Helping Hands For Coaches

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!

I’m really excited to offer my first interview, using my *new* Kodak zi6 video camera! It was a Valentine’s present from Nirzhar – thank you, hubby! I wanted my first video to really count – and I think I captured it! John Gray spoke at the International Coaching Awareness Day this past Friday, and I asked if I could interview him on one point he made during his talk. Mainly, he stated that the reason he was so successful was because he stayed true to his essence. I wanted to know more about that so I could share it all with you! It’s kind of funny, too, because it is my very first video with the new camera, so I had it pointing at the floor when I started shooting! Too funny!

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!

So, what do you do when you’re without your computer – but you just have to share this photo with your ‘followers’? Most of us have a camera with our phone – and if you can send that photo to an email address, then you can share instantly! TwitPic allows you to share with your twitter followers your instant photos. Also, once you upload your photo to TwitPic, you’re a part of their ‘Public Timeline’ – exposing your profile to an infinite number of viewers at that moment. So have fun in the moment – and share your experience! 

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:

Want some twitter buttons on your site to get more followers? TwitterButtons has about 35 different buttons available for you to use! Just copy the HTML code, make sure to delete the “YourLink” and add your own before you put it on your site.

Here’s my favorite:

And some more examples:

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!

Wouldn’t you love a community full of people all over the world supporting your business, helping it grow, referring to it, all while building relationships with current and past clients?  In the past, this would have taken a lot of effort – putting on events, networking, in-person meetings. But, as a coach, you can have potential clients from all over the world – so building your community in your geographic area may not work for your business. To quoting Seth Godin: “Realize that one day soon, you’ll be spending much of your time working with people who you will probably never meet in person.” The good news about the Internet: you can easily build that community through  online social networks – especially with Ning.com.

Ning.com is a great service for coaches because it allows you to build your community, support your current clients, and potentially attract future ones – all with very little cost. You can customize it’s look and feel, control who can join, and control the content of the site. Members can have their own blog, upload video and audio, upload images, and participate in the online forums. This allows you to see what your clients, and prospects, are struggling with, interested in, and connect to them to build the strong relationship and brand that will help your coaching clients coming back for more. You can read a ‘how-to’ for coaches on Ning.com at the ICF-OC website.

In this month’s Entrepreneur Magazine, Robert Kiyosaki wrote about how marketing can help those of use feeling the pinch of the recession. As he put it: “I’ll bet money that this business [referring to a full-page ad for a local appliance store] will be here next year. Why? Because this business is advertising more aggressively than its competition.”

Many businesses will cut down on marketing and advertising when the pinch begins – and I think this is especially true for entrepreneurs, including life and business coaches, who shoe-string their marketing efforts. I’m not putting down shoe-string marketing, in fact I’m right there with you! Like many of the clients I help with Internet Marketing, I don’t have a huge budget for my Marketing efforts – and that’s why I utilize my ‘feet’ vs. my wallet. Examples of marketing efforts that cost little* or nothing: blogging, podcasting, online video (if done on your own), social networking,  and utilizing forums. In fact, I only advertise in one magazine, and most of my marketing budget is used in networking (the physical kind with rubber chickens, business cards, and costs a lot more than Facebook or Twitter – but still important to attend).

You can build your business during the recession (or whatever you want to call it) without spending that much.  The good news is: not everyone will work hard to get ahead of the recession. This gives hard workers the advantage. How about you? Are you with us?

*Most of these examples of ‘time vs. money’ marketing ideas are less than $300, and most are even free.