100 Days of Business Development

Today is an important day on the calendar because there are just 100 days left in the year.  Did you hear about the widely publicized 100 day countdown to the Beijing Olympics?  Same idea, but with a coaching twist.  Many coaches talk about this as a great day to target a new project and get it started.  The 100 day interval is manageable, track-able and long enough to see some substantial results.  I am issuing you a coaching challenge in honor of the 100 days remaining of 2008.  Do one business development task each day for each of the 100 days left in the year.  Just one.  By the end of the year, you will have made important progress in developing your coaching business.

Now, I realize this can be a tough challenge.  For many coaches, discouragement comes when an action doesn’t bring quick rewards.  You try something earnestly, putting lots of effort into it and realize after a few weeks that it doesn’t seem to have made a difference.  So you move on to try another new thing that you heard works really well.  If this is your pattern for the next 100  days, you will be no further ahead at the start of 2009 than you are now. 

What I would like you to do for the first week of the challenge is to make your business development tasks about planning.  Make sure your business vision and mission are solid, tweak your niche definition if necessary, review your business plan for 2008 and your marketing plan.  Only then should you decide what you will be doing over the course of the remaining days.  Instead of thinking about the new clients you want to get in the next 100 days, I strongly suggest you look at how to lay the foundation now for a business boom in 2009.  What do you need to put in place to make that happen?  Do you need new products?  Your first product?  A great free product?  How will you take people on your list and continue to meet their needs?  How will you know what their needs are? 

You can make the changes in your coaching business over the next 100 days that will make 2009 your best year yet.  Let’s get to work and keep plugging at it every day.  Please leave a comment here if you decide to take the challenge – we all will be cheering you on!