Why You Need a Marketing Coach

"Why You Need a Great Marketing Coach"
How can business owners earn their highest possible income, while maximizing their valuable time?

Here’s the secret no business professional can afford to overlook: a Marketing Coach will keep you on track.

Just exactly what does a Marketing Coach or Consultant do? Well, she wears many hats.

Whether your company wants to generate more online sales, decrease its staff size, or reach a broader market segment, a Marketing Coach will create an action plan using precisely the strategies needed to achieve your goals.

Often, business owners come to a Coach misled by the belief that a clever logo, tagline, or brochure will bring them new business. While those tools can help with branding, they don’t bring business in the door by themselves. And this is where your Marketing Coach can be an invaluable asset.

A good Coach or Consultant will be able to advise you of what steps you need to take (and when), and what the costs will be. Plus, your coach will be able to teach you when, why, and how you should employ a full range of marketing tools – from redesigning a website, to creating articles or white papers, starting a blog, conducting podcasts, and developing ad campaigns – and she can help you find highly successful strategies that you can leverage without spending a cent.

When you’re in start-up phase, you probably don’t have the time or cash needed to experiment with various marketing strategies. A Coach incorporates your goals and ideas along with their recommended strategies into a unique, step-by-step action plan. They should guide new businesses through the inevitable stages of underpricing their products or services (almost everyone has done that), finding the clients who are truly a great fit for your offerings, and how to ramp up when there is high demand so you’re not working ridiculously long days.

For companies that have been around 15+ years, the issues are quite different. Often the owner is bored and needs help creating new offerings that will again stimulate or challenge them. Perhaps the market has radically changed so they need a completely new set of clients, services, or other income streams to support the business growth. A Coach should guide business owners through these and all the stages of growth, including those where people mistakenly think they should give up.

What are the six critical qualities a Marketing Coach should provide?

Experience. In order to guide you properly the best Coach will already have made hundreds of mistakes on her own, and learned what works and what doesn’t. Also, a great Coach should have experience in dozens of industries, so she can bring you ideas that work in market segments other than yours.

Do your homework, and make sure that your Coach has a solid track record in marketing communications: If she’s advising you about building your website, she should understand Search Engine Optimization (ask her for examples of successes in this area).

Your Coach should have built blogs and websites, written articles that have been published, developed trade show exhibits, created ad campaigns, acheived online and offline placement of PR, created sales materials – from business cards to elaborate brochures, produced events, spoken to organizations, and have conducted actual sales. Sound like a tall order? It should be! Your company’s future success depends on it.

Resources. A great Coach should come equipped with a tested arsenal of resources, from databases to designers, and bookkeepers to benchmarks. Using vendors who are not capable of filling your needs can cost thousands of dollars and hundreds of wasted hours — so use only tested contacts, and have your Coach carefully manage them.

Contacts. Unless she comes to the party with a sizable network, a Coach probably isn’t engaged enough in the community or in your market to find you great opportunities, or at least to recommend where you should seek them. Your ideal Coach should be actively engaged in business, political, educational, or community associations, keep current on strategies, resources and technology that can help you, and will have contacts in industries that will serve you directly or indirectly. For example, if you’re trying to meet small business owners to inform them of your professional services, Your Coach should be able to connect you with 5-10 great associations. Ask your potential Coach which associations she belongs to; this will give you an idea of her ability to help you make beneficial contacts.

Intelligence. Without true business intelligence your Coach can’t possibly grasp what you are trying to achieve, nor can she recommend creative ways to help you meet your goals. Many Coaches stick to a single industry, or have a very limited understanding of how to generate bottom-line results for a company. Find a Coach who has had full responsibility for running a company; from developing the vision to hiring and firing, management, marketing and financials, creating operational systems, developing sales, merchandizing (for retail), and training employees. When you first begin to discuss your business and marketing ideas with your Coach, this intelligence should immediately become obvious. If you feel like you’re not connecting – due to a lack of expertise on the part of your new Coach – don’t prolong the agony! You (and your company) can’t afford to spend time with someone who hasn’t been out in the trenches herself.

Clients who value her. A great Coach has clients who value her because they know she delivers trusted information, guidance, strategy, resources, and results. Read some case studies, and ask your prospective Coach to let you speak with a few clients so you can learn how they have benefited from working with her. This will give you a sense of which Coach will be the best fit for you. Also, make sure to choose a Coach who is truly compassionate, and believes in you and your work. Running a business can be a lonely, hair-pulling struggle, so you deserve someone on your side who will be there when you need her. And, your Coach should understand (and be sympathetic to) all of the emotional phases you’ll be going through as you’re building your business. Some days will be exhilarating, and you’ll be on the top of the world – and some days you’ll feel like pulling the covers over your head. Your Coach should be able to guide you through the bad, and celebrate the good.

Telephone & email consultations. I believe it’s crucial for people to have easy access to their Coach. You may need a second opinion on a large proposal you’re about to send out. Or, you may want someone to review your website updates before you pay a large sum to your web designer to make those changes. You need a Coach who can respond reasonably quickly, so you get help at these critical junctures.
What do Marketing Coaching clients say of Allison Bliss Consulting?
“Allison Bliss is by far, the best marketing professional I have ever had the pleasure of working with. She’s a copywriter, editor, teacher, coach and advisor, all wrapped into one amazing person.

Her ability to laser in on what action plans are going to bring me the most business in the shortest amount of time is nothing less than brilliant. All the ideas are not only attainable, but they’re fun to do and feed into the heart and soul of who I am and how I like to work. What’s even more exciting is she’s laid out an entire year’s worth of actions to take in monthly “chunks,” so I know exactly what I need to do, and when. Oh, and did I mention her speed? I have never seen anyone work as efficiently and fast as she does.

As a human being, Allison is a complete joy to work with as well. She’s a great listener, joyful, passionate and operates directly from her heart. Absolutely no one has put me back on track and lit a fire under me like she has, leaving me more excited about my business than I have been in years.”- Linda Salazar, Awaken The Genie Within®, Personal Life Coaching

"I came to Allison Bliss Consulting because my marketing had stalled out. As much as I could learn about marketing tactics, I always felt that they weren’t getting applied in an effective manner. Everything seemed hit or miss, and I didn’t know if things were working or not. Allison was able to quickly understand what I had already done, and assess what needed tweaking, ramping up, or overhauling. Best of all, she put the activities into a timeline schedule, so that I could concentrate on doing the right things at the right times, and get the best results." - Ian Blei, Consultant, Optimized Results