Helping Hands For Coaches

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Tami Walsh, M.A. is President of the San Diego based teen and parent empowerment company, Teen Wisdom™. Tami has been coaching teen girls since 1999 and is the first life coach for teen girls in the U.S. She is committed to impacting 2 million teens by 2012. Tami has appeared on several local and national radio and television shows including TLC’s 10 Years Younger and NBC’s “The Other Half.”

Tami has been a featured expert on the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.com website, has spoken to over 10,000 teens nationwide, and is the author of the top selling “Did-Wells” Journal for teen girls and popular audio series, “Communication: Turning Battles Into Bridges With Your Teen” for parents.

Currently Tami can be seen in the feature film, “The Compass” with other world renown speakers and authors including Les Brown and Brian Tracy. Tami is a graduate of UCLA and received her Master’s Degree from Loyola Marymount University. To learn more about Tami’s programs and services, please visit www.teenwisdom.com
Twitter: @tamiwalsh

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Doug Gfeller is Co-Owner of Executive Forums of Orange County and a Master Certified Coach. Doug has been facilitating executive forums and coaching CEO’s and their direct reports for the last 15 years in Orange County. He is a member of the International Coach Federation, Past President of the Orange County Chapter and one on the founding members of the Professional Coach and Mentors Association.

As co-host of CRITICAL MASS: The Radio Show, Doug uses both his business experience and his coaching background to dig deeper than the usual surface issues with his guests and to help them develop new perspectives on common management problems.

As founder and President of Gfeller Development, a residential building company, he spent over 20 years dealing with the daily issues facing a top executive. This experience and his training as a professional coach have allowed him to help other executives deal with the issues that keep them awake at nights. In addition to his coaching services, he frequently runs Strategic Planning Meetings and training seminars for his clients. Doug is on the Board of Directors of Storm Industries and Chairman of the Compensation Committee.
www.TheCoachingPerspective.com
www.LATalkRadio.com/Critical.php
www.Linkedin.com/in/Gfeller

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Lorin Beller Blake is an author, entrepreneur, speaker, coach and inspirer. Lorin has been an entrepreneur since she was laid off from her first job in her early 20’s. Since then, she has owned a number of businesses, one of which she grew with a partner to a 3 million dollar firm and then sold it. And now she owns Big Fish Nation: A business and professional development firm designed for women business owners exclusively. Lorin and the Big Fish team, integrate hard core business skills with a spiritual approach to success. Lorin is currently writing her third book. She is available to speak for Women Business Owners Groups nationally and internationally and always brings a fresh, spunky and inspiring message.

Lorin is a mom to a 3 year old. She and her family live in Austin, TX where she can found out for morning walks, wake surfing, or kayaking. Lorin is also a volunteer on the Board of the National Association of Women Business Owners. Lorin does not just believe women can be successful business owners and have a full, balanced and relaxed life but more importantly is doing it! And wants to inspire everyone she meets to be their best self and design a life that is wildly successful and fun too!
www.bigfishnation.com and www.lorinbeller.com
Twitter: @LorinB

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David Adams is a seasoned coach, author and speaker. He brings over 20 years of experience to his role of helping attorneys improve their business development and leadership skills. He is committed to helping attorneys achieve that ideal combination of professional success and personal fulfillment.

David has consulted and coached at law firms such as Fenwick, Lindquist, Orrick, Howard Rice and Townsend. He has also had the privilege of working with large multi-nationals including Bank of America, DDB Needham, Wells Fargo, Stanford Hospital, and Vision Services Plan.

David’s career includes extensive sales and marketing experience. He held executive positions in sales and marketing at high technology firms including Plantronics, IUS and MicroPro. He was the president of Micro National, one of the nation’s first value added resellers. David subsequently founded Just Results to provide management and technology consulting services to law firms.

David holds a Masters in Neuro-Linguistics and is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst. He obtained his CPCC credential from the Coaches Training Institute, and is a graduate of the Co-Active Leadership program. He is also certified in the MBTI, and Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence model and the corresponding 360 assessment.

David is an active member of the Legal Marketing Association, the International Coaches Federation and the Professional Coaches and Mentors Association. He is the author of numerous articles and the book, Q&A in Business, published by Macmillan Publishing. David is a frequent speaker at Bay Area Bar Associations and has presented at legal industry conferences such as the Association for Defense Trial Lawyers and the Legal Marketing Association annual conference.
www.clearimpactllc.com

Be on target with your coaching business by developing your niche and target market for your practice. Try it on – see if it fits!

Wendi Liechty, our host for May 22nd call, is a Business & Marketing Coach whose style breaks through the limitations of traditional, outdated, cut and paste marketing programs by offering her own unique, simple, creative and highly personal approach.

Wendi has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs including coaches, wellness professionals, designers and other service providers develop clear and compelling business and marketing strategies and messages that make both dollars and sense! You can find her at www.TheCasualEntrepreneur.com

Most coaches hear that finding and developing your niche is a must to succeed, but that is little comfort if you are just not ready or still feeling unsure and unwilling to settle for something generic and unfulfilling. Listen to this podcast and learn…

**What might be holding you back from finding your “Niche”
**A new perspective and incentive to market the “Niche” Way
**How to find, develop and uncover the best “Niche” for you

**What to do if your just not ready to find your “Niche”

We went over the basic steps to working with a blog, such as:

1. Understanding what a blog is: an informative, opinionated, ‘human’ look at a company/business or person. As a coach, this will be the way that your potential clients will get to know the ‘real’ you – not just the one you show for your sales copy. Why do we want to show this human side of a life or business coach? Well, what is the first rule of sales: we buy from people that we know, like and trust – and a blog allows us to build that!

2. Blog styles: we discussed Blogger, Typepad, WordPress.com and WordPress.org

3. Get involved: before you start your blog, however, you should read and participate in some that are interesting to you, or are in your industry. Make sure to choose ones that are active and popular. In order to find a few blogs that you like, search Technorati. Oh – and the answer between Authority and Ranking is that they’re basically the same: to build authority or ranking within Technorati you need to build links from other blogs to yours. Be aware that links will ‘clear out’ from Technorati if they’re older than 6 months.

4. Have a plan and get started! Your blog should be part of your over-all marketing plan – so before you get started with designing or adding content to your blog, it’s a good idea to have a clear idea of where it’s going.

This week, we’ll be reviewing how to update your blog – design wise and adding multi-media. If you would like to learn how-to customize your WordPress.com website / blog, click here to be sure to sign-up for our May 1st class!

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Wow, one request to HARO, and you have all the panelists (over 50 replied) one show could need! Thank you to everyone that emailed! I have selected the 6 panelists, 3 professional speakers and 3 coaches – all with over 1,000 followers and some real examples of how they’ve used Twitter to promote their business. They will be submitting their bios and photos later today – but I wanted to get the word out now about tomorrow’s teleclass. We’ll be doing it a little different – instead of just shouting out questions during the call, please ‘Tweet’ them with the hash tag #hh4c. That will help with the flow of the 1 hour class. If you have some friends that would like to join us, please ask them to sign-up today by going to our ‘Live Webinars‘ page.

Chuck Hester, LinkedIn expert, was on the call this Friday – and what an amazing amount of information! Not only did we learn how to easily gain more connections, but how to be authentic on the web. By simply asking the question, “How may I be of service to you?” we open the conversation and relationship with our potential clients and power partners. We’ll be reviewing some of what Chuck had talked about this Friday, from 10-11am PST. To learn more, please visit our Live Webinars page.
Total time of audio: 58 minutes.

If you liked the class, please leave a comment, and let other coaches know! Thanks!

So, you have the blog up and running – but, now the big question (that I often get) – now what? You might be thinking, “There’s this big, beautiful, empty blog staring at me – and it’s a little intimidating!” The best advice I can give you, is first:

1. Research what other bloggers in your market are blogging about. Don’t shy away from your competition, but don’t write exactly the same stuff they’re writing about. Knowing what your competition is writing about will give you some ideas and a sense of comfort.

2. Be yourself – and don’t over-think it. One thing I’ve noticed from blogs that I follow is that they don’t over-think their post. Sometimes it’s spontaneous, sometimes it’s a great planned post, but it’s usually short, sweet, and to the point.

3. Don’t be a spam blog (an ugly name for a spam blog is ‘splog‘ – sounds like a flattened frog – yuck!). That means the only reason you have a blog is to promote you, you, you. Be interesting, or no one will be interested (and who really wants to be as interesting as a splattered frog?)

How do you know if the blog you’re reading is good? Check-out the Technorati stats:

1. Look at the Authority Rating: it should be higher than other blogs. This is relative, so I can’t say ‘it should be over 20′, because it  would depend on how popular other blogs are in the same category.

2. If you’re looking at the Technorati ‘Rank’: it should be a lower number (for instance, it would be totally awesome to be ranked in the top 100 blogs).

The best way to know what your audience would like to hear about is by talking to them. So, when you’re out at networking groups, or you’re talking with a client, ask them: What are your interests? What do you struggle with? What blogs do you currently read? What are you looking for? Then take note- they’re telling you how to bring your blank blog canvas to life!

Don’t think your target market is on Twitter? Think again!

I just received a great email regarding a coach that works with women in career transition – is Twitter a marketing tool for her? Where are her prospects and clients? Well, let’s take a look at a quick Twitter search and see if some might be hiding there: Looking for a Job & Career Transition. While I wrote that sentence, 5 more people tweeted they’re looking for a job. Wow – that’s a lot of potential clients for a career transition coach!

As the job market becomes full with more and more people looking for work, job seekers may see Twitter as a way to network and connect with possible employers – one that is not being fully utilized yet. Sure, LinkedIn, eCademy, and even Facebook are being utilized by people looking for a new career – but Twitter can also be used in this way. Why? Because it’s a way to have a real conversation, just like you would in a networking meeting.

Why else should you use Twitter: Search Engines. It’s completely indexed by Google – so any keywords you put into your twitter posts could have a pretty high ranking in Google and other search engines. This is great for those ‘long tail keywords’ that might be hard to fit in your website.

You don’t have to spend all your time on Twitter, you can spend just a few minutes each day checking-in with new followers, joining a conversation, making useful connections – and then log-off – so it doesn’t eat away at your time.

Time is precious – and can easily be taken away by New Media Marketing, such as Facebook and Twitter. But, if you go on with a purpose and goal, a time limit, search keywords, and a sense of wanting to connect with others authentically, it can be very rewarding.

By the way – in the 15 minutes it took to write and edit this post, 21 more people tweeted that they are looking for a job. Even if you’re not a career transition coach, go and give some encouragement to these people – they need it.

I’m not breaking news when I say Animoto is an awesome company with a amazing way to transform your photos into a tv-quality 30 second commercial, but I am breaking the news on how coaches can use it to build their business. As a life or business coach, you can use Animoto to create unique videos targeting your niche market. Here’s some examples:

1. Boomer Coach: create a video with the title ‘You know you’re a baby boomer when…’ (for example), and have images depicting how times have changed. Then, at the end of the video, have a call to action – such as ‘Download our free book on Boomer Transformations’ – and have the video link to your website (yes, Animoto can do that!)
2. Entrepreneur Coach:  create a video that explains how you can help them – with first describing the problem – such as organization, goal setting, motivation, sales, etc. Again, have the call to action at the end of the video.
3. AD/HD Coach: create a video for either the parents, the children, or the adults that suffer from this learning difficulty – and how you can help them.

You can try Animoto out for free with their 30 second shorts – a regular commercial length. If you use the 30 second short to create you video, then I recommend adding the text on the actual photos vs. using Animoto’s text feature. If, however, you do want to add the text separately, or you want to create one full-length (up to 10 minutes) video – you can for only $3 per video.

Some other features:

1. Highlight a particular photo – allowing that photo to get some more screen time.
2. Add music without paying extra, or worrying about copyrights – they take care of all of that.
3. Speed-up or slow-down the transitions, with a paid membership.
4. One-click remix. Don’t like the way Animoto configured your slide show? Click ‘Remix’, and they’ll do it again – without erasing the first one.

Some more ideas on how you can use an Animoto video:

1. Use it in eNewsletters, like a ‘video of the month’
2. Use it as a way to motivate or inspire your clients
3. Add it to blogs to make a point
4. Use it to promote an event
5. Upload it to YouTube for promotional purposes
6. Add it to your website, Facebook page, MySpace page, and more
7. Sell the DVDs as motivational or inspiration videos, or give-away the DVDs as a promotional piece

There are some limitations:

1. If you don’t like one particular transition, you can’t just tweak that transition – you have to ‘remix’ the entire video.
2. You can’t get rid of the Animoto branding completely, but you can minimize it (see below).
3. It does take time – you may find yourself remixing, changing, editing more than you had anticipated – because it’s fun!

If you would like a $5 discount on their ‘All Access’ account, then use this code when starting your account: iqeudyzs
The video at the top of the page is the 30 second short I did for the International Coach Federation’s Orange County chapter’s Holiday Dinner – the last image has me on the right.

Image below of what your ending screen can look like with the ‘All Access’ account:

Do you play phone-tag with your current coaching clients? Wish there was a way to just have them log-in and book an appointment online – but worried about the cost?

I’m really enjoying my Genbook system – it’s free to start (and as little as $20 per month if you want all the features), and prospects and clients find it’s easier to get a hold of me. Like you, my time is my business, so when I’m with a client or a prospect, I can’t help another one at that time. Now, clients and prospects save time by simply booking an appointment with me online – anytime, day or night.

I’m also utilizing Skype to talk with my clients – this also is a great way to ‘compact’ my time. I can have several ‘IM’ (or Instant Messaging) conversations going on at the same time, and still help everyone. Plus, when I talk to clients that are also Skype users, we can have video conference (great for those coaches that like to see their clients while they coach). Oh, and the cost – free. Gosh, I love that word

For all my peeps in SoCal: mark your calendars for December 9th! Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Growth 2.0 Conference” is a free full-day conference in Long Beach, California. There will be such workshops as low-cost marketing, sales secrets, and a keynote with the author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, Robert Kiyosaki.

If you register, be sure to look for me during the networking sessions. As an entrepreneur, it’s an event that I won’t miss!