Books v Programs: $ vs $$

Posted on 05 October 2009 by Nicola

I’m doing a bit of research on what Andrea J Lee’s been up to lately in preparation for our teleclass next week (click here to sign up for the call) and stumbled across this great blog post by Andrea, so I thought I’d share it with you – Andrea does have a skill for explaning things clearly.
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In my capacity as product-creating, funnel-building coach/consultant, I hear certain questions repeatedly.

One of them is:

“If I’m offering this material in XYZ format, why would anyone buy the same material in another format?”

In this context, think in terms of XYZ usually being a lower-priced item such as a book, or, say a 3-part teleclass versus a 2 day live training event or lengthier program.

The best answer I have to this comes like so:

‘It’s a good question…tell me, what is the name of one of your favorite musicians or music groups.’

The answers here are quite fun. I’ve had everything from Andrea Bocelli, Roberta Flack, Billy Joel, The Ramones.

This answer in hand, I then ask… ‘Well, if you have their CDs or MP3s, why would you ever go to a concert?’

This way of answering is an example of a shorthand coaching moment, within what is arguably a very consulting- oriented conversation. Most consultants would not take this tack, agree?

Value comes in many forms, indeed, and not just in obvious ways. Keep this in mind as you productize or strategize your next SKUs. What name would you give the value you are creating? Is it the equivalent of a concert? CD? Other?

A great little extension of this occurred this week, wherein the coachee answered the name of their favorite band, and said in addition that it was a very sad thing that he’d never had a chance to go to a concert and they regretted it greatly! So the extra learning became available – in what manner could the ‘concert’ they were to create – live training, keynote speech, etc. – be so valuable and so rich and intense an experience, that word would get around and people would regret missing it?

Great coaching or consulting or business rule number one: have something great to say. That requires some ongoing thought, and inevitably involves finding and developing your thought leadership.

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Crafting coaching moments like this is one of my favorite activities. There are five more available in the Money and Meaning book excerpt available here. Takes less than a minute to avail yourself and – it’s as easy a read as this post was. Why not go for it?

This post was taken from Andrea’s blog. If you like it, and want to read more, go to www.andreajlee.com/blog.

Coach Online: JigsawBox Tour

Posted on 01 October 2009 by Nicola

I’ve just recorded a very quick tour of the new JigsawBox: a tool that lets you deliver your content and coaching online.

Have a look and leave me a comment with your feedback below… Do you like it? Hate it? Does it inspire you to think differently about the way you could be helping your clients? Let me know.

(Click on the bottom right of the video if you want a full screen view).

If you want to get onto the priority list to get advanced notice of when the next (limited) launch of JigsawBox is coming, click here to sign up.

Successful Coaches: Andrea J Lee’s Story

Posted on 30 September 2009 by Nicola

Successful Coaches: Andrea J Lee’s Story

What business model does she use? How could you learn from her mistakes?

Nicola BirdMy name is Nicola Bird, founder of More Than Your Time, where I help coaches and consultants create and market ways to sell more than their 1:1 time. I want to introduce you to the first of a series of teleseminars: Successful Coaches. Here I’ll be interviewing coaches with ‘successful’ businesses and finding out what makes their business model such a good one, and what we can all learn from their experiences.

My own business was inspired by reading Andrea J Lee’s book Multiple Streams Of Coaching Income, and I know many of you have already listened to my teleclass with Andrea called How To Sell More  Than Your Time. If you haven’t listened, you should quite frankly, as this will radically change the way you think about your coaching business. Get your free copy of How To Sell More Than Your Time here.Andrea J Lee, author of Multiple Streams Of Coaching Income

Not only is Andrea an award-winning author, she is also a  coach, consultant and online business manager to entrepreneurs on five continents, as well as being an inspiring person to listen to and learn from. Now join me as I interview Andrea as a great example of a coach with a highly successful business. What could you learn from her experiences?

  • What Andrea’s current business model is and how did she get there
  • Where the idea for ‘Multiple Streams of Coaching Income’ came from and where it’s going to
  • What she learned from working as General Manager to Thomas Leonard at Coachville
  • What 3 mistakes she made on the way and how you can learn from them
  • Where she’s heading next

When is the call?

Tuesday 13th October at 8pm GMT/ 12pm PST/ 3pm EST

How do I sign up?

Just leave your details below for instant access to the call details. And it’s free.

Yes, please register me for the free call ‘Successful Coaches: Andrea J Lee’s Story’ 

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Will you still have a business in 2010?

Posted on 24 September 2009 by Nicola

There’s no doubt about it, we’re in a tough market right now. There’s talk that we’re starting to come of the recession, but there are still many challenges in the coaching market that will continue into 2010.

One you might not have thought of (and I hadn’t until Hannah MacNamara mentioned it on our teleinterview) is that with more people being made redundant and looking for new careers, setting up as a coach can be a very appealing option.  What does this mean for you? Well perhaps more competition for the coaching work out there for a start. But also competition that is probably very well connected, may have worked in an organisation as an internal coach for a while and would win a coaching contract over you in a second.

There are also budget cuts in organisations, but also in personal households, where, let’s face it, there never was a budget for coaching in the first place. And when people or organisations are considering spending what precious funds they have, they seek advice from others and ask their opinion before they spend. The question for you here is, can they explain to their financial director/husband exactly what they want to spend the money on?

Both of these things could mean, and I don’t mean to scaremonger, but let’s be realistic, that if you can’t address these crucial factors in the coaching market right now, you might not have a coaching business in 2010.

So, on a brighter note, what can you do over the next 3 months to make sure you’re one of the ones who ‘makes it’ and even flourishes (because there is actually plenty of work out there if you just know where to look)?

Hannah suggested these 3 key steps:

1. Be business-like. Know what you’re offering, who you’re offering it too and build a compelling and easily explained case for buying the benefits of what you offer.

2. Be market aware. Know what the market wants by doing some proper research, then make a decision and stick to it with regards to your strategy based on facts, rather than jumping on every new marketing bandwagon you see. Know where the work is and go after it.

3. Stand out from the crowd. Be decisive, work out what the authentic you is all about and build a coaching business it. You’d be suprised how many people don’t.

Want to know more of Hannah’s advice? Listen to the recording of the call here.

Hannah McNamara – what should I ask?

Posted on 03 September 2009 by Nicola

I’m interviewing Hannah McNamara on 10 September on the topic of ‘What hannahmcTo Do Right Now To Make Sure 2010 is the Year Your Coaching Business Takes Off’ (register for the call here) as a way to help her promote her fantastic programme How To Find Your Niche, Your USP and The Market That’s Hungry For Your Services. I’ve had so many questions from people who’ve registered, but I won’t have time for them all. 

Here are some examples, but what do you want me to grill Hannah on most – she’s a feisty lady and I’d like to give her a challenge quite frankly. Why haven’t YOU signed up yet for her programme for example? 

  • What will be the greatest challenges for the coaching industry in 2010?
  • What 3 things could I do to be best placed to meet them?
  • You’re bound to say defining your niche is one of them (yes, this is a promotional call!): why?
  • My niche is coaching women, but someone told me that’s not really a niche – is that true?
  • If I specialise in working with one particular part of the market, that’s turning away work. Why would I want to do that in the current economic climate?
  • Your course costs £497. I’m struggling financially. Tell me why on earth I should spend what little cash I have on this?
  • Can you explain a bit more about the Coaching Stars Club (you get 6 months free as one of the bonuses if you’re one of the first to sign up).  What exactly do I get?
  • There are so many people out there bombarding me with free information about growing my business, why should I pay anything at all?
  • How long will it take me to crack this ‘nicheing’ thing once and for all if I sign up?
  • Do you just help me find my niche, or does the programme provide help for how to market once I’ve done just that?
  • What guarantees do you offer with the programme?
  • Can I pay in installments?

Leave me your questions and comments below and join us for the call to see how she handles being put on the spot!

WishList Member: a great way to build your first membership site?

Posted on 04 August 2009 by Nicola

If you’re reading this I’m going to presume you’re aware of the benefits of running a membership site (continual stream of income, ability to protect certain parts of your content from non-subscribers, you can help many people instead of just working 1:1 with them etc). But what if you want to test the idea and see if it will work for you?

I’ve been doing some research for my own membership site and I wanted to share my findings about WishList Member with you. So here are 7 ways it can help you:

1. It’s affordable. For a $97 one-off fee you’re up and running and when you’re just testing the idea of a membership site, this can be really appealing.

2. It works with WordPress. If you already use WordPress, you know how great that is, and if you haven’t come across it yet, WordPress is basically a free, simple to install blogging platform that allows you to create website pages and posts easily. WishList Member allows you to protect the parts of the pages and posts that you choose so that non-subscribers cannot access them. There are instructions on how to install WordPress when you join WishList Member so you don’t have to get that set up first.

3. It’s simple (a big plus for a beginner!). There are loads of short help videos taking you step by step through each of the functions, which you can take a look at before you even sign up and there’s a written guide and responsive helpdesk if you do manage to get stuck on your way.

4. WishList Member is integrated with shopping carts and autoresponders such as 1shoppingcart.com, Paypal and Aweber so you can take recurring payments from your subscribers and keep in touch with them automatically. For example when someone cancels their Paypal subscription for your site, they are automatically denied access from that point, meaning you don’t have to worry about checking each of your subscribers has paid that month.

5. You can allow different subscribers access to different parts of your website, so that you can have a ‘silver’, ‘gold’ and ‘platinum’ level of membership, and you can also allow different parts of your content to be available after a certain time. For example you might want to offer a 7 day trial with access to only part of your site. If the member does not cancel their subscription after the 7 days, you can set it up so that they are automatically given access to the rest of your content.

6. You can show part of your great content, with members needing to subscribe before they can access what lies behind the ‘read more’ button. This is a great way to get people interested in your content and give them a bit of a taster of what to expect.

7. Without trying to sound like a salesperson – there’s a 30 day money back guarantee, so if you don’t like it, you can always get your money back!

For all these reasons, if you’re starting your first membership site, WishList Member is a great tool to try out. By all means go for the more expensive, flashier membership site providers once you’re up and running and you’ve tested out your idea on the market. WishList Member is used by many established membership sites too, but for the beginner it’s a bit of a godsend!

Still not convinced? Listen to the audio download of my interview with Stu McLaren, one of the creators, where he talks all about the benefits of membership sites, the different membership models you can create, and how to get and attract subscribers.

What ideas do you have for yours?

Multiple Streams Of Coaching Income

Posted on 02 August 2009 by Nicola

Yes please! I’d like some of that I hear time and again from coaches that sell only their telephone and face-to-face coaching services.MSbookcover

My advice to you? Buy Multiple Streams of Coaching Income by Andrea J Lee. This is a 297 page book but is really easy reading as Andrea expresses so well the pain and frustration faced by many coaches all around the world who sit there with empty spaces in their diaries where client bookings should be, and empty bank balances when their coach training companies promised them they would be full.

Chapters include stressing the need for coaches to stop coaching just 1:1 to grow successful business and asks you if you’re up to changing your mindset about this. This is followed by some great tips on choosing your niche, and on the essential of then marketing to that niche, before finally moving onto what I consider to be the really exciting stuff: how to actually create those multiple streams.

There are so many ideas here: eBooks and Teleseminars we know about, but Andrea explains how to use online memberships, companion coaching programmes, live trainings and coaching gyms amongst the ways to generate those multiple streams and move not just into creating products, but to consider ways of coaching 1: many instead of just 1:1.

This is followed up by the Money Game, the principles of which are explained by Andrea as you get to play it live during the recording of my interview with her that you can listen to free at How To Sell More Than Your Time if you haven’t already.

If you buy one book to help you generate passive revenues this year, I recomment Andrea Lee’s Multiple Streams Of Coaching Income. Andrea is the be-all and end-all when it comes to turning your desire for helping others into products that help you make money. Michael Port.

And I can’t argue with that.

Get your copy here. It’s only $24.99 and you get the pdf version straight away. Let me know what you think of it.

Go On Holiday and Have a Rest!

Posted on 29 July 2009 by Nicola

As you read this, I due to touch down at Heathrow after 26 hours in the air with 3 children under the age of 6, and one of those not even having their own seat. What a nightmare! But I’m writing this to you to ask for your sympathy (well, maybe just a little!), but to demonstrate the power of automating your marketing.

 
I will be nowhere near my computer this week, but my subscribers will receive my newsletter, 3 blog posts (including this one) will go live, my articles on ezinearticles will continue to drive traffic to my site, as will my 40 or so scheduled tweets.
 
When people arrive at my site and opt-in, they’ll be sent an email to welcome them and send them a free audio download automatically, along with a series of email tips so I will have contacted them several times and started to build a relationship before I next log-in.

 
But why should you care about all this? Because you have no idea how nice it is to go on holiday and know that you’re business continues to grow and generate revenue for you while you’re away. And because by automating your marketing and creating products that allow you to sell more than your time, while building a team of people around you that can help, you can experience that feeling too.
 
Take any ‘successful’ coach: Hannah McNamara, Karen Skidmore, Biana Babinsky, Andrea J Lee or CJ Hayden to name a few and you’ll notice that they are all using this business model and this is a crucial reason why they have managed to create really successful and profitable coaching businesses, when so many coaches fail. (They’re also all fantastic coaches, but you’ve got that part cracked already haven’t you?).
 
So this week, I’d like to invite you to listen this interview I recorded with Karen Skidmore of www.CanDoCanBe.com earlier this year where she talks about how to automate your business. Take just one of the steps she outlines and put it into practice when you go away this summer. And why not resolve that by the time you go away next year, you’ll be continuing to grow your business and your revenues the whole time you’re away?
 
Enjoy and leave a comment to let me know what you thought of the call.

 

In addition I will have generated income from my coaching products which don’t require me to physically be there, and my affiliates will have promoted these for me too. In the meantime my developers will be working hard on the next phase of JigsawBox, my online coaching tool, thus adding more value to my business and the coaches who use it, again, without me being there.

1shoppingcart.com: how to automate your business

Posted on 27 July 2009 by Nicola

Why would you want to get an autoresponder, and why does 1shoppingcart do it for me?

  • You need a sign up form to allow your website visitors to ‘opt-in’ to your mailing list. Most autoresponder services allow you to create an opt-in form very simply. For example in 1shoppingcart  you can create one in less than a minute that asks your subscriber for their name and email address. You are then provided with the html code to copy and paste into your website. You don’t have to understand anything about html code, you just need to know how to copy and paste!
  • You can choose which page to direct people to straight after they have opted in. This allows you to send them to a thank you page with a download they have signed up for, or to a particular sales page or article you want them to see, at the point they are the most interested in what you have to offer. Again, 1shoppingcart  makes it really simple by asking you to include which url you want people to arrive at after they press ‘submit’.
  • Autoresponders allow you build relationships with people without you having to manually them out to individuals. If it takes up to 7 or 8 times for someone to even remember you exist, an autoresponder is a great way to send someone 7 or 8 great tips, or a short e-course so that your reader can learn to know, trust and like you before you try to sell them anything.
  • 1shoppingcart  also allows you to start off with a simple autoresponder package, and then add on extra features such as (you’ve guessed it!), a shopping cart when you want to start to sell digital products, an affilate system and a digital download service as your business needs grow.

Warning! I started off with a simple autoresponder system provided by www.i-contact.com which was excellent I have to say. My problem was that when I decided I needed the extra functionality that 1shoppingcart  offered me and decided to switch, I lost half of my mailing list.

This is because you can’t simply import all your contacts’ details, but for spam regulations, you have to ask them to re-regsiter. And generally people are lazy and they don’t!

So begin with the end in mind, get yourself a system that does everything you will eventually need it to do and just buy the bits you need to start with.

And I took a look around at all the experts and successful people in my business and realised they were using it, and if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me!

That’s why I recommend 1shoppingcart  - but what do you think?

Great Summer Reads

Posted on 21 July 2009 by Nicola

I’m currently reading Michael Gerbers E-Myth Mastery: The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company. In this book, Michael uses case studies and decades of experience to demonstrate how most businesses fail because of a lack of vision which creates a whole mass of misdirected and so unproductive activity. In short, he stresses the importance of taking the time to work ON rather than just IN your business.  This is a great read for any of you who are serious about growing your coaching business.

This holiday, why not try these? (links provided for you so you can have a better look)
 
Get Clients Now! by CJ Hayden
Niche Marketing For Coaches by Hannah McNamara
The Dip and/or Purple Cow by Seth Godin
The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
What is your favourite business book?

I always take one inspiring read away with me on holiday so that I feel rejuvenated and fired-up, raring to go when I get back, I highly recommend choosing a book like this that you can really get stuck into without the distractions of day-to-day work. Here are a few other ideas for books to take away with you, why leave a comment below and post your suggestions of your favourite biz book and why.

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