Business Coach Training: “Spending” vs. “Investing”

by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training

There’s been a bunch of debate over the last few years in the U.S. about President Obama’s characterization of the U.S. government’s massive, ongoing spending binge as an “investment” in our future as a nation. This brings to mind an experience I had in my first couple years as a business coach, one that holds a profound lesson for those in business coach training.

When do you advise a client to classify an expenditure as an “investment,” versus an unnecessary cost to be cut?

Here’s what happened to me…

One of the very first clients I landed in 2001 was the owner of a restaurant bringing in about $1 Million USD in revenue per year. The poor guy had been losing money for several years running and had “invested” almost his entire net worth, except for the last bit of equity in his home. He had done everything he could think of to no avail and saw business coaching as his golden ticket. So I began coaching him and we attacked the problem with a vengeance: we deployed strategies to incentivize the team to up-sell and add on-sell, eliminated waste in the kitchen, combined positions in the dish room to get more work out of fewer staff, created strategic partnerships with other businesses to bring in new customers, held team trainings to rally employees around a vision for growth, and more.

After a couple years of coaching, we had managed to stop the bleeding — but just barely. And it was like pulling teeth the entire way. “What went wrong?” I kept asking myself. “The things we did with this guy have produced MASSIVE results in other restaurants and retail businesses. What gives? Why no increase in profit? Why does this business stubbornly refuse to grow?”

Answer? The fundamentals of the business were hopelessly messed up on three counts:

(1) This was a 15-year-old family-style, meat and potatoes, vegetable-soup-serving establishment that had never adapted to the radical demographic shifts that had slowly taken place around them. They found themselves sitting in what had become a high-end, fast-paced retail shopping park that had driven away their main customers: senior citizens looking for a bargain meal.

(2) In their previous years, they had negotiated their way into an iron-clad commercial lease with rider provisions that made the rent go up irrespective of revenue — which put a deadly choke-hold on their profitability. No amount of money spent with attorneys could get them out, and it was destroying them.

(3) For reasons of their own, they were unwilling to sell alcohol and uninterested in creating the kind of high-margin business that the location demanded. Long before I arrived they had “invested” their entire business war-chest into propping up the existing business model, leaving them powerless to radically re-invent it and turn it into a destination dining location that would appeal to the kind of spenders they needed to support their overhead.

So, what did the coaching achieve? It kept their heads above water long enough to survive the term of their lease — after which we promptly closed the business down and they moved on to a brighter future.

Now, back to the question of “spending” versus “investment.” Was the hundreds of thousands in net-worth that ultimately produced NO RETURN for my client an “investment” or “spending?”

In some ways, it’s a game of semantics. But everyone agrees that a good investment is one that produces a positive return. If a client invests money in a fatally flawed business model with no realistic hope of a return it is a bad investment, at best, and a foolish gamble at worst.

Sometimes, it’s better to stop such “investments” and recognize them for what they are: worthless “spending” — throwing good money after bad. The difficulty can be getting the client to recognize the difference. “If I invest just a little bit more to keep going, I know I can turn this thing around!” they tell themselves.

Really? Are you sure?

Our job as business coaches is to help our clients honestly survey their situation and think critically about their expenditures, even if it means making painful, difficult choices.

Have you ever faced this situation in your business coaching practice? What have YOU done to help your clients in this situation? How have you advised them?

Business Coach Training: How to Uncover Your Prospects’ Pain Points

by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training

Sometimes converting a warm prospect into a paying client can be painful! Some prospects take every step of the way as if they are walking on a bed of nails. One of the business areas of business coach training you can give yourself to is learning how to uncover your prospects’ “pain points” which helps them understand why they need you.

This is effective because it puts them in touch with the problem for which they need your solution.  As you uncover their specific pain points, you’ll be able to tailor your sales approach to their specific needs, and close more business in the process.

How to identify those pain points? Try these ideas:

Ask them “why” questions. When you ask a yes or no question be prepared to follow-up with a why type question. And don’t be afraid to ask more than one question. The prospect’s answer should help you pinpoint their pain.

Explain what’s in it for them. . . and then watch their reactions. You should always be prepared to explain to a prospect how they will benefit from your services. Remember to watch how they react to your answers to know whether or not you’ve hit their pain point.

Don’t answer questions too quickly. While you should always be prepared with answers to questions, make sure you don’t answer too quickly. Watch how your prospect asks the question and then think for a moment about how to best respond.  If you are always cutting in quickly your prospect will clam up and you won’t get the information you need.

Be a “high self-monitor”. This is a psychology term for someone who reads people well. High self-monitors constantly watch and unobtrusively observe the people around them and unconsciously decode their social and emotional cues and then mirror the behaviors they see. Most self-monitors are born with the ability (it’s a temperament trait) but many of the skills can be learned through observation of yourself and those around you.

Understand your target market. As in all aspects of your business, make sure you have a very strong understanding of your target market. If you are trying to market pink rain boots to construction workers you will have horrible sales. Don’t make similar mistakes with your coaching business. Understand how your client works and what your client needs.

How do you discover your clients’ pain points and hang-ups?

How’s your sales conversion rate? What sales challenges are you working to master in your sales game?

Get a FREE 10-day trial of our complete business coaching system, including sales and objection handling training, documents, templates, training, and more, and grow your business coaching practice fast.   

Registration Is OPEN For WBECS 2015!

by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training

Perhaps you’ve already heard of The World Business & Executive Coach Summit?

WBECS is hands-down the most important business coach training event to attend in 2015. You simply can’t afford to be unaware of what the business coaching industry legends have been innovating over the last 12 months. And, you can “get in” to the pre-summit for FREE to check it out. As always, both the pre-summit AND the main summit are completely sales pitch-free. No products or services will be offered. In fact, we won’t even be selling tickets to the main event during the pre-summit talks! No distractions, no malarky, no filler- content. Just pure value.

CLICK HERE to register for this year’s WBECS complimentary pre-summit series.

I’ve been involved with WBECS since its inception in 2010 and I consider it’s founder, Ben Croft, to be a good friend. Our mission is simply to help business coaches become more successful and deliver more value to clients through higher business coach training.

Last year, 95.1% of coaches who attended the Summit rated it as either very good or excellent and this year we really are stepping it up a notch. (You can check out the WBECS 2014 Infographic here.) This year, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith will be returning along with Ken Blanchard and many other business coaching industry legends who will be presenting complimentary sessions!

Last year, several of the most popular sessions SOLD OUT very quickly last year, so you gotta move fast to get into the business coach training sessions that matter most to you.

Which sessions will you attend? You can pick and choose from the likes of…

• Dr. Marshall Goldsmith – Global Thinkers 50 award winner.
• Ken Blanchard – Business & Leadership thought leader.
• David Peterson – Global Head of Leadership & Development at Google.
• Liz Wiseman – Multipliers Author & Thinkers 50 award winner.
• Carol Kauffman – CEO of Harvard Institute of Coaching.
• Jim Kouzes – Preeminent authority on Leadership.
• Mark Thompson – CEO of Virgin Unite and Richard Branson’s coach.
• Judith Glaser – World leading authority – Conversation Intelligence.
• Jim Clifton – CEO of Gallup, Strengthsfinder.
• Peter Cheese – CEO of Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, 140k members globally.

Together with 54 additional world class thought leaders for our industry. WBECS 2015 is going to be our best summit yet, by far!

CLICK HERE to register for this year’s WBECS complimentary pre-summit series.

Thank you for being a business coach! It takes courage, moxie, and commitment to change the fate of business owners, week in and week out. We need you!

Business Coach Training: 6 Sales All Business Coaches Make

by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training

Donald Trump once said, “Sales and leadership are really the same thing.”

I completely agree.  After all, what’s at the heart of sales?  Gaining commitment.  Helping people buy into your perspective. Getting them to take action on your ideas.

Sounds a lot like leadership to me.

Business coaching is a particular form of leadership that requires the same type of commitment from prospects and clients.  In fact, I often say that even when you’re coaching, you NEVER stop selling (or is that even when you’re selling, you never stop coaching?)!  As part of your business coach training here are the six types of sales successful business coaches must always make:

1. Sell the prospect into talking with you on the phone.
2. Sell the prospect into meeting with you, face to face.
3. Sell the prospect into buying business coaching from you.
4. Sell your client into changing their ways so their business improves.
5. Sell your client into paying your fee for next month based on what you’ve helped them achieve in previous months.
6. Sell the client on how it will benefit them to give you a list of their friends who also need your help.

If you aren’t consciously focused on making these sales on a regular basis, your business coaching practice will struggle.  On the other hand, as you master these six sales, the more effortless your coaching will seem — and the more profitable you’ll become!

To improve your skills, develop simple scripts for each essential sale. Don’t “fly by the seat of your pants” when you know these six situations will come up over and over again — decide in advance what you want to say, and then PRACTICE saying it. If you’re serious about business coach training, then find a coach, colleague, or family member who will role play with you and provide you honest, constructive feedback.  Practice handling objections with ease, clarity, and poise.  There is no substitution for putting in the hard work of perfecting your communication skills and messaging.