Creating your ideal coaching practice….
Part of building your ideal coaching practice is putting together the “dream team” needed to bring your vision of business success to life.
Or, a method I prefer, you can build a dedicated team around you. A team that consists of team members who know you and your company and the other team members; team members who are a star in their own field - or fields; team members who help you build your company stronger in a consistent way. Team members who have their own business but who will regard you as the team-leader.
When you’ve built just such a team, you’ll find their input is more valuable than diamonds or gold. Liz Strauss writes in her post
How What You Know Can Kill a Business and Thanks for Listening When I Call:
We think we can be the business and still represent the customer. As a result, we end up only thinking that we’re delivering on what the customer wants or needs. The reality is
We can’t be the business and the customer at the same time.
A certain kind of thinking goes into building a product or service. Decisions are made about how the offer works and why it works as it does. When it comes time to judge the value of the finished offer, those who did the thinking can’t forget what they know about how it was made.
It’s impossible to participate in the thinking that builds something and then to respond as if you don’t know what that thinking is.
Creating your ideal coaching practice is going to take quite a bit of TEAM BUILDING on your part.
In other words, it takes a village to build a one person business.
Do I need two web sites or one?
One of the reasons coaching as a profession appeals to SO many bright and talented people is that they see coaching as a way for them to break out of the “box” imposed upon them by Corporate America.
For example, Nancy is an aspiring coach. She works for a Fortune 1000 company and while at work she is defined as “Nancy in accounting”. Nancy’s degree and aptitude in accounting are indeed what got her the job, but from Nancy’s point of view she’s a whole lot more than just accounting. In addition to having a knack with numbers, Nancy is also an exceptional organizer and she’s done a lot of work on “clearing clutter”, both the emotional AND physical variety.
It’s natural, as Nancy steps out to launch her business and begin working for herself for her to want to COMBINE her skills in accounting with her organizational skills. As any self employed person will tell you, it’s virtually impossible to divorce who you are from the services you provide. The web developer whose hobby is dog breeding will find her love of dogs permeates all she does in web development. Meanwhile, Nancy is all about “accounting_clearing_emotional_and_physical_clutter”.
So, Nancy launches her new business which offers the following services:
- Accounting and bookkeeping services
- Coaching services focused upon helping her clients deal with emotional and physical clutter.
Like every other bootstrapping entrepreneur, Nancy would rather launch one web site which focuses both on her accounting services (which she offers as a supplemental stream of income) as well as well her coaching services. It’s the web equivalent of killing two birds with one stone… right?
Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding “NO!”
Nancy needs TWO web sites, one for each of her two business ventures and the reason is NOT to frivolously pad some web developer’s bank account.
Nancy needs to think of her two businesses as two separate boats tied to a pier on the lake. If your businesses are small enough for your to consider using a single web site to promote all of them, then this word picture is for you. The water is deep and the boats you offer are small. Your prospective customer’s first thought will be, “Can that tiny little boat REALLY get me to the other shore?”
When you try to promote two micro businesses with a single web site, you are asking your potential client to put a foot into one tiny boat and the other foot into the other tiny boat. While a few brave X-treme sport style souls may bravely do so, most of your web site’s visitors will be frightened off by the prospect of either choosing which boat to use OR trying to balance between the two boats.
Of course a case can be made that the same analytical thought processes that make Nancy SUCH a great accountant are the same thought processes that make her a great organizational clutter busting coach. However, if Nancy tries to promote BOTH her businesses via the same web site, she’ll be spending a LOT of time trying to explain why these two businesses are a great fit rather than spending that time and energy explaining why someone should hire her as their accountant and/or their coach.
Instead of giving too many choices on one web site…. Nancy should launch two web sites. She can rest secure in the knowledge that her clutter busting clients, once they’ve experienced her methodical thinking will want to move from the coaching boat to the accounting boat and put their finances into her capable hands. On the other hand, Nancy’s accounting clients may make a comment about not being able to find a vital receipt… which Nancy can treat as an invitation to introduce another service she offers: Clutter Busting Coaching.
Offering too many choices is overwhelming. Tightly target your message to your tightly targeted audience… which means two web sites instead of one.
Take a look around and you’ll see that most professionals who make a good living on the internet have 5, 10 or even 20 web sites… each one tightly targeted to a specific product and a specific audience. Begin with one… then add the next. It’s the best path to take.
How important is a web site for coaching professionals?
According to Carol Solomon, developing an effective, professional web presence should be your #1 priority.
In her post, Attracting Your Perfect Clients Online she writes:
Your potential clients are looking to find someone with your skills online. They EXPECT to find you online. They expect you to answer certain questions on your website, such as “Can you help me?” before they contact you. It’s a bit of a screening process. They can search for and evaluate several practitioners in minutes. It’s easier, more efficient and less risky for your potential client to search the web than to call you right away. If they resonate with what’s on your website, and they are ready to take an action step, then they contact you.
Your website is the front door of your business. It has a big job to do. It needs to reach off the page and speak clearly to the needs of your potential clients. You need to communicate a professional image through your site, and you need to do it quickly. Why? Consumers make decisions in a matter of seconds. If you don’t have a compelling web presence, your potential clients will be gone in 1 click.
However, just having a web site may not be enough.
Kathleen Gage writes:
Making money on the Internet can be like baking a cake. If you don’t have all the right ingredients in the correct order you could have a total flop on your hands. On the other hand, when your systems are in place you can be extremely successful and have a very tasty outcome.
Patsi Krakoff over at writing on the web has added her 2 cents to the subject:
The process of article writing and distribution is a tool for credibility and positioning. So is blog posting. And newsletter publishing. But if you don’t have these 8 critical elements in place, well, you are writing to the wind. And you probably won’t make money.
Yes, a well designed professional web site (or blog) is essential to your coaching business. As a coaching professional, your web site’s goal MUST be to establish trust with potential clients. Trust is established on many different levels and through many different avenues. Two of the most common are:
- The design of the web site…. the colors and images used and how they are presented, will make a HUGE impact on first time visitors. Your business web site is NOT a job to be entrusted to Uncle Harry’s neighbor’s son who plays in a garage band, wears and multicolored mohawk and dabbles in web development using his pirated copy of Dreamweaver.
- The content of the web site is also crucial to building trust. Because you can’t build trust with a single web page or article, many coaching professionals are turning to blogs for their web presence. Shonnie Lavender shares some essential tips on building trust with your business blog.
In the end, like it or not, your coaching web site is literally the FACE of your business. In many cases, it’s the first (and sometimes last) thing your potential clients see. It’s the most important investment you’ll make in your business.
