Coaching Biz Tips

Best Advice for Coaches Starting Out

Someone asked me recently what advice I'd offer to coaches who are just starting out.

Here's something I wish I'd appreciated MUCH sooner: The importance of a viable business model. By business model, I mean 1) the problem your business solves and 2) how it solves the issue profitably.

Many of us get stuck on #1 and never even get to #2, but both are critical. If you hear yourself saying "My coaching is for anyone with pretty much any issue or problem" or if you only offer coaching based on an hourly rate, you haven't given your business model enough consideration. Getting clients will be much more labor-intensive and time-consuming, and even if you manage to fill your calendar with client sessions, there's only so many hours in the week. Your profits will be limited by two factors: the maximum # of available client appointments and the hourly price your clients are willing to pay.

There are so many people who are being innovative and profitable with non-traditional coaching businesses these days -- don't assume that the old generic coaching by-the-hour business model is the only option.

The sooner you figure out your business model, the sooner you'll be profitable, and in the long run you'll be helping more people, too.

Because if your business model is broken, you won't be around long enough to help many.

What advice would you offer a new coach?

Coaching Biz 911: Getting a Grip on Yourself

Ever have one of those days -- or weeks -- where you feel like you're beating your head against a brick wall? Nothing goes the way you plan; projects crash and burn; even the simplest of tasks turns into a maze of road blocks and speed bumps.

You know you need to get a grip, but HOW?!

Reboot your system. Sometimes a bad day is simply the natural consequence of fatigue, burnout, distraction, etc. Stepping back from your work for a few hours, a few days or even a few weeks (depending on how bad the situation is) often restores clarity.

Get a reality check. If things aren't going well, don't be afraid to ask for some honest, unbiased feedback from a trusted source. Ask them what they think might be causing the problem. Sometimes you just can't see the forest for the trees.

Look for patterns in your stuckness. Step back and take an inventory of the past week. Look for things that tend to take three times longer than necessary because you just don't like doing them.

• What is it that I consistently do not want to do?
• Which tasks seem like a chore every time I do them?
• What do I always put off until the last possible moment?

DELEGATE or ELIMINATE these things! And if you can't bring yourself to delegate or eliminate them, look for ways to AUTOMATE or SYSTEMATIZE your least enjoyable tasks via technology, checklists, worksheets, etc.

Revisit your successes. Something that helps me get back on track is to review past accomplishments and successes. This is a great practice because it not only boosts morale ("I've done well before, I know I can do well again!") but it also gives you the chance to see what worked and why it worked. You might see a solution in a past success that could be applied to the current situation.

Give yourself permission to fail. Remind yourself that it's okay to have bad days, for things to go wrong. I don't know of anyone who hasn't failed, usually over and over again, on the way to success. And there are good lessons in every mistake or failure, too. Look for the pony buried in the pile of poop!

Stop complaining. What you resist persists, and what you pay attention to tends to become more real. So when you complain, you're only reinforcing the negative. Plus, complaining tends to infect others -- and pretty soon, you've got a pity party going on. Try giving yourself three free passes on complaining about an issue, but when you've used up the third pass, it's time to stop complaining and either accept things as they are and move on, OR do something. Anything. Just stop complaining.

Next time you're sick of the day you're having, get a grip!

How to Make Good Decisions Quickly

I have a friend who is a smart, savvy businesswoman. She runs a successful business, is raising two teenagers as a single parent, and has overcome her share of life's challenges along the way.

On stuff like politics, major life illnesses and tough-love parenting of teenagers, she's the Queen of Quick and Decisive Decision-making. But pick a paint color? Choose a movie? Decide between Tex-Mex or Thai for lunch? It's painful to watch.

Web 2.0 and Social Networking for Coaches

I've been Twittering for about 9 months now, with surprisingly good results: lots of great connections, excellent response to questions I've posted, and actual NEW CLIENTS who came to me not through my regular marketing channels, but via Twitter. What's not to love?!

As I was sharing this good news with a friend a while back, it occurred to me that it might be time to give this whole Web 2.0 thing a closer look from a marketing strategy perspective.

A Little Thank You Goes a Long Way

I’m grinning from ear to ear right now. It’s a 17,000+ watt grin.

Last year, I wrote a short note to the folks at TeachingSells.com to let them know how much I appreciated the program.

Teaching Sells is by far the best online learning program I’ve seen yet. Thanks so much for what I can only imagine is a HUGE amount of brilliant creative teamwork behind the scenes. You guys ROCK! ~ Kathy Mallary, spiritspring.com

3 Tips for Breaking the Gremlin’s Death Grip on Your Coaching Client’s Brain

Every so often, a client shows up for a coaching call with their gremlin in tow. Your gremlin is that little voice in the back of your head that never shuts up; it's the down-side of your non-stop stream of consciousness. It pokes it's nose into everything to make sure you never forget that it's the gremlin who's in charge.

The little buggers are sneaky and relentless, and they can be so distracting that a client feels unable to make a move. What can you do when a client drags their gremlin into the session and says, "Here…YOU deal with it!?"

Three tips for breaking the gremlin's death grip:

Make sure your client reads the one book their gremlin doesn't want them to read. Taming Your Gremlin by Rick Carson is like an owner's manual for gremlins, providing simple, fun and effective ways to disarm your inner critic. Carson, founder and director of the Gremlin Taming Institute™, has trained thousands of people to tame their gremlins over the last twenty years .

One of my clients reported that he actually caught his gremlin trying to talk him out of paying full price for the book. (And it's not even that expensive – just $14!) Simply noticing what his gremlin was doing was all it took to get it to shut up.

Keep an eye out for your own gremlin. Gremlins love to feed off each other, so when your client shows up with their gremlin, be alert – your gremlin is likely to pop up with some scary thoughts and judgments.

If your gremlin does try to get in on the action, don't struggle with it; just notice it and stay detached.  Imagine that your gremlin has a volume knob in the middle of it's forehead, and turn the volume waaaaaaaay down.

Gremlins are profoundly uncoachable. When I was getting started in coaching, I used to try and work with the gremlin. It didn't take too long to figure out that gremlins are not coachable! There's no point in trying to reason with, sooth or challenge a gremlin. They're only interested in one thing: self preservation. They aren't interested in changing; in fact, they're designed to resist change. So don't even try to coach a gremlin—it's a waste of time and energy.

Instead, educate your client about gremlins. Then you can ask, "Is that YOU or your gremlin talking?" That's often all it takes to bring a client out from behind the gremlin.

(Does your gremlin have you in a head-lock? All you need is one life-changing conversation and in just 90 minutes, you can be unstuck, laser-focused and confidently taking the right steps to grow your coaching business – 100% guaranteed, or your money back. Strike fear in the heart of your gremlin today – schedule a Stuck-Buster Strategy Session!)

Myth: My Subscribers Will Get Pissed if I Promote Myself

Imagine it: Your list is finally starting to gain momentum. You're pouring your heart into your newsletter or blog. You're going out of your way to give 5-star value to your list. You've been working night and day to make sure your sales funnel is positively stuffed with goodies…

But nobody's buying.

What's going on? Why aren't you getting clients and making sales?

There are a number of possible reasons, but the most likely is that you're not getting business because you're not promoting your coaching products and services. And you're not promoting because you're afraid of pissing off your subscribers.

See, there's this wackadoodle idea floating around that you're supposed to get coaching customers without… well, without marketing, promoting or selling. There, I said it.

MARKETING. PROMOTING. SELLING.

How rude! You're hoping people will take the hint and buy something without having to be asked in a direct way. 'Cuz if you're direct about it, they might get pissed and unsubscribe.

Warning: Radical Idea Alert

To that, I say, "I WANT them to unsubscribe."

Huh?!? Why on earth would I want people to unsubscribe from my list?

Simple: My list is part of my prospecting system, and the whole point of the prospecting system is to convert qualified prospects to customers. Key word: QUALIFIED. And if someone doesn't want to receive promotional offers from me, that's a pretty good indication that they are not qualified to be a customer.

Qualified prospects:

• Are seeking a solution to a need
• Are motivated to make a purchase
• Have the financial resources to make the purchase
• Have the authority to make the buying decision

I want my list to be 100% qualified, so when an unqualified prospect unsubscribes, it's a GOOD THING. It means the system is working!

Qualified prospects WANT what you're offering

If you let the fear of losing subscribers keep you from serving your customers, you won't be in business very long.

Of course, you want to make sure to give subscribers whatever free information or value you promised when they joined your list; you don't want to bombard them with nothing but offers – just don't be afraid to promote your products and services when it's appropriate.

Qualified prospects will thank you by saying yes or asking questions; unqualified prospects will either ignore the offer or leave the list. And if they're not a qualified prospect for you, they probably belong on someone else's list, right?

Bottom line: Don't be afraid to promote to your list; it's an essential step in the customer qualification process.

How to make your blog more “subscribable”

While putzing around recently with FeedBurner/FeedBlitz and the whole question of how to make my blog more "subscribable", I came across some great tips for getting more blog subscribers:

What makes you want to subscribe

Feed placement and design tips

10 effective ways to get more blog subscribers

4 simple steps to more blog subscribers

A secret to finding new subscribers for your blog

And for newbies who are still scratching their heads about what the heck RSS means:

Beginner's guide to RSS

 

 

7 Ways to Wreck Your Sales Funnel

Recently, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Simon Allard on one of my favorite subjects: Marketing a coaching business (specifically, sales funnels and multiple streams of income). Listen to the interview for free here.

I thought I'd outline some of the tips we discussed here on the blog, only instead of doing the predictable thing and listing what TO do, I figured it might be interesting to look at this from the "what NOT to do" perspective.

First: "Tell me again, what's a sales funnel and why do I need one?"

A sales funnel is simply a way to describe how you get, keep and grow the lifetime value of customers. It defines the stages that people move through in your business and the strategies you use to help them move from one stage to the next.

Without a well-planned sales funnel, you're much more likely to have gaps in your marketing system -- and gaps can be fatal.

So if your business is not what you want it to be – if your list isn't growing; if getting clients seems harder than necessary; if your marketing is landing on deaf ears – check to see if any of these techniques for wrecking your sales funnel sounds familiar.

7 ways to wreck your sales funnel

#1: Just say no to a target market.

What do you say when someone asks, "Who do you work with?" If your answer begins with "Anyone" or "Everyone," or if you can't outline the problem that your business helps them with in a simple sentence, your market is probably too broad. And the broader your market, the less relevant you'll seem to individual prospects.

Unfortunately, a broad market is something few self-employed coaches can afford. It eats into your profitability, because proving that you're relevant to a variety of people with widely different goals and needs takes more time and effort.

It's far more profitable (and easier!) to focus on a well-defined target market – a group of consumers who share certain key characteristics, including a common problem or goal. You'll find that it's easier to connect with potential customers and help them get the results they're looking for.

Bottom line: Make sure you have a clear understanding of your target market and the problem that your business solves.

Twitter Roundup

I've been stumbling around in the land of Twitter for a while now, and am really enjoying myself! Just today I happened to come across a terrific beginner's guide to Twitter – it's a 48-page ebook called "A geek's Guide To Promoting Yourself and Your Online Business in 140 Characters or Less with Twitter". 

I've made some great connections with other coaches, and seem to get at least 1-2 new followers most days. It's fascinating to see who follows you – sometimes I really wonder how on earth someone found me or what they saw that sparked their interest.

Twitter has turned out to be very different than I expected, and definitely more rewarding than I imagined. Probably the biggest "aha" is that I'm feeling more inclined to blog more frequently because I finally "got" it that shorter posts can be both helpful and fun. (140 characters is a great way to train yourself to keep it simple!)

The biggest surprise about Twitter is that I've been using it to experiment with Haiku poetry. The 5-7-5 syllable rhythm lends itself quite nicely to the 140 character limit. Here are a few of my better  attempts:

• The flowers riot/colors panting and hot, while/the grass begs for mow.
• One cricket alone/is annoying enough, but/two are making more.
• She sits and dreams of/rocks & dirt giving up their/succulent secrets.
• This light's far too bright/I cannot see the angels/God sent to bless me.
• I know that I should,/but it's not in my nature/to finish my peas.

Lastly, here are some of the Twitter gadgets, apps and resources that I've found useful:

• TweetBeep sends Twitter messages to your email inbox; I set up an alert for @Spiritspring so that I don't miss any replies or Tweets about me, myself and I.     =^)
• I use Tweetlater to automatically thank new followers for following me.
• I haven't tweeted from my cell phone yet, because – 1) I have a really crappy cell phone, and 2) I'm almost always in front of my computer when I feel a tweet coming on – but I like variety, so when I get tired of tweeting on the Twitter.com site, sometimes I feel like a Twhirl, and other times I feel like a TwitterFox.
• Looking for people to follow? Use Summize to find people who are talking about stuff you're interested in.
• Caroline Middlebrook has written a Big Juicy Twitter Guide (it's actually a series of blog posts). Scroll all the way down to the bottom for the really basic stuff.
• John T. Unger of TypePadHacks.com has posted several great blog articles on Twitter accessories. Here's the first one to get you started.
• Here's a great video from CommonCraft, "Twitter in Plain English".
  

P.S. D'oh! almost forgot! You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/spiritspring.