AMC Waiting for the phone to ring - 20 may 2013

By: Luis Moniz, FrontRunner Career Advisors
20 May 2013
Waiting for the phone to ring?

FrontRunner Blog-Site: http://frontrunnercareers.wordpress.com/

 100% commitment:
● Are you really serious & committed about coaching?
● There’s a lot to learn and figure out, which takes time & commitment
● Almost everyone gets lousy results in the first year - in any start up
● More often than not, the path is slow, plodding & gradual – be prepared for it
 Clarify Your Desires:
● Disliking your job or wanting to make more money is not sufficient motivation
in the long run
● Dig deeper and get clear why you want to live without a job
● The answers are often variations on freedom – both “freedom from” and
“freedom to”

 Managing your cash-flow:
● Fill your financial oxygen tank – have sufficient savings for at least 24 months
● You don’t need to be certified in everything on day one - don’t spend
precious start-up cash unless it’s absolutely necessary
● You need to invest to create your presence in the market - don’t be too stingy
with your cash. Don’t let frugality get in the way of efficiency
● It takes time to develop the wisdom to know when you’re being too tight or too
loose with your cash – get a second opinion.
● An ideal situation, both from a cash flow & productivity angle, is where one
launches with an anchor client – but is very difficult to achieve if one is switching
into something new
● Consider an alternative business line that could generate revenues faster than
your start-up coaching practice

Create a niche that you can “own”
“When I was growing up I always wanted to be someone. Now I
realize I should have been more specific” ― Lily Tomlin

 Key ingredient for success and one cannot emphasize the importance of
this exercise enough
 Think through carefully what it is about your background that would be
attractive to clients and is very different from what others can offer them
 Remember that it is not about what you would like to offer your clients but
about creating the pull to attract clients to you
 Sit in your client’s shoes and talk to a few potential clients among your
circle of friends to get their feedback on your specialty area
 Size of potential market & statistics about market share are irrelevant. You
just need to have enough clients to stay fully productive

 Positioning:
● Probably best to stay as high-end as possible so that you get best trade-in for your
most precious commodity – your time
● Natural tendency to pitch pricing too low initially to get in your first clients but
many clients will not appreciate the value of what you’re giving them if they are
getting it cheap
● Pro-bono work is ok, especially if it allows you to create success stories
● By staying at high-end, chances are that there will be better recognition of value
you’re providing and in the process you’re creating a brand for your business also
● However, clients do expect differentiation from cheaper alternatives & so you need
to be able to demonstrate this to your clients constantly
● Clients pay highest price they can afford & they do not go for cheapest alternative
available and this principle applies to any service offering

 How did you figure out the appropriate
fee level when you started out?
 Were you able to increase your fee level
later? Was it easy to do?

 Visibility:
● Being visible is not about cold-calling or creating a public persona, both of which may
be very contrary to your personal style
● Visibility is about being seen among potential clients and this can be done through a
variety of means which best suit your personal style.
● Choose the ones that best suit your personality & approach:
‒ Actively participate in various LinkedIn networking groups – give generously
‒ Publish a blog or a thought leadership piece in the press
‒ Create a website
‒ Speak at or attend conferences which your clients attend,
‒ Join industry associations relevant to your target client market
‒ Sharing very useful and topical information with your potential clients
‒ Informal socializing with potential clients or their influencers

 Visibility:
● Once you have created right amount of visibility, chances of clients
remembering to call you when they have a need will be very high
● Being invited to pitch means that the client has decided to hire you
(subject to commercial terms being acceptable) or is very close to
deciding to hire you and is only evaluating what you have to offer
against a handful of other choices
● Never lose any opportunity to evangelize
● Don’t be shy to ask for recommendations and referrals

 What has been your most effective
channel to create visibility?
 Any innovative channels that have been
used?

 Niche - Create a niche that you can “own”
 Positioning – Always best to be positioned
at the highest end
 Visibility – Become visible in places where
you can interact with potential clients

 Focus on delivering an outstanding coaching experience to your
clients
 Aspire to achieve trusted advisor status
 Remain flexible – new opportunities come from places you least
expect
 Engage a mentor coach
 Have a support group
 Have fun coaching – relax, learn from every session but don’t mull
on post-mortems

 Everyone has a super power or specialty area. What is yours?
 What is the value of that specialty area to others?
 How do you communicate that value so that people take
notice of it?
 How can you use it to become one of THE go-to professionals
in your market place?
As coaches we are passionate about developing leadership
abilities of our clients. There’s no reason not to focus on
achieving leadership in our own coaching practices

AMC Waiting for the phone to ring - 20 may 2013

AMC Waiting for the phone to ring - 20 may 2013

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AMC Waiting for the phone to ring - 20 may 2013