Welcome to the UCBBP, the Ultimate Coaching Business Building Program.

UCBBP is the flagship business. Delivered as an guides you step-by-step phenomenally successful period. program for building a flourishing electronic fortnightly eCourse, UCBBP through the process of building a coaching business over a 24-month

It includes all the powerful breakthrough marketing strategies amalgamated from the worlds leading entrepreneurs, coaches and marketers. The program also includes resources such as self-assessment and action sheets, diagrams, templates, tips, references and much more. This special resource includes 10 lessons of the Ultimate Coaching Business Building Program the complete fortnightly eCourse is available as part of CoachIQs member resources.

Lesson 1: Developing your Desired Client Profile; Product Mix; Niche and Brand.
Knowing your clients Marketing is the process by which you articulate and espouse the attributes of your business and products to prospective clients. But before you can effectively market your business its critical that your service and product offering are in alignment with your target clients needs and desires. If they arent, you can spend an enormous amount of time, money and effort promoting your services without ever knowing why you get an extremely low take up rate. The first step in the process of alignment is knowing your client. The more you know about your client the better. And the fewer assumptions you make to get to know your client the better. When we say client were referring to the specific profile of the person, people, business, or organisation you want to work with. This profile should be as laser focussed and detailed as possible. Its literally impossible to meet the needs of everyone. Subsequently you need a clear picture of who you are aiming to serve your ideal client. You need to build a profile that includes both Demographic and Psychographic details. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Demographics are all the external facts about your clients: Their socio-economic group; Their geographical location; Gender; Age; Education; Income; Profession; Attributes affecting your service/product: a. Are they Executives? b. Are they Business Owners of certain type? c. Are they Families? d. Are they overweight/underweight? e. Are they adolescent underachievers/high achievers? f. Are they new mothers? g. Are they Single Parents? 10. Where do they congregate; or where are they located? 11. What technology do they use? Psychographics relate to the clients character, their personality, philosophy and their behavioural tendencies. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. What attributes do they have in common? What interests, hobbies etc do they have? What other products/services do they as a group use? What common challenges do they face? And what is the cost of those challenges to them? What common desires or objectives do they share? What are they hoping to achieve? What are they afraid of? What values and beliefs do they hold?

9. How will they search/find your services? IE What mediums do they commonly use (Newspapers, national or industry specific magazines, internet, radio, free to air or pay TV)? The value of this information can not be overstated. Large corporations spend exorbitant amounts of money developing profiles of their clients. And for good reason. This information determines: 1. How you promote your services. a. The type of language you use to communicate with them. b. Where you place your promotional/advertising message. c. What your message looks or sounds like. 2. Where you promote your services. 3. How you formulate your sales plan and process. 4. How you develop and innovate your products. 5. How you deliver your services. 6. How you price your services. 7. How you package additional services. 8. What businesses you approach for affiliate and added value services. 9. How you differentiate your business to competitors. Every successful business is customer focussed. And the only way to be customer focussed is to know the needs of your customer intimately. Whilst this advice sounds very obvious, the actions of most business people that espouse having this knowledge demonstrates otherwise. Most businesses are established because the business owner recognises a personal need, challenge or desire that they set out to satisfy. They then think well, if I needed this, so must other people. The process of imposing your own desires on other people is a dangerous assumption in business. Be customer driven. Develop your products and services in accord with the needs of your customers, not your personal needs (or assumptions). One of the biggest mistakes, probably the biggest mistake people make in any business is that they fall in love with the wrong things. They fall in love with their product, service or company. You should believe passionately in your product, service or company. But you should fall in love with your clients Jay Abraham, Getting All You Can Out of All Youve Got There is no marketing technique that is more effective than genuine, sincere, passionate concern for your prospective client and a true desire to help them in solving a problem and reaching their goals. Most people in business ask themselves, What do I have to say to get people to buy? Instead you should ask, What do I have to give? What benefit do I have to render? It has nothing to do with gimmicks or hype but everything to do with what benefits you can offer your clients. So the first step is understanding your client intimately. Only by knowing their needs intimately can you render a service of value to them.

Aligning your product mix To highlight the importance of knowing your prospective client, you can imagine the success youd have if your target market was adolescent youths from broken families and you promoted your $1,500 monthly coaching service in the Financial Review! Whilst this example is obviously ridiculous and extreme, clients are a fickle bunch and its crucial that your services are tightly aligned with your prospects profile and needs. Most novice coaches come from the mindset Im going to coach XYZ group. But they give little thought to the specific challenges, needs, desires and nuisances of their target group (niche). And without this information theyre almost doomed to failure. They first develop how theyre going to coach, then try to impose that service onto their target client. This approach does not work! You must be client driven rather than product driven. You should first identify the specific client group you want to work with and then develop services and products that satisfy and fulfil their unique and specific needs. Whats the best way to determine the needs of your target client? Ask them! Interview them; survey them; take them to lunch and pick their brains; hold tele-sessions; talk to industry professionals already dealing with them; go to industry events; read their journals. Asking the hard questions up front is so important to the long term success of your coaching business and your market niche (more on developing that niche soon). Remember that its not enough for you to perceive that someone NEEDS what you have to offer. They have to WANT what you have to offer and be motivated to buy it. The benefit you purvey with your offer must VASTLY exceed in value your clients perceived risk of investing in it. Focus your attention on client groups who are already looking for the solution you provide and are willing to invest in the solution. Here is a 7-Step Process to develop products and services that are in high demand by your target clients is to: 1. First determine the top 3 most serious and annoying challenges that your target group want to solve. 2. Determine how regularly they face these problems and the financial and emotional cost to them having these problems recur. 3. Develop solutions to solve these top 3 challenges/problems. 4. Package your solutions as service and product based offerings. 5. Price point your services based on the financial costs your clients incur by not having the problem solved. 6. Establish yourself as a specialist who can help them solve the challenges/problems they have. 7. Demonstrate to them through quantifiable proof how you have solved their problems with like groups.

If you take this approach, not only will your services be aligned to your client, your clients will actively seek you out to have their costly recurring problems resolved! Filling a gap There is a lot of talk in business, and specifically coaching, about creating a niche. A niche is essentially a group of people with a common problem (or desire) that theyre willing to pay to get solved and are already talking to each other about it. Often beginner coaches balk at establishing a niche as they: Fear theyll limit the size of their market; They are scared they may lose out on opportunities; Dont have enough knowledge in a specific area to create a niche; Dont have enough business experience to brand a niche business.

However, operating in a niche affords you many benefits, including: Its easier to find your clients as they congregate in a specific location or have a common problem/interest; Because clients in a niche have specific problems, you can develop specific solution based products; Clients in a niche are generally willing to spend much more to have their unique recurring problems resolved; Your marketing can be specifically designed for high impact (language, location, etc); Niche markets tend to communicate amongst themselves and hence your referral business will be much higher; You can use more effective marketing strategies such as Education Based marketing to attract clients; Once established, the niche will know how to find you and hence your marketing costs will be dramatically reduced; You can own a niche and quickly become renowned as an expert or specialist; You can rely less on time based 1 to 1 coaching and move to 1 to many coaching models; Over time your marketing and promotional costs will decrease because you are not wasting money trying to attract the attention of clients outside your true niche; You get more passionate, more excited and more energetic because you are working with clients that are truly aligned with who you are and what you have to offer.

When choosing a niche you should consider the following: Do you have the requisite knowledge and skills to effectively communicate with your prospects? For instance, if you establish a niche coaching high end businesses on growing their profitability and have no experience in this area, you will not be successful. 5

The niche has unique, specific challenges and/or desires, interests and needs. You are passionate about helping the niche solve their problems. You have in-depth knowledge of the most pressing challenges and needs associated with the niche. Only by having this information can you develop products that will be of interest and use to the niche. The niche is large enough (and financial enough) for you to prosper. The niche is defined enough to be a niche! Many coaches think theyre operating in a niche but are really operating in a larger market segment. For example, there are many career coaches (market segment) but few career specialists who focus on rekindling the careers of former executives who have been stay at home parents now wishing to re-enter the workforce (defined niche). You are passionate and committed to working in the area of the niche. The niche has demonstrated by some means that theyre willing to invest to have their problems solved. IE The problems confronting your prospects in the niche must be large enough that theyre willing to invest to have them solved.

You can work in more that one niche; however each niche has separate characteristics so youll need to treat each one as a separate part of your overall coaching business. Here are some examples of groundbreaking niche technologies: Mobile phone; Laptop computer; Post-it notes; Microwave oven; iPods.

The importance of Brand in your business A brand can be considered a shortcut to decision making. Humans are extremely busy. The amount of information were forced to take in, process, discard, utilise or act upon is phenomenal. If we were forced to give consideration to every piece of stimulus that impacts us wed literally implode. One powerful mechanism weve developed to make the workload more bearable is to automate responses. Our automated responses come in many forms, but one particularly powerful one is Social Proof. Rather than trying to determine how to act appropriately in every situation, we tend to look to other like people in order to validate decisions and determine the most appropriate behaviour. As a rule, we make fewer mistakes acting in accord with social evidence than contrary to it. For example, this process underpins whether we eat chicken at a dinner party with our hands; whether we put rubbish in the bin in a public place; and when and how we cross the road. Its also why Apple iPod is such a high demand item, and why Nike is the leader in sports apparel. Its not that the iPod and Nike are exceedingly higher quality for price items, but rather that Social Proof is such a strong influencer in how we determine what behaviour is appropriate. And this is why branding your business appropriately is crucial. 6

As you can see from the above, a brand is significantly more than just your business name and a logo. There are many extremely powerful (and subtle) forces at play that determine your brand. You need to recognise these forces and have them all working for you in order to extract maximum positive value for your business. Your brand is said to be the sum total of everything you and or your business does. Just as Apple iPod and Nike are product and company brands, so too can an individual be a brand. Tiger Woods and Donald Trump are great examples of people who have very powerful individual brands. And like a company brand, an individuals brand is enhanced or diminished by many external factors. Examples of external Factors that can influence your personal or company brand include: Business name; Logo; Stationery; Advertising and marketing methods; Modes, methods and manner of communication; Professionals associated with your business; Products and services (and more importantly, how you package and offer them); Price points; Sales process; Level of service; Quality of outcomes; Customer Service associated with the delivery of your products and services; Your niche market.

The benefits of having a well known and well regarded brand include: Greater client loyalty; Less discounting; Higher conversion rates; More referral business; Faster conversion periods; Premium pricing; Diminished competition.

Having your brand congruent with your niche and your customer expectations is essential. If your prospects perceive a conflict between your brand and their niche needs, it will be extremely damaging to your business. Remember that your brand is a sum total of everything you do. So everything you do must be in alignment with the needs, expectations and previous experiences of your niche. Its also very important to point out that whether you actively seek to establish a brand or not, a brand will exist for your business. The reason for this is that a brand is not a fixed, definitive object. A brand exists in the minds of your prospects and customers and is subject to their perceptions. If you dont actively seek to create a brand desirous to your target market you stand the very real risk of a brand being created in their minds which is in conflict with their needs and the image of your business that you want to portray.

Inept service, amateurish graphics, bad or untimely communication, poor sales skills, ill conceived pricing all go towards tarnishing your brand and handing business to your competitor. Far better to take a stand now and know that youre in control of the perceptions your brand is creating. How to build a powerful brand As weve mentioned, whether you actively develop a brand or not, a brand will still be associated with your business in the minds of your prospects and customers. To build a truly powerful brand for your business you must connect your brand to a higher purpose. Youve got to be focused on bringing a greater experience; a greater sense of exclusivity; a greater amount of joy; a greater sense of prestige, of pride, of fulfillment (or whatever element of promise your brand is designed to do or deliver) to the market. In other words, your brand must be intrinsically connected to the needs of your niche! If your brand is the sum total of all that you and your business does, and your niche is your clearly defined target group, how then do you align or position your brand is such a way that when faced with a choice your prospect chooses you instead of your competition? Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) The glue that connects your brand to your niche, and differentiates you from your competition, is your Unique Selling Proposition or USP. Your USP is your brands mouthpiece that articulates how your product is uniquely positioned to solve the problems experienced by your niche. Without a USP your marketing statements to your niche are vague, unappealing, unsubstantiated, uncompelling and ambiguous. Your USP is simply the single most unique strength or benefit your business has to deliver that is exclusive to you and paramount to your niche market. Your USP should be strong and self-evident like Federal Express When it absolutely, positively has to be there over night or Dominos Pizza Hot Pizza delivered in 30 minutes or its FREE. Michael Port a world renowned Life Coach has a USP that states The Coach to call when you are tired of thinking small. Your USP is always external. It tells your niche why they should buy from you. Let us pose a scenario for you. Put yourself in the position of this person You are a 49 year old business owner thats been self employed for 20 years and is starting to wonder if theres a way to get more enjoyment from life and spend more time with your growing family without jeopardising the future of your business. You come across 2 advertisements, one above the other for coaching. The headlines are:

The First is:

Grow your business with Business Coaching

The Second is:

Achieve Optimum Work-Life Balance In Just 4-Weeks With Australias Most Trusted Executive Business Coach.
Which one are you going to respond to? This is an excellent example of how the second coach: Has identified a niche market. Understands the challenges faced by his niche market. Has positioned himself as an expert to assist overcome the challenge. Has built a brand through the articulation of his Unique Selling Proposition. Left no ambiguity as to how he can assist. The second coachs brand can be even further substantiated and endorsed by: An offer of a free report; A link into a free communication program that maintains contact and adds value; Testimonials and endorsements by peers of the prospect; Building a quantitative guarantee.

And yet sadly, how many coaches use the tombstone headline style of Coach 1? Wed suggest 99%. No wonder prospects find it difficult affiliating with the coachs service. Summary In summary, to be effective at this early stage of your marketing development, you must first: Intricately know and understand the challenges and needs of your target market. Identify and validate a worthwhile niche based on your knowledge of point 1. Develop your brand to be congruent to the desires of your niche. Articulate your brand and service to your niche through a highly compelling USP.

Lesson 2: Be an Expert and Position your business rather than Prospect for business.
By now you should be well on the way to defining your target prospect, developing your niche and brand, and expressing it through your USP. Weve already explained the importance of establishing a niche. If you do not niche, and instead decide to offer generic coaching services, youll find it extremely difficult to compete. Your coaching business and services will appear the same as everyone else and youll find it difficult if not impossible to distinguish yourself. Every prospective client, whether its reality or not, perceives their problems to be unique to them. If your prospects problems have been enduring, their perception of the problems is that its complex too complex for them to have fixed themselves in the interim. Their logic therefore determines that they need someone with specialised skills and knowledge to help them overcome that problem. Someone with advanced skills and knowledge to their own. By your prospects reasoning therefore, a generalist will not be able to offer effective solutions to their specific (and complex) problems. For Example: One example of this need for specialist knowledge can been found in coaches who work in the Real Estate Industry. Real Estate Agents (prospective clients) consider their field to be a specialised one, and when it comes to improving their skills in listing, selling and managing property they turn to coaches that position themselves as specialists to the Real Estate Industry. Whilst you can: 1. focus your business in a niche area through your service offerings; 2. brand your business in a niche; and 3. articulate your offer through your USP; As a coach you must also establish yourself as a specialist or expert in the niche. As much as you need to focus on building your business brand, you also need to concurrently build your personal brand as a specialist. Only by establishing yourself as an expert will you build the necessary credibility to your brand and reinforce your niche positioning. If all these elements are not totally congruent, your offer will never be compelling to your prospects. Your marketing message will seem confusing as your prospects will not understand how you can offer solutions to their niche problems problems they may have been experiencing for some time and not been able to solve themselves without being higher qualified or having specialised skills and experience (being an expert). What are the benefits of establishing yourself as an expert in your niche? Being an expert or specialist in your niche affords you many benefits and competitive advantages including: 10

As an expert you can market with dignity! You wont have to chase clients. Clients will come looking for you because of your specialist tag. Remember, clients are searching for someone who is perceived to be as knowledgeable and skilled as they are in their niche. There are substantially fewer barriers to conversion because your prospective clients are pre-sold by perceived knowledge and specialisation. Limiting the number of competitors you have because you are perceived as one of the few (perhaps only) coaches that can meet the clients unique needs. Building your reputation and reinforces your positioning as a superior (if not the superior) coach in the niche. Being given the opportunity to speak, comment and or write about important issues, challenges or opportunities within the Niche. By default it gets you involved in industry events and networking opportunities. In turn this opens the door to have your ideas and insights published and talents recognised by important industry commentators, which in turn assists in developing your image as an expert! Your reputation as an expert will endorse your business and vice versa; It allows you to be more selective with the clients you work with and you can deliver products and services you are most passionate about. You can take advantage of powerful and highly leveraged marketing strategies such as publishing, public speaking, networking opportunities, joint ventures, referrals and endorsements. You get a much higher return on your marketing dollar, reducing your Client Cost of Acquisition, improving your bottom line net income (and breaking even earlier as a business start-up); You are able to build greater client loyalty which significantly increases your new client referrals, which in turn dramatically reduces your cost of client acquisition. You get a higher conversion rate to your services. Prospective clients are far more likely to trust and appreciate the wisdom and knowledge of a coaching specialist. The ability to solve a broader range of client problems. Once youre an established and trusted advisor for the client you will be able to expand the range and scope of services provided. The chance to better educate clients to the value you provide and charge fees based on the cost of the niche problems rather than on an hourly rate. You can expand your services from 1 to 1 coaching to include highly leveraged product based and 1 to many services. Being able to work with more astute and strategically beneficial affiliate partners who will provide higher value to your clients and ultimately better financial return to you. Due to your strong client rapport and expertise, your clients will have a greater propensity to take up your endorsed affiliate services; 11

So how do you become (or become perceived to be) an expert in your niche? Being an expert coach in your niche does not necessarily mean you have to be a technical expert in the industry you operate. Obviously, industry knowledge is very important. But your clients already have good industry knowledge and they are not able to solve their own problems! Being an expert in a niche requires you to be an expert at solving the problems experienced by your prospective clients in the niche. This is an extremely important distinction. Many coaches decide to niche in an industry they have previously worked in. This is great, but you still need to develop intricate skill in solving the problems of the niche before youll have a compelling service to offer, and before you can establish yourself as an expert. If you have previously (or currently) worked in the area of your niche, but have little knowledge of the most pressing problems confronted by the niche, and no experience in how to overcome those problems, then your chances of successfully establishing yourself as an expert are slim. Remember, a niche is a group of people with a common problem that theyre willing to pay to solve, and are already talking about it. If you dont have products and services that will solve the specific problems that your niche is willing to invest in being solved, then youre not going to have a very compelling sales offer. Here are some tips for how you can establish and position yourself as an expert: 1. Know the problems of your niche. To be an expert coach in your chosen niche, you must be an expert about the problems and challenges that your niche is willing to invest in to solve. If you have not identified these (correctly) and created unique solutions, and espoused how you will go about solving them, you will never be perceived to be an expert even if you are! For example: Imagine you are a Date Coach (big niche in the US). One of the problems facing people who seek out a date coach is How to behave when endeavouring to attract their ideal partner. An experienced date coach knows that there are certain behaviours that a man or women need to adopt when in the presence of their desired partner to be attractive. Other specific niche problems may be: lacking the confidence and ability to approach a potential partner; and fearing rejection or humiliation. This is a simple example of understanding the problems of your niche. Based on these problems, a successful Date Coach would build specific services and products to assist clients overcome these challenges; and would clearly articulate these solutions through their USP and brand. 2. Develop specific solutions to the problems of your niche. Obviously, knowing the problems is not enough. You have to develop specific, unique, preferably branded solutions to the problems. Its no good offering a generic coaching solution to a specific niche problem even if that generic solution will solve the problem. Remember, marketing is about perception. If you can win the war of perception, youll win the war of marketing, and hence beat the competition and build a flourishing business. So, develop specific, niche branded solutions. For example: A Date Coach develops a Double Your Dating or Dating Routine program for clients. Dating Routine is a set of learned pre-organised cues and steps an individual takes to maintain confidence, structure positive conversation, and attract someone to them.

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3. Advocate and position your products as unique. Once youve developed your specific coaching services and products, you need to position them as unique solutions. You need to articulate in detail how those solutions (and your experience) will help your client overcome their problem better than any other service. If possible you should brand your solution and associate it with your company and you. For example: We are now seeing Date Coaches specialise in cultural markets to position themselves and their products and/or coaching tools as unique. Date Coaching is also positioned uniquely in comparison to Relationship Coaching. Research clearly indicates that if people are wanting help on how to get more dates then theyll employ the services of a specialist Date Coach before engaging a Relationship Coach. Can you see how more refined, specific niches can be borne out of larger categories? 4. Highlight the financial and commercial value of your niche solutions. You need to position your branded products/services based on their value as a solution. You must always identify the financial and emotional cost to your client in NOT having their problem solved. You can then communicate the value of your services to your client in terms of the cost to them for NOT undertaking your niche service. For example: As a Date Coach its easy to establish the financial and emotional cost to your client. Recent ground breaking research from XYZ Institute indicates that behaviours and techniques utilised by highly desired individuals to attract partners is learned, not natural. By perfecting your skills in dating, research indicates you are 79% more likely to find the partner of your dreams. Thats a big motivator when you think of the financial and emotional implications of finding your perfect match. 5. Explain the significant research, discovery, processes you went through to identify and develop your niche solutions. To add value to your niche solutions, and build your credibility as an expert, you should explain in as much (applicable) detail as possible your story of how your identified the needs of the niche, what affinity you have with them that led to you wanting to help, and the detailed process by which you developed solutions to their problems. For example: The best Date Coaches have themselves walked the talk and been on hundreds of dates to refine, develop and prove their dating systems. If you read about a Date Coach who has worked with over 250 clients across 4 continents, conducting research for the last 12 years as to why certain behaviours have measured and predicable dating outcomes you would be interested to read on wouldnt you? 6. Associate yourself (name, qualifications etc) regularly with your brand and niche. In order to align your brand and your expertise with your niche you must consistently refer to yourself, your skills, expertise and qualifications when communicating your marketing message. For example: Dr Rosie King is a relationship specialist and Intimacy Coach who has done an excellent job over the last 10 years of associating her name with the relationship and intimacy niche. 7. Have a Positioning Statement. A positioning statement is a branding strategy to associate your prospective clients needs with your product and to create a shortcut to peoples thinking and perception. A positioning statement is a short and powerful statement (preferably a few words or a single sentence) about how your service relates to your niche. Ideally itll be related to the specific problems/solutions offered to your niche. 13

Your positioning statement should be used on all stationary, in all marketing and advertising, signage and communications (like your email signature). When your prospects read your positioning statement it should be immediately apparent what your service is and how you can assist them overcome their niche related problems. For example: Patti Feinstein is one of the Western worlds leading Date Coaches. She has a brilliant positioning statement as Americas Dating Coach. She is interviewed weekly on TV and radio around North and South America and is introduced as Americas Dating Coach Patti Feinstein. Her positioning statement defines clearly what she does and using America gives her instant credibility and national appeal. 8. Develop educational services so that you become an educator rather than a salesperson in the field of your niche. Experts educate and generalists prospect. To position yourself as an expert you must establish yourself as an educator, not just a salesperson, in your niche. To achieve this you should offer educational products and services, of high perceived value, to your niche. These could include: Teleclasses; eBooks; Seminars and public speaking engagements; Newsletters; Electronic communications that include emails and e-Zines; Online opt-in programs; Educational 3 to 5 minute audio recordings (stored in MP3 format on web); Mediated On-line chat forum.

9. Develop educational products. In todays technological environment its no longer expensive or complicated to develop educational products such as CDs, DVDs, eBooks, or electronic newsletters (e-zines). Its very cost effective to develop a range of niche specific products that you can brand and use for various promotional and commercial purposes. For instance, follow this very simple, cost effective process and you will quickly have a range of specialist, branded products to use with your niche: Develop a special tool, checklist or process to assist solve a niche problem; Promote the product on your and other websites (affiliates); Deliver a paid-for or free teleclass to your niche on the product; Record the teleclass and package the CD and process together for sale (or as a product give-away/promotion); Expand the product/CD into a seminar or bootcamp; Video the seminar and sell as a DVD.

10. Maintain constant (educational) communication with your niche prospects in order to build your business brand and image. As an expert you will add value and educate through maintaining REGULAR high value, non-intrusive communication with prospects and your niche generally. The best way to attain this balance is to deliver high value educational content will real applicable value to your niche. Delivering information via IT and the internet is generally the most cost efficient and leveraged manner to achieve this (if done correctly!). 11. Become known. Go where the action is and network with well known and regarded people in your niche. To be an expert you not only have to have knowledge and commercially viable products and services, you have to be seen and heard! One of the most powerful marketing processes is the power of recency. The more recently you hear something, the better you remember it. 14

This stands to reason. And so it is with branding and marketing. If you want to be perceived as an expert you must be seen and heard as frequently as possible. For example: Some of the countries top Dating Coaches will hang out in web forums that are targeted to their dating niche. Someone will post a question about finding a partner, getting a date, overcoming nerves, achieving more intimacy and the Date Coach may offer a suggestion, perhaps quote some research and provide a link to a site where the person can get more information and help - which may well be linked to the coaches website. 12. Be an Authority in your niche. Get endorsement from well known people in the niche. If you are endorsed by people of authority in your niche youll automatically gain higher credibility. You can gain endorsement by various means including: Hold educational teleclasses and invite niche leaders as specialist advisers. By association youll gain significant credibility. Deliver educational services on behalf of the niche leader or their business. Deliver discounted services to niche leaders and ask for testimonials. Joint Venture with leaders to use their name with yours. Affiliate your products with well entrenched leaders.

13. Be an advocate for yourself. Experts are not shy of letting people know about their specialist knowledge. Regardless of whether this is through vanity or necessity, its a powerful tool. You cant sit around and wait for people to advocate your expertise. If you think of people you consider experts in their field youll quickly realise that most of them are outspoken. If you feel uncomfortable doing this youll have to learn how or accept that it may detrimentally impact on your perception as an expert. 14. Use IT to propagate word of your expertise in a leveraged manner. You can very easily use the following IT systems to build awareness and gain credibility: Your website. Blogs (Weblogs). Online publishing houses, where you can post articles you write. Electronic newsletters (eZines) your own or others such as affiliates (viral marketing). Podcasting.

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Lesson 3: Developing a Marketing Mindset.

Section 1: The Success Mindset One of the most intriguing things about business (and life) is how two people can have substantially the same opportunities - training, know-how, capital and experience - yet produce dramatically different results. This paradox exists everywhere. Within the coaching industry, there are extremely successful coaches, and coaches that find it a challenge even to get clients. Yet each coach may have had substantially the same resources when they started. So whats the difference? And how can you ensure that youre the successful coach? Whilst coaches may make different strategic choices at junctures in their business development, there is one overriding factor that differentiates extremely successful business people from the rest. That key differentiator is their MINDSET. Having the right mindset for business success goes well beyond establishing goals and being positive. To develop a Success Mindset, consider the following: o Your reality is a mirage. Have you ever considered what your reality actually is? How it was formed? And how your perception of your reality affects outcomes in your life? To each of us our reality feels extremely tangible and real. Our thoughts, feelings, emotions, expectations, capabilities and limitations all feel real. They feel as though they are things that happen to us over which we have little control. As though they are external forces that ultimately drive us toward our future or fate. Yet the truth is, people with substantially the same circumstances often have extremely contrasting realities (or perceptions of their realities). When impacted by the same set of events, whether opportunities or challenges, people with much the same physical resources to deal with that event, produce dramatically different outcomes. Consider 2 start-up coaches. Each is in their late 30s, each just finishing a coaching qualification, each with similar start-up capital, skills and attributes. Each coach competes in the same market. They have substantially the same opportunity to create their future. And yet within 6 to 12-months one may have a prospering business turning over $10,000 + per month, and one may be struggling to get clients. This is an extremely common scenario (not just in coaching, but in business and in life). One of the most important differentiators between the successful coach and the other is their perception of their reality. To an outside observer, each coach has the same resources and hence should have the same reality, and produce the same results. Yet, successful people are often able, through subconscious and cognitive processes, to frame their reality in such a way as to create a substantially more beneficial outcome.

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They are able to see opportunity where others see adversity. When confronted by a challenge theyre able to reframe it into a positive outcome. Theyre able to remain focussed on their objectives. Theyre able to see the bigger picture rather than being caught up in non-productive activities. o o o o o Take some time to think about YOUR reality? That is your perception of your reality? What beliefs do you have about yourself, your capabilities or your circumstances that are limiting your capacity to achieve a better reality? How did you formulate those beliefs? Are they learned? Have they been reinforced by past failures? If so, why do they need to limit your future? Are you aware of other people, in similar circumstances to your own that have a better reality than yours? If so, why cant you create a reality better than the one youre in now? What steps do you need to action to produce a set of belief systems that are conducive to you creating the reality you want?

Expectation. Expectations are the precursor of outcomes. What you expect to happen will happen. The expectations you have are extremely powerful in determining the outcomes you produce. Its very rare indeed that we have a low expectation and produce a high outcome. Highly successful people expect to be successful. And interestingly, they expect to be successful even before they have evidence to validate such expectation. Using the case study above, the successful coach expects (not wants, but expects) to be successful. Deep in their inner being they KNOW with absolutely certainty that they are going to be successful. They are void of doubt. They know with certainty that they will achieve their desired results. Any challenges that confront them along the way they KNOW they will overcome. The other coach however, may WANT to be successful, but they have limiting beliefs which prohibit them from expecting to be successful. These limiting beliefs manifest in doubt and work at a subconscious level to ensure that the coach is not successful. Their want to be successful is a conscious desire. Its not hard coded into their being. But their doubts are hard coded, and hence overcome their conscious thoughts about success. In both instances, the coaches are correct in their expectations! Its critical that if you want to be successful, and develop a success mindset, that you identify your limiting beliefs and reframe them. You NEED to hard code your positive expectations and become void of limiting beliefs and doubts. Only then will you be able to develop expectations that will be realised. o What beliefs do you have that are limiting your ability to achieve? - I dont have enough experience to be successful in business? - People wont perceive me as an expert? - People wont pay me enough for my services that I could be successful? - Its impossible for me to charge $500, or $2,500 per month for my service. - If I ask someone to commit to a contract they wont see value in it? - I feel uncomfortable asking people to sign up for my service. - I feel embarrassed talking to people about my service and about myself.

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What past or present experiences do you have that may reinforce your limiting beliefs? - I only earn $30,000 per annum now, so its impossible for me to earn $100,000 per annum in business.

So WHERE does your REALITY and EXPECTATIONS come from and how can you change them? Your reality and expectations are founded in your SELF-CONCEPT. Your self concept is essentially how you perceive yourself. And your overall self concept is an average of how you perceive yourself in all areas of your life. For instance, you have a self concept of your ability as a driver, as a parent, son, business person, coach and salesperson. Coaches with a weak Marketing Mindset, have a poor self concept of themselves as salespeople. If you ask a coach with a poor marketing mindset: Are you good at selling your services? or Are you good at closing sales? they will invariably answer NO! The paradox is that your self concept is totally subjective. Your limiting beliefs are mostly based on erroneous information. It is not founded on reality. It is ONLY a CONCEPT. In areas where you PERCEIVE you perform well, you DO perform well. In areas where you believe you perform poorly, you WILL perform poorly. Most often your limiting beliefs and poor self concepts are developed from early experiences that have resulted in poor outcomes. Often these experiences dont even relate directly to the area of your self concept. They are often superimposed from similar experiences or simply presumed. But once theyre formed they are significant impediments to performance. To develop a positive, effective marketing self concepts you must: o Accept that your ability to perform well at marketing is only limited by your perceived ability to so. As soon as you accept this fact you are then able to begin work on developing an effective marketing self concept. Actively and consciously take the necessary steps to reframe your belief systems. The results you achieve (in marketing and business) are DIRECTLY proportional to what you perceive yourself to be worth, or deserving to achieve. And this is directly related to your self concept. Often coaches enter the profession with a certain financial objective. Yet this objective is vastly disproportionate to what theyve been achieving in their lives prior to entering coaching. If youve been earning $45,000 per annum for 10-years, then you have significant and powerful reinforcement that you are only worth $45,000 per annum. To earn substantially more than that, you must reframe your self concept or youll find that youll cap your ability to earn as a coach at $45,000 per annum. o Use AFFIRMATIONS and reinforcement strategies to reframe your limiting self concepts. Your self concept as a salesperson or business person has been established and reinforced for a LONG time. To re-wire your beliefs takes proactive strategies and repetition. It is simply not enough to say to yourself Ok, Im going to be a good salesperson now. You must invoke change at a deep subconscious level.

o o

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Responsibility. To have a success mindset you MUST acknowledge your responsibility. Highly successful people acknowledge their responsibility. Only by acknowledging your responsibility can you take control and invoke the necessary steps to be successful. Blaming others, validating failures and making excuses are simply ways of avoiding YOUR responsibility. To become more responsible: o o o o Acknowledge that if you want your desired outcomes to be realised, YOU solely are responsible. Others DO NOT share your passion for your vision. They may say they do, but ultimately only you are truly passionate about achieving your vision. Accept that others will not complete things to your entire satisfaction. Take full responsibly for outcomes. Avoid blaming others. Even when you delegate a task or use an outside business, if something is not done to satisfaction, YOU are ultimately responsible. Often when people delegate a TASK, they also try to delegate RESPONSIBILITY. This is not appropriate to successful people. YOU: - May not have given clear enough direction; - May not have effectively managed the process; - May have withheld important information; - May have varied your expectations of the outcome without informing the other party; - May not have managed the resource well enough; - Chose the employee/supplier in the first instance. - Have the choice to use another person/supplier.

Appropriate use of Force. Highly successful people apply their time in the most leveraged areas to escalate the success of their business. Business is diverse. As a business owner youre required to perform an extremely diverse range of activities on a daily basis. Each individual has their strengths and weaknesses. And each has their specific area of interest. People generally do what they perceive theyre best at, or feels most comfortable. NOT whats best for the business. First and foremost you have to realise that YOU ARE A BUSINESS OWNER. You are not a Life Coach, an administrator, or a bookkeeper. You must put the interests of the business first. Only then will you think and act in a context that will assist you build a flourishing business. Only then will you apply force in the right areas to create maximum forward momentum toward your objective. The most powerful question you can ask yourself (and should ask yourself SEVERAL TIMES per day) is What is the most effective use of my time RIGHT NOW? Other o o o o questions you should ask yourself include: What tasks do you most like doing? What tasks do you least like doing? Where do you spend the majority of your time and effort? What tasks, if done well, would make the most significant positive impact on the success of your business? o Your subconscious holds a powerful key. Your subconscious has extraordinary power. Your subconscious is your hard working servant to your conscious thoughts. In fact, your subconscious mind never stops working. Thats good and bad.

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Your subconscious works day and night 24/7 making your conscious thoughts become reality. What you think, you are. Unfortunately, most people consciously think limiting, negative thoughts. These negative conscious thoughts put the subconscious to work, and hence they become a reality. And then people say See, I told you that would happen. Reflecting back on our comments about self concept, people that have a poor self concept in a specific area ALWAYS have poor conscious thoughts relating to that area. For instance, if you think (your self concept) you are not good at public speaking, you will find that you reinforce it through your conscious thoughts. When someone mentions public speaking youll think to yourself I hate public speaking. I just cant do it. I get really nervous and usually make a fool of myself. Your subconscious can not discern between positive and negative. It simply acts to bring your thoughts into reality. So when you consciously think about being bad at public speaking, guess what happens? You become bad at public speaking! The beauty of the subconscious is that you are never aware of the diligent work it does. So it doesnt actually feel as though you have expended any effort. So in order to invoke positive outcomes you must concentrate on having positive, effective conscious thoughts. Youll then immediately put your subconscious to work in a positive context. o o o o o Think in positives and always expect the best. Reframe all your negative conscious thoughts into positives. Think of your subconscious as a child that requires careful training and direction. Become more aware of your negative conscious self talk. Spend 20-minutes each night in bed before sleep thinking about positives and affirming your positive expectations.

The power of perseverance. Perseverance is a sum of positive attitude and persistence. Perseverance goes hand in hand with expectation. If you fully expect a certain outcome, there is no obstacle that cant be overcome. To the expectant, persevering mind, a challenge is an opportunity for a solution. Its simply something that has to be worked through on the road to success. When confronted with a challenge, the expectant, persevering mind will think Thats part of life and business, whats the best solution? To the non-persevering mind a challenge is a barrier. The non-persevering mind doubts that a challenge can be overcome. They look for the worst in every situation and hence the worst often occurs. When confronted with a challenge, the nonpersevering mind will think Oh no, its happening again. Why does all this bad stuff have to happen to me? It always seems to happen to me and not anyone else. Worry is simply a negative thought caught up in procrastination. To develop a success mindset, you must develop perseverance. Because challenges confront everyone, they are not discriminatory!

There is someone that can do better than you. This is probably not the type of realisation that someone aiming to establish a success mindset would ordinarily have! But its simply reality. Once you accept that there is someone out there that could walk into your business tomorrow and do significantly better with the exact same resources, youll acknowledge that YOU can do more, better. 20

Youll quickly realise that you have the capacity to make an extraordinary difference in your business. The thoughts you have; where you focus your attention; the assistance you seek from others; how you apply your capital; the skills you seek out to attain; all dramatically influence your success and hence your lifestyle. Section 2: The Marketing Mindset Paradigm Most coaches get involved in coaching for one extremely compelling and valuable purpose because they want to make a positive impact to the lives of others. As a coach, the extent to which you are able to fulfil that objective is contingent upon two factors. Firstly, your skill and effectiveness as a coach; and secondly, on the number of clients you are able to affect through the application of your services. The purpose of this section is to focus on the second factor. In the process of assisting people, its also possible for coaches to develop a fruitful lifestyle for themselves along the way. In fact, these objectives are entirely complimentary. Many business people, including coaches, fail to recognise the important ethical role that marketing plays in their business. As a coach, you are in business. How effectively you operate your business is entirely contingent upon you. There are enormously successful coaches (in terms of client numbers, income and coaching outcomes), and coaches that can barely make a living. The difference between these extremes is not their coaching competency, but rather their mindset. You may be an incredibly skilful coach, but unless you have people willing to utilise your services, your skills are of little to no value. So what mindset does it take to be a successful coach? A successful coaching mindset: o o o o o o Puts the needs of prospects and clients first; Actively seeks to assist clients attain their objectives; Is empathic to the needs of clients and prospects; Doesnt limit the service offered to clients, and Acts as an ethical adviser. In other words, it takes a Marketing Mindset to be a successful coach.

We regularly hear of coaches that feel as though marketing is leading and unethical. They feel as though its too salesy and dont feel comfortable with it. For those coaches, were going to explain why marketing is both ethically valid and commercially crucial. Ethical Validity There is an enormous (and growing) volume of people in society that would benefit from coaching services. Lets call these people prospective coaching clients or prospects. These prospects have specific goals theyd like to achieve, or challenges theyd like to overcome, with a view to leading a better and more fulfilling life. As a qualified life coach, you have the ability to assist these people. Hence, you have a certain duty of care to these people. You can only begin to assist them once theyre utilising your services. Marketing is the link between the prospects desire to lead a better life and your ability to assist them fulfil their desire.

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Marketing only becomes unethical in the circumstance that you are not able to fulfil your marketing promise to your client. In this instance youve misled your client, either knowingly or unknowingly, and have acted unethically. On the premise that prospects will seek a coach to assist them attain their specific goals, its the ethical obligation of coaches to help prospects select a coach that will best be able to assist them. To do this coaches should fully, comprehensively and transparently disclose to prospects what services they offer; where their specialties lay; what experience they have; how theyve assisted people with similar desires in the past; and how using their services will benefit them. Or to state it more simply to undertake marketing. Commercially Crucial Marketing is commercially crucial because it links prospects that desire a certain outcome with skilled professionals trained to assist them achieve that outcome. It identifies you as someone that can assist prospects with their pre-qualified needs. By seeking out information on coaching services, prospects have already identified for themselves: That there are certain things in their life theyd like to attain or challenges theyd like to overcome. 1. That a coach is a person with the requisite skills and experience to assist them. 2. That they are willing to invest financially in the process. 3. The above is an extremely important point, and one that coaches need to recognise. As we explained earlier, coaches generally come from one of two schools of thought with respect to marketing. The first school of thought perceives marketing to be leading and salesy. These coaches come from the paradigm of thought that by undertaking marketing they are proactively influencing someone in their decisions. Or specifically that they may make someone do something they would not otherwise do. We call this train of thought the Influencing Paradigm. The second school of thought accepts that prospects are people that have identified for themselves their desire and need to invoke change. And theyve identified that a coach will assist them make that change. They recognise that the prospect has already made the intellectual link between their needs and how they want those needs to be fulfilled. We call this train of thought the Service Paradigm. The thought processes of these two perspectives are entirely opposite. One positions the prospect as someone reluctantly influenced into utilising a service. The other positions the prospect as an empowered, proactive individual capable of determining their own needs that has actively sought out coaching services. To be a successful coach we believe its critical that you put yourself in the second paradigm of thinking. Only then will you will be able to ethically fulfil your objective of assisting clients. And only then will you be able to fulfil your symbiotic goal of building a successful coaching business. By putting yourself in the Service Paradigm of thought you will recognise that to assist clients meet their objectives, you should:

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Actively promote your services through compelling advertising that clearly describes what you can offer clients. Understand that as a coach and a trusted advisor you are often in a better position of knowledge to ascertain your client needs to assist them attain their goals. Be empathic to the needs of your clients and actively offer solutions to them through various products and services. Value your clients intellect and decision making ability. Not pre-empt your clients wants and hence limit the range and scope of products and services you offer them. Always acts as an ethical adviser. Once you embrace the Service Paradigm to marketing, youll realise that marketing provides you with a much greater opportunity to fulfil your primary objectives: A/ to assist your clients, and B/ to build a successful coaching business. These objectives become complimentary and you create a win-win situation between the desires of your clients and your own desires.

o o

o o

How can you develop a Service Paradigm to marketing? Before we can begin to discuss how you can develop your Service Paradigm mindset, lets review some of the characteristics of a coach with this marketing perspective. Coaches with a Service Paradigm recognise that to assist clients meet their objectives, they need to: o Recognise that everyone in business is in the business of marketing. Without clients theyll have no one to deliver their services to, and hence no one to assist. Actively promote their services through compelling advertising that clearly describes what they can offer clients. Ethically promote their services with vigilance. Recognising the cycle of life of their prospects, they regularly promote their services for as long as prospects allow. Understand that as a coach and a trusted advisor they are often in a superior position of knowledge to ascertain their client needs to assist them attain their goals. Be empathic to the needs of their clients and actively offer solutions to them through various products and services. Value their clients intellect and decision making ability. Not pre-empt their clients wants and hence limit the range and scope of products and services they offer them. Always acts as an ethical adviser. As a coach, to outwit your competitors you must create a niche; and to build a successful business you must attain a Service Paradigm marketing mindset.

o o

o o

o o

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To develop your Service Paradigm marketing mindset: o Focus on the right thing. Too many coaches become passionately in love with the wrong thing. They fall in love with the technical aspect of delivering coaching. The service. Obviously enjoying the delivery of your service is important, but as a coach your primary focus and love (metaphorically) should be your clients. Only by having a strong client focus will you be able to develop a Service Paradigm marketing mindset. Overcome your fears. We recognise that a significant proportion of coaches feel uncomfortable with elements of the marketing process endorsing their abilities; closing a sale; committing a client to a contract etc. But its critical to recognise that these are all essential elements of marketing and of business in general. You must overcome these personal barriers. And the best way to do that is to recognise your resistance to them and actively seek ways to improve in those areas. Remember, these barriers exist solely within your own perception. They dont exist within your prospects reality, only in your mind. Whats the absolute worst outcome of you asking a prospect if theyd like your professional assistance to attain their goals and better their life? That they dont take up your service. Well, if you dont close theyre not going to take up your services anyway, so youre vastly improving your chances of converting them if you ask. o Be determined to succeed. You need to be absolutely determined that youre going to succeed. If you just want to succeed, but youre not willing to go the extra mile, youll get swept aside by those that are more determined. If you are truly determined, youll be confident and this confidence will automatically show in your business and be transparent to prospective clients, peers and the general public. Prospective clients will want to be associated with you, and clients will want to continue their involvement. Persevere. Coaches with a marketing mindset embrace challenges as part of life and part of business. If you perceive challenges as impassable barriers youll never develop a marketing mindset. Its crucial you accept youre going to confront hurdles as part of business. How you perceive these hurdles, as opportunities or barriers, will drastically influence your level of success. Perseverance is a key ingredient in developing a marketing mindset. Remain positive. Literally nothing destroys a marketing mindset more than a negative attitude. A marketing mindset is a can do attitude. Faced with the same challenge, the coach with a positive can do marketing mindset will find a way; the coach with a defeatist attitude will submit and fail. Set Goals. As a coach this is something you should know a lot about. Set yourself specific, achievable, stretch goals. Plan a strategy. Establish a specific plan of action to attain your goals. Identify what resources youll need and the possible challenges you may confront. Implement your plan. This is the most difficult part. Implementation of your plan. Modify it where required, change your goals as others are attained, modify your plan if flaws are perceived, but always continue implementing. Non-action is the precursor of business failure. If you continue to implement, your business will always sustain forward momentum. If you have momentum, your direction (goals and plans) can always be adjusted. 24

Keep marketing. Your success or failure hinges on your marketing. Always maintain your marketing mindset. Always be focussed on marketing. Its a common trap to get caught up in the day to day operation of your business and put marketing aside. This is a recipe for disaster. How effectively you market will be the most influential determinant on the success (or otherwise) of your business. Marketing is not difficult or confusing, but it does require significant ongoing diligence and attention. The moment you lose focus on marketing your business is the moment your business performance will suffer.

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Lesson 4: Marketing Fundamentals.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: This lesson is one of the most important in the Ultimate Coach Business Building Program. Your understanding and ability to effectively implement the information contained in this module will ultimately underpin your level of success in business. It is STRONGLY recommended that you read this Module OVER and OVER until you are confident you have an intimate understanding of the concepts and can APPLY them in their entirety to your own business. Many coaches and small to medium business owners believe marketing is simply advertising. This is a HUGE error. Marketing is so much more than just your advertising. Advertising is simply one method, medium or process by which to communicate your product or service offer to prospective clients. Marketing however encapsulates: Strategy; mindset; planning; capital; branding; products and services; product packaging; positioning; pricing; business location; communication; market drivers; business models; innovation; distribution channels; policies and procedures; guarantees; relationship building; sales processes; goals and objectives; business philosophy; and much more. Marketing encapsulates everything that influences the CHOICES of your prospects and clients. And the choices of your prospects and clients relate to: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. their perception of your business, products and image; whether they purchase or not; whether they continue using or re-use your service; whether they refer your service; whether they pay; how much they are willing to pay; whether or not they endorse; and much more.

As you can see, there is a lot more to effective marketing than just running an ad. How effectively a company undertakes marketing is the primary determinant of its level of success. Marketing is WITHOUT DOUBT the most leveragable process in your business. This will be clearly demonstrated to you throughout this module. It is also the most overlooked. Hence the reason for the majority of business failures. A coach that is average in his technical coaching ability, yet EXCEPTIONAL at marketing his services, will VASTLY outsell and out PROSPER the coach that is exceptional in his technical coaching and only average at marketing. If you desire business success, MARKETING is a process that you MUST EXCEL at! If you dont believe you are able to fulfil the role yourself, you MUST find someone that can. BUT BE WARNED, if you neither fulfil the role effectively yourself, or utilise the services of someone that can, you will NEVER obtain the levels of success you desire (and which you deserve). For you to market effectively you need to have ALL your business systems and protocols aligned with the perception you want your prospects and clients to have of your business. For instance, to have an effective marketing strategy requires:

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1. An effective advertisement that attracts your specific target prospect and calls them to action. Depending on your sales process this action may be to telephone you; 2. Appropriate quality systems so you deal with the telephone call appropriately and channel them through your sales process; 3. A highly effective sales process; a compelling offer and conversion process; 4. A risk reversal strategy; 5. Appropriately packaged services and products suitable to your clients needs/desires; 6. Follow-up and communication systems for unconverted prospects; 7. Protocols for quality delivery of products and services; 8. Retention and rapport building strategies for clients; 9. Strategies for selling deep into your clients in an ethical manner; 10. Referral and affiliate programs to broaden your goodwill leverage; 11. Back-end sales plan for unconverted enquirers and past clients. Just as marketing is the cornerstone of your business success, systems are the foundation of effective marketing. If you consider the key differentiators between an extremely successful enterprise and an averagely successful enterprise in the same industry, its always one of two things (or a combination) that makes the difference. They are marketing and innovation. And whilst innovation can give you first to market advantage, it will not guarantee the sustainable success of your business. To develop systems thatll underpin your marketing success requires awareness of the necessary elements; an implementation plan; an action plan; a means to monitor effectiveness; a continuous improvement process; and perseverance. In this module were going to focus on the core underlying principles of marketing. These principals will form the framework of your marketing plan and build the foundation by which youll implement the specific marketing techniques of future modules. Here are what we perceive to be the 27 Principles of Effective Marketing. These 27 principles will underpin your entire marketing and business success. 1. Strategy and Planning. Every company that is successful at marketing has strategised and planned their success. Marketing success is not a product of chance. To be an effective marketer, you must plan. Develop a comprehensive Marketing Plan utilising the information contained here and set yourself specific tangible goals. 2. Innovation. Differentiating yourself, your business and your products from your competitors is critical. If you do not differentiate, your prospects will have NO COMPELLING REASON to choose your service over that of your competitors (of which there will be many). The most powerful way for you to differentiate your business is through product innovation. By innovating a product (it doesnt have to be a complex innovation) youll be perceived as an expert in your niche area. Your marketing battle is won and lost in the minds of your prospects and clients. It is significantly easier to get into your prospects mind first, than it is to convince them that you have a better product than the competitor that did get there first. The best way to innovate products is to focus on solving the problems of your niche market. 27

3. Perception. Where does your marketplace exist? This is a CRITICAL question! Your marketplace exists solely in the mind of your prospect and client. Every effort you invest in marketing is an effort to win the perception of your prospect. Only by establishing the right perception can you invoke them to take the actions you desire. Your prospects perception is their reality and everything else is simply an illusion. Your objective therefore is to build perceptions that compel your prospects to act in accord with your desires. The most wasteful effort you can expend in your business is to try and change the perception of your prospects. By marketing without differentiating and innovating you are trying to change the perceptions of your prospects! People rarely change their minds and even when they do they resent doing so. You must build perception through first to market niche products. 4. Communication. Communication in all forms with your prospects, clients and the public at large is critical in determining how your business is perceived. Just as effective communication is critical in interpersonal relationships, so too is it critical in the business-client/prospect relationship. Everything you say (or dont say), in your written communication (advertisements, brochures, articles, sales letters, follow-up letters, etc), and verbally (on the phone, public speaking, delivering your service, etc) dramatically affects the perception prospects and clients have of your business. Ensure that all communication delivers the message you want to convey about you, your business, products and services; and ensure that the message you convey is CONSISTENT with your niche markets expectations and desires. 5. Sacrifice. Paradoxically, effective marketing usually requires sacrifice. Sacrifice in the following areas may be necessary: Products. Many businesses as they attempt to attract more clients go through the mental process of thinking that more products will equate to more clients (which in turn will equate to more revenue and profit). This is not necessarily (most often not!) the case. By expanding your product base you become exposed to the risk that you dilute the perceived benefits of your service in the minds of your prospects. And remember, perception is everything. Often a focussed, narrower, niche specialty product can be SUBSTANTIALLY more effective than a diversified product range. You CAN NOT be everything to everyone, so be valuable to your core niche market. Market. To build the requisite perception in the minds of your prospects you may need to sacrifice some market share. Experts and niche products build stronger perceptions and greater loyalty than generalists.

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Change. Its easy to get caught up in the hype of possible market trends. If you have successfully built your brand perception in the minds of your prospects, a lot of damage can be done by trying to change strategy to chase first to market advantages or compete in new unsubstantiated niches. Profit. Successful businesses re-invest profit to expand. Building perceptions takes capital. Sometimes its better to sacrifice some profit taking early on in order to expand your business and entrench your position. This may make it significantly more difficult for competitors in the future and generate much larger profits in the long run. 6. Multiple Strategies. Successful marketing is not built on one strategy alone. Prospects need to impacted multiple times before you can develop the necessary rapport, trust and comfort for them buy from you. To achieve multiple impacts usually requires multiple marketing strategies. Reliance on a single marketing strategy also places you in substantial RISK. For instance, if you rely on Yellow Pages advertisement for your lead generation, several competitors may also start using the same medium. In one year your lead generation may be diluted to only 10% of previous years, yet your marketing budget may be grossly spent. People are diverse. Within your target niche there are people that prefer and respond to different mediums in different ways. For instance, within your target niche, there may be people that search for your services on the Internet, and some potential leads that may not even own a computer. Marketing strategies and mediums to consider are: Information Forums; Specialist Interviews; Print advertising; Flyers and pamphlets; Affiliate Programs; Joint Ventures; Publishing; Tele-classes and Tele-Seminars; Education Forums; Internet; Direct Mail; Referral; Viral Marketing; Workshops, seminars and group events.

7. Mindset. Its CRUCIAL to your success that you develop the appropriate Marketing Mindset. Without the right mindset you simply will NOT be able to market effectively and produce the necessary results.

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8. Client Focus. For you to maintain the right Marketing Mindset, you must be passionate about the RIGHT THING. You must LOVE YOUR CLIENT. If you are passionate about invoking positive outcomes in the lives of your clients and helping them overcome their substantial challenges; AND you are UNRESERVED in your ability, then you should have no barriers to developing the right Marketing Mindset. Only coaches that doubt their ability to assist clients are sceptical about telling prospects HOW they will help them. Coaches that are nervous about CLOSING A SALE are coaches that are sceptical about their ability to help the prospect. Coaches that doubt their ability FEAR providing a guarantee because they think people will ask for their money back. If you are focussed entirely on your clients success, your success will result. 9. Educate, dont Sell. Effective marketers EDUCATE their leads, they dont SELL their services. Education based marketing is largely about Credibility Marketing, such as public speaking, information based teleclasses, publications, networking, hotlines, free educational give-aways (such as reports, assessments, tools, eCourses), etc. Education marketing demonstrates, in a non-intrusive manner, to your leads how you can assist them overcome their substantial challenges. Education based marketing allows you to communicate to leads at a different level. Their barriers are substantially lowered, as theyre framed in a learning context, not a sales context. Theyre not sceptical. This point is very important and hence is discussed in detail in a subsequent Module. 10. Cycle of Life. Only a very small percentage of your prospects are READY to purchase at any particular point in time. Most businesses have a marketing system that TOTALLY NEGLECTS this fact. If 100 people enquire about your services, most likely only 5 to 15 will be seriously looking to purchase at THAT time. The others are simply inquisitive or think they may purchase at some time in the future. This process is called the Cycle of Life. People regularly enquire about products and services without buying. Think about yourself. You may have the idea that you want a new couch. That thought sits in the back of your mind and over time you visit a few retailers that sell couches. You may visit 6 places over 3-months. EVERY one of those salespeople think you are going to buy a couch THAT VERY WEEKEND! But do you? NO! But will you buy a couch at some point in the future YES. How many of those couch salespeople keep in contact with you over the course of several months until you actually decide its time to buy? Well tell you how many NONE!!!!

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What if just ONE of those couch salespeople offered you a non-intrusive process to learn about what couches will compliment your lounge room, which couches last longest and which ones stain very badly and which ones didnt? Youd most likely take him up on the offer. And then, after 5-months of learning and being educated by this person, who would you feel COMPELLED to purchase from? Of course! Or to use another analogy, what if 2 sets of parents had children selling cold lemonade at a parade on a hot day. Each set of parents had 4 children. One set of parents assisted their children establish a nice table and inviting sign from which to sell the drinks from. The other set of parents assisted their children set up 4 stands at equal intervals along the parade. Which family sold more lemonade? Of course its the children with 4 stands because people are thirsty (desire the product) at different times along the length of the parade. When their client wanted their product, they were there! Nobody was going to double back to get a lemonade. The life of your prospect is the same as the passing parade. You must recognise that your prospects are going through the Cycle of Life. You MUST be in your prospects consciousness IN THE INSTANT they desire your product. You MUST have a means to add value to them in a non-intrusive and informative manner throughout the ENTIRETY of their Cycle of Life. 11. Continuous Improvement. Success in marketing requires continuous assessment and continuous improvement. Marketing is a dynamic process. Business people often implement a marketing plan, then fail to review results and make improvements. The result their marketing becomes stale, their message can lose its affect and their business suffers. Ensure you discipline yourself each month to dedicate a certain amount of time to marketing review and development. See what your competitors are doing; review what other businesses are doing that are innovative and effective; and always validate the results. 12. Leverage. An important component of marketing is looking for leverage and efficiencies in your business. There is ALWAYS greater leverage and efficiency in your business. Consider: Where can you re-direct some of your time to achieve better results? Can you re-sell, up-sell, cross-sell to existing and/or past clients? Can you develop a product to use as a conversion incentive? Are you using a special program, tool or assessment that you can sell or license to other non-competitive coaches/businesses? Are you fully exploiting the use of your intellectual property? For instance, you may have developed a special system or program for overcoming your niches 3 KEY problems. You use this with your clients, BUT, how can you deliver it as a Tele-Seminar to leads as a conversion tool? Can you record the Tele-Seminar to CD, add a workbook, and sell it as a Program? Can you then deliver the program as a weekend Workshop? Are you referring your clients to other professionals, where you DO NOT have a formal Affiliate Program? 31

Do you have a formal Referral Process for clients (and prospects) to refer you business? Do you have a product and/or service to sell to UNCONVERTED leads (backend)? WHERE can you find more leverage in your business?

13. Reverse the Risk. EVERY time a prospect considers your services they are assessing an associated risk! Its human nature that every time we are asked to consider investing time, effort and/or money into something we consciously, and subconsciously, assess the perceived risk. Its for this reason that for as long as commerce has existing, businesses have offered to REVERSE THE RISK from their clients to THEMSELVES. Businesses traditionally reverse the risk by way of a GUARANTEE. A guarantee demonstrates to prospects that you are confident in the high value you can deliver, so you are willing to accept the risk that in a small number of cases your service may not meet the requirements of the client. Risk Reversal is a powerful conversion technique as it removes one of the most substantial barriers to purchase. In most cases the increased conversion on the front end, VASTLY exceeds the cost at the back end of clients requesting the guarantee. And the question has to be asked, Of the clients that request the guarantee, would they have ever converted anyway without the safety of the guarantee? 14. Test. Test. Test! Whilst you can take every effort to maximise the effectiveness of your marketing systems, its almost impossible to pre-empt whats in the minds of your prospects and clients and whats going to invoke them to act in greater accord with your desires. For this reason, it is critical that you quantify the results of ALL your marketing processes and continually TEST and tweak them in order to improve results. Just one small change can make 100% to 10,000% difference. It can change a strategy from costing you money, to making you substantial money. Consider an example: You may distribute 10,000 pamphlets in the newsletters of schools in your catchment area promoting a Workshop. The pamphlet may have the headline: FREE Workshop on how Life Coaching can assist your child achieve better results at school. The pamphlets cost you $3,000 to design, print and distribute. From the 10,000 pamphlets, you get 125 people book into your Workshop. From the 125 attendees, you convert 7 clients (children in a 3-month coaching program). Your Conversion Rate to Book is 0.0125%. The Cost of Acquisition of each client has cost you: $3,000/7 = $430.

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Your coaching program costs $770. Hence your NET PROFIT for the exercise is $340 per client or $2,380 total. BUT WHAT if through TESTING, you tested another headline (and had substantially the same copy everywhere else and the same sales process). The second headline you test is: IMPORANT NOTE TO CARING PARENTS! In a FREE 60-minute Seminar, Learn the 7 Most Prominent Reasons Prohibiting Your Child Achieving Their Best, and How You Can Assist Them Overcome These Barriers to Achieve SUBSTANTIALLY Better Results. This headline change increases your Booking Conversion rate from 0.0125% to 0.05%, resulting in 500 attendees. Using the same sales process, you get 28 Clients, resulting in $9,520. This small change has resulted in you achieving a 400% increase in your net profit! Now imagine the possibilities if you could: Refine the body copy with a more compelling argument that further increases conversion. Introduce a Special Report or Special Bonus ONLY for ATTENDEES thatll demonstrate how they can IMMEDIATELY increase their childs performance at school by up to 27%. Refine your sales process and introduce a Risk Reversal Guarantee on your service such as If your child does not go up a grade level within the first 2months of the program, Ill refund your entire investment. Provide a value-add to your offer to up-sell them from the 3-month program to a 6-month program.

As you can see, testing is critical if you wish to extract the most leveraged outcomes in your business. NOTE: As you can see from this exercise, by investing a little bit of time and energy developing the right sales offer and process, the benefits can be ENORMOUS! And for NO extra cost to you. 15. Persistence. Effective marketing takes persistence. It requires constant attention, testing and refining. This is often too much effort for business people. They forget about the enormous leverage that can be achieved through effective marketing systems and instead focus on the technical delivery of their service, or get caught up in the low value issues of doing business. NOTE: Its important to note that HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL business people and STRUGGLING business people have to deal with the same issues EQUALLY in their respective businesses.

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16. Confidence. Effective marketing takes confidence. Many business people dont have the confidence to market. They FEAR testing in case it produces an outcome incrementally worse than a previous result. Theyre scared to sell with emotion for fear that a prospect may think their copywriting is silly or persuasive. Theyre concerned to price their services on OUTCOMES rather than hourly rates. Theyre petrified to close a sale in case the lead doesnt take up their offer. They dont feel comfortable going back to unconverted leads with alternate offers, or simply keeping them in a communication system so when the time is right (Cycle of Life) the person can choose to take up their offer. THERE is NO ROOM for fear in marketing! Market with confidence. 17. Awareness. Effective marketing takes awareness. It takes awareness of: a. Your competitors; b. The needs and desires of your target niche; c. Changes in your market, services, technologies. 18. There are only 4 WAYS to grow your business. Despite all the marketing rhetoric, there are only 4 ways in which you can grow your business. All marketing principles, strategies, techniques and systems are implemented to make improvements across these 4 areas. And if you are able to make even incremental improvements across a number of these 4 areas, you will achieve SUBSTANTIAL compounded benefits. The 4 areas are: 1. Get More Clients. 2. Increase the Unit of Sale of your products. (This does not need to be done through price increase consider the Big Mac Meal Deal!!!). 3. Increase the Frequency of Purchase. For instance, get your clients to buy of you 10-times throughout a year rather than just 5-times. 4. Improve Effectiveness. Do things better, smarter and in a more leveraged manner. Regularly review all your marketing processes to determine how you can maximise your effectiveness in each of these areas. You may even consider drawing a big + sign in the middle of a page. Each quadrant represents one of the four areas for improvement. Each month you can introduce a new system, strategy or technique into one (or all four) quadrant. Youll soon find your business running very effectively indeed!

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19. Know your Fundamental Financial KPIs (Metrics). Your KPIs are your Key Performance Indicators. They represent the primary quantifiable results in your business that dramatically affect the performance of your business. Cost per Enquiry: To validate the effectiveness of your advertising mediums, you use the Cost per Enquiry KPI. As most advertising is structured as Response Marketing, every dollar you spend should be generating a response. Your Cost per Enquiry is simply the cost of advertising divided by the number of leads it generated. For instance, if you run a weekly $400 newspaper advertisement, and it generates 12 leads, the Cost per Enquiry is $400/12 = $33.30. Client Acquisition Cost: The Client Acquisition Cost is the cost of getting a paying client. The Client Acquisition Cost assists you determine the effectiveness of your sales process. It also helps determine the pricing of your services if your Client Acquisition Cost is greater than the cost of your service, you will be losing money. It is simply calculated as the cost of advertising divided by the number of clients. Using the example above, you may convert 4 clients: $400/4 - $100. Each client has cost you $100 to acquire through that marketing medium. Conversion Rate: To reduce your Client Acquisition Cost you want to improve your Conversion Rate your ability to get leads to become clients. In the above example, your Conversion Rate is 12 leads/4 clients = 33.33%. Lifetime Value of Client: This KPI is very useful to assist you work out how much money you can spend to acquire a client. It relates to, on average, how much clients spend with you over their whole lifetime as a client. For instance, your AVERAGE client may utilise these services: 1 x 6-month coaching contract ($1,250); 3 x Teleseminars ($141); 1 x Weekend Super Conference ($1275); Affiliate Services ($300). Therefore this client over their lifetime, would be worth $2966. Considering your hard costs to operate your business, how much money would you be willing to invest to get this client? ONLY by quantified analysis can you make INFORMED decisions in your business. DO NOT GUESS when it comes to your business. Implement effective systems that quickly bring to hand the powerful information you need in order to make effective decisions. 20. Know Your Ideal Clients. To effectively market to your niche, you must know your niche intricately. Many business people make an enormous array of assumptions about their target clients. In marketing, you should not assume, you should KNOW. To demonstrate the importance of having appropriate INFORMATION about your clients (and prospective target clients); let us give you a brief example: We know of a lady that owned an exclusive jewellery store in a ritzy shopping district on the edge of the city. She kept no customer lists and compiled no information about her customers. She said it wasnt necessary. Most of her customers lived in the expensive apartments in close proximity to her store and she regularly advertised in the inner city newspaper that serviced that community. 35

She was finally convinced to start building a mailing list. And guess what? To her surprise, almost two thirds of her clients lived several kilometres from the city and were from middle rather than high income communities. They came to her store because they had the perception that it was where fashionable people shopped. Using that information she started a marketing campaign that targeted her clients more specifically and tripled her sales in six months. This example not only demonstrates how important INFORMATION is, it demonstrates the dangers of making assumptions. Information is only powerful if it is ACCURATE. Collecting ACCURATE INFORMATION about your niche prospects can be one of the most powerful and useful things you ever do. Ask yourself, what do you really know about your clients? What should you know about your prospective clients? Heres a start: Where do they reside? Whats their socio-economic profile? What are their primary CONCERNS that are causing them significant problems and costing them money? What are their key DESIRES? How can you effectively communicate to them how YOUR service will SOLVE their pressing problems and/or allow them to achieve their DESIRES? Where do they congregate? What services do they regularly use? How do they like to communicate? How are other companies EFFECTIVELY selling to them? What are their perceptions about you and your service? What can AFFORD (or are they willing) to invest to have their problems solved and/or benefits attained? What BARRIERS would prevent them utilising your service?

THINK for yourself what information you require about your clients in order to develop a compelling sales offer. AND if you have any doubts, ASK THEM!!!! (In fact, asking them some of the questions above can be a very effective sales process in itself!). 21. Target Your Ideal Client. As we mentioned earlier, effective marketing can involve sacrifice. For some reason, the thought of marketing to a specific niche group, is one of the most difficult concepts for business people and coaches to get their minds around. As detailed in a previous module, its critical that you niche. Its equally critical that your marketing message be targeted to your niche and that it clearly and succinctly articulates, in terms of BENEFITS, your points of difference. To target your ideal clients, consider the following: What journals, newspapers and hard copy resources do they regularly use? Who would they perceive to be a high quality endorsement for your service? If they were to search for your services, where would they look? Whose services do they currently use?

The two best methods to determine how best to find and communicate with your target clients are: 36

a. THINK like your client. Put yourself in his shoes and ask the questions (and others) listed above. b. ASK your ideal client. Ironically an often overlooked strategy, asking your ideal clients directly is usually the most effective way of getting the most precise and useful information. You can either ask come of your existing clients that meet the profile, or simply ask some prospects for their assistance. When youre upfront with people more often than not they are pleased to help. 22. Express Benefits, Overcome Challenges. This strategy alone can multiply the effectiveness of your marketing MANY times over. Most businesses communicate with prospects in terms of functions or attributes of their product or service. Prospects are not interested and will not invest in attributes! Prospects simply will NOT INVEST in the attributes of your service. BUT, they will invest to have their most pressing problems solved. And they will invest in the benefits of your service. To give you an example, do you remember when Anti Lock Braking (ABS) first became available? Did you ever see an advertisement on TV that said, Buy this car because when you hit the brake pedal the brake calliper grabs and releases the disc 24 times per second? NO! Of course not. But you did see commercials that said (or demonstrated) This new innovative technology guarantees to reduce braking distances by up to 50%, and when you brake, in the dry or the WET, your wheels will not lock up and you will retain the ability to steer thus dramatically increasing your, and YOUR FAMILIES safety! How will you communicate the BENEFITS of your service to your prospects? What are the most pressing problems that your niche would INVEST in to have solved? What is it costing them to NOT have their problem solved?

23. Get Emotional. Its hardly a secret... Emotion Sells! Yet, hardly anyone sells their services on emotion. If your niche is having a pressing and recurring problem, then we guarantee they are experiencing strong emotions about it. Use these emotions to sell your service. Get your prospect to FEEL these emotions when they come in contact with your marketing message and then OFFER THEM A SOLUTION! Imagine for a moment that youre a dating coach. Whats better marketing copy...

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A. Call The Dating Coach NOW to find out how you can get 6-\months worth of dates in a week. OR... B. Weve all been there! Youre at the bar with your friends and you see this GORGEOUS girl come in. She looks confident and carefree. Shes with 2 girlfriends. She starts walking toward you, talking and laughing with her friends. Your mind is racing. Your breathing becomes shallow, you feel the blood pulsing in your head and find it difficult to think. Youre overcome with the fear that she may reject your approach and make you look like a fool in front of your friends. So you do nothing. Opportunity lost. If youd like a FREE 127 page Report on How to Control Your Fear and TURN the situation around so she approaches YOU... call NOW. Offer only open for 24-hours. Attach emotion to the benefits you offer your niche. 24. Pre-empt Objection. Often prospects would very much like to use your service, but they have some concerns or objections that prevent them calling. Its very important that you ascertain what the key objections of your prospects are. Once you know their objections you can rebut them or even use them to your advantage. What are the primary objections your prospects may have to utilising your service? 25. Market Continuously. Many business people consider marketing as something to be done intermittently. EVEN WORSE, some business people even consider marketing to be an expense! Your marketing plan should be continuous. NEVER STOP! 26. Develop a strong Sales Process. You must consider well beyond just running advertisements. Often the most leveraged gains in your business are to be found in your sales process. Your Sales Process is the process starting with the first impact your business has on your prospective client, right through to the last. A very minimalist sales process would be: a. b. c. d. e. f. Run advertisement. Receive phone call. Send out brochure. Wait for call back. Book into FREE session. Sell into paid session.

BUT NOT YOURS!!!!! You must give VERY careful and considered thought to how you want to lead your prospects through the process of dealing with your business in order to receive the maximum gains. 38

Heres another sales process to consider using a Sales Funnel approach: a. You attend an Annual Accounting Conference and speak on Why 73% of Accounting Businesses have increased revenue by 39% over the last 5-years YET their Net Profit has REDUCED by 51.3% b. At the end of your speech you hand out brochures on your service AND a special invitation for them to attend a paid-for Tele-Seminar for FREE. c. To attend the free tele-seminar they must provide you with their details. d. They attend the tele-seminar. e. At the end of the tele-seminar, you sell them into a low-cost high value teleconference program run weekly over 6-weeks. f. At the end of the 6-weeks you sell them into a 1-day Business Building Power Forum.

g. You sell them into high price one-to-one coaching services. h. Unconverted leads you offer back-end and affiliate products and services. i. ETC.

How can you refine aspects of your sales process? What results are you getting? What are the main barriers and sticking points you need to overcome? 27. Communicate Effectively. Weve mentioned several times various elements that you must use in order to communicate a powerful and compelling message. Here is a checklist that you can use for almost ALL your marketing messages: a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. l. Use your USP to distinguish your points of difference. Always talk in terms of Benefits, not functions or attributes. Always use strong, compelling sales copy. Express benefits using EMOTION and STORIES that your niche can relate to in order to gain an emotional connection and an affiliation with the benefits you offer. Validate your claims with facts, STRONG ENDORSEMENTS and tangible results. Always provide an OFFER. Always provide a reason to RESPOND. Always measure RESULTS. Respond ONLY to results. Dont become attached to your copy and/or sales process. Always follow-up. Always have back-end products and/or services to offer unconverted prospects. Be disciplined and continue to ACT.

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Lesson 5: Education vs. Sales-Based Marketing.

Whats the single most important process determining whether or not your coaching business will be successful or not? The CORRECT answer to this question can completely change your coaching business forever. It can change your perception of your business. It can change your focus in your business. It can change how you go about operating your business. And most importantly, it can determine the success or otherwise of your business. Weve asked numerous coaches this question and got a broad array of responses. But only 4% of them were even close to the mark. Most coaches answered: quality service; number of clients; pricing; niche; branding; advertising copy. And whilst all these factors are critical, the single most important element is your marketing methodology. Not your marketing systems, or your marketing processes, but the METHODOLOGY. By methodology were referring to more than your marketing mindset (discussed in an earlier Module), as that primarily determines your focus and motivation toward the marketing process. Were referring to your whole overriding paradigm of thinking toward your marketing approach. Let us explain... Nearly all coaches use a marketing methodology thats a sales-based marketing methodology. This is understandable as most traditional marketing is sales-based marketing. Were all impacted by sales-based marketing everywhere on TV; newspapers; magazines; billboards; radio everywhere. Sales-Based marketing is essentially the process whereby a business describes the features and attributes (and even benefits) of their products and services to their prospective clients and asks them to purchase. This seems pretty logical really doesnt it? (And at this time you are likely thinking How else would it be possible to get clients other than doing that?) BUT there are several extremely powerful forces at play AGAINST coaches employing a successful sales-based marketing methodology... Most coaches feel uncomfortable delivering a sales pitch. Coaches generally have better technical skills than marketing skills. Theyre therefore uncomfortable talking about themselves and endorsing the quality of their product. This means they dont CLOSE. It comes across to prospects as a general lack of confidence in themselves, and their product and service. Sales marketing is extremely EXPENSIVE, narrowing your net margin on your service. The more you spend to get a client (Client Acquisition Cost), the less net profit youll retain at the end.

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Generally prospects are very sceptical and defensive against sales approaches. This exponentially increases the barrier of you making a sale. When you employ a sales-based marketing method, most prospects have already closed themselves off to learning about your services due to their natural tendency to put up a defence against sales-based marketing. (Because were impacted by marketing messages ALL THE TIME, we develop subconscious blocks to safeguard us from them).

There is NO trust and rapport built through a sales-based marketing approach. For a prospect to buy from you, there needs to be a reasonable element of TRUST. Your prospect needs to trust that you can deliver on your promises and that theyll gain a positive return on their investment. This level of trust is extremely difficult to build through a sales-based marketing approach. You build no reciprocal obligation on the prospect to investigate your offer or purchase from you. Its a natural human tendency to reciprocate in kind whats been GIVEN to you. You can not build reciprocal obligation through sales-based marketing. You attract price sensitive shoppers and tyre kickers that take up a lot of your time and result in extremely low conversion. Its difficult to maintain contact with prospects for long enough to build rapport and trust it generally takes 4 to 6 contacts before a prospect will buy from you.

For many coaches that have been employing this method of marketing (likely with little success), this is a real AH HA moment! Its an awakening. So many business people use sales-based marketing and get incredibly frustrated at not achieving the results they desire. So, we hear you asking If sales-based marketing is not going to be effective, whats my alternative to get clients? And the answer is... Education-Based Marketing. Education-based marketing comes from an entirely different paradigm. Education-Based marketing is the process by which you attract and convert highly-qualified clients by giving them what they want... ...valuable information and advice that solves their problems; AND removing what they dont want a SALES PITCH. Education-based marketing is generally undertaken by delivering Credibility Marketing techniques such as public speaking, information based teleclasses, publications, networking, repetitive communication systems (newsletters, communities, eZines), hotlines, free educational give aways (such as reports, assessments, tools, ecourses), etc. As opposed to sales-based marketing, education-based marketing means... You give your prospect what they really want highly valuable information. And you take away what they dont want a sales pitch. You maintain your dignity and feel good about yourself as you never make an effort to sell. 41

Youre brand recognition and respect will skyrocket! Education-based marketing is the ultimate brand builder. By positioning yourself as the expert or specialist by solving, through your education products, the most pressing issues your niche confronts. You become the only logical choice in your market. You can establish yourself as a credible authority as prospects depend on you as a reliable source of valuable advice. You significantly reduce your marketing costs and can in fact get paid to market yourself. This vastly compounds the net worth of every client you attract you can actually earn double the net profit with only half the clients! You dont have to seek out new prospects prospects come to you (to have their problems solved). You can maintain (mutually beneficial) contact with your prospects through the sales process because they dont feel pressured by a sales pitch and value your information and advice. You reach prospects early during the first stages of their decision making process. You attract moderately interested prospects that may otherwise be afraid to call you but are not afraid to request your information. Due to the high level of trust and rapport built early on youll be perceived as an adviser, not a salesperson, making added-value sales dramatically easier. You dramatically increase your referrals from prospects as they feel loyal to you due to a relationship built on trust and reciprocal obligation and your efforts to help them even if they dont hire you! And your referrals will come much earlier in your relationship. You gain compounded advantage as your information is passed freely between prospects within your niche. You gain a competitive advantage because not many competitors are using education-based marketing. You achieve a highly leveraged advantage as you can put forward your marketing even when you are not present. You save valuable time as you often are delivering your message directly to your most highly qualified target audience.

As you can see, education-based marketing is the exact opposite to sales-based marketing, and can make an extraordinary difference to your business, and your enjoyment of doing business. So, ask yourself: How much education-based marketing am I currently doing? and How can I develop a marketing plan significantly comprised of education-based marketing methodologies?

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How to Develop and Promote Education-Based Marketing Programs Business people often think that developing education-based products and services will be complex and time consuming. Nothing can be further from the truth. In fact, in many instances, if youre innovative enough you can actually turn the development process into a revenue positive exercise. To develop effective education-based marketing products there are 3 Immutable Rules that you should keep top of mind: 1. Its Ok to lose money at the front end. Whilst the development and delivery of education marketing products can be revenue positive (and well demonstrate how later in this module), its Ok if it costs you money at the front end. As youll recall in an earlier module, we discussed the Lifetime Value of a Client and the Client Acquisition Cost. Many businesses often use Loss Leaders, or products and enticements that cost them money up front, knowing that they are going to make money at the back end (when clients convert and purchase their products). For example: You may deliver a free Workshop on Learn the FIVE groundbreaking strategies used by Super Star mums (including Elle McPherson and Liz Hurley) to SHED FAT after giving birth and be at normal weight within 3-months. The workshop may cost you $5,000 to develop, promote and deliver. You may have 30 attendees. Your upfront loss is $167 per attendee. But you may convert 12 clients and know that each client, on average, is worth $2,700 revenue for you. In this example, you have netted $27,400. NOTE: A free coaching session upfront is probably the most common use of the loss leader principal amongst coaches, although we dont necessarily recommend its use! ALSO NOTE: Notice how the promotion is education-based not sales-based. An attendee at the workshop will GAIN VALUE from the workshop REGARDLESS of whether they take up your product offer at the end or not. You have also positioned yourself as an EXPERT by delivering valuable educational content, and have put yourself in a position to link ALL attendees into an ongoing value-add program such as a Tele-Workshop Series; Newsletter; etc. 2. Must be of high perceived value. The product that you provide should be of very high perceived value to your prospects. One of the most significant barriers for business people to get their minds around with the education-based marketing concept is the idea of giving away their valuable intellectual property. Education-based marketing is NOT about giving away your service or information. Its about INVESTING it. By demonstrating the high value of your service you build substantially higher levels of TRUST and rapport with your prospects. And you position yourself as an EXPERT.

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Withholding of knowledge only leads to DOUBT in the mind of your prospect as to your ABILITY to deliver on your promises. If you readily INVEST your intellectual property by giving it away, your prospects will TRUST you; acknowledge your ability to help them; and develop the perception that you have significantly more information of value to provide them (through your pay-for-service products). 3. Must be ongoing. One of the greatest advantages of education-based marketing is that it lowers your prospects defence mechanisms, and it allows you to showcase your skills. To take full advantage of that opportunity you MUST continue to educate your prospects through an ongoing process. At any point in time only a very small percentage of your prospects will be READY and willing to purchase. Most businesses have a marketing system that TOTALLY NEGLECTS this critical fact. If 100 people enquiry about your services, most likely only 8 to 15 will be seriously looking to purchase your services at THAT point in time. The others are simply inquisitive or think they may purchase at some time in the future. As we mentioned in an earlier module, this process is called the Cycle of Life. You MUST recognise that your prospects are going through the Cycle of Life. You MUST have a means to add value to them in a non-intrusive and informative manner. And your process must be educational, informative and REPETITIVE. Here are some EXAMPLES of Education-Based Marketing Products and how they can be used to your advantage. The type of education products you use in your business is only limited by your imagination. Here are some common examples for your consideration. 1. Seminars and Workshops. Seminars and Workshops are a very common way for you to deliver educational content. Seminars and workshops can be delivered as no cost or low cost services. Or you can Bootstrap your seminar or workshop as an audio and/or video program. YOU MUST have a STRONG, COMPELLING SALES OFFER at the completion or throughout the seminar. There is ZERO benefit to be gained by getting prospects into the room without having a strong sales offer. You also must have a follow-on program to link prospects into in order to maintain communication with them throughout their Cycle of Life. The PROS of seminars and workshops include being face-to-face with prospects; they are an effective educational experience; more tangible for affiliates to invest in. The CONS include high cost; poorer time leverage; difficult to repeat; geographically limiting. 2. Tele-Classes/Workshops/Clinics/Programs. Programs delivered over tele-conference are a powerful and leveraged way to deliver education-based marketing content. This format of delivery is also very effective as you can invite other niche specialists to participate; conduct interviews; invite Affiliates to join; and invite prospects to co-participate in sessions.

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3. Opt-in Communication Programs. Opt-in programs such as mailing lists and internet lists (eZines and newsletters) are a leveraged and cost effective means to maintain contact and deliver content. They are non-intrusive and give your prospects an element of control over when and how they use your material. With the increasing costs of printing and postage we strongly recommend that you invest in online technologies to deliver your content. Warning: If you promise content, you MUST deliver. Its extremely damaging to your integrity if you break promises, such as not sending newsletters in a timely fashion. 4. Give-Aways. Give-aways such as CDs, DVDs, Audio and Video Files (on web), and Special Reports are also an effective means to deliver content and position yourself as an expert. These can comprise part another program, or can be stand alone in their own right. 5. eBooks and eCourses. eBooks and eCourses are becoming a very popular method of Education-Based Marketing. They are low cost to develop and deliver, and they build trust and demonstrate your niche specialist skills and knowledge. 6. Article writing. Article writing and publishing is an excellent way to educate. There are hundreds of online article databases now, as well as services that promise to distribute your content to publishers. Its a very leveraged way to build your profile. Note: Many search engines now place significant importance on inbound links to your website. By disseminating articles to popular publishing engines you can vastly improve your website search rankings as well as building your profile. Extra Product Development Leverage When you develop your education-based products, there are some very powerful leverage strategies that you can use to great effect. These include: 1. Use Specialists. Using well known niche specialists can be a VERY effective way to add considerable value to your products. And not only will they add value, they will ENDORSE you as an expert in the process. This gives you significant additional authority on the subject. Specialists LOVE to be involved in this type of event because it adds to their credibility as well. Any opportunity provided to a niche specialist to represent themselves to their peers is usually accepted with open arms.

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2. Use Affiliates. Affiliates are people and/or businesses that have a common interest in your prospects (IE they meet a common profile), yet are non-competitive. Affiliates are excellent partners for your education-based products. Affiliates can add significant value to your products; ease the burden on you doing all the work; and assist in converting prospects to paying clients. You can use affiliates in many ways. For instance: a. You can use affiliates to provide valuable complimentary content for your prospects. b. You can use them to provide bonuses, at no charge, to improve conversion into your education product, and/or into your pay-for-service offer. As an example, an affiliate may offer a FREE Massage Therapy to attendees of your Health and Wellness Tele-Workshop (this is then their loss-leader marketing strategy to gain new clients). c. You can generate PASSIVE REVENUE (commissions) by endorsing affiliate products and services to your prospects and clients. To assist you think of affiliates that may be interested in an association with you, ask these questions: Whose services do my clients use before my services? Whose service do my clients use after my services? What products and services do my clients commonly use? What services and products do I regularly suggest to my clients they should use? 3. Leverage Distribution. By obtaining the services of Specialists and Affiliates, you also gain access to their DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS. This is very important. Just say youre conducting a Tele-Workshop targeted to Accountants on How to implement a Coaching Program with your SME clients and DOUBLE YOUR CHARGABLE RATE! If you solely promoted the program through your own resources, you may get 15 attendees. What if you invited the National President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, and you interviewed him on industry trends on how coaching is being EFFECTIVELY utilised by accountants in the industry. AND you invited him to put a link on their website, and an article in their newsletter informing their members how they could listen in to the interview! Do you think you may get a couple more attendees? MOST LIKELY! And what if AFTER the interview, you allowed the Institute to place a link on their website where their members could download the interview DIRECTLY OFF YOUR WEBSITE! And what if their members had to OPT-IN to get access to the interview, and you therefore got their email addresses to add to your eZine or eNewsletter contact program.

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Do you see how you can leverage content and relationships to DRAMATICALLY increase the value of the outcomes you produce in your business? 4. Bootstrap. Bootstrapping is the process of utilising the content from one of your services to develop a secondary product or service, at low cost. For instance, you may: a. b. c. d. e. Deliver a Tele-Workshop/Clinic to prospects (or clients). You record the Tele-Workshop and put it on CD with a Workbook. You then sell the CD and Workbook as a branded product. You then develop the CD Program into a weekend Seminar. You record the Seminar and turn it into an Advanced CD Seminar Series including Real World Hotseat case studies. f. You license the rights to deliver the program to other coaches. g. You modify your niche specific content for other niche areas and sell to a broader coach market. Bootstrapping is a very powerful way to maximise the use of your intellectual property and dramatically increase the manner in which you derive income from it. How To Turn Product Development, Revenue Positive As we mentioned earlier in this module, developing and delivering your education-based marketing programs does not have to cost you. In fact, you can make the process revenue POSITIVE. Here are a few tips how: 1. Charge/Share Costs with Affiliates. As youre inviting affiliates to participate in your event its more than reasonable to charge them or get them to share in the costs. Affiliates will have the opportunity to showcase and sell their products to a targeted group of prospects. This is a valuable opportunity for them, and one they would regularly invest in by way of marketing. 2. Get Commissions on Affiliate Products. Its also common to get paid commissions (and trailing revenue) on sales of affiliate products. Often times, depending on the products, you can actually make MORE REVENUE on affiliate commissions than sale of your own products. 3. Charge for Valuable Content on Tele-Seminars. If youre delivering valuable content to a niche group, its reasonable to charge for the service. You may actually find that you get HIGHER subscriptions to your service if you CHARGE because people perceive it will be of higher VALUE. Prospects can be sceptical of how worthwhile something is if theyre getting it for free. 4. Get Sponsors for Events. Depending on the profile of your attendees you may also be able to get Sponsors for your events. You may include sponsor information in your promotional material, or distribute some of their marketing material at your event.

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Lesson 6: Developing Your Sales Process.

Dun and Bradstreet report that over 80% of businesses fail due to lack of sales. Just as marketing is the backbone of selling; your sales process is the backbone of your marketing. Without a well planned sales process even the best marketing strategies will never reach their potential. However, with an excellent sales process youll get significantly greater returns, even if your marketing is just average. Your sales process can leverage your marketing returns by multiples. Your Marketing Plan outlines the marketing strategies you use, whilst your sales process is the overarching process that defines how you will take prospects through the process of buying from you over their lifetime as a client. Your marketing strategies take prospects and clients from one stage of your sales process to the next. For Example: Stage 1 of your sales process may be to get qualified prospects into your online eZine list; or to attend a free Tele-Workshop. The marketing strategy you use to achieve this may be an offer of a free Report Learn how to quickly overcome the 3 most commonly made mistakes made by [profession] that on average cost $57,000.00 per year in net income. You can see from this simple example how your sales process defines the structure of how you sell. Very few business people give consideration to their sales process. And this is a very costly oversight. In the absence of a well structured sales process, most coaches revert to simply placing ads in newspapers for their one-to-one coaching services and wait for the phone to ring. When/if it rings, they attempt to convince the prospect to attend a meeting or free session. This is not an effective sales process. In fact, wed go as far as to say its practically a guarantee for failure. Developing an effective sales process Before designing your sales process, its worthwhile reviewing your notes on your business Metrics (KPIs). A successful sales process is structured in full awareness of your business metrics. For instance: 1. How do you know how much you can invest to get a new client, if you dont know how much that client will be worth to your business? 2. How can you plan how many clients you want/need if you dont know if each client is making or costing you money? The Sales Funnel Many successful coaches use a sales funnel approach to their sales process. The premise of the sales funnel is that you get as many qualified prospects into a low/no cost service at the top of the funnel, and over time move them through various stages, represented by progressively higher priced services, over their lifetime as a client. 48

Heres an example of a sales funnel: Level 1 No or low cost service to induce large numbers of prospects to experience your unique knowledge and service. Should be as low cost delivery as possible to you; and high perceived value to prospect. Should be replicable to maintain enduring contact through Cycle of Life. Level 2 A paid-for service of generally modest value. Could be a direct upsell of Level 1.

Level 3 A higher value service and/or product. Level 4 Your highest value service and/or product. Note: Depending on your product mix, clients can be purchasing or experiencing your products and services at varying times throughout their Cycle of Life. The key is to maintain valuable communication and regularly ask them to purchase. Consider the advantages of a well structured sales process: 1. Vastly improved conversion. At the top end of your funnel youre inviting people to receive valuable information from you to assist them overcome their challenges for little to no financial investment. There is virtually zero barriers to this offer, and hence you should achieve an extremely high conversion into the top of your funnel. Once you have prospects in your funnel, you should be able to progressively nurture clients in higher priced items as they experience the benefits of dealing with you. 2. Build rapport. You need to establish rapport with prospects before theyre willing to invest with you. Traditional sales processes arent able to bridge this gap. A prospect needs somewhere between 4 to 7 contacts on average before theyll invest with a business. The sales funnel approach allows you to build the required rapport with prospects such that theyll readily invest with you. 49

3. Dramatically reduce barriers to sales. Rapport and trust are just one barrier. Your prospects also (subconsciously and consciously) evaluate each purchase in terms of Is this promised benefit worth more to me than my hard-earned cash (and the loss of face if I make a bad decision)? By demonstrating your unique knowledge, skills, products, and benefits to them, they are significantly more likely (and able) to sway this choice in your favour. 4. Apply an education-based sales paradigm. You position your business as an educator rather than being sales focussed. By giving your prospects valuable information to assist them, you are creating a relationship based on mutual obligation. 5. Re-Frame your marketing mindset. Your mindset is very important when you communicate with prospects and clients. A sales funnel invokes a Service Paradigm, rather than an Influencing Paradigm. You come from the paradigm of giving, addingvalue, educating; rather than from a paradigm of selling and taking. Clients innately sense this, and will act accordingly. 6. Showcase your service and uniqueness. Your product or service should be one of your most powerful endorsements. Showcasing your skills at the top of the funnel should immediately create an intense desire amongst your prospects to invest in your other services. 7. Extend the Net Margin Worth of Clients. Over time you should be able to nurture your clients through your entire sales funnel. Without a sales funnel your service may get poor conversion, and at most be a 3 to 6 month coaching contract. With a sales funnel, and the right systems, you could realistically increase the net marginal worth of your clients to be: 3-6 tele-clinics; 2-3 seminars/workshops; a cd/dvd product; group coaching; one-to-one coaching; a specialist course. This relationship could extend over several years and be worth thousands of dollars (10 times the value you would otherwise realise). 8. Invokes your to create new products. An important part a sales funnels plays in your coaching business, is that it motivates coaches to expand their thinking past one-to-one coaching services, and into the realm of (niche) product development. 9. Increase your Unit of Sale. With more products and services, you have greater opportunity to increase the value of each sale. For instance, you could package a 6week specialist tele-clinic membership as an incentive to upsell a prospect from a 3month contract to a 6-month contract. Your hard cost to deliver the tele-clinic is minimal (which you may bootstrap into an audio cd product as well!!), but the added net return of the 6-month contract may increase your profit by 500%. 10. Increase referral. By providing value to your prospects over extended periods, you vastly compound your opportunity for referrals. Remember, niches roam in packs. So the longer you nurture your relationships with prospects the higher the likelihood word of mouth will spread of your high value unique solutions.

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Marketing for your funnel Once youve developed your sales funnel you need to design or adjust your marketing plan to be aligned to your sales funnel objectives and processes. Lets consider the sales funnel example above and review what marketing processes we could use to achieve its objectives. Level 1 Marketing The objective of level 1 marketing is to get as many qualified prospects as possible into level 1 of your funnel. This means getting as many prospects as possible into your: Newsletter; eZine; Tele-Clinics/Workshops. Marketing options may include: o o o o o o o Website and online strategies. Networking at niche market events. JVs with niche organisations. Buying/renting marketing lists. Affiliating with adjunctive service operator. Paid advertisements. Flyers or direct mail letters to prospects.

Level 2 Marketing The objective of your level 2 marketing is to move prospects from level 1 of your funnel to level 2. This requires moving them from a no or low cost service, to a paid-for service. You therefore have to provide your prospects with a highly investable enticement. Marketing options may include: o o o o o Direct mail promotion. Personal telephone call. Voucher promotion. Risk reversal guarantee. Packaged product (upsell and/or cross-sell).

Using these strategies you simply continue to move your clients through the sales funnel by regularly offering them investable solutions to their problems.

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Lesson 7: Developing Products.

Developing products should be a top of mind exercise for coaches. Coaches that develop products are significantly more successful than coaches that dont. Firstly, lets define what a product is. A product is a packaged and branded educational resource. Your product should be targeted to a niche group, and be focussed on solving their specific problems. Your product can be packed and delivered in a variety of ways. Secondly, lets review some examples of product delivery systems: 1. eBook. eBooks are a very popular and low cost means to deliver your product. There are a myriad eBook software applications to assist you develop your eBook, or you can do it yourself through Adobe Acrobat. 2. eCourse. An eCourse is a simply a course delivered electronically. The most common delivery method is via email. The UCBBP is a good example of an eCourse. An eCourse is a functional and cost effective way to deliver your product. An additional benefit of an eCourse delivery system is that it allows you to develop content over time, rather than requiring the finished product up front, as is the case with an eBook. 3. Mini-Courses. Mini-courses are course delivered in hard copy. 4. Workshops & Seminars. Workshops and seminars are a very popular way to deliver products. There are strong pros and cons to workshop and seminar delivery methods. The pros are they facilitate face-to-face contact; you can audio/video record them to bootstrap other products such as cds, dvds, webstreams, etc. The cons are they are expensive; geographically limiting; and higher barriers to sale. 5. Tele-Clinics. Tele-clinics/workshops/seminars are an excellent delivery tool. A teleclinic is essentially a tele-conference, where participants call in to a central number. As the host you have control to manage participant feedback. You can deliver it lecture style by muting participants, or participant driven question and answer style. Another benefit of tele-clinics is that you can record them and bootstrap an online audio and/or cd product. To create the perception of higher value, you can create a Tele-Clinic Series around solving your niche problems. For instance, you may create a 6-week Tele-Clinic Series. You can invite other authorities to be interviewed; create JVs; create workbooks and guides; etc. See how perceived high value products can be created? 6. Audio programs. Audio is a great way to deliver content. Its easy to create and distribute and has high perceived value. You can script out and record your audio product, or you create it through bootstrap processes demonstrated above, such as tele-clinics and/or workshops etc. Podcasting is a popular and growing means to distribute audios and get immediate expert recognition. See www.coachradio.com.au as a perfect example of how this can be taken to the top level.

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7. Webinars. With the proliferation of technology, a lot of coaches are now delivering webinars. Webinars are seminars delivered over webcam via the internet. They are generally live, but can also be recorded and webstreamed on demand. 8. Card systems. Many coaches develop card systems as a fun, interactive product. 9. Games. Also, games are becoming quite popular. Whilst a good game can be expensive and complicated to develop, they can be an excellent means to expand your brand. Just look at Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. Hes a perfect example of how hes leveraged the intellectual property contained in his books by creating one of the world top selling board games, Cashflow. Thirdly, lets review why its important to have products: 1. Increased Credibility. Delivering high quality, branded products to your niche is one of the most powerful means to build your credibility. There is virtually no other way to accelerate your perception as an expert in your niche. 2. Improve your networks. Authorities in your niche are usually very willing to assist and participate in the development of products that assist their industry. Networking with these authorities will give you an immediate, highly leveraged entry into your niche. It will open many doors to Joint Ventures; list sharing; public forums; group meetings; etc. 3. Youll become less reliant on your time. As a coach, what is your commodity? When everything is distilled down, what are you selling? Coaching? No. Happiness? No. Success? No. Health? No. You are selling your time! Time is your commodity. And when time is your commodity, when you are reliant on selling your time, your income potential is extremely limited. You can only realistically work 8-hours a day. So the only way to earn more money is to charge more. There is a limit to how much you can charge. And when you stop selling your time (go on holidays with your family; get sick), your income stops. 4. Products are your escape from being time reliant. By commercialising products you rely less on time as your commodity. 5. Move from one-to-one to one-to-many. Most coaches sell one-to-one coaching as their core service. This restricts your time, and also limits your commercial reach. Commercialising products allows you to leverage your intellectual property by 10, 100, 1000 times. You can be selling hundreds of eBooks; eCourse; tele-clinic seats; per week. Now thats how to leverage your knowledge and time! Fourthly, lets look at how you can use your products. Once you have products, how can you put them to use for maximum affect? We'll now investigate some ways you can use your products to increase enquiries; conversions and sales. 1. Building your list. In an earlier module we discussed the sales funnel, and how important it is to get as many qualified prospects in the top of your funnel as possible. Using your products is a highly leveraged means to do this. Here are a few examples:

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a. b. c. d.

Offer a free eBook as an incentive to join an online club; eZine; newsletter. Let people download a Special Report after subscribing to your list. Mention your list (education-based) on your tele-clinic call. Gather business cards or contacts at your seminar.

2. Loss Leader. You know by now the net marginal worth of your clients, and hence how much you can afford to invest at the front-end on acquiring a client. A strategy to attain client contracts is to use a loss leader. This means you make a financial loss at the front-end, knowing youll make gains over the term of the life of your client. For instance, you may give away free vouchers to a group coaching workshop to members of your niche. This may cost you $100 per attendee. However, you get 90% of attendees into the top of your funnel; 30% of the them to level 2 within 3months; 20% to level 3 within 6-months. The net result may be a $1,750 gain over 6-12 months per attendee. 3. Value-add. Products are an excellent way to value-add your services. For instance, you may use a 6-week ticket to your specialist tele-clinic as an incentive to upsell prospects from a 3-month contract to a 6-month contract. 4. Referral. Your products can be an excellent tool to incentivise referrals. You may go to the prospects in your funnel and say to them We know you enjoy the information we provide you, and were sure you know other that would benefit from it. If you put us in touch with these people, as a thank-you well give you this XYZ product. 5. JV Incentives. Products are an excellent way to provide incentives for joint ventures. For instance, just say you approach a gym or a health spa, and undertake some cooperative marketing. They write to their members and inform them that for a limited time they can go to your website and download a free special report How To Overcome The 7 Biggest Barriers To You Achieving Your Fitness Goals, by specialist life coach ABC. To download the report they have to give you their name and email address. 6. Conversion. You can use your products to improve conversion and shorten conversion time lines. For instance, offer your product as a value-add to a core service for a limited time. As you can see, there are many powerful advantages to creating products, and many flexible ways to use them.

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Lesson 8: Multiple Foundation Marketing.

In this lesson youll learn one of the most leveraged ways to geometrically grow your business. Correctly applied, this content will ensure ongoing geometric, or even exponential, business growth for many years to come. This strategy is not only critical for business growth, but also serves as a safety net protecting you from changing market forces. Traditionally, most businesses utilise a marketing approach referred to as a Pillar Approach. A good visual analogy for this approach is a diving board. You can visualise the diving board extending out from a single supporting column. The diving board represents your gross income. The supporting column represents your most prominent marketing strategy.

Most businesses utilise a single, solitary marketing strategy to support their entire business. This marketing strategy is how they generate 80-90% of their prospects, clients and revenue. In the vast majority of cases, the marketing strategy they utilise is the same strategy used by every business in their industry. If your business is close to 100% reliant on generating and sustaining revenue through one process, what happens if any number of events occur to negatively impact the sanctity of that process? What will happen to your income if: 1. Existing competitors start utilising the same marketing method you do? Instead of being 1 of 4 coaches advertising in the Yellow Pages, you suddenly find yourself as 1 in 10 vying for the same business from the same advertising source. This is entirely feasible with the explosive growth of coaching. 2. New competitors enter your market? 3. Proprietary products replace some of your services. 4. Competitors undercut your pricing.

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If any one of these events occurred, you could find your business severely undermined. What if several occurred at the same time? Lets use Yellow Pages advertising to demonstrate the point. Lets say you currently spend $8000 per year on Yellow Pages advertising. You currently have 3 competitors vying for clients from the same space. Your advertisement generates 90% of your clients; 25 clients per year. These 25 clients are your major source of income; $62,500. In the release of the next Yellow Pages edition, instead of 3 competitors, there are 9. Instead of 25 clients, from the same 100 prospects, you get 10. Suddenly your income has dropped from $62,500 to just $25,000. Your net income (only discounting the advertising cost alone) is just $17,000. Imagine if other adverse events occurred concurrently. Itd be impossible for you to stay in business. This simple example emphasises how tenuous the Pillar Approach to marketing is, and how exposed you and your business are by employing this method. The Stable Approach To Marketing Now visualise the Greek Parthenon. Its a total contrast to the diving board you previously visualised. Rather than being tenuously supported by a single column, the Parthenon is supported by dozens of massive, enduring pillars. The structure is one of the most robust ever conceived and built by man. This is the structure you want for your business! In the Parthenon Approach your revenue is supported by dozens of marketing activities and strategies. Rather than generating prospects and clients through a single source, the Parthenon Approach generates them through dozens of activities. Utilising the Parthenon Approach your results will be immediately multiplied, and your business insulated against negative market forces.

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Marketing Pillars Lets review some marketing pillars you can utilise. Here are some to consider (you may think of lots more): 1. Networking. 2. Article and publication writing. 3. Product promotion. 4. Endorsements. 5. Reports/eBooks/eCourse lead generation. 6. Referral. 7. Affiliates. 8. Joint ventures. 9. Website. 10. Internet. 11. Public speaking. 12. Pro-bono services. 13. Direct mail. 14. Tele-marketing. 15. Workshops. 16. Flyers and handouts. 17. Trade events. 18. Newspaper advertising. 19. Yellow pages advertising. 20. Newsletter advertisements (in niche newsletters). 21. Re-selling clients. 22. Back-end promotions. 23. Radio. Consider what would happen to your business if over the next few months you were able to institute 4 to 10 of these pillars. o Youll be significantly less reliant on your initial marketing approach. Often your primary approach becomes MORE effective due to the adjunctive benefits of the additional pillars. The integrated combination of your marketing will create greater impact on prospects and motivate them to act faster. If each activity adds just 10-15% more clients and revenue your business will immediately grow in massive multiples. Your business will be substantially more resilient to competition and negative market forces. Your metrics will give you a quantitative base to ascertain the most powerful and cost effective marketing pillars. Youll reach new markets through more diverse demographic and psychographic reach.

Lets now re-address the example above of the Yellow Pages. In the example, your primary (and solitary) source of business was a Yellow Pages advertisement that generated 25 clients and $62,500 revenue per year. 57

What would happen to your business if you built just 6 more pillars? o o o o o o Joint Ventures: 10 clients. Public Speaking: 6 clients. Referrals: 9 clients. Article and Publication writing: 3 clients. Direct Mail: 7 clients. Networking: 11 clients. TOTAL: 46 additional clients + 25 original clients = 71* clients. TOTAL Revenue: $177,500.00. These additional pillars are simple to implement and provide your business with massive geometric growth. There are also many adjunctive benefits of having more clients and revenue, including: 1. You can select the concise profile of client you enjoy working with. 2. You can charge higher fees for your services. 3. Higher volumes of clients and prospects increase the viability to generate additional revenue streams through product sales; affiliates and joint ventures. 4. You can reinvest revenues into marketing campaigns, product development, and brand awareness to compound your business growth. Note: Weve just touched on the principal of Multiple Foundation Marketing. The benefits of applying this principal are very evident. Whats important to recognise is the multipleleverage you can attain by putting Parthenon foundations under your EXISTING pillars. For instance, if you introduce a Referral process (new pillar) thats effective, why not introduce MULTIPLE referral systems to vastly leverage that process? The results can become extraordinary. *We are not suggesting you could effectively coach 71 clients. This is simply a mathematical demonstration of the power of the process. References: Jay Abraham (www.abraham.com); Mastermind Marketing Series.

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Lesson 9: Setting Your Fees.

Setting your fees at the right level is critical to your success. Set them too low and the perceived value of your service will be low. If clients buy, youll make little to no profit. And the return on your investment of effort to attract and service clients will be so low youll end up resenting your business. Set them too high and the perceived value for money of your service may be low. Resultantly youll have very few clients that are expensive and difficult to attract. As you can see, finding the correct balance is essential. Yet, how do you find that balance? The process of setting prices is different for a service based business and a product based business. As a coach, you will likely deal with both. In a service based business, you are selling something that is not physical. It can not be seen, smelt, touched. Its not as tangible. As a coach, the commodity you are selling is your time. How you package that time in terms of benefits, solutions, savings, opportunities is crucial to your brand (your prospects perception of your service) and critical to how you price. In a product based business, you are selling something physical and tangible. It CAN be seen, smelt and touched. It has a fixed hard cost of production upon which profit can be added to establish price. Once your client has purchased the item, it serves as a tangible reminder and post purchase assurance. Products, due to their tangible benefits and fixed production costs, are usually less complicated to price. The successful producer of an article sells it for more than it cost him to make, and thats his profit. But the customer buys it only because it is worth more to him than he pays for it, and thats his profit. No one can long make a profit producing anything unless the customer makes a profit using it. Samuel Pettengill, U.S. Congressman 1930s What Affects The Price Of Your Service? The above quote is extremely insightful. It demonstrates that your service is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. Ultimately, what someone is willing to pay is determined by their value perception. If the buyer of your service perceives they will make a profit using your service, theyll happily buy. The trick then is ascertaining how to build the perception of value into your service, in the mind of customers you want to work with. Once your prospects are assured theyll gain profit from the transaction, the decision is easy for them to make. The perfect price is the price that maximizes your profit while building a lifetime customer through value satisfaction. The perfect price is one that meets the needs of both the Buyer and Seller.

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The Buyer decides if the price is acceptable by determining benefits and considering the competition. The Seller prices to maximize profit, in considering the bigger picture business model. The price must pay for the cost of production, marketing and overheads, and still make a profit. Common Pricing Mistakes Before we investigate a process of determining price, lets first review the most common, and flawed, means people use to establish price. 1. Price against competitors. A common and flawed approach to pricing is to investigate what competitors are charging and price the same or undercut them. This process has no financial case. You may quickly find that each customer is actually costing you money! This mindset is also destructive as you create no point of distinction between your service and your competitors. Without creating, defining and promoting your unique points of difference, you can be assured that new coaches entering the market will undercut your prices, further eroding profits and clients. 2. Hit and miss. Possibly even worse than pricing against competitors is just taking a hit and miss approach. This approach demonstrates a lack of willingness to conduct market research and build the necessary substantive case as to why clients should choose your service over competitors. 3. Price out of fear. Many business people establish their prices from a paradigm of fear. They discount the value of their services due to self limiting beliefs. They dont believe in the value of their service because they dont truly believe in the value of themselves. 4. Price as a product not a benefit. Many business owners price their service as a product. This approach is too pragmatic. You should not take the approach Im selling a 6-hour per month coaching service, how much are people willing to pay per hour for coaching? Rather, you need to be focussing attention (your and your prospects) on the benefits of your service. I have unique knowledge and skills that will solve my clients significant emotional and financial challenges. To have these problems solved clients will invest... 5. Base pricing on negatives. Often business people set prices too low because they focus on negatives, such as people wont buy from me at $X.00 because... Instead, find evidence proving why clients WILL invest in the benefits your service affords them. 6. Incongruence. Some people establish prices too high (or too low) when they dont have the requisite congruence throughout all aspects of their business. If you want to sell your service at a premium to the market, you need to be able to justify why you can charge a premium. This justification may be in the form of unique experience; knowledge; solutions; benefits; networks; etc that your competitors can not match. Look To The Evidence When your fees at not at the right level certain indicators will arise in your business metrics. These indicators should immediately highlight the need to address your pricing strategies (as well as other business processes). Lets quickly review some metrics you should be monitoring to determine whether you are pricing correctly. 60

1. Profit. This is obviously the biggy! If youre losing money, or not making enough, its a clear indication you have not priced correctly. In assessing profit, its not effective enough to review your grouped Profit and Loss. You must amortise your income and expense on a per client and per service basis. 2. Conversion. Price can directly affect your conversion rates, so if youre receiving enquiries and not converting them to clients, one factor to review is pricing. 3. Client Attrition. If clients are cancelling before contracts are scheduled to finish it may be due to your prices (value perception). 4. Client Lifetime Value. If your clients are not buying additional products and services, or utilising your services for long periods, pricing may be a factor. 5. Referral. Clients are usually very willing to refer when they perceive high value. If your clients are not referring new clients to you (and youre asking them to), they may not be perceiving high value. Establishing The Perfect Price Weve spent quite some time analysing how not to go about setting your prices. Now lets discuss how you should set your prices. Following is a 7-Step process to developing the optimum price for your service. 7-Step Strategy For Determining Price Step 1: Determine Your Goals. Do you want to quickly build a large client base? Can you afford to break-even or lose money up front to acquire new clients? Do you want fewer, higher value, clients? Write down your primary objectives in numbers of clients you want to work with. IE 6-8 high paying clients; or 30 lower paying, lower service clients. Step 2: Undertake Market Research. How many competitors do you have? List each of your direct competitors. What are the prices of their products? Beside each competitor, write down how much they charge for comparable products to yours. Can you create a strong point of difference, or unique selling proposition, around your product? Write down the strength of your competitive advantage (from your prospects perspective, NOT your own!).

Write down how your competitive advantages can be reflected in value to your clients. Step 3: Establish Your Per Product Break-Even. How much does it cost you to acquire a client? Consider the cost of advertising; marketing; printed material; etc. What is your hard cost to deliver your service (including acquisition cost)? How much does/will it cost you to deliver your service including transport; materials; resources; etc. 61

Now write down the total cost to service each client. (You need to price your service above this for your service to be cash flow positive). Step 4: Establish The Real Benefit Value To Your Client. Does your service assist clients overcome specific challenges and/or problems? What is the cost to your clients for not having those challenges and/or problems resolved? Can you quantify these costs, financial and emotional, which your clients experience?

As far as possible, write down what your service is worth in quantitative terms to your client. You should now have a good indication of: 1. 2. 3. 4. Your goals; The market; Your hard costs; and The benefit value to your clients.

Your goals indicate how many clients you would like to attain, and how quickly you would like to attain them. Knowledge of your direct market provides understanding of the environment youre competing in. Its a key piece of the puzzle to ensure you create a high value perception in the mind of your prospects. Your hard costs establish a benchmark which your price must be established above for you to make a profit. The benefit value of your service is an indication of what your client should be willing to pay to have their challenges resolved (if you develop a compelling promise to them). Ideally, your benefit value should be well above your hard costs; and above the market. If it is not, you have an immediate problem with your product. Your objective is to price your product somewhere between market and the benefit value. This way, you know you are making a profit (above your hard costs and market); and your clients are making a profit (below their benefit value). Identify a price range above your hard costs; and between the market and benefit value. Step 5: Establish Congruence. What is the demographic and psychographic profile of your client? Is this profile congruent with the price range established above? Can you establish evidence to validate clients will invest within this price range to solve their challenges? Is your branding, niche, and packaging consistent with your service, and the expectations of your client?

At this point it is important to establish congruence between your proposed pricing; your clients ability to pay; and your branding and packaging.

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Step 6: Test In-Situ. Monitor your key metrics including Net Profit; Cost of Acquisition; Lifetime Value; Attrition. Test different price points for different products and services to ascertain optimum pricing. Go to the source. Ask your prospects and clients how much they perceive your service to be worth.

Step 7: Modify As Required. Modify your prices according to your metrics to find the perfect price. Never stop testing.

Warning: Pricing is sensitive to a range of influencers. In some instances, you may have the right price, but not the right supporting marketing and branding. In other cases you may have excellent marketing but the wrong pricing strategy. Its important to recognise that to find the perfect price requires the perfect balance between all influencers: product/service; marketing; demographic and psychographic profiles; branding; and pricing. Change one and you change the entire mix!

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Lesson 10: Compelling Copywriting.

Copywriting is often your most powerful instrument to move your prospects to action. Whether its your advertisement, brochure, website, sales letter, referral letter, email communication or joint venture offer, your copywriting is extremely influential in the results you attain. As such, copywriting is one of the most leveragable aspects of your business. For instance, youll pay the same amount for a 5 x 2 advertisement; 8-page DL brochure; or your website, regardless of the results. If you can attain 2, 5 or 10 times the results through improved copywriting, youve achieved considerable upside leverage. This leverage can have an extraordinary impact on your business. Through effective copywriting its realistic to expect to vastly improve your results from all written communications, thereby improving enquiry numbers, conversion, referrals, and on-sales; whilst reducing client acquisition costs and attrition. The true power of copywriting is moving your prospects and clients to take your desired action (which is in their best interest). In The Land Of The Blind, The One-Eyed Man Is King The good news for you is that effective copywriting, whilst not difficult to create, is rare. Most small business owners are not aware of the dormant power of their copy. Hence, they do not apply the requisite effort to achieve upside leverage from their copywriting. They focus their attention on other issues to the near exclusion of their copy. This creates an opportunity for you to gain a significant competitive advantage. Effective copywriting is a powerful differentiator. Just as your face-to-face communication ability affects your client outcomes, your copywriting affects their decisions before they become a client. To this end, your copywriting is a critical precursor to your ability to invoke change in your clients. Its the first, and arguably the most, influential demonstration of your ability to help clients attain their objectives. Answer this question... If you had the opportunity to invest one week of your time to perfect one process in your business that could invoke upwards of 1000% returns, that you almost never again had to spend time on, would you invest that week? Of course you would. Effective copywriting can achieve those results in your business. Lets explore how. Understand Your Customer Effective copywriting requires you to think of your clients needs and desires well in advance. Only by understanding your clients specific needs and desires can you move them to take action. Without understanding, its impossible to demonstrate to your client how they will gain by utilising your service. The goal then is understanding. To persuade someone; to motivate someone; to invoke someone to action; you must firstly, fore mostly, and intimately, understand them.

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As a coach, you will most likely be working in a niche. A niche is a group of people sharing common challenges they are willing to invest in to solve. Subsequently you should already have a profound understanding of your clients. But just in case, here are some questions you should answer as comprehensively as possible: What challenges keep my client awake at night? What are their most pressing problems? What recurring challenges do my clients face? What is costing my client substantial: money, energy, or time? What trends are occurring, or will occur, in my clients lives? Do my clients use a common language and/or slang? Is there a built-in bias as to how my clients relate or think? (EG Accountants; adolescents). What problems or desires is my client passionate and emotional about? Understand Your Product Now that you understand your clients needs and desires, you need to correlate that information to the benefits of your product. To achieve this, you need an intimate understanding of your product. Most business people assume that because they offer or deliver a product, they immediately understand it. This is only partially the case. Usually they only understand their product from their own paradigm. In fact, the way they think about their product or service is most likely entirely different to how a prospect or client thinks about it. And this can present a very significant barrier! Take a moment to consider a recent shopping experience. Maybe the last time you shopped for a car. The car salesman knows his product. In fact he knows it much better than you do. How he thinks about his product is vastly different to how you think about it. His detailed knowledge of the product has been accumulated by learning about the product features. He committed to memory that a certain model has a 2 litre engine; 4 wheel drive; air-conditioning; 6-speaker stereo; 5-doors; limited slip differential. His knowledge is categorised as features. He therefore communicates about his product from this perspective. On the other hand, in the absence of detailed knowledge, you dont think in terms of features. You think in terms of benefits. You think: I need a car with enough space for the 3 children and shopping; it needs to double as on-road and off-road for when we go camping; have enough power to climb steep hills. If the salesman communicates with you in terms of features from his paradigm of understanding its very likely you will not understand. You are talking different languages. The communication has not been effective, and he will not make a sale. Yet, if the salesman is able to determine the benefits you desire (understand the client), and communicate to you how his product (the car) meets your requirements, hes very likely to make the sale. 65

Try mapping how the benefits of your product meet the needs and desires of your clients, which you determined earlier. This is how the car salesman may do this exercise: Needs of client / benefits of product Enough space for the 3 children and shopping. Double as on-road and off-road for when we go camping. Differential. Enough power to climb steep hills. Comfortable environment for elderly mother. Dont want to be worried about break-down or service costs. Communicate The Benefits The previous exercise is a powerful demonstration of the context in which you must communicate with clients. People simply dont think in terms of features. And how can they? In the majority of instances they dont have enough technical knowledge or expertise to know or understand features. They simply want something that does the job. As soon as you start communicating to your prospects and clients in terms of benefits youll experience an immediate and profound improvement in results. Using the example above, rather than communicating the features to your prospect, you translate the features into known needs or desires. If the specific needs are not yet known, ask your prospect first without presumption, and then communicate in terms of their desires. Write To Your Targeted Audience Just as important as writing good copy, is getting it read by the right people. No matter how good your copy is, if the wrong people are reading it, it will have no affect. You are far better off spending your energy communicating to the converted that you are trying to convert people into believers. Grab Attention You can have incredibly compelling copy, but unless you grab your readers attention it wont get read. "On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90% of your money." David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising. Your headline is your single most powerful part of your sales copy. Lets face facts; advertising can be imposing and intrusive. As a rule of thumb, as much as we are bombarded by marketing, we generally try to ignore it. As a seller of goods, your copywriting has to move you from annoying pest to welcome guest. And the first big hurdle to achieve that is grabbing your prospects attention. Thats achieved by your headline. Features of product 5-doors. 4 wheel drive; limited slip. 2 litre engine. Air-conditioning. 5-year, 100,000Km warranty.

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Marketing gurus such as Claude Hopkins, Gary Halbert, Ted Nicholas, and Jay Abraham argue that a powerful headline will achieve as much as 5 to 21 times the results of an average headline. Whatever the statistics, a compelling headline is the most crucial aspect of any copywriting. It is without doubt your highest point of leverage. So, to create effective copywriting, you must firstly master the art of writing headlines. Since youve already got an understanding of your clients and the benefits of your product, you are well on the way. Powerful headlines are comprised of the majority, or all of the following components: 1. 2. 3. 4. Of Self-Interest/make big promise to the reader. Are newsworthy. Invoke curiosity. Provide quick, easy, and/or limited solutions.

Lets review some historically famous headlines: Amazing Secret Discovered By One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards To Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks And Slices And Can Slash Up To 10 Strokes Off Your Game Almost Overnight! How To Collect From Social Security At Any Age! Do You Make These Mistakes In English? The Lazy Mans Way To Riches! They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano But When I Started To Play! And powerful headlines: 1. Offer a solution to a challenge and/or problem. 2. Invoke emotion. 3. Are personal to the reader. Here are 3 easy shortcuts to a powerful headline: 1. Use headline templates. Simply find some successful, powerful headlines and use them as templates. For instance: Who Else Wants A Whiter Wash With No Hard Work? Using this headline, you can create a template. Who Else Wants... With... And your headline could become: Who Else Wants To Retire With Their Business On Autopilot? 67

Or (using an earlier example)... They Laughed When I Got A Life Coach... But When I Got Promoted To A Six-Figure Position! 2. How To... If/Then. This approach can be very effective. Simply start your headline with How To then espouse the benefit/s of your service. For instance: How To Lose 10 Kilograms In Just 12-Weeks And Keep It Off... Proven If Youve Tried And Failed With Leading Programs. 3. Rework Proven Headlines. Leading copywriters confess to investing substantially more time on headlines than any other part of their writing. One headline can take hours to craft and months or years of testing and finessing to perfect. So why not borrow from the experience of leaders in the field. Weve included 299 famous headlines in the Resources section for you to analyse and re-work. Remember: Headlines dont just occur at the beginning of your copy. Your copy should be interspersed with sub-headlines to maintain your readers attention and interest. Most people will only scan your copywriting, so your headlines and sub-headlines alone should tell a powerful story. Keep Their Attention Theres a very useful equation for copywriting (and specifically advertising copywriting) structure. Its acronym is AIDA. It stands for Attention; Interest; Desire; Action. Attention: Hopefully youve already gleaned the attention of your prospects with your headline. Interest: Your readers interest should be maintained with sub-headlines to draw their attention in to your copy. Your body copy should create interest by identifying with your readers challenges. Often interest can be created by dramatising or highlighting specific problems, or the compounded affects of unresolved problems. Desire: Once youve drawn your readers in with emotive stories highlighting challenges theyre facing, you can easily create desire by offering solutions to their problems. This can be done directly or through analogy. Action: You are only writing or advertising to invoke an action in your reader. In all advertising copy, you must create a reason for your reader to act. All compelling copywriting comes in two forms, and is usually a combination of both: Reason-Why and Storytelling. The reason these styles work is because they are emotive, meaning your reader can relate at a deep personal level.

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Additional Power-Tips Here are some additional tips to keep in mind. Funny doesnt sell. Your readers are interested in solutions to their problems. Not humour. Your jokes may amuse you (they may even be funny!), but they wont sell. Dont assume anything. Tell your story. People desperately want to believe you. Admit one or more insignificant flaws. Admitting a mistake makes you human. It disarms your readers and makes your message more believable. Remember, your readers are looking for solutions to their problems. Demonstrate how youll fulfil your headline promise. Your headline should contain big promises. You need to prove how youll fulfil your promise for your reader. Specifics sell. Specifics make your story believable. Generalities and platitudes are immediately dismissed. Write to one person only, never to a group or audience. There is only ever one reader of your copy. Write to that person. That person is your IDEAL customer. Hold interest and convince. The longer you can hold a readers interest with compelling copy, the more chance you have of getting them to act in accord with your requests. Write as though you are chatting to a friend. You can even freestyle dictate your overall message first, then refine it in copy. Make it easy to read. Use short, sharp, succinct sentences. If any sentence is longer than 2 lines, rework it. Talk in the language of your reader. Dont try to impress your reader with language they would not ordinarily use in their daily life. Offer hope. If your reader is willing to spend the time and effort reading your copy, they are seeking salvation. Offer them the hope they seek. Be a leader. Write with authority and compel your readers to follow... and act. Demonstrate how and why (with specifics) you are an authority in the field. Overcome objections. This is critical. Overcome objections in an educational way. Behave as a trusted advisor or guardian with your readers best interest at heart. Establish credibility early. Without credibility you will be entirely unconvincing. Demonstrate social proof. Use testimonials or stories to demonstrate to your reader that their peers perceive value in your service. This will make their decisions much easier to make. Sell with emotion, not logic. Youll never logic a reader in making a buying decision. Position yourself against a common enemy or challenge. Edit, edit, edit. Good copy can take dozens of edits to get right. No-one is dying to read your copy. You must win their attention, time and respect. 69

More Lessons? More Knowledge? UCBBP is available for Coaching Club members!
Here are some of the other UCBBP lessons that are delivered fortnightly to members, along with supporting educational material and hundreds of additional resources: Maximising Gain for Effort Powerful Business Resources Selling the Invisible The Psychology of Selling Best Buyers Strategy Education Marketing Continuum Client Retention & Nurturing Sales Skills & Conversion Image, Ethics & Professional Conduct Host-Parasite Relationships Bootstrapping Bump and Upsell Sell Then Sell Again And thats not even half of the entire course! Be an intelligent coach - join CoachIQ Coaching Club, subscribe to the Ultimate Business Building Program, and skyrocket your business success! www.coachingclub.com.au/ucbbp

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