Conquering the Obstacles of Coaching in 2012

Posted on 25 January 2012 by

Obliterate the Obstacles!If you are like me, every single year from just after Christmas to just before February I work through my list of resolutions. Some I keep. Some I drop. Some I tuck away until I have more time or inclination to deal with them, and I repeat this pattern year after year after..you get the picture.

I promised myself, however, that this year would be different and regardless of what the issues were – there would be no obstacle so insurmountable that it could not be dealt with and demolished. This got me thinking about all the coaches I have met and worked with over the course of 2011 and some of the struggles that they go through. Their obstacles are no different than anyone else’s, but what sets them apart is the way they deal with them.

The most successful of coaches are able to expose that sheer determination that is the common thread amongst them. Here are some of the most common obstacles, ways to fight through them, and come ways to fight through your obstacles and come out stronger and better than ever!

1. Reflection

2011 – Was it a good year? Was it the worst year in your coaching life? Reflection is a touchstone to being the best coach because we can look back and say to ourselves, “I didn’t learn enough skills to understand how to teach this person.” Or “I should have gotten my social media strategy in line more because I can see how it might increase my revenue.” Reflecting on 2011 means that you can identify the issues that you might have had and use the solutions to those problems in 2012.

Make a list of all of your “woulda”, “coulda”, “shoulda” and start to determine how you can use those this year, turning them into your “done”.

2. Education

So you reflected – fantastic…but what about your skills? Have you stopped learning because you think you have everything you need and know all the methods of coaching in existence? If you had to think about this, I can give you a million reasons for why you should never stop learning, but the one that counts is: Learning is forever.

Understanding the latest techniques and coaching tips (like the ones you find here at JigsawBox) only helps to improve your coaching abilities and gives a solid foundation for growing your techniques.

3. Vision Board

Some people laugh at this, others take it seriously. All I can say is.. before you start falling over with laughter, try it out.

The vision board is the visual representation of your goals and dreams – why not apply that to your coaching programs? Visualize what you want out of 2012. If you want an active subscriber list of 5000 or 50000 tack that number to the board and then beneath it, a list of the ways you are going to get there. Use this board to give yourself the incentive to succeed and the rewards that are at the end of that success. I use vision boards to work out what mistakes I’ve made with my small business and then identify the patterns that led to those choices. The vision board is the physical manifestation of a path to “guide” me out of repetition.

After reading this blog I would love to know how you work out your obstacles! Can’t wait to see the responses!

Organization for Better Business Building

Posted on 14 December 2011 by

Organization I am not someone that could be called inherently organized. In fact, if I am being true to myself, not only am I not inherently organized, I believe that the gene actually skipped one generation and belongs to my mother. I’m envious of this! However, one of the greatest skills that I have had to learn is to maintain technological organization. In fact, for coaches I feel that understanding the need for this particular gift is an essential building block making your business a success.

So what do I mean by technological organization?

Think about it. Our calling card now exists on the internet. We have our websites, our social media accounts, our seven billion e-mail addresses, IM’s and communication tools, and an abundance of other platforms from which we launch. Having all of these can be difficult and confusing, we might lose track of what we were doing, where we were doing it, who we were talking to, or even how we are communicating. Why should we have that hassle when we can improve these skills, consolidate it all and focus on the meat of the business. It is time to become that tech savvy coach that I know all of you are.

Here are two ways you can improve your technological organizational skills:

Weed and Harvest

Remember those previously mentioned social media accounts? Time to weed out the ones that aren’t working, gather the ones that are, and put them all in one central location where you control them. Take an hour and decide which accounts you actually need versus which ones you want just so that you can expand your virtual profile. The same can be done with e-mail accounts and pruning them for the most active. If you aren’t seeing constant contact with a particular e-mail address, eliminate it. More is not always better.

Centralize It

Now that you simplified, weeded out the bad, and kept the most important accounts – how do you make it even easier? Simple! You look at programs that will make you more efficient with your time. Look into and then choose from one of the number of services which bring together your accounts. Examples of these can be TweetDeck or HootSuite. From these you’ll be managing all of those social media accounts from one deck which leaves you more time to focus on your products, your client lists, or building your business.

The sooner you start pruning, the more time you will find in your schedule to start focusing on generating income and achieving those goals.

5 Tips to Use Google to Gain More Affiliates

Posted on 23 February 2011 by

In a previous post I gave you some ideas on how to grow your affiliate list and I hope you’ve been working on that, I want to share some specific actions you can take using Google to help you grow your affiliate list even more.

Everyone has heard of Google, and one of the things that is so great about this is that it’s free!  This post will show you 5 tips to use Google to help you find more affiliates to reach out to and help you grow your affiliate army.

1. Make a list of roughly 10 to 20 keywords related to your product or service.  For JigsawBox I would use terms like online coaching, passive income, etc.  So, take a few minutes and brainstorm some keywords that really relate to your business.  You may know them already since you’re using keywords to optimize your website – right?

2.    Take that keyword list and expand on it by adding more words to help you find people.  For example, I would search for something like passive income and coaching or coaches.  You may want to add extensions like book, ezine, ebook, etc.  These will help you find people that are using these marketing techniques so that you know they are collecting email addresses and have a great list.  You will now find that your list of 10 to 20 keywords has now grown to like 50 or more!

3.    Search, take your keywords and now do a Google search for every keyword and every keyword with the extensions you’ve brainstormed too.

4.    Start with “high rankers” – the companies that come up on the first few pages of your Google search are the ones that are going to be most important to you.  Why?  Because coming up first or close to the top on a web search means that these companies get a lot of views of their pages.  Just think, every time someone does a Google search for the keywords you’ve entered, they see those websites.  These are the people you want to have as your affiliate.  So not only are they credible or established in your niche but they also know what they’re doing in terms of marketing. Because I know what happens many times with the coaches that I work with is they will say “There’s this great website that everybody goes to in our niche but they’re not collecting website addresses or they’re not actively out there promoting.” So actually there’s not a lot they can do because they’re not marketing savvy in that respect whereas the people who are at the top of the pages on Google are the ones who know where to spend their marketing budget to get the best results in terms of making money. So chances are they’re going to be great affiliates for you because they know what they’re doing already.

5. Research their contact details, find them on social media sites and start proactively engaging them in a relationship.  You can find more details on partnerships here.

So, incorporate these 5 steps into your affiliate strategy and watch your program take off.  I’d love to hear how you’re using creative techniques to help you build your affiliate programs, so do share below.