Archive for May, 2008
Your Marketing Key – Who You are as a Coach
Posted by: | CommentsRecently, I was a guest on The Coaching Show, the great internet radio show about coaching that I wrote about in a previous post. It was a great discussion about the pre-marketing work for building a coaching business. If you would like to listen to that interview, here is the link to listen right now -
http://www.biztipsforcoaches.com/coachingshow/
One of the items we discussed was what I call “The Four Questions”. This is the contemplative work that each coach must be willing to do at the beginning and periodically throughout the life of the business. The four questions lead you to know how to market what you do because they are at the core of your business.
The first question is “Who Are You?”. This is about who you are as a person. To succeed in the coaching business, it helps to know yourself inside and out. As a coach, so “your stuff” doesn’t get in the way of the client and as an entrepreneur so that you can get the most out of your abilities and compensate where needed. How do you describe your own uniqueness? What is the combination of personality traits, values experiences, and history that makes you who you are. This is the vital piece that makes YOUR coaching business different than the other five thousand.
The second question is “What do you do?”. This is having the ability to talk about coaching and what it is. Being able to describe your work in a genuine, impactful way is vital to attracting the people that will want to work with you. As you are learning to talk about coaching, the more practice the better. Talk about coaching with anyone who will listen, read about coaching widely, research what others say about coaching and by all means have your own coach. All this is collecting knowledge to be able to put in to words the results that you and others can expect to get from coaching.
The third question is “What do you have to offer?”. This is who you are as a coach – what are your strengths and skills as a coach. Ask for lots of feedback as you are learning this about yourself. Perhaps your clients have insight into your traits that were most helpful for them. Other s to ask for feedback include your supervisor, coaching partners or peers. Think about your values and beliefs and how they impact the work you do as a coach. Decide what you believe about motivation and personal change and how that impacts your presence with your coaching clients.
The final question is “What is your purpose, passion and path?” – really 3 questions in one. Your purpose is the spark within you that makes you want to be a coach. Ask yourself what it is that you think is great about coaching. Your passion is the driving force that makes your coaching be genuinely from your soul. Yes, we are starting to think niche here! Your path is how you put all the elements together in a business that is unique to you. Think about what the essential elements are for the business to be authentically yours, how you intend to measure success and how these two factors will impact how you run the business.
This is a brief highlight of The Four Questions which are covered more thoroughly in the book, Mind Your Own Biz. Utilizing The Four Questions will help you lay the foundation of your business; revisiting this periodically will allow your business to flourish. It is the work at the foundation of attracting clients, making marketing easier, keeping you motivated and increasing your income.
Alex Mandossian Visited My Blog
Posted by: | CommentsSeveral weeks ago I wrote a post about resources to use as an entrepreneur. In that post, I listed several people who are influential in internet marketing and on-line business development. One of these is Alex Mandossian who is considered one of the top-ten freelance direct marketers in the United States. At certain times of the year when he is doing a specific promotion, you can’t help but receive emails from many sources hailing the wonder of his products.
My point today is not to tell you about Alex, really, but to tell you about some technology that he has reminded me is important for coaching entrepreneurs. After mentioning his name here, I discovered that someone from his blog had visited mine! That was fun in itself, but the important points are how he knew to visit me and how I knew he had done so.
First, let me tell you how Alex knew I had mentioned him. When you have a blog you have a private page that tells you all the current details of your blog. This is called your dashboard. You are reading a WordPress blog right now and WordPress automatically gives you a widget (a little piece of software) on your dashboard that goes out and looks for all the incoming links to your blog. You may have to periodically click “see all” to keep it up to date, but the info is brought right to your dashboard. This is probably how Alex knew I had mentioned him and had given you that link to his blog. The incoming links widget is a great way to see who is interested in your writing and exactly what content they have linked to.
Secondly, it is vital that you monitor the traffic to your blog like you would a website. The best, least costly way to keep track of traffic is to use Google Analytics. You or your web designer can install this for free on your blog in very little time. This will then tell you how much traffic you are getting, where visitors came from, what key words they used to find you and much more. For example, I am currently watching to see how much traffic comes from my recent appearance on WS Radio so I can determine if I should continue pursuing that marketing strategy. My tracking system told me about Alex’s visit. When I reviewed my traffic sources detailed report, there was Alex Mandossian listed on the websites that visitors had arrived from.
So thanks, Alex. Your visit was fun for me and gave us an opportunity to discuss some important technology. It’s amazing all that we can know today by using technology wisely.
Ingles Supermarkets – Not Customer Friendly
Posted by: | CommentsToday I want to talk about why I stopped shopping at Ingles Supermarkets and to find the lessons in that for entrepreneurs running their own businesses. Ingles is a large chain of more than 200 grocery stores in six states in the southeastern US. The corporate headquarters is not thirty miles from where I live and on occasion I have been disturbed enough at them to consider driving there to give someone a piece of my mind.
I try to eat in a fairly healthy way and this means that I am buying products like low fat cheeses, whole grains and natural foods without lots of additives. I live in a fairly upscale town where there are many people that are health conscious. Over the past six months, I have noticed more and more of the healthy foods that I buy disappearing from the shelves at Ingles. At first, I would ask the stock person about things and he/she would invariably report they “just didn’t carry that any more”.
As time went on, I decided to request an item or two that I buy a lot since I was driving to a different store to purchase them. When I asked for a form to request a certain product, I was told they didn’t have such a form. I decided that I had just run into an uninformed employee and went home. The next time one of my regular purchases vanished from the shelves, I asked again. This time I was told there was no way to request a product. Since I am not easily discouraged, I asked to speak to the manager. What an eye opener that was! The manager explained that not only could I not request a product, neither could he. Apparently Ingles store managers no longer decide what products are sold in their stores; someone in corporate headquarters decides what all Ingles stores will carry and it does not matter what the local customer wants to buy.
Ouch. I do not take lightly the idea that my preferences do not matter. A company that is not intereted in my being a satisified customer is not interested in having my money. The ironic point is that the Ingles website boasts “After 40 years, the same customer focus and commitment to quality and convenience on which Bob Ingle founded the business in 1963, continues today throughout the organization.” Hmmm, I wonder what ole Bob Ingle would say about the “customer focus” they have today in product selection.
As an entrepreneur, I know that the most important marketing tool that I have is understanding my customer and what they truly want. I ask questions, listen carefully and even do surveys if I need to get opinions from a group. I am in continual dialogue with my customers in order to keep my business fresh. I invest time and energy and resources into staying current with what is most helpful to those who have already given me their trust and those who are potential customers. While a coaching business is vastly different than a grocery store in many ways, we both need loyal customers to have a thriving business. I truly believe that I may know something more about business than the decision makers at Ingles Supermarkets. I don’t even mind driving the five extra miles to get the groceries that I really want at Harris Teeter!
Internet Radio – The Coaching Show
Posted by: | CommentsIn my never-ending quest to find cool things to help us as coaches, I have stumbled upon a gold mine! You may be vaguely aware of internet radio – or maybe you are a fan – but I didn’t realize what a good resource it can be until recently. The best in terms of helping you to run your coaching business is The Coaching Show. The show airs on Wednesday mornings on WS Radio which is “The World Wide Leader in Internet Talk”. The show is hosted by master certified coach, Christopher McAuliffe who is interesting and a good role model of an interviewer.
The next cool thing is that I will be one of the guests this week to discuss The Foundations of a Successful Coaching Business. I will be reviewing the introspective, personal work that all coaches must do to have a thriving business. I call the work The Four Questions and feature it in my e-book, Mind Your Own Biz. This is work that is vital when you begin your business and is important for all coaching entrepreneurs to review periodically in order to stay on top. I hope you will be able to join the show live. I’ll be giving a discount on the e-book to all listeners and giving a free book to one lucky listener.
I am the second guest on the show that day and my time slot is from 11:40-12:00 eastern time. I highly recommend listening from the top of the show at 11:00am eastern because the first guest will be Phillip Sandahl. He is one of the authors of Co-Active Coaching:New Skills for Coaching People toward Success in Work and Life which is the most important textbook you should have on your shelf. Phil leads several of the training functions at the very popular training school, CTI, and is co-founder and principal of Team Coaching International which focuses on working with teams as a system.
One wonderful feature of The Coaching Show and what makes it such a great resource for you as a coach developing your business is that all the shows are archived. There are at least 250 recordings on the site just waiting for you to go explore. You can search the archives by date or by topic. Of course, I highly recommend the section on the Business of Coaching.
To listen live on Wednesday, go to www.wsradio.com and click on the box in the upper left labeled “What’s playing live on WS Radio: Listen Live”. You will need Windows Media Player or Real Player on your computer and if you need it, there are very good directions on how to get it and get started listening. Just click on the tab in the center of the page labeled “How to Listen”. If you already have a player, clicking on the listen link will connect you to the live show.
If you don’t listen live, the archived call should be on the site within a day. In either case, I hope you will come back here after the call and let me know your reactions. I would love to hear how you are working on the Four Questions for your business.
