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Copyright: 2007 Coaching Club

Welcome to IQ, the official CoachIQ Coaching Club member eZine. Each week you receive the latest CoachIQ news, resources, professional development tips and industry information. IQ is your ally in developing your flourishing coaching business.

This edition's highlights

Highlights in this edition include a new PodPlayer in the Podcasts section; assessing the keys of your business; using testimonies to build credibility; this week's IQ book selection; and tips to restore your life balance (and help your clients do the same).

We welcome IQ readers to forward this publication to friends, colleagues, family and anyone you think will benefit from the eZine's content. Make YOUR community part of OUR community.

Not Yet A Member? Don't fall behind.

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Latest Additions

PodPlayer

Coach IQ's 'Podcasts' section has received an upgrade. Members can now listen to a variety of high-quality podcasts from the new PodPlayer; a podcast player that webstreams content from a variety of websites. Starting with Coach Radio, and expanding to other business and coaching podcasts, the PodPlayer is a practical way to listen to valuable content via your member page.

To view available shows, simply click on the title (e.g. Coach Radio) and the available episodes will be listed below it. When you click on the episode, a short description and a play button will appear; once the play button is selected the audio is added to the PodPlayer. This system allows you to select several audios at the same time and then manage them via the embedded player.  

We will soon be adding other podcast shows to our list. If you have any suggestions, don't hesitate to email it to info@coachingclub.com.au and our team will review the content. To access the new PodPlayer, visit www.coachingclub.com.au/podcast. 

Coming Soon

More Coaching Tools

Life coaching tools are used in coaching to facilitate and initiate coachee change. Coaching tools exist in a variety of formats including worksheets, progress logbooks, goal setting exercises, measures of improvement and prompts for journaling.

The Keys of Your Business

There five Key growth opportunities within your business, and for that matter, within any business. It's important when starting your coaching business that you are well aware of these areas and remain committed to working on them constantly. The five growth opportunities are:

1. Marketing results: Your goal is to generate as many (qualified) leads as possible from your marketing dollar. For instance, through testing you may find one headline pulls three times as many enquiries as others.
   
2. Conversion (Effectiveness): Once you've generated enquiry, you must maximise your conversion to convert enquiries into clients.
   
3. Client Management: Once you have clients, you must manage them to maximise their Life Time Value/Net Marginal Worth and become referral sources.
   
4. Non-client Management: Have systems to work the back-end. Your goal should be to turn every enquiry into a client.
   
5. Business systems: Have your business systemised to maximise the value of your time.

There are also four Keys to Business Growth in your business. Most traditional marketing and advertising processes concentrate purely on lead and enquiry generation to increase 'market share'. What many businesses fail to do is maximise the use of their enquiries and then fully utilise their existing and newly acquired client base.

The acquisition cost of a new client can be so prohibitively high that if a business only concentrates on generating new leads, they may be marketing inefficiently and may therefore fail. The greatest 'leverage' for a business can be in other areas such as conversion and retention rates, or increasing the transaction size and/or frequency.

Whilst developing a client base and growing a business may seem like a complex and somewhat daunting task, there really are only 4 ways to build a business.

These are:

1. Increasing your number of clients (through client acquisition and retention);
   
2. Increasing your Unit of Sale;
   
3. Increasing the Transaction Frequency;
   
4. Increasing your Effectiveness.

Keep these key points in mind and always use them as a reference for your overall biz development strategy.

Testimony Power

Now that you've explained the benefits of your products and services, and how they'll assist your customers overcome their problems, you need to PROVE and DEMONSTRATE the benefits.

Prospects can be a sceptical bunch. And rightly so. Every purchase they make they assess the benefit against the investment (subconsciously), and hence the associated risk of making the investment.

In Robert Cialdini's wonderful book "The Psychology of Influence", he discusses the process by which people make their decisions. There are certain influencers in this process that can assist you present a more compelling case to your prospects. Two of these are 'Social Proof' and 'Authority.'

Social Proof

Essentially, Cialdini states that people want to act in consistent social accord with others. To ensure they do this, they look to the behaviours of others to determine how they should act. He suggests that this happens subconsciously to minimise the intellectual clutter that would overwhelm us if we had to make conscious decisions regarding everything throughout the day.

So, for everything from whether or not to eat chicken with our hands, to crossing the street against a light, to purchasing brand name goods, we seek social proof to ensure we act appropriately and consistently with our peers.

So how can you use social proof to assist you demonstrate the value of your services? One of the best ways is to use testimonials. Testimonials are statements of fact regarding your products and services from past and existing customers. When a prospect reads or hears the testimony of other persons it acts as social proof and validates their decision to purchase.

The more your prospect can personally relate to the person giving the testimony, the more power and influence it has. A good testimonial will therefore have the following attributes:

1. Be from a person or persons to whom your prospects can personally relate.

2. Tell a story. People relate better to stories than to a list of facts.

3. Discuss how your product assisted them solve their problems.

4. Provide detailed specifics. Specifics provide authenticity. Rather than "Thanks ABC Tax Consultants for helping me get a good tax return this year"; a better testimonial would be "Thanks to the specialist knowledge and systems of ABC Tax Consultants, they were able to improve my tax rebate by 123% resulting in an extra $2,174 in my pocket, based on the same wage as last year."

5. Include a photo.

6. Include audio if possible.

Authority

People rely on, and acquiesce to, the advice of authority. In our desire to act appropriately, people rely on authorities for social proof. A testimonial or professional endorsement from an authority on your product or service acts as a very powerful sales strategy.

There's more to obtaining testimonials than just asking your customers for their comments and feedback. If you want powerful testimonials that catch your prospects attention and build a relationship of trust, you should consider the following testimonial strategies:

• Strategy # 1: Try to get a testimonial from your customer as soon as possible. This could be the day you make the sale or within the first week after you make the sale. Your customer will be at their most motivated to write you a glowing testimonial during this time period. Don't wait until the honeymoon is over. Consider having them write the testimonial before they leave your office or store.

• Strategy # 2: Always ask your customers to include your unique selling proposition (USP) in the testimonial. For instance, if your USP includes exceptional customer service, same day installation, and a money-back guarantee, then ask your customer to attest to those qualities.

• Strategy # 3: Don't ask for customer testimonials in survey requests. Many businesses make the mistake of sending out customer surveys to get feedback from their customers, in addition to testimonials. Your customer needs to have the freedom to stay anonymous and say negative things in your survey, which is the opposite of what you’re looking for in testimonials.

• Strategy # 4: Have your customers be specific in their testimonials. For instance, if you delivered your product the same day your customer purchased it, tell your customer to include the time that it arrived. If you delivered some kind of outrageous act of customer service have them write specifically about what you did and how it helped your customer.

• Strategy # 5: Ask your customer to talk about the problems they were having prior to receiving the benefits of your product or service. Most likely, the reader will have had the same or similar problems and will empathize. This will make your prospect more interested in receiving the benefits of your product or service. 

The Invisible Touch

The beauty of marketing is that it happens when we're looking but not noticing. Before you know it, we're using Yahoo! as a search engine, even though serious researchers will tell you that Alta Vista and Dogpile are better. We're buying products that cost more and perform worse, simply because the marketing and branding of those products tells us there's a value there, even if objective analysis tells us otherwise.

In The Invisible Touch, Harry Beckwith tells us the obvious--what was right in front of our faces. But because of the blinders we wear, because of the way we've been educated, socialized, or just plain bamboozled, we can't see it as clearly as he can. Thus, in each of his "four keys to modern marketing"--price, branding, packaging, relationships--he offers counterintuitive information that could make or break a business plan.

For example, he explains in great detail why a higher price is better than a lower one; why every business, from Apple Computer to the U.S. Army, is a brand-name to be cherished and nurtured; why the orangest orange sells better than the least orange orange, even if both pieces of fruit taste exactly the same; and why the best service providers always remember your name and what you like to drink. This is a business book, but one that everyone who works for a living should read. Pick any page, and you'll find insights that could make you a better teacher, a better salesperson, a better employee in any trade. Beckwith drives home the idea that we're all in the business of marketing ourselves, and we're in that business every waking hour.

Title: The Invisible Touch

Author: Harry Beckwith

Office.com

Office.com is a private company founded in 1998 which aims to assist small businesses looking for the resources to help them be more productive and competitive in today's environment. Consistently one of the 10 most-visited business-to-business sites (Web portals) on the Internet, Office.com "has truly become - The new way to work!"

For small and mid-sized businesses, Office.com offers a comprehensive and integrated suite of Internet-based productivity and collaboration software applications and intranet tools -- the type that large Fortune 500 business have come to rely on.

Keeping the Balance

"Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths" (Etty Hillesum).

It isn't easy to juggle the demands of a career and personal life. For most people, it's an ongoing challenge to reduce stress and maintain harmony in key areas of their life. Here are some ideas to help you find the balance that’s best for you (and a good suggestion for your clients):

• Manage your time. Organise household tasks efficiently. Doing one or two loads of laundry every day rather than saving it all for your day off, and running errands in batches rather than going back and forth several times are good places to begin. A weekly familiar calendar of important dates and a daily list of to-dos will help you avoid deadline panic. If your employer offers a course in time management, sign up for it.

• Rethink your cleaning standards. An unmade bed or sink of dirty dishes won't impact the quality of your life. Do what needs to be done and let the rest go. If you can afford it, pay someone else to clean your house.

• Communicate clearly. Limit time-consuming misunderstandings by communicating clearly and listening carefully. Take notes if it helps.

• Nurture yourself. Set aside time each day for an activity that you enjoy, such as walking, working out or listening to music.

• Unwind after a hectic workday by reading, practicing yoga or taking a bubble bath. Sitting down and watching the news is NOT recommended for relaxation or unwinding as many studies advise the news creates an upward shift in anxiety and stress levels.

• Get enough sleep. There's nothing as stressful and potentially dangerous as working when you're sleep-deprived. Not only is your productivity affected, but you can also make costly mistakes. You may then have to work even more hours to make up for those mistakes.

• Bolster your support system. Give yourself the gift of a trusted friend or co-worker to talk with during times of stress and hardship. If you’re part of a religious community, take advantage of the support your religious leader can provide. Ensure you have trusted friends and relatives who can assist you when you need to work overtime or travel on your job.

Balance doesn't mean doing everything. Examine your priorities and set boundaries. Be firm in what you can and cannot do. Only you can restore harmony to your lifestyle.

Be Found With Find A Coach

Marketing is the thorn in the side of most coaches. Particularly coaches just starting off. Getting clients is a skill in its own right. It's time consuming, difficult, and expensive! But does it have to be? Not with Find A Coach - the leading search engine specifically for life coaches.

Find A Coach offers a range of tools for coaches wanting to market their services, or simply who would like to see more return for their marketing investment. If you haven't checked it out yet, don't miss the opportunity to be a step ahead of the rest of the pack.

Your clients are searching for you right now. Make it easy for them to find you.

URL: www.findacoach.net.au

Broadcast Your Brand to the World

Coach Radio is an online broadcaster of Life Coaching specific content. Delivered online via the Coach Radio website (www.coachradio.com.au) and Podcast, Coach Radio content is extremely convenient.

Coach Radio is currently accepting applications from CoachIQ members who would like to become broadcasters of this growing community. If you are interested in finding out more information, email info@coachradio.com.au to request a Coach Radio Prospectus.