Coaching Quote of the Day 24th March 2012
“All miracles involve a shift in perception.”
(A Course in Miracles)
Monthly Archives: March 2012
Marketing and your Ideal Client 1
How to market your coaching is a often requested topic, in today’s guest post coach Cindy Hillsey shares her expertise and knowledge in:
Marketing and your Ideal Client
By Cindy Hillsey
Ideal Client. Target Market. Niche Market. They all mean the same thing, right? Wrong!
And this, I believe, is where the confusion sets in for many business owners. How many times have you read an article, attended a seminar, and/or just had a conversation with someone where all three of these terms are used interchangeably? I’ll bet by now you don’t even hear those words anymore. And if you do, do you really understand what they mean and how they apply to your business? Unless you are clear about what these terms mean for your business, you will more than likely struggle with marketing your business.
I have a number of clients who contact me with what they call ‘marketing problems’. They are having a difficult time filling their practice. During our conversations, I find they don’t really have a marketing problem so much as they have an Ideal Client problem. They are trying to be everything to everyone. When I ask them who their Ideal Client is I am usually given a broad, vague answer such as: women, or women in transition, or Coaches, etc.. While that sounds great, it doesn’t tell me who your Ideal Client is and why she’s ideal.
If you don’t know who you are doing what to, how can you do it? And therein lies the real problem: It’s not about marketing, but about knowing who you are marketing to and why at a deep core level.
Let’s talk a bit more about Target Market, Niche Market, and Ideal Client. These terms do not mean the same thing. Please don’t confuse them as they serve different functions.
Target Market – This is a grouping based on one or more common characteristics. For example, age, sex, location, occupation, product purchases, etc.
Niche – This is primarily an occupational grouping. For example, Sports Channels, Financial Planners, Coaches, CPAs, VAs, etc.
Ideal Client – This is the person (and yes I am going to refer to this as one person even though you will have several of the one person) who you connect with at your core. This is the person you know extremely well, so well, in fact, that you can list their problems as though they were your own problems. You understand their values, desires, beliefs, as well as you understand your own. It is because of this deep understanding that you are able to offer effective solutions and/or guidance to your Ideal Client.
Here’s a visual of the above:
It is this concept around the Ideal Client that will allow you to address the problems of your Ideal Client, offer solutions to your Ideal Client, and create the content on your website that speaks to your Ideal Client. In turn, this will allow you to market more effectively and easily. Once you know who are doing what to the rest of your marketing becomes easier.
Let’s take a moment and review some essential elements of the Ideal Client:
- It’s counter-intuitive in the sense that it is most effective when your Ideal Client is highly specific and narrow.
- When you try to be everything to everybody, you end being nothing to anybody.
- There is a common center of interest and/or lifestyle of your Ideal Client.
- Your Ideal Client exists in a sufficient quantity.
- Your Ideal Client has the ability to pay you.
- (Hint) Your Ideal Client is really you on some level!
What does having an Ideal Client do for you and your business?
- An Ideal Client provides you with a clear vision and an obvious focus.
- It enhances your credibility and your reputation.
- It increases the demand for your services because of the specialized market.
- It greatly simplifies marketing and increases your return on investment (ROI).
- It provides a firm base from which you can expand your business.
So, how do you go about determining who your Ideal Client is? One way I would suggest is for you to write a story about your Ideal Client. Give him/her a name, an education, a family life (single or not), a social life, a business, and write about the problems they have in their business that you can help them solve. Get very detailed. Let me repeat that…get very detailed. I want you to know this person like you know your family!
These questions should help you begin to craft your Ideal Client:
1. What are the basic characteristics of your Ideal Client? (demographics, age, gender, salary, education, location, etc.)
2. Who are your clients? Are they business executives, artists, small business owners, micro business owners?
3. What kind of values does your ideal client have? Do these values match yours?
4. What exactly do your Ideal Clients do? How do they need your help? (Be very specific in your answers to these two questions.)
5. How do your Ideal Clients treat you? Do they pay on time? Do they understand you are a business owner and treat you as such?
Whether you know exactly who your Ideal Client is or not, please take the time to answer the above questions so that the next time you are asked, “Who is your Ideal Client? You can answer them without hesitation!
About the Author/Further Resources
Cindy Hillsey, CPC, ACC, is a Creative Small Business Coach and the owner of Virtual Partnering, based in Grand Rapids, MI. Cindy has an extensive background in small business, both online and offline. By combining her experience, business skills, and her coaching skills, she is able to offer her clients a unique perspective to help them achieve their business goals. She coaches women entrepreneurs who wish to express their creativity through their business by helping them put a solid business foundation in place step-by-step so that they can grow their business while fostering their creativity.
Cindy holds a Bachelor of Science in Management from Davenport University. She is a certified coach through the International Coach Academy. Along with being a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF), she holds the Associate Certified Coach designation through the ICF. In addition, Cindy is currently working on obtaining her Certified Coach designation through the Creativity Coaching Association.
Cindy’s websites:
www.virtualpartnering.com
www.chatsondemand.com
Connect with me:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cindyhillsey
Twitter: http://twitter.com/cindyhillsey
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cindyhillsey
Coaching Quote of the Day 23rd March 2012
“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.”
(Dale Carnegie)
Coaching Quote of the Day 22nd March 2012
“A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.”
(English proverb)
Using quotes in coaching – remembering them in the first place
In last week’s coaching post I asked “Do you use quotes in your coaching?” In that post I talked about why you may want to use a quote in a coaching session.
I was then asked a great question on twitter about if I had any tips about how to remember quotes. Many potential answers sprang to mind, all longer than the 140 characters I can use in a tweet so today’s coaching post was born. Feel free to add your own method and thoughts at the end of today’s post.
I will share some ways that I personally have used to remember quotes as well as offering some thoughts around this in general. As you read this, I invite you to notice which ones are most appealing to you.
Firstly, don’t presume that you have to remember them word for word to be able to use a quote. I know that may seem an odd place to start in a post about remembering quotes but I think it’s worth pointing out. There are several situations that can let you refer to a written form of the quote.
This may be down to the situation that you are coaching around. I used the example last week of coaching a customer-facing employee in a business where you may choose to quote a specific customer – is that a quote you wrote down at the time of observation, or is it a quote that you have taken from a written piece of feedback etc?
Can you incorporate reading a quote directly? Either from notes you use/take during a session or other methods.
For example, if you coach via the phone, can you pin some quotes within sight to glance at when needed? If you have written the quote down/it’s in a book, could you just reach out from where you are working and grab that so you can read out the quote?
Be prepared. Perhaps your client sent you a completed pre-session preparation/ exercise of some form in advance and a particular quote sprang to mind as you read it. What’s stopping you from having that quote to hand to use in case it’s still relevant when you talk to that client?
Last week I also spoke about using quotes to “borrow authority” to focus your clients attention or increase their willingness to answer a question or do an exercise. It can be used as a convincer to add extra-perceived credibility. If this is an exercise that requires you to print materials, could you add the quote onto the page in advance?
Make use of the strategies you already use when you coach – if you make a point of using the precise language and phrasing that a client uses, how do you do that? How can you use that same approach to use the same precise language and phrasing in a particular quote?
How much attention to quotes are you paying? It’s a lot easier to recognise that you are using quotes if you have acknowledged that they are quotes in the first place. 🙂 It’s also easier to remember to use “a quote” if you have mentally thought of that phrase/saying etc as a quote.
Over the years I have used various methods that have led to me memorising quotes. Some of these methods have been a conscious attempt to easily recall a quote. On other occasions it’s just been a by-product of another event/activity.
Some of the most popular tweets that get shared from this blogs twitter feed come from song lyrics, films and TV. Consider the quotes you already have in your memory.
When I was still in education, one of the ways I revised for my history exams was to learn various quotes to back up various historical perspectives of events. I had turned this into a game – I wrote each quote on it’s own card, the quote on one side and a brief description on the other. I could then use those as a memory aid and just play, often involving repeating what was on the card.
On other occasions I’d use them to play and draw “Pictionary” style representations of the quote that stuck in my memory (often because they just looked ridiculous, after all I was studying history not art 😉 )
I also remember learning one set of quotes stood in a different location in the room – so when I came to recall the quote I imagined standing in the location that I’d connected to that phrase. I was even known at one stage to replace the lyrics of songs with the quotes instead.
I’ve also found that I’ve learnt quotes purely because I’ve heard or seen something over and over again – maybe because it’s stuck to the wall in a prominent place. Perhaps I’ve heard someone else say it many, many, times over.
My suggestion would be if you decide to actively memorise quotes to use a method that appeals to you and is fun and easy for you.
What other methods would you add to these suggestions? Has something popped into your mind as you read this that you want to go and play with?
About the Author
Jen Waller is on a mission to support, nurture and encourage coaching skills and talents from non-coach to coach and beyond.
She has created a free 7 day e-course about how to create your own unique coaching welcome pack that works for you and your clients. Get your copy here.
Coaching Quote of the Day 21st March 2012
“How do you know what you really want to create? You make it up!”
(Robert Fritz)
Coaching Quote of the Day 20th March 2012
“There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.”
(John Adams)
Do you need a gallery floor plan in your life?
This was originally published as a bonus article in the Coaching Confidence weekly email during September 2011. To start getting your very own copy each week enter your details under “Don’t miss a thing!” to the right of this page.
Do you need a gallery floor plan in your life?
Over the summer I visited the National Gallery in London with my sister. For one reason or another it’s a venue that I had never previously visited.
If, like me, it’s somewhere you haven’t set foot inside, let me briefly explain. The National Gallery houses the national collection of Western European painting from the 13th to the 19th centuries. It is on show 361 days a year, free of charge. I’m told you can see over 2300 on display.
Generally the art is arranged chronologically, geographically and by style throughout 70+ different rooms. Rather than using a map we thought we would logically visit each room and browse all the pieces on display.
The main building was opened in 1831 with extra wings added at later stages. Rooms are numbered and on a map appear to be relatively logically ordered. However, without the benefit of the floor plan, because of the building layout you may find yourself walking from room 25 into 28 with no sign of room 26.
We were not alone in standing slightly bemused in fantastic surroundings but in a spot where we could choose to go in at least four different directions.
Personally I enjoyed exploring and the unpredictable journey we ended up taking to visit each room. It also reminded me about this can often be the approach that we take when working on a project or goal in our own life. We may have established what we want but then not look at a plan for where to go next.
Some people will love that approach and exploring and yet others find it very frustrating. Personally, I think it’s whatever works for you and what you want, keeping the flexibility to use both approaches as you see fit!
This week I invite you to consider a project you have been working on – have you identified a plan?
If so, and it’s not working, what would happen if you allowed some time to explore?
If not, and you feel it’s not working, what would happen if you did find/create a plan to follow to the next stage?
Have a week full of exploring,
Love
Jen
About the Author
Jen Waller is on a mission to support, nurture and encourage coaching skills and talents from non-coach to coach and beyond.
She has created a free 7 day e-course about how to create your own unique coaching welcome pack that works for you and your clients. Get your copy here.