Most of you know by now that your business is not about you.

People who are checking you out aren’t looking for coaching or consulting.

They want to find solutions to a problem.

Your job is to know what that problem is and to explain what you do in terms of results.

Imagine what it would be like to answer the question “What do you do?,” with a great story about your client.

For example, let’s say you specialize in business coaching and someone says, “So, what do you do?”

Your answer: “I’m a business coach. Let me tell you about one of my clients. This guy’s problem wasn’t sales, it was keeping up with demand. He had so much work he didn’t know what to do, but the problem was his checking account was always empty. Long story short, he turned things around, raised his rates, started qualifying his customers, and bingo. Last year he had record profitability, in spite of the recession.”

See, people can remember a story like that, and it will help them remember you.

Here are some questions to help you describe what you do in terms of results.

1. Think about the clients you have coached over the last twelve months. Is there any recurring pattern or theme to the type of coaching you have done?  If so, what are the common themes.
2. Can you describe the scenarios your clients find themselves in when they come to you?
3. Go back and read through some email conversations with your clients. Do you see any breakthroughs?
4. What stories do you have from your clients about how life is different because of coaching?
5. What is the highest compliment a client has ever paid you?

There you go, hope this is helpful, now what are your ideas? Please share!

How would you go about making a guest list for a really fun surprise birthday party?

Think with me out loud here. You might start with people who are easy going and who you love hanging out with. You might consider people you have known for a long time, friends with whom you have history. Family members might make the list. New neighbors or people you want to know better might be included as well.

Bottom line, you want to invite people who will come, who enjoy celebrating, who can make for a really wonderful event. Right?

Believe it or not, it’s the same for your coaching business. You want to spend time with people who give you energy, who make for a great client experience, who are ready to go, motivated and proactive, right?

So in order to fill your practice with people like that, you might need to ask qualifying questions.

Qualifying means creating the set of attributes you are looking for in your clients, so you can LOVE your work. Your questions will help you find those people who are a perfect fit for your coaching services.

Taking the time to think through the type of client you are looking for will make you a better coach and will make talking about your coaching practice much easier.

One way to qualify prospects is to have an complimentary conversation where you can ask questions to figure out if the client is right for you. In this session you can ask six-eight questions to help you decide.

Another way is to send the prospect the questions in advance and have them returned to you before you meet on the phone.

So, are you using qualifying questions as part of your marketing already? If so, please comment and let me know how it’s going for you.

Here are some qualifying questions I use from time to time.

• What prompted you to contact me about coaching?
• If you could change one thing about your life today that would make the most difference tomorrow, what would that be?
• What is  most important issue on your mind right now?
• What do you hope to gain by investing in a coaching relationship?
• What range of investment for coaching is in your budget?
• What else should I know?

What are your qualifying questions?

Have you ever seen the Progressive insurance commercial on television that features a spokeswoman and customer in an insurance “store”, browsing through shelves of insurance (i.e. boxes that say Motorcycle Insurance, Homeowners Insurance, RV Insurance, etc.)?

I love this visual depiction of services, and you know what, our prospects are in the same boat as the shopper in the Progressive commercial. They might not know why they should choose our services or be able to compare us to the next guy.

So let’s get a little creative and create a package of  services.

What you need to do to make it happen

1. Think proprietarily. Do some research. See what other people in your field are offering and come up with a name for the package that is unique to you and that can’t be found anywhere else.
2. Mind map it. Outline the features, for example a fitness coach might offer a 90 day package that includes a before and after fitness assessment (body fat and other baseline measures), three one-on-one coaching sessions, a 30 day supply of multivitamins, a water bottle, and a subscription to a healthy eating recipe website or magazine.
3. Think benefits. Brainstorm a list of benefits to your prospect. What will he/she gain by purchasing your package? Remember features tell, benefits sell. For example some benefits of the fitness package might be more energy, a smaller dress size, no more tight clothes, look younger, feel younger, sleep better at night, play with your kids or grand kids without getting tired, lower stress, lower cholesterol, able to run a 10K or walk in the 5k next spring.
4. Set your pricing. You might ask some of your clients/friends/prospects what they would be willing to pay for a package such as this to get an idea of the ballpark range. The pricing of your package should be tied directly to the benefits. You can use your time multiplied by an hourly rate plus the cost of any products you include in the package to set your price don’t fall into the commodity pricing trap. Your package is not a commodity. It is rare. It is proprietary. It can’t be found elsewhere. I recommend setting your price accordingly.
5. Tell people about it.

If you’re ready to go with this idea but you need some accountability, let’s do it together. Join us on October 5th for the Package It! coaching group, read more here.

Space is limited, don’t dally

I know that some readers may disagree with me when I say you should write own your web content. Some of you may feel uncomfortable writing, may not have time to write, or just prefer hiring a professional writer for projects such as this, but I am here to encourage you to participate in the process at least a little bit. Here are three reasons why I think you should write your own website content.

When someone lands on your website, one of the first things they are thinking is “what can this person do for me?” Your content is really important in answering that question and the way you present yourself and your offer should be very personal. If someone else does the writing for you it’s like inviting someone over for dinner, and sending your cousin to replace you as the host. Your cousin may resemble you in mannerisms and conversational style, but your cousin is not you and makes a terrible stand in. You would never do this, and I don’t think you should do it on your website, either.

Secondly, your coaching practice is your coaching practice. It is not a paid writer’s coaching practice. No one cares as much about your practice as much as you do and one of your opportunities when writing web content is to show how much you care about what you do. This realness and authenticity is one way to “click” with your prospects. People make buying decisions based on emotional responses, this has been proven with research by the University of Florida where a national study* of 23,168 people concluded that emotions were nearly twice as important as knowledge in consumer buying decisions (*source article by Nancy D. Solomon).  Writing about what you do from the emotional benefits point of view is very powerful.

Lastly, you can build trust and credibility when you write your own content. Your website can be huge for you here. When you show up on the about page talking about how you got into coaching, what your biggest wins and disappointments have been, what you enjoy doing when you are not coaching, etc. you become someone to whom your reader can relate. You become more than a professional bio or a trained coach. You become someone they might want to hang out with and this is key in building the trust that it takes to get to yes. People do business with people they know, like, and trust. Your reader can’t get to know you if all you have on your about page is a starchy bio that someone else wrote for you.

So there, I said it. I think you should write your own web content. If you need help with editing I think it is great to ask for help, but the foundational ideas should come from your heart and your point of view.

What do you think?

When you first open your coaching practice or even after being in it for a year or two, you may not know your coaching specialty, i.e. that group of people who are the hand-in-glove fit for you.

It’s okay to cruise along in discovery mode for awhile, but eventually you may want to choose a marketing niche.

Why?

Because it will be much easier for you to become visible and attract more business if you can articulate whom you are trying to reach, especially for online marketing.

Here are some questions to help you figure out what group of people can become your ideal market:

1. Think of the people you have worked with in the past. This may be paying clients or if you are just starting out, it may be people from your place of employment. Do you have favorites? If so, what do they have in common? Write down the qualities you like about this group of people.
2. Who do you click with age wise? Or life stage wise? For example, do you like working with college grads, empty nesters, young moms?
3. Think about your past experiences, skills and training. Is there a way to serve people who are in that career or industry? For example if you were an HR professional, could you coach people who still are? Or if you were a social worker, could your clients be social workers?
4. What hobbies do you enjoy in your free time? Are you a tennis player, marathon runner, bridge player, writer? How would it be for you to coach people who shared this passion?
5. How about professional organizations where you belong, for example, Chamber of Commerce, National SBA, ABWA or whatever. Might you be visible among this group of like-minded people?
6. Are you affiliated with a church denomination or non-profit group? Think of all the members from across the country or around the world who may be very interested in your coaching services.
7. Take this from the opposite angle, rather than thinking of groups you can serve, how about thinking of your specialty — what are you known for? Or what do you want to be know for? If you are unsure about this, do an informal survey with five of your closest friends. Ask them:
   • What do I do well?
   • What is unique about me?
   • Who needs my specialty?
8. Scrap the ideal client idea and work with whomever comes to you from word of mouth. You will know after a year or so which clients you like working with, and which ones are not really your client. Put a referral program in place with your existing clients and your network and ask them for referrals. Referrals are a beautiful marketing tool and may prove to be your best technique yet.

Let me know if any of these ideas work or what other techniques you have used to define your ideal market. What are your thoughts?

I think sifting through website tools is somewhat like comparing apples to oranges and not really an easy job. Nonetheless, I wanted to try to give you a few tools I would recommend due to popularity, ease of use, support and customization.

Keep in mind that any tool you use will be more powerful if you have written compelling and audience centered content. Your design is important, but your content is KING.

I have grouped these into two categories, open source (host anywhere) and hosted (software as a service). The open source tools are available for download and can be installed on any server meeting the software requirements. Hosted tools are offered via subscription. Both have advantages and disadvantages but that’s another post. For now, here are some of my favorites.

Open Source CMS Tools

Wordpress. This makes the top of the list for me because it is very user friendly and feature rich. I recommend downloading the software from wordpress.org vs. using the free service at wordpress.com. If you are serious about your business, you need to move away from a free service (IMHO), and the downloaded version will give you many more customization options.

You can change theme designs with one click or use a totally custom theme. There are a ton of plugins (SEO, forum, social media, member management, ecommerce) to take it to the next level and make it a truly useful small business CMS. The support is great with video tutorials available at wordpress.tv.

Joomla. If wordpress is the Homecoming King of open source software, Joomla should be Student Body President. It offers a powerful component system to allow you to configure free and paid member areas, ecommerce (including downloads), blog posts, article management, etc. It can be customized to your design specificiations or skinned with a pre-designed template. Joomla is popular with schools, churches, governments and small businesses who want to create a portal site for their clients and prospects. It puts you in the driver’s seat to manage every aspect of your website content.

Modx. I have not personally used this tool but it has appeal because of the flexibility and custom templating it allows. It is a new kid on the block compared to other CMS tools, but because of that it brings great SEO, easy manageability, and lots of bells and whistles into the mix including total design customization and scalability.

Hosted CMS Tools

LightCMS. LightCMS is a website manager from Element Fusion for graphic designers and their clients. It has a beautiful set of pre-designed templates or you can use your own custom design. The tool allows a rich set of features including WYSIWYG editor, forms with payment options,audio, video, photo galleries, a calendar, blog posts, etc. Really nice.

GoodBarry. This is a powerful and full featured CMS tool with built in analytics, ecommerce, email, contact management, and much more. GoodBarry has predesigned templates and can accommodate your custom design,too. It is well supported by the good folks at Business Catalyst.

SquareSpace. This CMS has been one of my favorites since I came onto the web design scene a few years back, but I have yet to create a site for a client using this. If there are any fans of SquareSpace out there, please comment and tell us why you like it. I think the feature list is extraordinary and the pricing and customizations look really good. I have experimented with a trial account and I give it a hearty thumbs up.

Typeroom. This is a brand new CMS tool that allows you to convert your current website and design into their system with a simple click. This tool is great for people who don’t need advanced features (i.e. blogging or ecommerce) but just need to convert an existing static site to be easily managed. Again, I have not used this with clients, but it looks good and worthfurther investigation.

I know there are many, many great CMS tools, and my list is really short in comparison, but my goal here was to highlight those that are easy to use, have great customization, good support and good results for the user.

What is your favorite?

Photo Credit Flickr Mike Johnson – TheBusyBrain.com

Be honest and humble. Celine’s original concert in Omaha last fall was cancelled because she got sick. Her first words after the opening blast of “I Drove All Night to Get to You” were “thank you for allowing me to sing for you,” and “I’m so sorry I had to cancel.”

• Question: Have you had an opportunity to be honest about a situation in your business? How did that go?

Be audience centric. Her stage was set up so she could connect with the audience from all sides. There were catwalks that extended almost into the seats so she could walk out and be close. This may be more common than I think, but I have never seen it done before.

• Question: What are you doing in your business to keep prospects and customers the center of your attention?

Tap into the emotional pipeline. Celine is a master at speaking to the audience’s felt need. She sings about LOVE – what it feels like to have it and to lose it. Everyone can relate. She is totally into her performance and into our hearts.

• Question: How are you caring for the felt needs of your prospects and clients?

Mix it up. Celine gives something for everyone.The opening act was an impressionist (fall off the chair funny) and the concert was filled with dancers, scene changes, video, quick sets and elaborate costume changes. It was totally captivating.

• Question: How can you mix it up with your services and bundles?

Follow up. The morning after the concert we got a thank you email and survey asking how we liked the concert and reminding us of her newly released album. Still feeling up from the experience I felt more apt to buy (although I didn’t). Good thought though, and I liked it.

• Question: How is your follow up working for you?

I have never been a huge Celine fan, but I gotta admit, after attending the concert I have a new respect for her.  Celine and her people are marketing geniuses. And here’s the main takeaway: I never once felt marketed to.

Therein, I believe, lies the secret.

What do you think?

—

Photo credit Anirudh Koul

You know how you are so used to someone that you see them without really seeing them? Well, the other day it was like I “saw” my husband for the first time and wow — he has lost 15 pounds and he is looking fab-lee-ous!

One thing I admire so much about him, once he makes up his mind to do something, he sticks with it. So he made up his mind to workout for 30 mins a day every other day and he has been faithful to this for at least two months.

And see what happened?  Sheesh. He makes it looks so easy.

I’m a little jealous (in a good way), so now I have started my own 30 mins a day routine. I feel better already but don’t hold your breath on the 15 pounds thing.

So this got me thinking about what other big changes a person could actually accomplish in just 30 minutes a day, for example, what if you devoted 30 mins a day to beefing up referrals? Or writing your book? Or blogging? Or creating a new product? Or writing thank-you notes? Or learning css?

We could all handle 30 mins a day, couldn’t we?

Jerry Seinfeld uses a variation of this with a big wall calendar and a red magic marker, read about his productivity secret here.

There are a gazillion tools to help keep track of our 30 min blocks, for example you could certainly use something like GTDAgenda, or Vitalist, or a paper system from Myndology.

But ultimately, what will make the most difference? Doing it. It’s only 30 mins!

Who’s in?

Have you ever heard of Gary Vaynerchuk?

Me, neither.

That is until I started seeing his name as a speaker on just about every conference agenda I saw…South by SouthWest SXSW in Austin, Future of Web Apps in Miami, Web 2.0 New York…you get the picture. So, I thought, who is this Gary Vaynerchuk guy?

Turns out he is an entrepreneur and co-owner of Wine Library, his family’s wine business in New Jersey. He has taken wine to a new level of accessility for the younger generation with his popular internet webcast, WineLibraryTV.com, also known as The Thunder Show. Vaynerchuk’s informal, “hyperkinetic”, and “disarmingly honest” style is in contrast to conservative wine industry norms

The show is only a few years old, it debuted on February 21, 2006, but it has grown in popularity to over 90,000 viewers with a band of followers affectionately known as Vaniacs or Vayner Nation. The show is produced on a daily basis, on weekdays, and is taped in the Wine Library store in Springfield, NJ.

Gary Vee is passionate about wine and he shares his passion in a way that makes you passionate about it, too. Not only has his passion earned him loyalty from thousands of viewers, but, get this, in March 2009, Vaynerchuk signed a 10-book deal with HarperStudio for over $1,000,000 and he will release his first book, “Crush It! Turn Your Passion into Profits in a Digital World,” in September 2009. That is a 7 figure book deal! All because of passion and a focus on one thing.

So I listened to Gary Vee a couple of weeks ago at Big Omaha and turns out wine is not all he’s passionate about. He is also passionate about online content and promotion.

He challenged the audience,

“What do you love so much that you could make a TV show about it?” He went on to talk about the plethora of content in our world, “There are so many opportunities. I don’t care if it’s rubberbands or sushi or coffee. If you care about it there are others who do, too. Start talking about it. This internet thing is going to change the way programs are delivered and that includes advertising. It’s coming, get on board now.”

So what are you so passionate about that you could make a TV show?

Have you ever thought about it? What would that be like?

Do you think now might be a good time, especially in the service and information business we are in?

Content is everything. Passion is infectious. Think of the possibilities when you combine the two.

What do you think?

I did a fun thing last week. I attended the Big Omaha conference for creatives and entrepreneurs with Holy Cow Design Gal.

It was a sold out crowd of twenty and thirty somethings (they still let me in), and a fantastic lineup of tending-toward-geeky speakers such as Jason Fried of 37Signals, Micah Laaker from Yahoo!, Micah Baldwin from Lijit,  Jeffrey Kalmikoff of Threadless and the one-and-only Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library.

I think it was Jason Fried who mentioned the idea of sharing what you know as a way to grow your company. The example he gave was that of professional TV chefs.

If you think about it, these guys are totally transparent about what could be considered (in other industries) trade secrets. They not only tell you all the ingredients they use to create a dish, but they demonstrate how to make it step by step, and if that isn’t enough, they write it all down for you in a cookbook which you can purchase for $29.95 or whatever.

From a marketing standpoint, I think we have always had the idea to not show all your cards, save the best information for the paying customers, don’t blog about your process or your methods or your recipe for success.So this idea of sharing what you know is maybe a little foreign to many of us.

Jason went on to talk about Getting Real, the ebook he and his colleagues wrote about the process of creating web apps. All they did was write down what they learned about writing a web app. I bought a copy when it first came out and so did many others, in fact, that little ebook has made them about half a million dollars.

I’m not suggesting that your ebook will make you half a million dollars, but I think this social media thing creates an opportunity for you to share what you know, too. In fact, this is the perfect time for how-to’s and such like that.

So here are some questions for you to get the creativeness going.

• How do you like to share information, i.e. are you a speaker? A writer? Or do you like video?
• How could you use your speaking, writing or video casting to share what you know?
• What one thing do people continually ask you about that you could share?
• Do you know alot about one certain subject because you are passionate about it?

Sharing what you know builds the know, like and trust factor and because of that, methinks this will help you will grow your company.

What are your thoughts?