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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

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”

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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Ken Davenport: Recently hailed as the “P.T. Barnum of Off-Broadway” by the New York Times for his unique 21st century marketing strategies, Ken Davenport is becoming widely recognized as one of the most innovative theatre producers today. Ken’s visionary tech-savvy was also recently featured on a national commercial for Apple’s iPhone and he was named one of Crain’s “Forty Under 40” in 2008 as a result of his fresh ideas and unprecedented success. Ken’s impressive Broadway and Off-Broadway production slate includes Speed the Plow, Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome America, Blithe Spirit, Altar Boyz, The Awesome 80s Prom and My First Time. He is also the creator of broadwayspace.com, a new social networking site for the Broadway community and TheProducersPerspective.com, his popular blog where he gives his opinion on everything relating to Broadway and beyond.
Website: http://www.davenporttheatrical.com/
Ning website: http://www.broadwayspace.com/
Twitter ID: http://twitter.com/kendavenport

Sarah Benner is a Sr. Marketing Manager at VerticalResponse heading up the Retention Marketing team. She manages a team responsible for all customer communications (including social media and community), customer retention, product education/training and other customer programs. She has over 8 years of marketing communications and product marketing experience working at companies like Siebel Systems and CNET Networks.

Sarah holds a Bachelor’s degree from University of Washington and a Master’s degree from Emerson College.
VerticalResponse: www.verticalresponse.com
Ning website: http://vrlounge.ning.com/forum
Twitter ID: http://twitter.com/VR4SmallBiz

Andrea Anderson and business partner, Barbara Hemphill, author of the Taming the Paper Tiger book series, believe a Productive Environment is a Profitable Environment. They share this vision with their 100+ Productivity Trainer Authorized Consultants around the world through online training and mentorship programs. These programs emphasize Barbara Hemphill’s proprietary processes and methodology for helping clients create and sustain a Productive Environment–”an intentional setting in which everything around you supports who you are and the goals you’re striving to achieve”. Their newest project, the iProductive Environment Platform (iPEP) is the only program that helps clients find their physical files (in filing cabinets and bookshelves) and their electronic files, in one search. Andrea and Barbara enjoy living in NC while serving clients around the world.
Paper Tiger Productivity Institute
Website: www.PaperTigerInstitute.com
Ning website: www.OrganizersPowerUp.ning.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/andrea_ptpi
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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.

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:

“WOW Rachel! I don’t know how you ended up knowing Wendi, but you fell into a gem there!!!! Thank you for scheduling her today. She is awesome, knows her stuff, relaxed and we all liked her.” Deborah White, The Step Mom Coach

If you’re ready to take action and get clear on your niche, then listen to this interactive podcast on how life, business and executive coaches can define their niche!

To review the worksheet for Creating Your Coaching Niche, please click HERE.