My Essay Blog

Most coaches get involved in coaching for one extremely compelling and valuable purpose &ndash because they want to make a positive impact to the lives of others.

As a coach, the extent to which you are able to fulfil that objective is contingent upon two factors. Firstly, your skill and effectiveness as a coach; and secondly, on the number of clients you are able to affect through the application of your services. The purpose of this article is to focus on the second factor.

In the process of assisting people, it’s also possible for coaches to develop a fruitful lifestyle for themselves along the way. In fact, these objectives are entirely complimentary.

Many business people, including coaches, fail to recognise the important ethical role that marketing plays in their business. In doing so they develop a mindset that is self defeating to themselves, their business, and their clients.

As a coach, you are in business. How effectively you operate your business is entirely contingent on you. There are enormously successful coaches (in terms of client numbers, income and coaching outcomes), and coaches that are barely able to etch out a living. The difference between these extremes is not their coaching competency, but rather their mindset. You may be an incredibly skilful coach, but unless you have people willing to use your services, your skills are of little to no value.

So what mindset does it take to be a successful coach?

A successful coaching mindset:

- Puts the needs of prospects and clients first;

- Actively seeks to assist clients attain their objectives;

- Is empathetic to the needs of clients and prospects;

- Doesn’t limit the service offered to clients, and

- Acts as an ethical adviser.

It takes a Marketing Mindset to be a successful coach.

We regularly hear of coaches that feel as though marketing is ‘leading’ and ‘unethical.’ They feel as though it’s too ‘salesy’ and don’t feel comfortable with it. For those coaches, we’re going to explain why marketing is both ethically valid and commercially crucial.

Ethical Validity

There is an enormous (and growing) volume of people in society that would benefit from coaching services. Let’s call these people prospective coaching clients, or prospects. These prospects have specific goals they’d like to achieve, or challenges they’d like to overcome, with a view to leading a better and more fulfilling life.

As a coach you have a certain duty of care to assist these people. You can only begin to assist them once they’re utilising your services. Marketing is the link between the prospects desire and your ability to assist them fulfil their desire.

Marketing only becomes unethical in the circumstance that you are not able to fulfil your marketing promise to your client. In this instance you’ve misled your client, either knowingly or unknowingly, and have acted unethically.

On the premise that prospects will seek a coach to assist them attain their specific goals, it’s the ethical obligation of coaches to help prospects select a coach that will best be able to assist them. To do this coaches should fully, comprehensively and transparently disclose to prospects what services they offer; where their specialties lie; what experience they have; how they’ve assisted people with similar desires in the past; and how using their services will benefit them. Or to state it more simply, to undertake marketing.

Commercially Crucial

Marketing is commercially crucial because it links prospects that desire a certain outcome with skilled professionals trained to assist them achieve that outcome. It identifies you as someone that may be able to assist prospects with their pre-qualified needs. By seeking out information on coaching services, prospects have already identified for themselves:

1. That there are certain things in their life they’d like to attain or challenges they’d like to overcome.

2. That a coach is a person with the requisite skills and experience to assist them.

3. That they are willing to invest financially in the process.

The above is an extremely important point, and one that coaches need to accept.

As we explained earlier, coaches generally come from one of two schools of thought with respect to marketing.

The first school of thought perceives marketing to be ‘leading’ and ‘salesy.’ They come from the paradigm that by marketing you are proactively influencing someone in their decisions. Or specifically that you may make someone do something they would not otherwise do. We call this train of thought the Influencing Paradigm.

The second school of thought accepts that prospects are people that have identified for themselves their need to invoke change. And they’ve identified that a coach will assist them make that change. They recognise that the prospect has made the intellectual link between their needs and how they want those needs to be fulfilled. We call this train of thought the Service Paradigm.

The thought processes of these two perspectives are entirely dipolar. One positions the prospect as someone reluctantly influenced into utilising a service, and the other positions the prospect as a proactive individual capable of determining their needs that has actively sought out coaching services.

As a coach, it’s critical that you put yourself in the second paradigm of thinking. Only then will you be able to ethically fulfil your objective of assisting your clients. And only then will you be able to fulfil your symbiotic goal of building a successful coaching business.

By putting yourself in the Service Paradigm of thought you will recognise that to assist clients meet their objectives, you should:

a) Actively promote your services through compelling advertising that clearly describes what you can offer clients.

b) Understand that as a coach and a trusted advisor you are often in a better position of knowledge to ascertain your client needs to assist them attain their goals.

c) Be empathetic to the needs of your clients and actively offer solutions to them through various products and services.

d) Value your client’s intellect and decision making ability.

e) Do not pre-empt your client’s wants and hence limit the range and scope of products and services you offer them.

f) Always acts as an ethical adviser.

Once you embrace the Service Paradigm to marketing, you’ll realise that marketing provides you with a much greater opportunity to fulfil your primary objectives &ndash to assist your clients, and to build a successful coaching business. These objectives become complimentary and you create a truly win-win situation between the desires of your clients and your own desires.

In the second part of this article we’ll provide you with further information on how to develop your Marketing Mindset and a Service Paradigm.

While an individual would like to improve an aspect or certain aspects of their life so they can achieve a specific goal, or set of goals.

In a previous article we discussed the distinction between an Influencing Paradigm, and a Service Paradigm, to marketing your coaching business. We discussed how marketing your business is both ethically valid and commercially crucial, and how marketing is a critical process in achieving your coaching objective of having a positive impact on the lives of others.

To quickly surmise, we explained that people with an Influencing Paradigm mindset perceive marketing to be ‘leading’ and ‘salesy.’ They come from the paradigm that by marketing you are proactively influencing someone in their decisions. Or specifically that you may make someone do something they would not otherwise do.

People from the Service Paradigm school of thought accept that prospects are people that have identified for themselves their need to invoke change. And they’ve identified that a coach will assist them make that change. They recognise that the prospect has made the intellectual link between their needs and how they want those needs to be fulfilled.

To be a successful coach, or in fact successful in any business, it’s critical that you embrace a Service Paradigm mindset toward your marketing.

In this article we’re going to further explore exactly how you can develop a Service Paradigm marketing mindset.

Before we can begin to discuss how you can develop your Service Paradigm mindset, let’s look at some of the characteristics. Coaches with a Service Paradigm recognise that to assist clients meet their objectives, they need to:

- Recognise that everyone in business is in the business of marketing. Without clients they’ll have no one to deliver their services too and hence no one to assist.

- Actively promote their services through compelling advertising that clearly describes what they can offer clients.

- Ethically promote their services with vigilance.

- Recognise the cycle of life of their prospects and regularly promote their services for as long as prospects allow.

- Understand that hey are often in a superior position of knowledge to ascertain what their client needs to assist them attain their goals.

- Be empathic to the needs of clients and actively offer solutions to them through various products and services.

- Value their client’s intellect and decision making ability.

- Not pre-empt their client’s wants and hence limit the range and scope of products and services they offer them.

- Always acts as an ethical adviser.

As a coach, to outwit your competitors you must create a niche; and to build a successful business you must attain a Service Paradigm marketing mindset.

To develop your Service Paradigm marketing mindset:

1. Be determined to succeed. You need to be absolutely determined that you’re going to succeed. If you just want to succeed, but you’re not willing to go the extra mile, you’ll get swept aside by those that are more determined. If you are truly determined, you’ll be confident and this confidence will automatically show in your business and be transparent to prospective clients, peers and the general public. Prospective clients will want to be associated with you, and clients will want to continue their involvement.

2. Persevere. Coaches with a marketing mindset embrace challenges as part of life and part of business. If you perceive challenges as impassable barriers you’ll never develop a marketing mindset. It’s crucial you accept you’re going to confront hurdles as part of business. How you perceive these hurdles, as opportunities or barriers, will drastically influence your level of success. Perseverance is a key ingredient in developing a marketing mindset.

3. Remain positive. Literally nothing destroys a marketing mindset more than a negative attitude. A marketing mindset is a ‘can do’ attitude. Faced with the same challenge, the coach with a positive ‘can do’ marketing mindset will find a way; the coach with a defeatist attitude will submit and fail.

4. Set Goals. As a coach this is something you should know a lot about. Set yourself specific, achievable, stretch goals.

5. Plan a strategy. Establish a specific plan of action to attain your goals. Identify what resources you’ll need and the possible challenges you may confront.

6. Implement your plan. This is the most difficult part. Implementation of your plan. Modify it where required, change your goals as others are attained, modify your plan if flaws are perceived, but always continue implementing. Non-action is the precursor of business failure. If you continue to implement, your business will always sustain forward momentum. If you have momentum, your direction (goals and plans) can always be adjusted.

7. Keep marketing. Your success or failure hinges on your marketing. Always maintain your marketing mindset. Always be focussed on marketing. It’s a common trap to get caught up in the day to day ‘operation’ of your business and put marketing aside. This is a recipe for disaster. How effectively you market will be the most influential determinant on the success (or otherwise) of your business. Marketing is not difficult or confusing, but it does require significant ongoing diligence and attention. The moment you lose focus on marketing your business is the moment your business performance will suffer.

Yola Eve

Business Trainer

VIP Quality Software

Time Management is getting more and more popular day by day. People want to be more successful, proactive and wealthy. It is not new to everyone that there are common time wasters in our lives. Watching TV all evening long, spending too much time on the Internet, having a very long conversation over the phone, and, my favorite one, doing trifles instead of going bed and loosing your precious sleep – these are common time wasters that you already know of. If you eliminate all these things, you will start to practice Time Management. But for me, it is rather

Do new Internet businesses really need the services of a business Coach, even if they can afford it? Being that one of my roles is as an Internet business coach I am somewhat biased and would generally answer “yes” to my own question!

Nonetheless, it is possible to effectively self coach regardless of whether you have a flesh and blood business coach or not.

While a student with the International Coach Academy, I also had a demanding full-time IT career with a major investment bank. And during my own transition from salaried employee status to that of startup Internet business owner, I used the following 5 self-coaching tips regularly.

1-Be Open To Alternative Ideas:

One potential downside of the social and peer conditioning in schools and corporate life, is that many people automatically resist even considering new ideas. Why is this? My experience suggests that these people have learned by experience not to rock the boat. If you think this looks and smells like fear of failure, you’d be absolutely right. As a solo business owner your challenge is to notice alternative ways of achieving objectives. Practically speaking, even if only a small percentage of these ideas might be useful in your business, they could still be the difference between success and failure.

2-Experience Life To The Max:

Here’s a saying I recall that brings this into focus:

“there are people worrying about what they will be doing in an eternal afterlife who have no idea how to spend a wet Sunday afternoon.”

The more richness and vitality you can find in the ordinary aspects of your everyday life, the better equipped you will be to handle the ups and downs, and yes the occasional boredom, of running and operating your own solo business. So, what are you going to enjoy doing on the next available rainy Sunday afternoon?

3-Who Needs More Accountability?:

Probably all us…based on what I have observed about effective coaching. It comes down to this. There are two primary ways I know of making real and usually lasting changes in a Business person’s life. Number 1 is raising awareness and number 2 is taking responsibility.

(Notice that I did not say taking 100% responsibility. - the degree of responsibility taken is a matter of practicalities as much as personal ownership.) As far as self coaching goes, taking more responsibility (number 2 from above) invariably ends up in applied accountability. Applied personal accountability. Choosing to compassionately but precisely observe your behavior several times a day can add up over time to a liberating feeling of accepting more accountability and all that goes with the territory. Are you up to this challenge? Just start with a basic intention of being more accountable and notice what happens over a period of weeks and months.

4-Get To the Point:

Getting to the point is in danger of becoming a lost art in a corporate world where taking responsibility is sometimes like being exposed to a highly contagious and career limiting disease! And that’s probably why it surprises many new Internet business owners when they comprehend just how many hours in their already busy business days are being expended in not getting to the point. In this arena I have again found that self coaching works well with simple acts of observation. All you have to do at the start of each activity is to ask yourself : “what’s the point of this?” Keep asking and you’ll get answers. OK, so had you a purpose in mind before reading this article? If not, get one.

5-The Art of Polite Conversation:

Internet business owners spend a lot of time glued to computer screens. However, there are people out there with whom it is probably a good idea to be able to have a polite conversation with. In person, via email, on the phone, via Skype-chat etc. Whatever, the ability to talk in a polite and respectful manner, and still get the job done, is a skill that will never age! In fact, a set of basic rules based on the art of polite conversation is probably the single best thing you can do for your own peace of mind and happiness in your Internet business. Although you can probably come up with your own way of doing this, an increasingly famous and incredibly effective method is given in Dr. Paddi Lund’s book, “Building The Happiness-Centred Business”. Go get the book out and say G’day to the Solutions Press folks who publish it!

What’s the single most important process determining whether or not your coaching business is successful?

The correct answer to this question can completely change your coaching business forever. It can change your perception of your business. It can change your focus in your business. It can change how you go about operating your business. And most importantly, it can determine the success or otherwise of your business.

We asked dozens of coaches this question and got a broad array of responses. But only 4% of them were even close to the mark! Most coaches answered: quality service; number of clients; pricing; branding; advertising copy.

…And whilst all these issues are critical, the single most important process is your marketing methodology. Whilst you must have all the other elements as well, it’s your marketing methodology that ultimately determines the success or otherwise of your business.

Let us explain…

Nearly all coaches use a marketing methodology that’s a sales-based marketing methodology. This is understandable as most traditional marketing methods teach sales-based marketing methods. We’re all impacted by sales-based marketing at every turn &ndash on TV, newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio &ndash everywhere. And when coaches research marketing methods, they are most likely to learn about traditional sales-based marketing methodologies &ndash print ads (in newspapers, yellow pages, journals, magazines etc), direct telephone calls, radio, flyers, direct mail letters, etc.

But there are several extremely powerful forces at play against coaches employing a sales-based marketing methodology…

Most coaches invariably feel uncomfortable delivering a ‘sales pitch.’ Coaches generally have better technical skills than marketing skills. They’re therefore uncomfortable talking about themselves and endorsing the quality of their product. This means they don’t close, and comes across to prospects as a general lack of confidence in themselves, and their product and service.

Sales marketing is extremely expensive &ndash narrowing your net margin on your service. The more you spend to get a client the less net profit you’ll retain at the end.

Generally people are very sceptical and defensive against sales approaches. This exponentially increases the barrier of making a sale. When you employ a sales-based marketing method, most prospects have already closed themselves off to learning about your services due to their natural tendency to put up a defence against sales-based marketing.

There is no trust and rapport built through a sales-based marketing approach. For a prospect to buy from you, there needs to be an element of trust. Your prospect needs to trust that you can deliver on your promises and that they’ll gain a positive return on their investment. This level of trust is extremely difficult to build through a sales-based marketing approach.

You build no reciprocal obligation on the prospect to investigate your offer or purchase from you. It’s a natural human tendency to reciprocate in kind what’s been given to you. You can not build reciprocal obligation through sales-based marketing.

You attract price sensitive shoppers and ‘tyre kickers’ that take up a lot of your time and result in extremely low conversion.

It’s difficult to maintain contact with prospects for long enough to build rapport and trust &ndash it generally takes 4 to 6 contacts before a prospect will buy from you.

So, we can hear you shouting “If sales-based marketing is not going to be effective, what’s my alternative to get clients?”

And the answer is… Education-based Marketing. Education-based marketing is simply the process by which you attract and convert highly-qualified clients by giving them what they want &ndash valuable information and advice that solves their problems - and removing what they don’t want, a sales pitch.

Education-based marketing is generally undertaken by delivering Credibility Marketing techniques such as public speaking, information based teleclasses, publications, networking, hotlines, free educational give aways (such as reports, assessments, tools, ecourses), etc.

As opposed to sales-based marketing, education-based marketing means…

- You give your prospect what they really want &ndash highly valuable information. And you take away what they don’t want &ndash a sales pitch.

- You maintain your dignity and feel good about yourself as you never make an effort to sell.

- Your brand recognition and respect will skyrocket! Education-based marketing is the ultimate brand builder. By positioning yourself as the ‘expert’ or ‘specialist’ by solving, through your education products, the most pressing issues your niche confronts. You become the only logical choice in your market.

- You can establish yourself as a credible authority as prospects depend on you as a reliable source of valuable advice.

- You significantly reduce your marketing costs &ndash and can in fact get paid to market yourself. This vastly compounds the net worth of every client you attract &ndash you can actually earn double the net profit with only half the clients!

- You don’t have to seek out new prospects &ndash prospects come to you (to have their problems solved).

- You can maintain (mutually beneficial) contact with your prospects through the sales process because they don’t feel pressured by a sales pitch and value your information and advice.

- You reach prospects early during the first stages of their decision making process.

- You attract ‘moderately interested’ prospects that may otherwise be afraid to call you but are not afraid to request your information.

- Due to the high level of trust and rapport built early on you’ll be perceived as an adviser, not a salesperson, making added-value sales dramatically easier.

- You dramatically increase your referrals from prospects as they feel loyal to you &ndash due to a relationship built on trust and reciprocal obligation and your efforts to help them &ndash even if they don’t hire you! And your referrals will come much earlier in your relationship.

- You gain compounded advantage as your information is passed freely between prospects within your niche.

- You gain a competitive advantage because not many competitors are using education-based marketing.

- You achieve a highly leveraged advantage as you can put forward your marketing even when you are not present.

- You save valuable time as you often are delivering your message directly to your most highly qualified target audience.

As you can see, education-based marketing is the exact opposite to sales-based marketing, and can make an extraordinary difference to your business, and your enjoyment of ‘doing’ business. So, ask yourself, “How much education-based marketing am I currently doing?” and “How can I develop a marketing plan significantly comprised of education-based marketing methodologies?”

Restaurant owners don’t run a cash machine 24/7. They face the reality of being observed by thieves undercover and this alone is a serious threat not only to the business but to the safety of the management, staff and customers. The most difficult part about this harm is there is no certain point one realizes that there is a thief lurking around the corner waiting for the right time to attack. And the sad part about it is there are a big percentage of theft casualties done by employees.

Yes, that’s right. Employee theft is one of the serious threats that a restaurant owner has to accept. Each year, there is an estimate of over $52 billion loss because of this reason. The percentage is up to 95% and the numbers already indicates a high risk of getting robbed by one of your employees anytime.

The fact is, there is no actual way of stopping this sad reality but it’s best to still think one step ahead of the culprit. You need to start to work on your very own backyard to prevent employee theft. Make sure that you’re aware with your employees’ behavior physically, mentally and professionally. Analyze your employees’ habits such as the borrowing property of others without permission or borrowing money from co-workers regularly.

Also, what your employees do outside work is one of the possible factors of employee theft. Does this employee drink a lot or does she have a habit of buying items more than what she earns? Family and previous employment background also gives useful clues in learning more about your employees’ behavior. Of course, you don’t need to do this to every employee since it will take much time and it’s even incorrect to meddle with the personal lives of others. Just do extra investigation to certain individuals who give off clues unconsciously during work hours.

Don’t accuse anyone without proper evidence. If something has been stolen, be sure that you report it the police and let them do rest. The one responsible for the crime may not admit it and even lie to you directly but don’t take justice on your own hands.