Business Coach and Business Coaching Articles

If you’re a longtime reader of my Tip of the Week (thank you!), then you know that every January I ask my clients to pick a word to guide them throughout the year: a word summarizing their intentions for the year to come. I do the same exercise myself using Christine Kane’s powerful workbook, “Your Word of the Year Discovery Tool“. Today, I’m celebrating my last birthday in the fabulous ’50s. Back when I was growing up, we always played the Beatles’ song “Birthday” as part of our celebration. We’d dance around the house and sing along, and it put everyone in a great mood.

A Profitable home based business is quite similar to a traditional business, more so I think, than many realize. In the traditional business world certain laws apply that make profitablility occur. A profitable home based business is no different. Many ideas can be aquired through speaking to many business owners who have knowledge, first hand. Some call it the school of hard knocks I like to refer to it as the school of knowledge. There is a gap between information and knowledge and business owners who enjoy success in any area have traversed that gap.

Have you ever procrastinated on getting out there and marketing yourself, but you don’t know exactly why? Many people that I coach allow the fear of rejection to stop them from marketing their business, and after digging deeper, we discovered it was fears that were holding them back.

I received a voice mail from a s.ales representative: ‘The purpose of my call today is to introduce myself and take a moment to briefly describe for you two core-based technologies; laser Internet on-line office and an Internet broadcasting technology. I don’t know whether or not if any of these applications may be of interest to you, I would appreciate a brief moment of your time to review that.’ They weren’t of interest. I didn’t call back. Well, actually, to be more exact, I didn’t know if they’d be of interest. I am a techno-moron.

Every condition is the result of a thought and everything we think contributes to our success – or lacking. When we consciously choose to let old thoughts go, we open ourselves to new possibilities. In this means we are able to spontaneously change our reality when we change our thoughts, beliefs, intentions and perceptions. Every event is always neutral – any reaction is coming from the memory of a past experience, charging this present moment so that it is no longer neutral.

Secret #10 N: Non-negotiable When you give a client a surprise bonus, you’re over-delivering and practically guar-anteeing customer satisfaction. A satisfied customer is essential. Don’t hold a debate with yourself about whether you should reward a customer. Make the reward non-negotiable. When it comes to clients, you can’t afford to be cheap. You can’t afford not to give them surprise bonuses. The only way to earn more profits is to invest in your clients. Reward them for

What Is Your Reputation With You? By Sandra Abell, MS, LPC, ACC Matt has been a supervisor for several months, yet he continues to struggle with the image of himself in his new role. He knows his job is to lead and manage people, but he doesn’t believe in himself or trust his ability do this well.

Most business owners are great at doing something. Maybe you can create great graphic designs or cook well or maybe you have an eye for art? Somewhere along the way, you have taken what you are great at and turned it into a business. If you have been successful at selling your product or your services, your business has likely grown over time, so you need more employees, more space, defined process and systems, and you probably need a vacation.

Ya, the library. You know, the poster-festooned encyclopedia vault from school days past? You probably spent a lot of time there, researching for science projects and book reports. Remember reaching up on tiptoes to hand your library card to the librarian at the check-out desk? This should bring you back – Encyclopedia Britannica! It’s never too late to join the "look it up club" whose motto was "we never guess, we look it up." Use the library’s valuable resources-even when you can see over the librarian’s desk.

As a small business owner you must protect your brand. Everything you say, do or send affects your brand image. Then, there are the unspoken things that contribute to your brand image. Your interior furnishings can make or break your brand too. My five tips will help you strengthen your brand by taking an honest look at your interior décor. My five tips for branding your business with your interior décor.

I have been fascinated with the field of human development throughout the lifespan and ever since I was introduced to it in graduate school. As a child psychotherapist, I had studied childhood development extensively and came to understand that patterns of human interaction began very early ...

Meet Jack. By the end of 2007, Jack’s business made a little over $820,000 dollars. Today, it looks like Jack’s business will close 2008 at five million dollars. Before you ask how… I want you to know that Jack is probably one of the most simple and peaceful person I ...

Building an email marketing list is non-negotiable when running an online business. As an eseller, you must understand the importance of having a way to contact your prospects otherwise, you surely will not be able to convert them to paying customers. What you can do is to send these people to your squeeze page and convince them to sign up by telling them that doing so will actually benefit them. The question here is, how can you send as much traffic to your squeeze page as p

Picture this: You just made the decision to add speaking to your marketing mix so you get in front of your ideal prospects. You land your first gig. You are thrilled because you have your first real shot at getting in front of a room filled with your ideal prospects. So, you work for hours getting your speech down cold. You spend a lot of effort working out your presentation. You deliver your speech and are quite pleased with your presentation. You’re relieved to finish your talk, the audience claps, and some people take your card. Then you wait. And wait. And wait.

If your ideal clients are on LinkedIn, then you want to be there, too. So create a keyword driven profile on LinkedIn for yourself. Complete every area possible, take a look at the apps (applications/programs) you might want to add, and you’re done… right? Wrong. One of the best ways to dip your feet into a community of new business owners and executives, like LinkedIn, is to ask or answer questions. ANSWERS is a community where other members ask or answer questions to learn and connect with others.

With change comes leaving behind the old and stepping into a new beginning. An ending is what makes the beginning possible. After all, that is the order of things isn’t it? Leaves change and fall from the trees in the autumn only to reemerge in the spring. One day everything seems to be falling apart; and the next day, life goes on as usual. Every change has an ending that prepares us for new growth, new activities, and new beginnings. New beginnings are like new energy released in a new direction. You will notice that you are making new beginnings in your life when you:

Have you ever tried to get a bone away from a dog that is intent on hanging onto it? They sink their teeth into the bone and hold on. They chew on it can play with it for hours before walking away or burying it somewhere. That’s how I feel sometimes when I’m holding onto something ...

When I began my career as a psychologist, I was twenty-five years old, having completed my doctoral degree after twenty-two straight years of schooling (pre-K through to my Ph.D.). To say that I was a bit arrogant is probably understating the issue – I was convinced that I could “fix” any issue that any client presented. As my understanding of the reality of human psychology began to replace the theoretical one I had built up during graduate school, it didn’t take me

Where I see that entrepreneurs lose the most amount of money is when they ask the following question: What do I do next? If you are in the middle of any operational process and you do not know automatically what to do next, you have just lost money. When you hesitate, do not act, or do not act in accordance to a logical system within the business, you have potentially lost a client or the opportunity to earn more money.

Part 1 of 4: Did You Know That You’re Wired to Win? Winning can be defined in several ways. Dictionary.com defines winning as, “to finish first in a race”, to or “to gain the victory”. In each of these definitions, however, it infers someone is going to lose. If you apply the win-lose mindset to the sales process, you’ll end up trying to push. This push sales creates a situation where your customer develops buyer’s remorse and returns the product or you end up spending a whole lot more time trying to satisfy them.

With an estimated 495,000 new businesses starting up each month, new entrepreneurs are searching for financing answers. The key to financing a start-up business is to first understand your business start-up expenses and cash flow cycle. Start-up costs include capital expenditures (hard costs) and working capital (soft costs).

Clients are curious about how I manage to get so much done. They ask how I manage my continuously growing business, travel to speak at association summits and free time for the important people in my life. Before you assume I have a magic wand in my back pocket, I have a number of unanswered emails in my mailbox and, every so often, a few things fall through the cracks.

One of the leading causes of business failure, particularly among small businesses, is poor cash flow planning. It is imperative that a business have sufficient cash on hand to pay bills, meet emergencies and to invest back into the business to ensure growth. Knowing that you will have lean months when sales are slow is an important aspect of planning in terms of putting money aside, but it isn’t the only thing you can do. You can also: 1. Aggressively collect accounts receivable. If you have a customer who has not paid on time, you need to follow up and secure payment.

One of the biggest frustrations of small business owners is simply procrastinating on tasks that they know need to be done, but just don’t do them. Other contributing factors that sideline most entrepreneurs include: not setting clear goals, underestimating the difficulty or time required to complete a project or task, using the excuse of "no time", or trying to make something perfect.

In this new four-part series of articles, we’re going to look at the steps you can take in your own business today to build a sales force that can help you steadily grow your presence in the marketplace in the years ahead. rn rnTo keep things simple and easy to read, the seven points we are going to cover are clustered under four themes: data, people, landscape and planning. For each theme, I’ll share an example to illustrate how to implement to get results. So let’s ge

Recently, a member of my community wrote in to say that she had her Social Media “up and ongoing” and wanted to know how to capture more leads. Social media marketing has been widely popular because it is easily accessible to anyone with internet access. When social media is used in the right way, it can increase engagement, foster brand awareness, and bring in leads.

Your ultimate goal when you operate a business website is to get maximum sales and profits from it. In order to do this, you need to have customers, and to get them, you must find as many was possible to always be generating new leads. One way to do this is by using your own website as a tool. There has been a two-page document released by Conversion Experts and SEOmoz that shows how easy it is to turn your landing page into a page that earns you lots of profits, and here are five excellent tips they have to offer:

Are your sales presentations falling flat? Do you have exceptional products, services and trainings…but no one ever seems to ‘get it’ and you don’t know why? If so, you’ll love these 5 easy steps. Many experienced and new sales presenters struggle with speaking the language of their customers. Recently, I coached a group of new sales reps. They were eager to learn exactly how to give presentations that really connected with their audiences. But after a short time, I noticed a few things that were standing in their way.

A close friend of mine who’s in a similar line of business was complaining to me about himself the other day. It went something like this: “ I sit here at my desk and I find it so hard to get anything of any significance done. And I see you (getting new clients on board and creating new products and launching your licensing system and I feel so frustrated at my lack of productivity compared to yours. How do you do it?” It’s a worthwhile question to contemplate and hop

As what I’ve promised in the first part of this article series, I’ll talk more about internet marketing tools that you can use to generate more traffic to your website. As you know, this is the key to secure more leads, sales, and profit. Article marketing. When talking about very effective traffic-generating tools, you can expect that article marketing will always come up in the discussion. This is because it’s proven to attract attention in the online arena. This is t

Never tried to sell your products and solutions at a whiteboard? One thing is certain. If you don’t try out visual story selling…you are guaranteed not to improve. “Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”rn—Samuel Beckett In whiteboard story selling, you’ll have to test the edges. There simply is no other way to determine what will work, what won’t and how to excel. Along the way, sure you’ll make some doozy mistakes. That’s how you’ll learn.

Start by ensuring you have enough information and data available at your fingertips. That's the secret. If you don't have this, refer back to “More Sales and Marketing Ideas in Less Than Ninety Minutes”. Here are the steps to Creating a Sales and Marketing Strategy quickly and effectively: ...

I don’t believe in Common Sense any more. By definition, Common Sense is the sense that the majority of people use, the sense that is common among people. When I look around and see the “sense” everyone is applying, I want none of it. It doesn’t make sense to live on a diet of high sugar and high fat foods, have a sedentary lifestyle and then wonder why we have such a problem with obesity. Who would have thought that eating foods and drinking fluids that are high in energy while doing no exercise could make you fat?! Quick let’s sue someone because they should have warned us.

Whether you are changing careers or simply changing jobs, both situations can be likened to being a flying trapeze artist. How so? You may ask. They involve risk, reflection, trust, and most certainly thrill.

Ever wonder why whiteboard presentations are so popular with creative teams? If you want to start saving headaches, time and money…whiteboard presenting is the way to go. More and more teams use whiteboards to collaborate, design and share ideas. Game designers. Creative marketing teams. App designers. Innovation groups. Product teams. Engineers. Sales teams. Strategists. Writers. Oops…did I forget someone? It’s a growing list and more than likely your team is part of the wave.

Email marketing to your opt-in list is one of the most effective — not to mention affordable — types of marketing there is. Assuming you’ve built a solid list of people who are interested in the type of information or services you provide, the next critical ingredient is getting your audience to actually read your emails. However, that’s getting more and more difficult to do. Statistics vary. But for sake of argument, a study by the Radicati Group from May 2009 estima

Want to instantly upgrade your energy? Go where there are concentrated doses of goodness! Environments are key in shifting your energy from ‘absence of’ to ‘appreciation for.’ When you’re feeling fizzled out and need to recharge with some gratitude vibes, shift your playground. There’s no better way to soak up and revel in the abundance that Life has on display than to immerse yourself – body, mind and spirit – in the wonder and awe inspiring richness all around you. Here are seven spots, sure to inspire and incite the grace of gratitude:

There’s nothing worse than waking up in the morning realizing you created a successful business but it is taking over your life. You get caught up in the excitement of launching your latest project or marketing tactic only to realize you have to keep it going consistently for it to attract clients. That’s where having a formalized referral system and automation comes in handy. One of my colleagues, has an effective and formalized way of staying top of mind with her referral sources.

You’ve seen the whiteboard advantage—complex problems are made simple. Difficult decisions are made easier. Boring presentations are transformed. Get 6 easy and quick tips to gain this almost unfair advantage. Want to attract business and engage new clients in a whole new way? Most people are nervous about drawing in front of peers or high-profile clients. We don’t want to look foolish. We don’t want to embarrass ourselves. And we definitely don’t want to blow the opportunity.

Seasonal Affective Disorder combined with small business owners’ slow time of the year is a deadly cocktail. Most regions in the United States just turned their clock back one hour. However, many of you are still leaving for work in the dark and getting home when it is dark. You work all day inside an office with artificial light and sometimes artificial people. When you get home you are exhausted and don’t want to work on your business. Does this sound familiar? It may also be your slow season, which gives you no perceived reason to turn on your computer.

As a successful business owner you want nothing more than to thrive by doing what you do best. You want to be of service to your clients and to be valued for that. You want to see the fruits of your labor rewarded. You want to make a good living doing what you love. Of course you do! I do, too.

Small business owners must choose their words carefully when describing what they do. The consumer or customer associates a skill level and product value when he or she hears certain words. Words enable the listener or reader to draw a picture in his or her mind based on his or her life experiences. When a small business owner is developing his presence online or offline through social media, marketing, or public appearances the word he or she uses to describe his or her profession will result in his or her earning potential.

What are you going to do differently to make this year better than last year? Newspapers are going out of business on a daily basis. Television advertisers are leaving in droves. Radio stations are being forced to layoff employees because of declining revenues. Way back in the early 90s, the ...

Living a fruitful life requires you deal with the pits at one time or another. Life isn't easy. No one ever said it was. However, we often get stuck and fall into a stooper that can lead to clinical depression if left unchecked. What stops you from leading a fruitful life? Is it the hard work that is needed to see results? Is it the economic expense or the investment of your time?

Self-confidence has been defined as belief in oneself and one’s abilities, self-assuredness or a feeling of trust in oneself and one’s abilities. When we say that we are confident in a person, we are saying that we trust him or her. When we say a person is self-confident, we are saying that she trusts in herself. As women, we were not born with a lack of self-confidence. In fact, we may have exhibited a fair amount of it in our early lives. There are many forces that have contributed to its erosion as we grew older. These forces are cultural, societal and familial.

These days, online blogs have become a very useful tool for many internet marketers. They have used it to boost their ranking and online visibility in a great way. It is really one of the best ways to boost the visibility of your business. By having a blog in your website you can generate a regular stream of traffic for your website. By blogging regularly on a daily basis you can create a regular follower who will return continuously to read your updates. This will bring regular traffic for your blog and website.

I see people soliciting requests on Facebook for interns for the summer. One business announced they had openings for 24 interns. Really – your business truly needs 24 interns? How is it possibly running now without those billets filled? Do you have staff who can realistically manage 24 interns? Let's talk about an internship. What They Are Notr

Have you ever been absolutely mesmerized by the rhythmic nature of a drum line? If you have, there is that defining moment when the drum line comes together to create an amazing show leaving the audience captivated by their cadence. As a business owner, it is important to captivate your audience. Your consistent action creates a cadence. The cadence creates a connection with your prospects. Saying it another way, you get on a roll and get noticed.

With the current economic recession, yes, I'll use the "R" word, too many small businesses are finding themselves moving in the wrong direction. In many cases, what were once growing, thriving businesses are now heading into a downward spiral of cutbacks, layoffs, and, in too many cases, ...

There’s no doubt about it – bum marketing or article marketing is your best shot in driving search engine traffic to your website. Here are some effective tips to help you boost that traffic in no time: 1. Start the process by identifying and knowing your target audience. It will become much easier for you to produce the type of articles that they’ll appreciate if you know exactly they’re looking for. Do your research and know their preferences, their learning needs,