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Starting Your Own Coaching Business – Start with Telling Your Story

Starting Your Own Coaching Business – Start with Telling Your Story

I teach my clients the power of telling their own story as they start their own businesses, with this phrase: Your Truth Will Set Them Free. This is one of the biggest neon light mistakes that I see helping professionals make.

They believe that this has nothing to do with them. "I need to focus on the clients and what the clients need. I need to make sure that I'm looking at their problems and their struggles and I'm working towards it." They don't tell their stories.

There's nothing that I hate more than going to someone's website or reading their marketing materials and reading a bio. Everybody goes, "But I'm supposed to have a bio on my website. I'm supposed to have an ‘About Me' on my website."

Bios are credentials and, for the most part, pretty boring. What is fascinating, what enables you to connect with someone and enables you to really care about someone and discover empathy, is when you tell your story. This is so vitally important when you are building relationships with potential clients.

Don't tell the Cinderella version, tell the ugly step-sister, the warped version. It is your mistakes that really are going to leverage your clients to their own success.

For example, I'll share that I did some things in the beginning of my business that, had I known what I know now, I certainly would have done them differently.

I worked way too hard in the beginning. Way too hard! I put in a lot of hours that were not necessary. I will admit to that. I also took on every client that came my way. If I could nab them, I took them. That was something that didn't serve me well in the long run.

I also followed the marketing "gurus". I believed that if I just do everything exactly their way, this would work for me. The result was that I was exhausted, a little bit confused, and really frustrated. What happened was I didn't have a core message.

I thought, "I've got to have a name. It's got to be cute. It's got to appeal to people. It's got to be as big as Pepsi and Coca-Cola."

That only made me exhausted. It came to the point where I really stopped trying to create this business that seemed like a 24-story building in some imaginary business land. I just said, "This is who I am. The best thing that I have to offer is me."

Your truth will set them free. Your journey, your mistakes, how you overcame obstacles and your conclusions, this is the insight your clients are looking for.

You know that your bio is about everything that you've accomplished. Maybe you have 67 credentials and maybe you talk about where you went to school. Maybe it's talking about your kids or your family - and those things are important as well. People like to hear about them.

But what's most important is: Why you? What's your story? If you're going to work with parents having difficulties with their kids and you're going to be a parenting coach, what's your story in that? Why are you coming to this area? What do you have to bring to other parents?

Was it that you struggled as being a parent and now you really made a turn and now you can share this with other people? Was it that you had an extraordinary parenting situation that maybe wasn't so pleasant but taught you a lot that you can now share with others?

If you're a health coach, what's your story around health? You wouldn't be drawn to something that you don't have a story about or that you don't have a stake in or something in your life didn't bring you to it.

If you answer, "Oh, I don't know what my story is," I ask you to really dig deep. It's there. It may be covered up or it may be something that you're afraid to share, but it's definitely there. Share your story. It is what opens people up to wanting to work with you.

 





Starting Your Own Coaching Business Start with Telling Your Story - To learn more about this author, visit Suzanne Evans's Website.

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Leanne Hoagland-Smith
Are your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website

Linda Richardson
Linda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website

Casey Gollan
Casey Gollan, Business Coaching & Mentoring Programs. Add $1 Million to $10 Million in the next 1 to 3 years. Since 1996 Casey has to added hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses. Watch a free video see client results Business Coaching website. - Visit Casey Gollan's Website

Joe Dager
Joe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website

Staging Diva
Debra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website

Jeff Foster
WebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas.  We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing
- Visit Jeff Foster's Website

Stephanie Robey
Stephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals.

She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com   Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences.  Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University.

Read Steph's Blog
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- Visit Stephanie Robey's Website

David Acheson
David Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns.  David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website


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Suzanne Evans
(Visit Suzanne's Website) Suzanne is most commonly referred to as an "action expert". She has lectured, trained, inspired, and provided coaching and consulting services to thousands of business owners in the last two years alone. After working for the nation's largest union, being a professional actress, a nationally ranked water skier, a high school teacher, and an Assistant Producer to five Broadway shows (all before the age of 30), Suzanne began using her life experiences to coach a wide range of people on living their fullest potential. She created a private coaching practice with over 40 clients in one year, launched three businesses in a four-month timeframe, and took her business from 0 to six figures in 15 months. Action comes naturally for Suzanne! Learn how to help more people, make more money and enjoy more freedom with the free 5-day mini course, "Awakening Your Authentic Entrepreneur," at http://www.HelpMor ePeople.com/minicourse.htm

Suzanne Evans is a Gold author on EvanCarmichael.com
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