7 words to go. Take your time, I'll wait while you sort things out...

(Patiently humming the theme song from Jeopardy under my breath.)

What's that? You hate this exercise?! You'd rather walk barefoot over broken glass with a gorilla on your back???

Well, the good news is, you're not alone. I wish I had a nickel for every time I've heard a coach bemoan the need to pin down a target market. It's a pretty sore topic for most people.

The bad news is, you can't NOT define your target market and expect to have a successful business.

Because if you can't define your market, it doesn't exist. And without a market, your business has no reason to exist--in fact, by definition, it CANNOT be a business.

If you can't (or won't!) define your market, what you have there is an expensive hobby.

8 Tips for Defining Your Market

Weekly Roundup

This week I've got a couple of cool tools to share, plus some blogs I'm watching:

JoesGoals.com - manage your goals (or your client's) online with this freebie. I love that you can have both positive and negative goals (i.e., what you DON'T want to do this week) and you can customize your reports.

Online We We Monitor - Now wait a sec, it's not what you think! =^)  This is an online tool for analyzing how customer-focused your marketing copy is. Enter the URL for a specific web page and it will tell you if you're doing a good job of connecting with your customer--or if your We We/Me Me is too big for your britches. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Tom Kuhlman over at the Rapid e-Learning Blog posted a great "how to" for using PowerPoint to edit & create clip art, complete with...pictures! (of course!)

Check out Priscilla Palmer's blog for a huge list of personal development bloggers--lots of great stuff, several familiar names and a few surprises, too. I have a feeling that most  coach bloggers would end up being on that list, if it goes on long enough...

Your customers are wishing you'd just get to the point already

Book review

Your Attention, Please: How to Appeal to Today's Distracted, Disinterested, Disengaged, Disenchanted, and Busy Consumer
Paul B. Brown and Alison Davis
(Adams Media, 2006)

This little book has become one of my favorite writing resources. Not just for the tips (which are great) or the examples (which are fun to read and often humorous), but because I can open it to literally any page for a reminder to keep my marketing communication short, simple and relevant.

Any page will do, because this book practices what it preaches. The information is  straightforward, entertaining and easy to digest.

After making the case for why people are tuned out and turned off (information overload), authors Brown and Davis dive right into practical advice and techniques for getting and holding your audience's attention, including:

The 7 Deadly Sins of Poor Communication

1. Making it all about "me" (focus on the reader instead).
2. Trying to cover too much (create a high concept and stick to it).
3. Using complicated, abstract concepts (fill in the blanks with simple, specific, concrete details).
4. Losing the human element (tell a story the reader can relate to).
5. Creating a dense thicket of impenetrable information (provide easy navigation with headings and short paragraphs, and make it visual).
6. Going on too long (keep it short and sweet).
7. Lecturing and hectoring (provide practical hints, tips and 'how to' instructions so the reader can take action on the information).

The chapter on storytelling is excellent, and the authors use storytelling throughout the book to illustrate points and keep the reader engaged.

They also use quotes very effectively. While many of the quotes are from famous figures or business pundits, my favorite is from the book itself:

"No one in your audience has the time or the patience to wade through a bunch of nonsense."

Amen to that! And no self-employed coach can afford to WRITE a bunch of nonsense that their customers aren't reading, either. Unfortunately, it's a lesson that many of us have to learn the hard way.

Bottomline: Your Attention Please is on my short list of must-read material for coaches who write their own marketing copy and program content.