Never, Ever, Ever Give Up

Never, Ever, Ever Give Up

Most business coaches give up too easily.

On their clients. On their events. On their marketing. On their follow up. Ultimately…on themselves.

An extreme example is the Great Recession that began in 2008. Don’t get me wrong, it was horrific (I got punched squarely in the face)…but the people who refused to give up rebuilt stronger than ever.

Grant Cardone is one guy who got hammered…almost went bankrupt…now he’s worth $500 Million and says he owes it all to the education he received due to 2008.

He ran a business event recently with 40,000 people. Had to do it in a football stadium to fit everyone!

I talk to people all the time who are still consumed by 2008 eleven years later. They let their psychology get the better of them and they gave up.

But here’s the good news: You can fail and get it wrong over and over again but if you get it right just ONCE–as in refuse to give up–you can go down as a legend.

Let me prove it.

Walt Disney went bankrupt due to a business he started called “Laugh-A-Gram.” Then got fired ’cause he “lacked imagination and had no original ideas.” (LOL!) The Walt Disney Company was turned down over one hundred times for financing. Disney now does $40 Billion in annual revenues.

Henry Ford built two car companies that failed…then created Ford.

Steve Jobs got fired by his OWN company?! Made a reasonable comeback.

H.J. Heinz of Heinz Ketchup…BANKRUPT. Now does $10 Billion in annual revenues.

Larry King declared bankruptcy in 1968 and then landed his own late-night show on CNN that you may have heard of.

Cindi Lauper was bankrupt in 1980 when she sang “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.”

Colonel Sanders was 60 when he started KFC.

Ray Kroc was 52 when he opened his first McDonalds. His real success came in his 60’s.

Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen of Chicken Soup for The Soul fame were denied by every major publisher.

J.K. Rowling was a divorced, unemployed, single mom on welfare when she wrote Harry Potter. Hundreds of millions of copies later, plus over a billion dollars in sales from the movies, she’s one of the wealthiest authors in the world.

Rodney Dangerfield had failure after failure until his hit appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” when he was 46 years old.

Rowland Hussey had four retail failures in a row. Then came the store you know as Macy’s…

Zuckerberg and Bezos have more failed projects behind them than possibly any other duo in the history of business.

So, how would you like your name on this list as a LEGEND in the business coaching world?

You only need to be right ONCE.

And despite your recent birthday it most certainly is not too late according to Ray Kroc, Colonel Sanders and Walt Disney.

What do you REFUSE to give up on?

Bill Gates is famous for asking himself this question: “How can I create the intelligence [operating system] that will control all desktop computers?”

That’s a slightly better question than “How do I make a million dollars selling software?”

The question I ask myself multiple times every day and will continue to ask myself over the next decade(s) as it evolves, is: “How do I create the standard for the entire business coaching profession?”

The money is all well and good, but it’s truly secondary at this stage…it’s just the report card.

I care about the industry.

I care about the impact.

I care most about the small business owners that hire a business coach and the magic they perform together.

What about you? What’s your big question? What do you REFUSE TO GIVE UP ON?

Hint: If you center the question on OTHER people’s success…it’ll get you a heck of a lot further. “How do I make $10,000 per month and $120,000 per year with my coaching?” is a common and insanely lame question.

What's your big question? What do you REFUSE TO GIVE UP ON? Hint: If you center the question on OTHER people’s success…it’ll get you a heck of a lot further.

Something like this will get you a LOT further faster: “How can I find any small business owner $100,000 in 45 minutes without them spending an extra dollar on marketing or advertising?”

Or:

“How can I fill 10 local live events over the next 20 weeks and positively change the lives of a minimum of 100 local business owners that attend them?”

Refuse to give up and you’ll turn decades into days. Dollars into hundreds. Hundreds into thousands. Thousands into hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands into millions.

You got that?

Never, ever, ever give up.

Want more inspiration and encouragement in your business coaching practice? Check out our FREE ebook, Secrets of a Business Coaching Rock Star!

The Problem of Poor Positioning

The Problem of Poor Positioning

Wanna know one of the biggest mistakes I see business coaches make all the time? Poor positioning.

Setting yourself up as a company lackey as opposed to a valued expert, subject to the whims and requirements of the business owner.

There are two kinds of independent professionals who work with businesses:

Coaches and consultants.

In the gig economy, consultants are a dime a dozen. You can find them on Upwork, Fiverr, Guru. They’re freelancers. Side hustlers. Glorified employees — except without the benefits and paid time off. They base their work on hourly rates and deliverables, NOT value, NOT results.

A coach is an equal–even more than an equal–a valued teacher, mentor, motivator, educator.

And there’s a crucial distinction here, to borrow an analogy from the world of sports:

A coach would NEVER jump into the game and start playing alongside the players.

You do that, and suddenly you’re not a coach anymore.

You’ve just undercut your value.

You’ve placed yourself in the same category as gig artists, who might be great at what they do, but who have to fill their time to fill their bank accounts.

How to Position Yourself Properly

So how do avoid this trap?

First, flip your mindset.

In a tech-driven, productivity-hacking kind of world like the one we live in today, what matters is results. 

Never talk time with clients and prospects.

Always talk value.

In a tech-driven, productivity-hacking kind of world like the one we live in today, what matters is results. Never talk time with clients and prospects. Always talk value.

Position yourself as the expert you are. Provide feedback, accountability, and insight. Teach them, encourage them, mentor them. Keep your appointments. Don’t let them wiggle out of theirs. Have them report to you–not the other way around. Hold their feet to the fire.

Resist the temptation to hold their hands. Don’t write their copy or run their reports.

Expect more from them than they expect from themselves.

Then you’ll be a true asset they can’t live without. Then you’ll be able to close clients paying $2,000-$3,000 per month for an hour or two of your time per week.

Then you’ll know your own worth–and will be able to push that momentum into bigger and better deals down the line.

But it all starts in one place: proper positioning.

Don’t get caught in the consultant trap.

For more foundational guidance on becoming a business coach, check out our FREE ebook, How to Become a Business Coach.

How to Decide the Right Mix of Marketing Strategies for Your Business Coaching Practice

How to Decide the Right Mix of Marketing Strategies for Your Business Coaching Practice

The most successful business coaches use a variety of marketing strategies to keep their lead flow fresh. In fact, I recommend that these should be in your mix: networking, site visits, direct mail, content and social media marketing, telemarketing, referrals, and strategic partnerships.

But where should you focus your energies now? The answer is: it depends! As you decide on the best mix of marketing strategies for your business coaching practice, here are five factors to consider.

Expense

How much cash outlay is required and how much you’re willing to invest. The most expensive strategies on the list are direct mail, content and social media marketing, and outsourced telemarketing — but they can also be the most effective at creating large-scale lead flow quickly.

Efficiency

How time-efficient is the strategy? Your time is valuable, just like your money is. Of course, money can always be replaced, but time never can. So if you’re well-capitalized, it makes sense to invest your money in order to save time. However, you might be in a position where you’re budget-conscious, or you might be generating leads already and you’re looking to deepen your most valuable relationships. Strategies that are highly efficient include networking, referrals, and strategic partnerships. These can lead to a new client within just a couple of days.

Attraction Quality

How likely is your strategy to attract a qualified prospect? Some strategies, such as digital marketing, direct mail, and telemarketing tend to bring leads in higher quantities but they are often of lower quality. Some strategies, such as referrals and strategic partnerships, tend to bring in lower quantities of leads but they’re often higher quality. Choose a blend of strategies, starting with higher quantity at the beginning, then shifting the balance of strategies as you go.

Head Trash Resistance

How resistant is the strategy to your own self-sabotaging head trash? If you have lots of head trash around marketing and selling one day, you’ll probably find yourself making up excuses to skip the networking event or avoid making calls to the leads you’ve already got. By contrast, outsourced telemarketing, direct mail, and digital marketing are all very head-trash resistant. They continue to roll on, whether you feel good on a given day or not!

Autopilot Potential

Once a strategy is implemented and making a predictable ROI, how easy is it to maintain? Will it need a little or a lot of effort? Will you have to be the one doing the work? Hands-on relationship builders, such as networking, referrals, site visits, and strategic partnerships, probably can’t be set on autopilot. On the other hand, you can easily hand off tasks like content and social media marketing and direct mail once you find a winning campaign!

Have You Created a Well or a Faucet?

Your mix of marketing strategies can be compared to a well-pump or a faucet. With a well-pump, you have to pump manually. When you stop, the water stops flowing. With a faucet, you can turn it on, walk away, and expect a steady flow. At the beginning of your career, you will need to pump the handle a lot. Over time, as you discover winning campaigns, be intentional about making the transition to a more faucet-like system. Your goal is to move from low-leverage strategies such as networking and site visits to high-leverage strategies such as content and social media marketing, referrals, and strategic partnerships–until you have an unlimited marketing budget that keeps your practice growing strong, with or without you!

Your mix of marketing strategies can be compared to a well pump or a faucet. With a well, you have to pump manually--and when you stop, the water stops flowing. With a faucet, you can turn it on, walk away, and expect a steady flow. At the beginning of your career, you may need to prime the pump. Over time, as you discover winning campaigns, be intentional about making the transition to a more faucet-like system.

Want a fully-developed, plug-and-play business coach marketing system that works? Get a FREE 30-day trial of the Coaches’ Coach system and see what a difference it can make in your practice!

Questions to Ask During Business Coaching Franchise Due Diligence

Questions to Ask During Business Coaching Franchise Due Diligence

Today I want to answer a question that we hear frequently from prospective business coaches: what are the most important questions I should ask while doing my business coaching franchise due diligence?

There are many important questions you can ask in the due diligence process, but here are the top three:

1. What Kind of Success Rate Do Your Coaches Have? 

Whether you like it or not, you’re going to be a statistic–either of success or failure. You owe it to yourself to find out if the stats are in your favor.

My business partner and I were involved in the business coaching franchise industry for more than decade, and between the two of us, we served seven business coaching franchise systems in various capacities. In our experience, business coaching franchise systems have around a 50% failure rate. Perhaps that’s a bit surprising because there’s a sense that business coaches should know better than that, but it is what it is. One of the business coaching franchises I was involved in had a 57% failure rate. We eventually brought in down to just 4%, but that’s not common. You need to find out what the failure rate is in the franchise you’re considering, and you need to be practical about the fact that you’re probably not the exception to the rule.

Here’s what I recommend: get the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) and actually look at the numbers. Look at the number of units they’ve sold, closed, or resold and compare that to the number of units in operation. A lot of times when the franchise owner fails, they will sell or close their franchise, and that has to be reported on the FDD. Do the math and you’ll get a pretty good sense of the failure rate.

In addition, start calling the franchisors in the FDD. I’m not talking about the three or four more names that the sales reps gave you. I mean, call all of them. If coaches aren’t answering their phones, leave a message and say, “Hi there, I’m interested in the possibility of buying your franchise.” You’ll start to get calls back, believe me. Then ask them about their experience. You’ll start to get a sense for how things are really going for the majority of the franchisees.

2. What Kind of Support Will I Get Over the Long Haul?

After you buy a franchise, most franchisors send you to a training intensive. It’ll be in a posh hotel to make you think you’ve become a part of something really special, and if you’re like me, you’ll return home totally energized and ready to go.

But that’s where the rubber meets the road.

In the vast majority of business coaching franchise systems, the people who sold you the franchise are the same people assigned to support you. That’s a problem, because they’re not business coaches–they’re salespeople. When you hit month six, 12, or 18, and you’re struggling through some rough patches, you need a mentor who really knows the business.

So what can you do? Again, call the people who are already franchisees and ask them how they’re doing, how much money they’re making, how many months they’ve been in the business, and if they’re getting the coaching, support, and training they need. Ask if the people teaching the business are they, themselves, successful coaches. Call at least 20 coaches and find out what’s really going on behind the scenes.

3. What Kind of Limits Will Be Placed on Me?

It might not seem like it right now, but this is a big deal. Because no matter who you are, at some point, you’ll want to leave the franchise. Maybe you’ll stay for five, seven, even 10 years–but the time will come that you’ll be ready to move on. Find out what limitations will be placed on you when that time comes. Most, if not all, business coaching franchisors require you to leave business coaching entirely when you leave the franchise. If you still want to be a coach, this could derail your entire career.

Or what if you don’t do well? Will the franchisor require you to continue paying $1500-$2000 a month in franchise fees, even if you’re not making money?

Get a good franchise attorney (NOT a business law generalist, but a franchise law specialist) and have them sit down with the contract and point out all the potential pitfalls. Then, negotiate the contract to better terms for you. This a mistake a lot of business coaching franchisee prospects make, and I’ve seen it create serious problems down the road.

Want to know more tips and tricks like these as you consider purchasing a business coaching franchise? Download my free ebook, The Business Coaching Franchise Buyer’s Guide, about what you should look for in a business coaching franchise and how to do effective due diligence.

In-Person vs Video-Based Coaching

In-Person vs Video-Based Coaching

When I first started out as a business coach almost twenty years ago, I worked with a significant number of clients in person. Now, I rarely do–largely because I work within a specific industry niche (business coaches) as opposed to a particular market area. All things being equal, which is better? In-person or video-based coaching?

The answer is both–with the majority of the coaching being done remotely via Skype or Zoom and periodic in-person interactions.

Why?

Simply put, video-based coaching works better and actually delivers MORE value to the client than face-to-face coaching does!

Whenever you go to a client’s place of business, you waste their time and yours with all the formalities: hand-shakes, small-talk, introductions, etc.  By contrast, when you do a coaching session by video, you tend to get on and off quickly, because that’s what people expect from video conferences, right?

Face-to-face coaching sessions ALWAYS take longer than one hour; video-based coaching calls tend to be 30-45 minutes in length.

Why steal your clients’ time, their most precious commodity? Would a good coach do this to their clients? And what about YOUR time? You’re a busy, in-demand business coach! You certainly don’t have the luxury of weekly face-time! Not to mention that if you’re coaching within a specific industry niche, your clients might be scattered all around the world.

Make the Most of Your In-Person Interactions

However, this doesn’t mean you should never have in-person interaction with clients, particularly those paying you at the highest levels of service. Sometimes monthly, quarterly, or even annual visits with your top-tier clients can be a great way to add value, improve retention, and deepen your relationship.

Monthly, quarterly, or even annual visits with your top-tier clients can be a great way to add value, improve retention, and deepen your relationship.

Another fantastic way to leverage in-person interactions is to do periodic retreats with your most loyal clients all together in one place–like a bonus master mind group. It can be something you price into your high-value coaching contracts, or you can sell it separately. Either way, most coaching clients love to get to know one another. They agree that these mastermind events more than pay for their coaching program.

In a digital world, I suggest video-based coaching for the most part, interspersed with special in-person interactions to sweeten the pot and keep your client relationships fresh!

For more great rock star coaching tips like this, check out our free ebook, Secrets of a Business Coaching Rock Star.