Dynamic Support Solutions

Back in the days when I worked in the corporate world, one of the companies I worked for had a saying that I love and still use to this day: Fix it in the mix! What does that mean, exactly, and how does it affect your business? Read on….

Fix it in the mix means to make the best decision you can at the time, then move on to the next thing. If the decision was wrong, fix it! When you think about it, very few of the decisions you make in your business cannot be undone or changed later.

I use this expression frequently with my clients. I often see them stall, vacillating back and forth about which way to go with this or that. Now, I’m in no way suggesting that you shouldn’t think your decisions through–that would be reckless and irresponsible. What I am saying is that you can only make the best decision you can with the information you have. If it’s wrong, don’t beat yourself up about it; remind yourself that you made the best decision you could, then fix it and forget it.

Sometimes I wonder if indecision is a self-sabotage mechanism. Maybe that decision you’re not making isn’t because you don’t know  the answer, but because by making it you are forced to move forward in an area that scares you. You’d be surprised to learn how many coaches I see who are stalled in the various stages of business start up, making a decision then changing their mind, spending time focusing on tiny things that likely only they will notice, like which particular word to use in a sentence (don’t laugh, I’ve seen clients do it!). Do they really think that that particular word will affect the success of their business, or is it a stall tactic?

So, although I’m going to over-cliche this, to those of you fretting too much over a decision, I remind you to fix it in the mix. If your indecision is based on fear, I invite you to face your fear, make the decision, and move forward.

And be proud of yourself! Whatever the reason you’re struggling with your decision, take a moment to celebrate that you overcame a personal obstacle and that’s no small feat!

Yes! You can be a savvy social media player in 2011. All it takes is a plan. If you take the time now to map out a strategy to guide you through the year, you will experience social media success.

You may belong to many social networks and you may get overwhelmed by the time it takes to nurture your presence in each network. The connections you make and the referrals you receive are valuable to your business. Are you investing too much time in social networks? Have you neglected your social networks? For most of us we bounce from one extreme to the other. There are times when we are spending more time in social networks than we care to admit. Then, there are times when we can’t remember the last time logged into a social network.

What role will social media play in your marketing plan for 2011? With a little bit of planning, you can achieve balance with your social media efforts. Social media has certainly taken on a life of its own. Sometimes we forget that it is a part of an overall marketing strategy. At this point it cannot be “the marketing plan.” View social media as a tool that supports your other marketing efforts.

How will you be a savvy social media player? Plan it out.

1.       Take a look at your social media efforts for 2010. List all the social networks you belong to. Which networks were you most active in? How many followers/fans/connections do you have in each network? Which network did you receive the most referrals from? Which network was most likely to purchase your coaching services and products?

2.       Fast forward and visualize this time in 2011. What will you have accomplished with your social media efforts? Will you have increased followers/fans/connections? By X number? By X%? Will you have reduced the number of networks you participate in? Will you have added niche networks?

3.       Map it out. So to move from where you are now to where you want to be at the end of 2011, create a social media map. If you are visual you can use a mind map, a spreadsheet a calendar or whatever you are comfortable using. If you would like to increase followers/fans/connections you may want to set a target number to reach by the end of each quarter. Then, you can write down which networks you only need to participate in once a month, then those that you want to participate in once a week, followed by those networks that will require participation more than once a week.

To be a savvy social media player in 2011 you need to participate with a purpose. Understand what your goal is for each network you belong to. Utilizing a written plan will help you stay focused. If the process of writing a plan has stalled you, I have created an action plan that you can use “out of the box.” It has the questions you need to plan out your marketing for 2011. It also has space for you to write your answers. Hopefully you will find this organized layout easier to accomplish writing out a plan.

Do you need an accountability partner? Need someone to bounce ideas around with you?
Contact me. I offer marketing brainstorming and coaching.

Of course you do! Now, what does success look like? It is probably pretty easy to rattle off a few key items that would make 2011 a success. You probably have personal goals and business goals. I think part of your business success involves marketing. From what I have observed, everyone acknowledges marketing is a key factor in developing and growing your coaching business. However, if you do not have a passion for marketing or the patience for it, it may fall to the bottom of the task list. When this happens, it is easy to feel directionless when making marketing decisions.

As a coach, you often get approached by people with the best of intentions and sometimes very intriguing opportunities. How do you determine if an opportunity is worth pursuing? I know we all factor in a “gut” feeling. I think that is good. I also think you need a written plan. I am a firm believer that utilizing a written plan helps you achieve your goals. It helps you focus on what is important to your coaching business in the midst of hectic times.

Most likely in the back of your mind you already intended to write out a success plan. Yet during this holiday season, it is so easy to get distracted. Between baking cookies, gift shopping, holiday get togethers and parties there may seem like there is no time to write anything down. Besides, if you wanted to write out a plan where do you begin?

Put It On Your Calendar: First, block out time on your schedule. You can even label the time as “2011 Planning.”

Crack Open Your Word Processor Program. Or grab your pen/pencil and paper. Whatever method is most comfortable for you and will get your creative marketing juices flowing.

Take A Look Back. Take a moment to think back to this time last year. What were your goals for 2010? Did you meet those goals? Were you able to exceed those goals? Even if you were able to meet and/or exceed the goals you set, did you find yourself getting distracted from them? Were there moments during the year when you felt overwhelmed? Did your goals fall to the side?

Take A Look Forward. At this time in 2011, what will you have accomplished? Sometimes it helps to visualize the results. Does your success in 2011 include increasing the number of members in your membership site? How many private coaching clients will you have? How many group coaching programs will you have?

How Do You Get From Here To There? What marketing strategies would you like to implement in 2011? Would you like to host a teleseminar? How many? Would you like to be interviewed on radio, TV, podcast? Would you like to publish an ebook? Would you like to be booked as a speaker?

Is the idea of sitting down and starting the process of writing out a success plan for 2011 still daunting? I have created an action plan that you can use “out of the box.” It has the questions you need to plan out your marketing for 2011. It also has space for you to write your answers. Hopefully you will find this organized layout easier to accomplish writing out a plan. You can order your plan from the order form in the right side bar.

Do you need an accountability partner? Need someone to bounce ideas around with you?
Contact me. I offer marketing brainstorming and coaching.

Where are your potential clients active online?  Check out the forums. Often thought of as the predecessor of social networks, forums are great online places where people exchange information.

Coaches, do you belong to forums? You should belong to several forums where your potential clients are participating. If your niche is small business owners, consider participating in forums where small business owners are participating. As a life coach, is your niche those who struggle with stress? You should consider participating in stress management forums.

You can leverage your use of forums to drive traffic to your blog. These 3 tips will guide you.

1.       Complete your profile. You want to build trust with forum users. If you are allowed to upload a profile picture make sure you do that. Does the profile as for your favorite something? Try to add at least one or two things. By all means remember to add links to your website and blog. In your profile, encourage forum users to visit your blog to get to know more about you. Be sure to read other forum users’ profiles. By modeling your profile after the norm for that forum, you will blend in.

2.       Signature line. Your signature line should consist of your name, a tag line and a link to your blog. After you create your signature line, make sure you have selected the setting that automatically includes your signature every time you post. It is this link that forum members can click on to go to your blog. Take a look at the signature lines of other forum users. Again, by modeling your signature line after the norm for the forum you be consistent and not stand out like a sore thumb.

3.       Post with a purpose. Although the ultimate goal is to drive traffic to your blog, don’t post just to post. Share quality not quantity. Post when you have something meaningful to contribute to the conversation. The last thing you want is to get labeled a spammer. Read through several forum threads before posting for the first. You want to familiarize yourself with the types of conversations that users are engaging in.

Joining a niche forum will help you tap into the needs and concerns of your potential client. Seeing their discussions will give you ideas for blog posts. Having relevant content on your blog will appeal to forum users who visit your site. How are forum users going to know about your blog? You will have a link in your forum profile, a link in your signature line and you will post with a purpose. These 3 tips will leverage forums to drive traffic to your blog.

Every day we perform a task that has become so common we do it without thinking about it. In fact it has become so familiar we refer to it as “googling.” Want to find the closest pizza restaurant? Google it. Want to know what epistomophobia is? Google it. How does Google find what we are looking for? Keywords!

What are keywords? One definition is, “The most important terms or phrases.” Keywords are the words in content on a website that match the words entered in a search engine. If you type the word “coach” into Google, over 130,000,000 results mention “coach” in their content. The results return everything from handbags to sports to the International Coach Federation.

Why are keywords important to your coaching business? Keywords help your clients find you. Are you just a coach? Of course not! Your business may specialize in business, executive or life coaching.  Each one of those terms “business coach,” “executive coach” or “life coach” is a keyword or keyword phrase. When a potential client types those words into Google you want your content to be returned in the results.

The use of keywords is quite the hot topic these days. You will find a lot of articles and information about “keyword search” and “keyword techniques.” Internet marketers have capitalized on maximizing keywords to increase results for their clients. However, for the purposes of this article, using keywords will benefit your coaching business by providing organic results.  Organic results refer to non-paid for ads. Google ads that appear in search results at the top of the page or on the right side of the page a company has paid for. The results in the center of the page are items Google returned based on an algorithm that searches for and matches the keywords being used.

With this super simple explanation of keywords, I hope it helps you when creating content.

You can incorporate keywords that will appeal to your clients and potential clients.

When companies first began utilizing the Internet a website required hiring a company that used a specialized code. It could be time consuming and costly. Today computer programming has advanced and websites can now be created, edited and maintained by the average user. Some would say it was the popularity of blogging that kicked off the social media craze. Blogging inspired easy to use platforms such as WordPress. Here are 3 reasons you should chose WordPress for your coaching business website.

1.       The Platform. WordPress is a platform that runs your website. The foundation of the platform is already programmed. If you are not a computer programmer, WordPress has all the programming done for you. You can quickly and easily create a website with colors, images and text that match your brand.  For those of you who do have computer programming skills, the WordPress platform is open source. Open source means WordPress gives you access to the code that creates the template. You can edit the code to further customize your site.

2.       Plug-ins and Widgets. Since WordPress allows the code to be edited, programmers have created all sort of mini programs to enhance WordPress. The mini programs are referred to as Plug-ins and Widgets.  For example, the WishList plug-in turns your WordPress site into a membership site. The Twitter widget displays your latest tweets on your site. Typically you visit a third party site to download the plug-in and then you install it. The added features can prove to be valuable tools that enhance your site.

3.       Search Results. Search engines love WordPress. Content contained in a WordPress site tend to get higher results in Google. Since it is so easy for a WordPress site to be updated when content is added it is very easy for search engines to find. Search engines are eager to return relevant and current information to its users. This is important to your coaching business because you want your content and your website to be found by clients and potential clients.

I hope these 3 reasons you should choose WordPress has helped you understand the versatility, simplicity and cost effectiveness of WordPress. You do not need to be a computer programmer to have a customized site that matches your brand for your coaching business. Even if you are a computer programmer you can save a lot of time and frustration by using WordPress.

It’s true. In just three days, four little letters made me see my business–and my path–in a whole new light. Now, I admit, I had an idea of where I was headed in my business, but I had no real idea of just how to get there. I had gone through some fantastic coaching sessions and a powerful Branding with Archetypes session which seemed to start the ball rolling, and then it happened: MMSI. The annual Kendall SummerHawk event otherwise known as Money, Marketing and Soul® Intensive.

I was invited to attend with one of our many fabulous clients, Diana Fletcher (left with Kendall and me), who I’ve worked with for nearly three years but have never met in person. We were like two school girls when we finally met, hugging and squealing! But I digress….

MMSI took place at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson. True to Loews style, an absolutely amazing place. The food was fantastic and the view was breathtaking.

As promised, we were treated with first class surprises all the way, starting with lots of amazing little goodies and a VIP reception with a western theme.

From the first day I met incredible coaches full of energy, all were kind and welcoming. I walk in the room and right off the bat I know that this is more than an event–it’s an experience. From what I understand Kendall is a Romantic archetype and it carries through every single thing she does down to the finest details. Branding coaches, you would have been amazed at how she carried her brand through.

Each day started off with an INCREDIBLE (no words can do justice here) singer, Orgena Rose. Full of energy, she was radiant and glowed from the inside out. We were lucky enough to receive one of her cds. People got up and danced and it was so fun to watch!

Kendall did not hold back on the power-packed information she shared with us, having us do exercises to help us plan our next business moves. She gave each of us a binder of templates and support material that spelled out step-by-step instructions on how to move our businesses forward. People shared their success stories and their breakthroughs throughout the three days, and frankly, by the afternoon on Day 1 I was exhausted from all of the information and ideas!

The fun and learning continued full force on Friday, and I had a great time hanging out with some of my new friends and hearing their great plans for the future of their businesses (Sheri Rowland with Kendall and me, right).

By Saturday all that I’d been learning and all that I had taken in started sinking in and I knew what it was I wanted to do in my business. Not surprisingly, it was something that had started to form with the Branding with Archetypes VIP Intensive I had done with VA Success Coach, Kellie deRuyter just days prior. I’m a believer that things come together as they’re supposed to, when they’re supposed to–just not always as fast as I want them to! In Kendall language, I believe I’ve found my Unique Brilliance, that special thing that we each do that is uniquely us. I look forward to the days and months ahead going to work putting my UB to work and pulling my Archetype (it’s Nurturer with Ruler influencing, by the way) through my brand to make my business stand out. I already understand how these things work hand-in-hand and will keep me on a path toward success, I just need to stay the course.

I’ll keep you all posted on how this comes together over the next few months, and I hope to meet you in person next year at MMSI!

Facebook continues to be an influential social network. As a coach it can be a great way to stay connected with clients and attract new clients. It is important to understand the features available so you can maximize your interactions. Knowing how to leverage Facebook with groups and pages will help your coaching business.

Groups

What is a “Group”? It is a way to coordinate and connect with a network of people; typically that shares something in common. For example, a college alumni group would be a place to connect with your friends from college. For a coaching business, you would consider creating a group for clients who have completed your program. As an administrator of the group you have some control over who can join. You also have the capability to send a message to the whole group and they will receive it via email. Of course this is just one example of how to utilize a group.

Pages

When Facebook launched, the terms of service specifically stated advertising or direct selling was strictly forbidden. Since then the popularity of Facebook has exploded and many users requested a feature that would let them share their business with their friends. Facebook created “Pages” in response to their users. For a coaching business, approach a “Page” as you would a mini website. They allow you to add another method of branding your business.  It is an opportunity for you to share information about your business. It is also a way for you to interact with the “Fans” of your page. The fans of your page are most likely going to be your target audience.

Which is better?

I do not think it is a matter of choosing one over the other. Understand the difference and then leverage groups and pages to benefit your coaching business. If creating a page fits your overall marketing plan then it might not be necessary to start a group.  The opposite may be true, a group may better suite your needs. There is nothing wrong with having both. Remember to identify the purpose for each and post appropriate content.

If you would like a more in depth review of Groups and Pages check out

Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference? By Howard Greenstein on Mashable

For a side by side comparison chart check out

Facebook Groups Vs Pages: The Definitive Guide by Nick O’Neill

Facebook is a wildly popular social networking site. When it launched the purpose was to keep in touch with your friends from college. Today it has evolved into a key tool to connecting with friends from a variety of social circles. Due to Facebook’s popularity it has even become a valuable business tool.

As a coach having a Facebook Fan Page gives your clients and potential clients an online location to interact.

Although your website may have a blog and a members only area you still have to remind your clients to visit your site. A benefit of utilizing Facebook is that your audience is already there. They are already participating.

Developing a fantastic Facebook Fan Page should be part of your overall branding strategy, which in turn should be a part of a larger marketing strategy.

Strategy #1: Share relevant information. Post a quote that will inspire your “fans.” Is there a particular issue that your clients and possibly your potential clients struggle with? Share information that will help them with that issue. You do not have to give away the core of your coaching program. It could be a simple reminder to focus on their goals. Your post could reference your coaching materials and encouraging your clients to refer to it.

Strategy #2: Interact with your “Fans.” Allow your fans to post comments. Then, when appropriate, respond. It is important to participate on your fan page. It demonstrates that you are paying attention. Being engaged helps retain current clients and attracts new clients.

Strategy #3: Show Your Personality. Your coaching business website does not always give you the opportunity to be yourself. Your coaching business fan page allows you to be social. Giving your fans a glimpse of who you really are makes you endearing.

Strategy #4: Stay Current. A Facebook fan page is not something you set and forget. Is your profile information up to date? Are the links on your fan page broken? Have you posted your latest teleclass? By staying current you are showing everyone that your business is still active and thriving.

Strategy #5: Stay Up To Date. Facebook upgrades their platform periodically. They also tweak features. Pay attention to these updates and make adjustments to your fan page accordingly. If Facebook introduces a new feature check it out. Read reviews. If it looks like it will add or improve your fan page then include it.

Implementing these 5 strategies will help you develop a fantastic Facebook Fan Page.

By participating on your fan page you cultivate a vibrant community.

The Twitter Benefit For Coaches

Are you using Twitter? Yes? Are you leveraging Twitter to maximize the benefit to your coaching business? No? Should you use Twitter? Do you have a preconceived notion that Twitter is a social network for a bunch of Internet geeks? Then I am going to ask you to reconsider. The Twitter benefit for coaches include a no cost marketing tool, “word of mouth” recommendations, building relationships, feedback, industry  monitoring and personality.

No cost marketing tool

Rarely are you able to utilize a powerful marketing tool at little to no cost. For a coach you do not have a corporate level marketing budget. Yet, Twitter gives you a corporate level marketing tool. You can out market some large corporations by leveraging Twitter to your benefit.

Building relationships

The International Coach Federation has over 14,000 members. Imagine having the ability to be a leader in your field! By participating on Twitter you are engaging your audience. Your clients and potential clients will feel like they know you. They will view you as the expert.

“Word of mouth” recommendations

When people feel like they know you, they recommend you. Twitter is like a public bulletin board. People share their experiences with products, companies other Twitter users. When your followers re-tweet your tweets their followers read your message. When your followers interact with you their followers read those tweets. Positive interactions will lead to referrals.

Feedback

Have you ever created a survey?  It can take awhile to get results. You have to ask people to participate, then you have to remind them to participate then you have to ask them to participate again. On Twitter you can send out one simple question and get a lot of feedback in return. People are on Twitter because they want to interact. For them to give their opinion or share an experience is easy for them to do.

Industry monitoring

Twitter is an easy way to monitor trends in the coaching industry. It allows you to “listen” to the conversations by and about your industry. By following other coaches you can learn from their successes. Connect with some of the followers of other coaches so you can learn about their experiences.

Personality

Let yourself shine! Twitter allows you to be professional with a healthy dose of your personality. You can inject your humor into your Tweets. Twitter brings a feeling of humanity to your overall marketing efforts.