Developing a Marketing Mindset: Part One

Most coaches get involved in coaching for one extremely compelling and valuable purpose – 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 – 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.

Considering Becoming A Life Coach?

As life coaching is gaining popularity, so is interest in becoming a life coach. Many people love the idea of working for themselves and being in a profession that helps others. If you are thinking about becoming a life coach, there are several factors you need to consider.

First, decide what type of life coach you want to become. The word "life" covers a lot of territory so life coaches tend to specialize in specific areas. These areas include career and finance, goal setting, relationships, weight loss/fitness and drugs and alcohol, just to name a few.

What is your passion and how do you want to inspire others to create success in their lives?

When thinking about what type of life coach you want to be, examine your career, education and life experience to find your current strengths.

Once you have an idea of what area you want to focus on, consider what a life coach does. This is tricky because there is no one definition or universal standard so several interpretations exist. You need to develop a format in which you will teach successful actions to your clients.

A qualified life coach can break down goals into manageable, easier to confront steps while showing the client effective techniques for completing them. Just knowing what and how is not enough because clients often get in their own way. The life coach will evaluate their progress and motivate them to implement a plan with consistent action to actually achieve desired results. Before you begin on this path, know that there is a difference between understanding what to do and being able to get someone to do it.

There are three essential elements involved in becoming a life coach and they are training, skills and education. When it comes to training, there are many life coaching academies that offer courses and some even offer accreditation. Many of these courses have actual and practical value. Please note that there is no federal or state agency that has an accreditation for life coaching and schools offering degrees are self-accredited.

If you are considering taking any of these courses first look into the costs involved. Often an inexpensive introductory course is offered only to get you started. Since costs can add up quickly, check into the length of time, the number of additional courses required and make sure to get referrals from other students. Another important point to check for first is whether or not the school provides adequate tools for practical application when working with clients. This will be very helpful for beginners in developing step-by-step methods for life coaching.

There are a few key skills that are absolutely essential. For starters, you need to be a good listener, a creative problem solver and have considerable knowledge of human behavior. You need to be able to set goals and develop plans of action to actualize them. Life coaching requires that you are organized and can keep meticulous attention to detail to monitor weekly results.

Patience and the ability to deal with frustration are critical. Clients don't always do what they agree to do and getting people to suddenly give up destructive behavior patterns can be a real challenge. You need to know how to motivate and be creative in overcoming obstacles and objections. You have to really like and care about people. You must also be able to accept failure as not all clients will change. There are a few more skills involved but these are fundamental.

A life coach should love education in order to stay informed of current advances and trends. The areas that require consistent study are psychology, goal setting, motivation, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, human behavior, habits of successful people, sleep patterns, relationships, business principles, principles of success, career development, drugs, alcohol, leadership, sales and more. A life coach is a relentless student of these subjects.

Life coaching is a proactive approach to resolving obstacles in an individual's life and it requires a clear picture of not only why and how, but also of step-by-step implementation and the ability to resolve blocks and setbacks as they come up. You'll need to combine these factors into a working platform to assist your clients in reaching their goals.

Finally, when you are ready to start life coaching, how are you going to get clients? The idea of working for yourself and helping people may sound great, and it is but it comes with its difficulties. You are not going to simply get business cards made then start filling your appointment book. Schools offering great careers as life-coaches will only be able to give you limited assistance in getting clients. After you spend your time and money either with a life coaching school or developing your own style of life coaching it will be up to you to get clients. You are one hundred percent responsible for your income and success.

You should enjoy networking and self-promoting. You can build a clientele through friends, networking groups, placing ads, professional relationships, and whatever other creative ways you can think of. As you get clients and earn a reputation, your business will grow through referrals. All this takes time, so be prepared.

As you are developing your business, you will have to overcome the obstacle of people questioning what a life coach does. Be prepared by asking yourself why someone would pay you to advise him or her and have a good answer. The answer you develop to that question will be the foundation for your success.

After considering all of these factors, if you decide to become a life coach you will be entering a dynamic field. Being able to actually help people create the life changes they want is a highly rewarding and exciting career. You'll be helping others gain success while creating your own!

Coaching Strategies: The Twinkie Defense and 3 Other Strategies Lawyers Use

Using the skills, strategies, and smarts of lawyers, you’ll be able to more effectively coach your employees to optimal performance. Here are 4 great tips to help you give constructive feedback in such a way that you motivate positive and productive performance... 1. Give evidence of performance to employee. In litigation, prosecutors are required to turn all of their evidence over to the defense. In order to be fair to employees, supervisors need to do the same thing. Tony frequently received disturbing memos from his district manager about his poor performance on sales calls. "You failed to cover the Five Points for Sales Excellence with a customer last month. This is unacceptable." Tony never received a monitoring sheet spelling out the discrepancies, never heard a tape of a recorded call, and he didn't even have the opportunity to defend himself because the cowardly manager simply shot her message off in a cold blunt memo. Giving feedback the way Tony's district manager does is dangerous. It certainly isn't motivating Tony to improve. Moreover, because the manager has provided no proof of the calls - no score sheet, no recording of the call, no date or time, and not even one specific statement about Tony's alleged ineffectiveness - Tony can't even defend his performance. When monitoring and coaching employees, ALWAYS turn over the evidence of the call to them. This evidence may include a recorded call, Mystery Shopper score sheet, detailed notes from customer's account, etc. 2. Prepare for employee performance meetings in advance. No attorney would conduct a direct examination or cross examination without thoroughly and carefully pre planning their questions. I always prepare a loose script prior to meeting with employees about problem performance, even though I don't actually read from my script. Writing the discussion out reinforces it in my mind and allows me to be less concerned with covering all the basis and more concerned with my employee. 3. Ask open-ended questions. Asking a juror if they are for the death penalty yields a yes or no answer, but asking her how she feels about the death penalty gives the attorney the opportunity to learn more. Just the same, asking your employee if she thought the phone call in question was good will yield a yes or no answer, but asking her how she thought the call went gives her the opportunity to expound. My favorite open-ended coaching questions include: "If you could do this call over again, would you?" "Tell me about that caller." "Is there anything else about this call/customer that I haven't asked, but need to know?" 4. Don't allow the "Twinkie Defense." In court, defendants may stand behind a theory of the case called the "Twinkie Defense." This theory tries to throw the jury off the trail by blaming the client's bad actions on something else - he ate too many Twinkies, for instance, and was on a sugar high when he killed/robbed/raped/molested and therefore is not responsible for his actions. You may have encountered the Twinkie Defense with your employees: "I was late because traffic was unusually heavy and then when I got here the elevator was broken, therefore my tardiness is not my fault." Decide that employees will be held accountable for their actions and don't allow them to hide behind the Twinkie Defense. In response to the Twinkie Defense, you respond with, "This is about individual responsibility - not trying to hide behind excuses." Deploy these field-tested and proven strategies and you’ll be coaching employees like a pro!