Helping Hands For Coaches

Are you looking to YouTube? This podcast will walk you through some of the basics of how to get started, including how to choose keywords and add them to your discription, where to add your hyper-link, and how to gain more viewers.

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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

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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As a coach, you’d like to support your clients more in attaining their goals, their aspirations – but sometimes it’s not more of you they need, but a community of like-minded individuals that can support each other. You can create a community for your clients through a simple Ning.com website – a site that’s like your own personal Facebook, with your own design, ability to add and take away features, and even take-off ads, etc.

This past week we took a quick drive-through of Ning.com: creating your Profile, what makes a community popular, how to start building a popular community, and keep it going.

This week, we’ll go into more depth of how to personalize your Ning.com site, including design, features, and management. Be sure to sign-up if you’re not already on our eNewsletter list, as we’ll be using a webinar service so you can ’see’ what we’re doing.

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This Friday, and the following 2 Fridays, we’ll be discussing Twitter! Be sure to be on the call 10-11am PST to get your first introduction to Twitter.

Last week’s call was a discussion on LinkedIn - creating Buzz through article marketing, creating and promoting events, creating business pages and the new applications available on LinkedIn. Although there are currently 9 applications, during the call I went over the top 5 that would be applicable to life, business, executive coaches and professional speakers.

Most of you have probably at least heard of Twitter by now, if not – get ready! It’s an amazing Social Media tool that can really help you get connected to other entrepreneurs, experts in your field, and of course, prospects and clients! But, I must warn you – it is addicting! You’ll find yourself tweeting live events, while walking to meet with a client, and during your own teleseminars! But, this is what makes Twitter so unique – it helps you to be and stay on people’s mind, even if you’ve never met them. Take, for instance, I’ve been following Warren Whitlock co-author of the Twitter Revolution (with @coachdeb), for a while – but I didn’t think he would recognize me – but here we were, last Friday at the Social Media Conference in San Diego, and he said, “Hey, don’t I know you? I’m following you, aren’t I?” Wow! I was floored – and what floored me more was how many times it happened after that! Now, wouldn’t you like to be known before you enter a networking group? Would you like a room full of potential prospects to feel warm towards you before you spoke? Twitter can do that for you.

So, I know I’ve been holding back from my coaches about this awesome tool – but, I don’t like to promote something until I have a grasp of it myself. So, read further for my resources, and how to get started (you won’t believe how easy it is!)

To get started on Twitter, I recommend going to Twitter, sign-up for an account, add your profile photo (go to ‘Settings’ in the upper right to customize your profile), and then type your first post – just a 140 characters. I  then recommend you to start following people that automatically follow others, as John Chow suggests. He recommends that you get beyond the 100 ‘followers’ count  to be ’socially proof’.  How do you know if they’ll automatically follow you? Just see if their ‘followers’ count matches their ‘follow’ count.

Once you hit the 100 followers mark, then you need to make your tweets interesting. Whenever I mention Twitter, the main question I get is “Why does anyone want to know what I had for breakfast?” Good point – they probably don’t! I think some ‘Not Dead Yet’ moments are fine (for instance, “Drinking some coffee with the hubby at my favorite coffee shop: http://theneighborhoodcup.com/“), but generally that’s not going to get you a huge following. So, before you post, notice if what you’re about to tweet is interesting to your potential following (yes, you should have a goal of who you want to have follow you – mainly your target market).

One issue that I came across when I first started tweeting was understanding other tweets! It’s like it’s in a different language – one that’s constricted by 140 characters! Thanks to my friend, Mari Smith, I was able to understand the @ symbol in front of people’s names, and the short hand that tweaps use.

Some musts to help you save time while using this great Social Media tool:
TweetScan – a ’search’ tool for Twitter – find your target market easily
Tweet Deck – a desktop software that allows you to know what’s going on in the Twitter world, without having to go online
TwitScoop – find out what’s the hot topic right now and join the conversation
TweetLater – want to be sure a tweet goes out at a certain time but not sure if you’ll remember to tweet it? Use this tool to schedule tweets to post in your account.
BudURL – want to see if all this Social Marketing is working? This tool will take your URL, and track the results – who’s clicking from where.
SocialToo – allows you to auto-follow followers, and can let you know when people stop following you.

Some Free Resources on Twitter that I used to get started:
GeekPreneur Twitter Handbook
Guy Kawaski : How to Use Twitter as a Twool, and Looking for Mr. Goodtweet: How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter
Warren Whitlock and Coach Deb: Free Twitter Handbook
Duct Tape Marketing: Free downloadable eBook on Using Twitter for Business
Twitter Lingo: by Mari Smith
Have another resource you found helpful? Add a comment and the link! Thanks!

As Warren said last Friday, the main thing is – Twitter has no rules – you can decide on how you want to brand yourself on Twitter. So, have fun and Happy Tweeting! Oh, and if you liked this post, please follow me at http://www.twitter.com/rachelpradhan  See you there!

Now that Indra Successful Coach Marketing and Blaze Interactive, our two companies, build websites utilizing Wordpress, you’ll see some more video tortorials on how to utilize this great software as a content management system. All of our clients have been able to easily pick-up how to use Wordpress once their website launched, but I thought it would be helpful if they have some extra support as well.

If you are a life or business coach, or an entrepreneur, on a major shoe-string budget, then I would recommend Wordpress as a way for you to quickly and easily build a website. Wordpress.com is the free version of Wordpress in which you can set-up a blog in minutes. Their free templates aren’t the greatest, but it can easily be customizable. If you want your own URL, and host your own Wordpress Website – then I recommend Wordpress.org. For hosting the Wordpress website, I always recommend BlueHost.

When we build a website utilizing Wordpress, we first focus on the design of the site – utilizing our own 6-step design process that really captures the essence of our clients. We then build the site utilizing the Wordpress technology, allowing our clients to easily make changes once the site launches. It’s also more Search Engine friendly than basic HTML websites.

This first video is how-to make basic changes in your Wordpress website.

The second video is how-to make basic color changes to your Wordpress website.

Just a reminder – your ‘Admin’ page to sign-in is your URL (or web address), plus /wp-admin. So, for example, for http://www.helpinghandsforcoaches.com it will be http://www.helpinghandsforcoaches.com/wp-admin.

If we didn’t help you develop your website, and you would like custom HEX colors (the series of numbers/letters that tells browsers what colors to show) – then you can visit this website: www.2CreateAWebsite.com

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.

The ‘Pied Piper’ of Facebook joined us this Friday and gave our coaching communitee some great pointers on how to use Facebook, as well as FriendFeed, Ping.fm, Twitter, and even your website! If you were not able to join us for the call, you can listen to the podcast below, and download the PowerPoint Presentation to follow long.

If you feel a little left-out when we talked about RSS feeds, or using Twitter, don’t worry – we’ll be going over that very soon!

Enjoy!

Also available, the Facebook series by Mari Smith.

From what I gather, all coaches go through this “What is my niche?” phase – and sometimes don’t come out! Wendi Liechty, our speaker on today’s class, helped our coaches come out of the niche fog and get clear on their target market!

“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.