Coaching Biz Tips

Finding Your Customers Online

If you read Tuesday's Tips, you're probably all revved up about doing your market research, right? Well, I've got a great site to get you started: BoardReader.com.

Just enter some keywords that your customers might search for and BoardReader will pull up relevant online discussions from all over the place – online discussion boards, Twitter, FaceBook, YahooGroups, Google Groups, you name it.

For example, I just typed in "work life balance coaching" (see below for a screen shot of the top of the page). You can search for posts, forums, videos, or images, and sort the results by relevance or freshness. BoardReader even offers suggestions for refining your search.

Enjoy! (P.S. Happy Thanksgiving if you're in the US!)

Do You Turn Down Work?

We all have our "20-20 hindsight" stories when it comes to customers we wish we'd never met.

Sometimes it's the customer who sucked you dry and then demanded a full refund;  or the one who insisted on calling you on Sunday evenings in spite of your clearly posted office hours; or the friend that your cousin referred, who turned out to be afflicted with "the payment's in the mail" syndrome.

And sometimes, it's simply a case of bad timing or a clash of personalities. The point is, there are times when you have to say to yourself, "I should have seen THAT one coming…"

Here's what I'm wondering today:

Do you turn down work? And if so, what do you look for; what are the "warning" signs?

Post your comments and questions below to join in the discussion!

3 Tips for Staying Focused While Doing Market Research

I have a confession to make: I love doing research. I know that officially makes me kind of weird and nerdy (well, it's ONE thing, anyway) but there's just so much great information about marketing on the Internet. You can find out just about anything about customers, target markets, competition, resources… it's absolutely ABUNDANT!

However, my own clients don't always share my enthusiasm. For some folks, the Internet represents a giant mind-numbing time-sucker. The bad news is, market research is not 'optional' – it's one of those MUST DO, ONGOINGLY things. But the good news is, it is possible to do your market research without risking your head exploding.

3 tips for staying focused while doing your market research

Set a time limit. This is by far the easiest, most helpful hint I can think of. Give yourself 30 minutes of focused, uninterrupted time and then stop. And it might help to set a timer or an alarm clock while you're at it so you don't surf right past your deadline.

Limit your search. Decide on one goal and keep it in front of you. For example, if your goal is to explore one active forum related to your target market, you might might spend 5-10 minutes searching for a couple of candidates. When you've got 2-3 identified, decide which one looks most promising and then spend most of your allotted time exploring that one. You can save the others for another time.

Organize your research results. What's the use of gathering information if you can't find it again when you need it? I used to stash my notes in a Word document which worked well enough for a while… until I discovered OneNote. Originally designed to help students manage their notes and research, OneNote also has many useful and time-saving features for marketing research and product development. One especially nice feature is screen clippings – you can take a snapshot of something in your browser window and paste it into your notebook – and OneNote automatically annotates it so you know where you found it!

A free, web-based option is EverNote, which I've seen lots of positive comments on, but have not tried myself (there's also a premium version that you can download). And another great application to check out is Zotero, which is a Firefox extension that operates in your browser window to help you collect, manage and cite your research sources.

So now that you've got a handle on how to stay on top of your market research – let the surfing begin!

3 Tips for Improving Your Next Teleclass

Hosting a live teleclass can be a great way to build your list (if it's a free event) or generate some cashflow (if it's a paid event).

Let's say you send out an announcement to 1000 people on your mailing list, and 10% of them click through to your website to read the promotion page; that's 100 visitors to the sales page. Of the 100 visitors, 20 fill out the registration form (a conversion rate of 20%).

You dial the bridge line, expecting a lively call with 20 eager participants, and instead, you find that you've got two. And one of them showed up 15 minutes into the call.

What happened to all those people who said they'd be there?!

This is a frustrating outcome, and unfortunately, it's not uncommon. Don't lose heart, though! I've got some ideas for you today that will improve attendance at your next teleclass.

Three ways to improve results for next time:

Increase traffic to the sales page. If you increased traffic to 20% (200 visitors), registration would double (200 visitors x 20% conversion = 40 registrations). One way to increase traffic is to make the offer more compelling – focus on how the class addresses a top question or concern that your target market is already struggling with, and make it clear exactly who should attend the class.

Increase the conversion rate. If you could double or triple the conversion rate, you'd get more participants even if the traffic number stayed the same. Try tweaking the promotional copy – for example, talking more about the benefits of attending the class and translating the benefits into real life results. Another way would be to increase the perceived value of the class by adding a bonus, such as a report or checklist, or by creating a sense of urgency or exclusivity – perhaps by limiting the class size or making a point of offering it for free only once.

Increase the number of attendees. People are much more likely to show up when they know that someone expects them to show up. One way to do that is to begin building relationship as soon as they register – send them an email thanking them for registering, give them all the logistical info, and tell them what to expect when they attend (i.e., sell the benefits again). Ideally, you'd personalize that exchange so that they know you're talking to THEM, and you'd say something like, "There are a limited number of seats, so please let me know if your plans change and you won't be able to attend."

BONUS TIP: At the very least, double- and triple-check every email and every bit of promotional copy before you publish it to make CERTAIN that the date, time and bridge line information are correct, and test your registration form yourself to make sure everything's working properly. You might have 250 people clammoring for your teleclass, but you'll be sitting there all by yourself if your customers are calling the wrong bridge line number.

What other ways can you think of to improve results at your next event? Join in the conversation by leaving a comment below.

What's Keeping You From Doing What You Need to Do?

At the start of each coaching session, I always check in with my client on the status of their action items from the last session – "Did you follow through on your action plan?" If my client checked off all their items, we celebrate and move on to the next phase of their plan. And if they didn't, we take a look at what they did instead of the intended actions. Often, how a client deals with the unexpected (or the unconscious) reveals fertile ground for coaching.

I once had a client who had this great big, wonderful, juicy vision for his business. He'd thought through the steps he needed to take to reach his goals. Each week, he ended the coaching session feeling excited about moving forward.

But over time, I noticed that he often didn't follow through. So I called him on it.

I listened as he recounted the various things that had happened that week – other things had popped up, gotten in the way, used up all his time and energy. He admitted that he felt frustrated and guilty about not doing what he'd said he wanted to do… again.

And then something prompted me to ask him, "What's really keeping you from doing what you know you need to do?"

He started to explain again about what happened that week. I said, "What if it's NOT about the circumstances? What if what's going on "outside" is NOT what's really keeping you from doing what you need to do?"

He thought for a moment, and said, "Well, I just didn't have enough time to get to those things."

I've learned that when a client says they don't have enough time, what they really mean is there's a breakdown in the way they've prioritized their time. So I said, "Let's imagine that you had plenty of time – what else might have kept you from doing what you know you need to do?"

We spent some time getting up underneath what was REALLY keeping him from doing what he needed to do, and without revealing any client secrets, I can tell you that it turned out to be something to do with his mindset – an unexamined, limiting belief. And when he really looked at it, he was finally able to shift how he was being about doing what he knew he needed to do.

And then it seemed like he was carving up his action list like a hot knife through butter. "Things" didn't get any easier – HE became easier WITH them. And he got a lot more done as a result.

Here's what I'm wondering today:

What's really keeping you from doing what you know you need to do? Have you been blaming the circumstances, or claiming that there's not enough time? Is it possible that your own mindset is keeping you from being more successful?

Post your comments and questions below to join in the discussion!

5 Coaching Business Deathtraps

What are the most common (and avoidable) fatal business mistakes that coaches tend to make?

1.  Lack of focus -- Your most precious resource is your attention. Doing one thing well is an enormous challenge; tackling three or four things at once is a recipe for mediocrity.

Carefully sort through your marketing options before you choose which one to focus on (one target market/one problem/one solution). Commit to which ever option is most likely to be successful, and stick to it!

2. Inadequate market research -- Failure to do adequate market research, including getting out into the marketplace and talking to as many high-potential customers as possible before committing to a marketing strategy, is asking for trouble. Google is a great place to start.

3. Perfectionism – Lots of coaches have great ideas for coaching products and programs. Some just can't seem to stop fiddling with it until it's perfect.

This is an unrealistic goal. There's always an improvement that can be made, a bell or a whistle than can be added. When you've developed your product or program to the point where it represents a clearly superior choice, stick a fork in it and call it done.

4. Getting swallowed by a whale – Executive coaches are particularly vulnerable to "whale" clients. Imagine that you have the opportunity to get a contract that could cover all your expenses and then some. That's the good news. The bad news is that this one contract is going to consume ALL your time and attention for the foreseeable future.

And the worst part is that when the whale spits you out (trust me, it will happen, usually at the worst possible time), you'll be stuck with a whole lotta nothing. No clients, no cash flow and no prospects in the pipeline.

Now, I'm not necessarily suggesting that you should turn down a juicy opportunity. I'm just saying you still need to keep working on the rest of your business so that you're not dependent on any particular customer.

5. Living large before you're earning large -- Show me a start-up coaching business with a swanky leased office space, shiny new furniture and equipment, and a virtual "staff" spread across the globe (virtual assistant, webmaster, bookkeeper, etc.), and I will show you a prescription for failure. In most cases, it's all paid for by credit card. And the coach is sitting by themselves in the swanky office, wondering where all the clients are.

Lack of cash flow is death to any business. Spend your resources only when it makes a true difference, when it stands to directly impact your objectives.

Stay tuned for more traps to watch out for. Until then, leave a comment to let me know what you think.