Posts Tagged ‘Building My Business’

Posted on September 1, 2009 - by Jus

Talking About Yourself

One of the first things I did with my coach was to create my “elevator speech” for my business.  It was a really great exercise to do, and I loved the way she had a structure to guide me through that process.

I am learning more and more as each day goes on that to be successful in my coaching practice, I am going to need to sell a result, not the coaching itself.  And furthermore, that if I can make that quicker, easier or automated by creating a structure, or a process, or an outline of some easily learned and transferrable skills, then I will enable myself to sell that result in a number of different formats, not just one-to-one coaching.

Which is why I was intrigued to listen to this radio interview with Matt Church recently as it gave me two things:

a) I should not limit myself in the way I talk about my new family and parent coaching business, particularly as it is my passion.

b) I should probably create two potential niches for myself in coaching/business, as I will be able to instantly capitalise on my years of business, marketing and advertising know-how in order to get some quick wins (and quick wins means getting out of the corporate world faster).

What am I talking about?  Well Matt Church has a number of frameworks and matrix that he sells and shares with thought leaders to help them to become more successful.  One of them is about how to position youself and it’s a matrix with nine options.

Nine?  I hear you say.  Yes, well because let’s face it, if the only time you ever talked about your business was in an elevator, we’d certainly all be spending a lot more time in elevators!  Fact is, there are so many places and situations that I will find myself in where I will want to talk about my business – and not all of those situations will be created equal.

There will be opportunities to give a very ‘low-energy’ response as well as others when I can afford to give a much higher level of energy to my explanation.

But let me allow you to download the radio interview that explains it all much better than I can.  Enjoy!  (Right click and select “Save As”)

Matt Church Positioning Matrix

Posted on August 13, 2009 - by Jus

Commitment to Milestones

The lack of posting on my blog is usually a sign that I am juggling many areas of my life, over-commiting myself and attempting to achieve a number of things all at the same time.

This past couple of weeks is no different.  Since starting with my peer coach, I have felt hyper charged in the bid to launch my business, even if only as a ’soft launch’ and start to gather the momentum and experience I know I will need in order to be in a position to quit my day job in June 2010.

That’s “the goal” if you like and it’s a biggun.  For many years I have talked (a lot) about getting out of the industry I have spent over a decade with and working for myself in a business that satiated my emotional needs as well as my financial and intellectual needs… it’s always been fear that has held me back and I am determined not to let fear stand in my way any longer.

You know how some people kind of live by the seat of their pants?  Live each day as it comes and rarely let more than the next 24 hours occupy their minds?  Well… that’s definitely not me.  I am a planner.  I goal setter.  A future-focused over-thinker.  By the time I get to a situation, I have generally considered almost every possible problem or issue that could arise and have made moves to anticipate these.  It comes from being a strategic personality I guess… or maybe that is euphemism for control freak…!

So in planning for the big goal of June 2010… I have started to set some key milestones.  At the same time, I have just finished the class on Goal Setting and although I didn’t necessarily learn anything new about the way I set goals, I did learn a bit about how much I often stress myself out by scoping out every last detail of what I need to do to reach that goal and giving them timeframes… which in turn overwhelms me and panders to the perfectionist in me…. which ultimately holds me back because I then get stuck in the frame of thinking “how could I possibly launch that, do that, tick off that milestone… unless I finish all the steps first?”

Sometimes it would do me well not to plan so much.  To just set a date and commit to the milestone being finished by that date and then using whatever resources I have available to achieving it.  Not disimilar to the way I have always managed people in my teams over the course of my career… when delegating, I set the task in the form of a ‘desired outcome’ and be clear about the expectations with respect to quality, boundaries and the deadline.  Then I set that person off to achieve that outcome in whatever way they feel is best.  If I was to prescibe the path or means by which they achieved the outcome, they would simply become ‘order takers’ and not show any initative of their own.

So why do I find it so difficult to use this theory with my own milestones?  Define the outcome, establish acceptable expectations for quality, boundaries and the deadline and then let myself get there in whatever way feels right as I go through the process…. rather than meticulously planning that process and freaking myself out with how many steps are involved!

To that end, this is me, setting milestones in the form of outcomes.  And I plan on holding myself to these, so stay tuned for updates!

Milestone 1
Outcome : my brand is established/launched and I can begin to market myself.
Expectations : Includes launching my business’ website with even the most basic of content (minimum 1on1 coaching and 1 workshop service) having business cards printed and newsletter subscription service, so that I have the foundation from which to build and grow between now and June 2010.
Deadline : August 23rd, 2009

Milestone 2
Outcome : facilitating workshop confidence.
Expectations : doesn’t matter what format the first workshop is in (live or teleclass) so long as it’s conducted and feedback is recorded for future learning.  Doesn’t matter if the attendees are paying or not.
Deadline : September 10th, 2009

Milestone 3
Outcome : one on one coaching confidence.
Expectations : involves at least one ICA peer coaching client and at least one non-ICA peer coaching client for a minimum of 12 sessions per client, with feedback sought and received.
Deadline : November 8th, 2009

Posted on July 30, 2009 - by Jus

Totally Inspired

As part of my course, I get to be a coaching client for another student (and a little further down the track, I get to also coach other students to practice and ‘learn on the job’)… it’s called Peer Coaching.

This week I set up a few ‘trial sessions’ with some of the students that had expressed an interest in being my peer coach and they were all really great.  However, tonight’s was really amazing.  Funny thing is, I think I knew in advance of even speaking to her that I would love working with her, the universe has a funny way of sending the right people into my life at just the right times and when I first got her email and looked through her website, I think I sorta just *knew*.

So my new peer coach that I will be working with over the coming 12 weeks is Lauren Fritsch and I am totally inspired by the prospect of working with such a talented, vibrant, articulate and personable coach.

Very grateful to the universe for sending Lauren my way.

Posted on July 27, 2009 - by Jus

108 | Idenitfying My Niche

I think I might have had a very exciting breakthrough over the weekend…

One of the key milestones in being able to get my plans to build my coaching business going is finding and defining my niche – that is to say, which particular group of people for whom I will tailor my coaching business, products and services.

I have been slightly uncomfortable with my obvious choice of niche – small business owners, professionals, managers and entrepreneurs – mainly because I feel like it wouldn’t be enough of a departure from my current profession to keep me challenged, motivated and learning.

Over the weekend, it dawned on me what my ‘calling’ would be in terms of a niche for my coaching business… what I am deeply passionate about, what I am intrigued and interested by, what will continually challenge me to think differently…

I’m going to work with parents and families with children.  *grins*

I was a single parent from the moment my darling son was born and as I only got married just before his sixth birthday, I certainly had my fair share of experiences in parenting in difficult situations.  I think every parent learns an awful lot from their children, some more than others, and many parents reach out to peers and professionals for guidance in how to be the best parent they can possibly be.

It’s these people that I want to work with – to help them to define their goals as parents and put in place the action plans, structures and knowledge they need to achieve these goals.

I already know what my first steps in building this will be and I am so looking forward to developing my business over the coming three months with the assistance of my chosen peer coach to keep me on track!  So three cheers for finding my niche!!