How do we get our brand recognised? How do we become experts in our field? In order to grow to the next level, we have to put ourselves in a position to accelerate our performance.

So what’s the best way to do that?

Today we speak with certified executive coach, Eddie Turner, who “works with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact!” ™.

Learn:

• What does it mean to accelerate performance and drive impact?
• How do you recognise complacency or stagnation in your career?
• What is the process to accelerating growth and moving to the next level?
• The misconception that as leaders at the director or vice-president level, we don’t need to grow
• Accelerating performance and driving impact isn’t just about business
• What are the mechanisms to driving impact?
• How Eddie helps clients

Links:

http://www.eddieturnerllc.com

As leaders, one of the things we’ve got to do as we start to grow in our career and as we start to move forward is to think about the principles of how we can accelerate our performance and drive impact.

Our guest today is Eddie Turner. Eddie is a “specialist” and a “deep generalist.” He is a certified information technology expert who leverages his digital competence as a leadership development practitioner. He is a change agent who has worked for several of the world’s “most admired companies.”

Eddie is a professional speaker who has appeared on CNN LIVE and spoken internationally. He is certified as an executive coach, trainer and facilitator. He is a member of the Forbes® Coaches Council, a global workshop and program facilitator for the Association for Talent Development and for Harvard Business School Publishing. He has studied at Harvard and Northwestern Universities. Eddie “works with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact!” ™

What does it mean to accelerate performance and drive impact?

At a point in our career, Eddie notes, we all recognise that we need to press the button to accelerate. Sometimes we’ve become stagnant, or at times we recognise that the pace of business is changing at lightning speed. As a result we need to be able to keep up.

By putting mechanisms in place we can accelerate and increase our performance which results in impact in the business, our lives, and our careers.

Before you can accelerate performance, you need to recognise if you are in a place of complacency or stagnation.

How do you recognise complacency or stagnation in your career?

There typically is an event that triggers this awareness.

Eddie gives the example of having a piece of food stuck in his teeth. He doesn’t see it, so it takes someone else to point it out to him. He says this is often similar to our own flaws or foibles that are preventing us from getting to the next step in our career.

Often, it takes someone else to recognise areas that are impeding progress. In other cases, individuals have a high level of EQ (emotional intelligence), and they realise on their own that something isn’t right and that they need help in progressing their development.

In the case of needing outside help to recognise areas that need improvement, a mentor can be a great help. We discussed mentoring with Tom Goodlet on the show last week – so check that one out.

What is the process of accelerating growth and moving to the next level?

First, identify what areas you require help with and why. By undertaking a 360 review, you get input and feedback from your colleagues and employees reporting into you. This can provide a clear and honest picture of what needs work. From there you are able to move towards the next best version of yourself.

The misconception that as leaders at the director or vice-president level, we don’t need to grow

Eddie draws on the example of the great Michael Jordan. The epitome of greatness, he had to recognise at a certain point that Father Time had caught up with him and he could no longer pull off the slam dunks he was known for. As he was ageing he had to add a new dimension to his game.

By working with a coach that identified the issue, he developed the fade away that extended his professional career a lot longer.

So at every point in an executive’s career, they need to make adjustments. In their case, Father Time could be the time in the business cycle, quarterly performance, challenges from competitors, etc. There are always going to be reasons that an executive has to make adjustments.

A coach is uniquely positioned to help to do that. By working closely with a coach you can maintain your competitive edge throughout your career.

Marshall Goldsmith is often quoted in this space:

What got you here, won’t get you there.

In other words, you can’t rely on the same skillset as you climb the corporate ladder, move into different organisations or even different industries. You need to retool and develop a new skillset.

Eddie also refers to the lessons of Professor Ronald Heifetz. Heifetz says that at each of these levels, we need to develop something called ‘adaptive leadership’. We need to develop new capacity to handle challenges.

In too many cases, individuals are applying technical solutions to issues (pre-defined or prescribed actions to address an issue). Instead, you need to apply adaptive leadership, because these issues require a new skillset because you’re at a new frontier of competency.

Accelerating performance and driving impact isn’t just about business

The International Coach Federation now uses the phrase ‘personal development coaching’ because individuals are interested in changing things in their career – but this often starts at home. These changes and approaches are relevant to your personal life as well as professional.

What is my home life like? What is my personal life like? Interpersonal relationships with our loved ones often matter to our careers and professional lives.

What are the mechanisms to driving impact?

Mentors, coaches, and trusted advisors. Three things that are often considered interchangeable, but in fact are people with wholly distinct skillsets. Eddie breaks them down:

• A mentor is someone who has been in a particular role longer that we have who can guide us and allow us to have a case study by watching them and learning from them in a particular role.
• A coach is an expert in the content, not the process. As a coach, you don’t have to have been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to be able to coach that individual because they have skills in the process of professional development and getting the best from their clients.
• A trusted advisor is often a blend of the two. They sit in the step where they’re not just an expert, but they have the competence to give unfettered, candid, and specific advice that you can take and act on to give you direction.

Using virtual technology to drive impact

Part of Eddie’s work is as a facilitator. He does face-to-face strategy, process mapping, and issue resolution. Doing this work virtually allowed him to make a unique impact on several organisations.

For example, for national or global businesses, gathering all the leaders for quarterly business reviews can be cost and/or time prohibitive. By meeting virtually, it allows organisations to stay connected for important strategy meetings from anywhere in the world.

Similarly, performing one-to-one coaching sessions virtually can be highly beneficial.

How Eddie helps his executive clients

Eddie’s goal is to help people change – to help people or organisations become the next best version of themselves. He works with clients in three ways:

1. One-on-one through executive coaching, career coaching, personal development coaching
2. In groups for facilitation – face-to-face or virtually
3. Speaking

You can find Eddie through his website.

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Mentorship is key to successful professional development and as leaders, we have the responsibility to offer ourselves as mentors to the next generation of business leaders.

But what is involved in a mentor-mentee relationship and how do you go about finding a suitable individual to work with?

To answer these questions we spoke to Tom Goodlet, co-author of the book MentorU.

Learn:

• Why is mentorship so important?
• Chris’ mentorship story from his time in the military
• How do you find a mentor?
• Tom’s formula to a CLEAR and successful mentor relationship
• How do you develop trust in following the guidance of a mentor?
• What is the responsibility of the mentee?
• Tom’s book, MentorU

Links:

• Buy MentorU on Amazon
• Connect with Tom on LinkedIn
• http://www.mentoru.info

There are many factors that go into defining our achievement. You should have a solid skillset and business expertise. One of the key ways you can develop this knowledge and these skills is by making mistakes. As we reflect on these mistakes we grow and know what to avoid in future.

Making mistakes is a part of our growth. But another way that we gain the required expertise and grow professionally is by finding a mentor.

Usually, there are two big failures in the business world. Firstly; the individuals don’t use and benefit from mentorship. But secondarily, the people that could be mentors aren’t stepping up to take that responsibility.

Aligning yourself with a mentor will allow you the opportunity to learn from their knowledge. They can guide you in developing future opportunities in your career and business.

So how do you best find a mentor? When you find a mentor, how do you know that they have your best interests in mind? How do you develop the trust in following your mentor’s guidance?

In today’s show, we’re going to answer those questions and more.

Today’s guest is Tom Goodlet – an Author of ‘MentorU’, Speaker and Associate Minister at Harborside Christian Church.

Tom’s expertise is in the religious institutions industry. He is skilled in Theology, Leadership, Event Planning, Discipleship, Pastoral Counseling, Curriculum Development, Mentorship and Volunteer Management. For more information about him and his book MentorU checkout www.mentoru.info.

Why is mentorship so important?

Mentorship is a dynamic tool that stands above the rest. Tom highlights the 2 main strengths of mentorship:

1. Mentorship allows you to go deep and grow fast. There are great resources available through conferences, podcasts, blogs etc. but with mentorship, you hone in on the mentee and you can be lazer-focused on their growth. It’s an efficient way to learn and grow because the topic is ‘you’.
2. You get a sense of accountability. You have somebody to discuss mistakes made and learnings that come from business experience, dissect what has happened and learn from it. Being held accountable to your goals and actions keeps you focused on growth and the ability to analyze and reflect on mistakes helps you to learn.

Chris’ mentorship story from his time in the military:

When I was in the military, I had a Chief Master Sergeant who was complaining about a process.

I said ‘Chief, I think we need to try this.’

For dramatic purposes he slams his hands on the table and says ‘Sergeant, I’ve tried that a hundred times and it doesn’t work.’ And I felt about 2 inches tall.

But then he said ‘But who’s to say it doesn’t work the 101st time? Go ahead and give it a try.’

Well it didn’t work the 101st time, but he didn’t stifle my creativity.

And then after that process, we got to chat about it and he helped me reflect on what the challenge was. But I think that was a very valuable teaching moment for me.

Mentorship is a safe place to look at and learn from mistakes. We learn more by doing and so you should not be afraid of failure.

It’s not failure unless you give up. So long as you do dissect it and learn from it, it’s not actually a failure. Good mentors help you along, give you encouragement and see you through the dark time of mistakes to see the potential success that comes from learning experiences.

We need that cheering section, that mentor by our side to help get us into the celebration part of the process.

How do you find a mentor?

We have to be honest with ourselves going into mentorship. We know mentorship is beneficial for everybody, but not everybody is ready for mentorship.

You need 2 things:

1. There are some requirements you want to meet – Tom uses the acronym ‘CLEAR’ to help you identify who your mentor should be. More on that below.
2. It requires some resolve; some courage to take the step to commit to mentorship and the journey of working with your mentor to learn and grow.

Tom tells us we want to be able to make a CLEAR choice of who should be our mentor:

• C: Connect – who do you naturally connect with? You don’t want to force a relationship with your mentor. You want to find a mentor that you are comfortable with and enjoy spending time with.
• L: Learn – who can you learn from? Or who can learn from me?
• E: Excited – who would you be excited to mentor you? You don’t want to have to manufacture excitement to work with a mentor. Find a mentor you are excited to work with.
• A: Authentic – you want to find a mentor who is not trying to be somebody they are not. Somebody who is not in denial of their weaknesses. Someone that knows their strengths.
• R: Reliability – you want to have a mentor that you can rely on to meet with you.

The other point that Tom makes is around resolve. Fear is often the indicator that we’re on to something good – if you are nervous or it feels risky to ask somebody to be your mentor, you are probably on the right track. Like asking somebody out on a first date.

If you can show the resolve to get past that fear, you’re likely to be setting up a relationship that gets you excited and motivated to make the most of mentorship.

How do you develop trust in following the guidance of a mentor?

If your mentor gives you some advice that you can’t see the value in yet, it’s importance to trust the guidance of your mentor.

Tom suggests that time is the major factor. Mentorship is not something you should rush. You have to develop a relationship organically and not meet too frequently. Allow time to build trust with your mentor by meeting just every couple of weeks and allowing time to see the results of the advice given.

Taking the time to get to know each other is essential to have an understanding and trusting mentor relationship.

What is the responsibility of the mentee?

The nice thing about mentorship is that you have accountability both ways. As the mentee, you are responsible for being prepared for your mentorship meetings, ready to report how your career or business is developing. Your mentee is going to hold you accountable to actions, homework, follow-up.

Another responsibility of the mentee is to bring questions. You have to be prepared to get the most out of the time you spend together, so coming with a list of questions to ask your mentor/mentee is important.

Tom’s book is loaded with mentorship questions to help you in this.

Tom’s book, MentorU

Tom co-wrote MentorU with his friend and mentee, Matt Gardner.

It’s a universal first step for anybody who wants to start mentoring that leads to the individual’s next step because everybody’s next step is going to be different. Through the book, you build towards a strategic growth plan for the individual being mentored.

If you’re being a mentor, you’re always fed more when you’re feeding. Every time Tom has mentored somebody else, he has grown immensely. Mentoring delivers value both ways.

The book provides expert guidance on conducting a productive mentor-mentee relationship.

You can find MentorU on Amazon. You can connect with Tom on LinkedIn.

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How do you set up a good framework to grow your career? And what steps do you need to take to keep moving towards your career vision?

We speak with Jasmine Briggs, a New York based Career Coach, who walks us through the process of setting up goals that enable constant growth and development in our careers.

Learn:

• How important is good career management to the success of professional development?
• How do you set up a good framework to help your career grow?
• How to create your career vision
• Look for mentors to aid career management
• Personal development vs. professional development
• What is the biggest misconception in career management?
• How do you know when you are on the right career path?
• Top 3 tips for good career management

Links:

• JasmineBriggs.com
• Women Create Facebook group

One of the things I notice is that when I engage with folks, they seem to be more goal oriented. And don’t get me wrong – I encourage people to have a personal vision and goals. Goals to reach their vision and plans to reach their goals.

But one of the things I’ve noticed is that when the goal is completed it take a long time to develop another set of goals. In our busy lives as leaders, it takes us a while to get back to goal setting. Where individuals fail to get back into their personal development – this is where boredom and complacency grow.

So I think it’s vital that we change our mentality to become more growth oriented than goal oriented. My friend and mentor, John Maxwell, in the book ‘The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership’, calls this the law of process where he writes that:

‘Leadership is not built in a day, but it’s built daily.’

So now that we’ve spent the time to develop, what’s the best way to market our talents? And how do we take all that expertise and use it to have successful career management?

I wanted to find somebody that was going to be able to give us some guidance and tips on good career management.

So our guest today is Jasmine Briggs. She is a Career Coach, with an extensive background in recruitment, workforce development, staffing and career counselling. She works with professionals around the country on developing their dream careers. Jasmine’s expertise is in career exploration, setting career goals, and employment search techniques.

How important is good career management to the success of professional development?

Very important. Jasmine notes that we’ve moved away from a time where companies manage our career so that we have to manage it ourselves.

We must avoid leaving our careers on autopilot by setting growth goals in terms of where we see our careers going and the steps we need to take to get there.

Of course, as leaders, we must be invested in our workforce to help them be successful in their careers, but it’s important to remember that our first employee is yourself and that should be our first priority.

How do you set up a good framework to help your career grow?

It starts with an exploration of what is important to you and what you want to contribute to the world, says Jasmine.

Once you know what you’re looking to contribute, you can then turn that into an overall vision for your career. And once you have a vision, you can’t leave it stagnant – you must check in with it every six months or so to make sure that the vision hasn’t changed. Or if it has changed to update it to where you are right now.

Our environments are constantly changing, so it is important to always be revisiting your vision to ensure it is relevant to you and your current position.

How to create your career vision

Jasmine advises starting with a check-in date. This is an opportunity every three to six months to check in with your vision, looking at your career goals, and seeing what steps you need to take in order to align with those goals.

It’s about constantly being engaged with your career, your network, and your industry.

By keeping up with how the industry is changing and how you are personally changing and developing professionally, you can see opportunities to market yourself and show yourself to be an expert in your field.

A strong professional network is vital to career management and progression.

Look for mentors to aid career management

Having someone available that has a pulse on what’s going on in the industry and someone you can look to for advice is extremely valuable.

You want to have mentors within and outside of your company.

Personal development vs. professional development

Personal development, learning soft skills that assist in your career, are very important, says Jasmine because people hire people.

When Jasmine does training sessions with clients, she tells them that she can train them to do anything, but she wants to hire someone that she can spend 8+ hours per day with.

So by developing soft skills like emotional intelligence and leadership skills, it helps to connect with people, which contributes to their decision making, allowing them to trust you in leadership roles within their organisation.

What is the biggest misconception in career management?

Jasmine believes that the biggest misconception is thinking that you don’t have to consider career management – that your career will naturally flow.

It’s about not only setting goals but speaking up about it. If nobody knows that you are looking to grow then nobody is going to notice!

Sharing a desire to take development courses, a desire to take responsibility for a project – these are important things to share to allow yourself the opportunity to move your career forward.

Secondarily, sharing this intent with a manager also gives you an accountability partner, which is really important in being able to reach those goals.

How do you know when you are on the right career path?

Jasmine encourages people to check in with yourself. Being self-aware, thinking about your current state and where you would like to be. If you are on the fence about your current role and whether to go for that next position, Jasmine says go for it.

It’s through that process of going for the next position that you learn the skills and get the experience you need to continue to grow. And by going through that process of building your skills, you’re growing your network.

Top 3 tips for good career management

1. Build yourself on LinkedIn – perfect your profile and build an engagement strategy where you are posting and interacting with the community and building your network.
2. Do some self-exploration to identify your top strengths and weaknesses and identify areas where you would like to grow and develop through training.
3. Continue to network – within your company and outside of it. At the end of the day, it’s about who you know and the best way to get into a new company is through a referral.

You can reach Jasmine via email – jasmine at jasminebriggs.com. She also has a Facebook group for female leadership and professional development called Women Create. Or find her on Twitter @JasmineBriggs1

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Why is a clear vision statement critical to the success of your organisation? And how do you ensure that message is consistently communicated throughout your business?

Today we speak with Jen Roberts of Difference Consulting about the importance of cohesive alignment within your management team and what you can do to engender engagement within the workforce.

Learn:

• What causes the disconnect between business leaders and their management teams?
• What are some of the problems we can expect to encounter when the relationship between the business leader and the management team is out of alignment?
• How important is it to create a common vision to the success of what you’re trying to accomplish?
• Transparency, and communicating with your team on a daily basis
• It is very important to ensure that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined
• How can you determine whether your management team is aligned with your vision?

Links:

• Difference Consulting
• Jen’s articles on Forbes
• Association for Talent Development
• Gallup

When we think about our responsibility as leaders within our organisations, it’s paramount that we make every effort to ensure that we have a cohesive alignment with members of our own management team.

When I go into organisations, one of the biggest problems that I find is that there is a disconnect between the top leader and members of his own leadership team. And one of the things that I try to help them with, is how does this disconnect happen and what are the secrets of developing a progressive alignment with members of your team.

Today’s guest is going to give us those secrets that will make this alignment and develop this cohesive team.

Jen Roberts is the president and founder of Difference Consulting, a company specializing in helping companies build, develop and leverage the unique talents of their own people and teams internally through strategic consulting, executive coaching and proprietary leadership development programs. She is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, an accomplished author, and you can read her stuff on such websites as Forbes and the Association for Talent Development.

What causes the disconnect between business leaders and their management teams?

Leaders want to have clear strategic alignment with their management teams to drive workplace culture and productivity. But so many of these teams struggle with making that alignment a reality.

One of the big reasons that that happens, says Jen, is the message not being communicated correctly. Often leaders feel that they are communicating their message and key visions of the organisation clearly, but in fact they are not always interpreted by the team as intended or flowing from one team member to the other as you had imagined.

This can be a particular challenge for leaders that have been in the position for a long time with the same management team – the assumption often is that everybody is on the same page, but in actuality this might not be true. And this can start a domino effect throughout the entire workforce, affecting their engagement, satisfaction and productivity.

When a management team is aligned in terms of their communication and their decision making processes, is modelling the core values of the company and working towards a common vision and purpose, it is a beautiful thing. It leads to greater trust, respect, and productivity within the team. So when they are not aligned, all sorts of problems can occur.

What are some of the problems we can expect to encounter when the relationship between the business leader and the management team is out of alignment?

One of the biggest issues initially is that it creates confusion amongst the ranks in the organisation.

When an employee goes to any member of the management team they expect to get consistent information regardless of who they approach. And when a management team isn’t aligned, it creates a lot of confusion for those employees when they get different answers or directives.

This can actually paralyse the productivity of the organisation because people don’t know what to do and don’t want to make mistakes – and as a result can end up not working as effectively as they could. Or worse yet – not do anything!

It can also result in a lot of unnecessary work on the part of the employees as they might be duplicating the efforts of others on the team. Or they may have to do something again as it wasn’t aligned with what the leader was expecting – a cause of frustration and disengagement with employees and the management team, effecting moral across the board.

In fact, Gallup reports that almost 71% of our workforce are either disengaged or actively disengaged.

As a leader you want to create an environment where people feel like they are contributing meaningful work, tied to a common purpose. So a cohesive, aligned message throughout the organisation is critical to creating and maintaining and engaged, satisfied workforce.

Another issue that can arise over time is damage to the credibility of the management team or even the leader themselves. When decisions are overturned or questioned by members of the team, it can lead to a lack of trust in the management by the workforce as a whole.

As leaders we want to be able to create organisations where we’re motivating and inspiring employees that leads to the trust and collaboration that produces the best results. Skipping over key steps that will help leaders create better alignment within their teams to build that trusting and respectful organisation can become very damaging.

How important is it to create a common vision to the success of what you’re trying to accomplish?

Creating that common core value and mission is absolutely critical to the success of any organisation. Building buy-in to this common vision or purpose is one of the steps leaders can take to build better alignment within their management team.

It’s surprising how many organisations operate without a central focus. It’s important to review the vision statement with the management team and if nothing exists, take the time to co-create that vision with the leaders within your organisation.

In order to be engaged, employees need to be able to understand how what they do on a daily basis contributes to the overall strategic objectives of the company.

If you don’t know what your vision statement is – throw it away. And then invite people to the table, create a new one and then build a campaign around that vision and watch the success happen.

Transparency, and communicating with your team on a daily basis

Communicating with your team is absolutely critical. Keeping open lines of communication with the management team, building buy-in to changes and decisions within the business, ensures that the message is clearly and consistently filtered down through the organisation.

Transparency in communication with the entire workforce is important to ensure that the whole organisation continues to understand how their work impacts the overall company vision.

It is very important to ensure that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined

And more importantly, that you’re honoring them.

When you’re gaining that alignment with your management team, it’s about agreeing on what is their decision space? What is the authority that they have the ability to make decisions around? What are the clear channels of communication that are important to define within your organization?

Being clear on these parameters avoids confusion and risking undermining the authority of the managers within the team. It allows you to trust your managers’ decisions, but it also engenders greater respect and provides consistency to all your employees regardless of the management level that they approach.

It’s also very important, through the open channels of communication that have been established, to ensure managers have a greater sense awareness of not only their own responsibilities, but also those of others, and building shared alignment and agreement to the decision space collectively as a team.

How can you determine whether your management team is aligned with your vision?

Gathering your management team and asking them if they know what the vision statement is. Seeing where people are in their own interpretation of the company’s vision and mission gives you the opportunity to see if there is a misalignment.

If that is the case, you can seek support from consultants such as Jen and her team to help your management team reach greater alignment and create new statements that more accurately support the culture that you’re trying to drive within your organisation.

You can reach out to Jen and the Difference Consulting team at differenceconsulting.com and schedule a complimentary discovery call or click the link to get her free, Rule Breaker’s Guide to Managing Your Energy at Work

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As business leaders, we do a lot of coaching. But there’s a growing number of people out there that are taking their leadership skills and moving into the business of coaching.

One of the things we hear all the time is leaders wanting to know how they can use their experience and expertise and learn the skill of coaching. Traditionally, coaching has been a face-to-face interaction, but with the rise of online communication and video conferencing, many coaches are moving their businesses online.

But how do you build a coaching business online? Where do you find new clients, how do you communicate with them and nurture a valuable relationship without ever meeting in person?

To answer that, we’ve brought Alex Braganza on the show.

Alex is the CEO of Expertise.tv, a video platform that enables anyone, anywhere, to access the best experts globally. They help business leaders build and grow their coaching business online.

Alex has spent the last 15 years building businesses in the emerging markets including Hong Kong, Dubai and Mumbai. His experience of being away from his hometown of London has highlighted the difficulties of finding expert advice when there are limited providers physically close to you.

From this frustration, the idea of Expertise.tv was born and he’s on the show today to share his insights with us.

The biggest misconception of coaching in the digital age

The range of people you can reach and communicate with is far greater online, which is one of the biggest advantages of going digital. Until recently, reaching an audience of this scale was only available to large companies with marketing and technology budgets to match.

Alex says one of the most common misconceptions he sees is that as a historically face-to-face business, coaches believe that they won’t find clients on Facebook, Instagram or other social media platforms.

It’s not just about LinkedIn, he says – these other platforms are so ubiquitous that they all offer unique opportunities to connect with your prospects.

Making the transition to coaching online

It’s all about content.

You may have a great reputation in your local area – where you’re based geographically – but online you need to be able to build that same reputation and trust with the community. And the best way to do that is by creating valuable content.

The internet is a noisy place, so in order to stand out, Alex says you need to clearly identify your ideal client. Who is the client that you can help the most with your coaching? And what is the biggest problem that they have?

Find a problem that your ideal client thinks about frequently in their life and career, and focus your attention on creating content around that specific subject.

Provide insightful, valuable content that helps with this problem and deliver it using a mix of mediums to fully demonstrate how you can help people in this area of their career or business. Those mediums can include things like:

• Video/Live video
• Blogs and articles
• Newsletters
• Podcasts

Once you have that content available, it’s about distributing it to the people that are looking for that sort of help. And that’s how you begin to build your audience.

Over time you will build trust with this audience. As the advice you are offering through your content has a positive impact on their lives, they will start believing in you and your ability to help them and will be very keen to develop that relationship with you.

At that point, it’s about having the correct systems in place that make it easy for them to take the next step in becoming your client.

What type of content should a coach produce?

Alex’s thoughts: It’s all about starting.

He sees the biggest hurdle as just that – getting started. When starting out you should pick the medium that you are most comfortable with and go with it. That may be video for some or blogging or podcasting for others.

Once you begin to build a body of work in one medium and you are comfortable developing content regularly (Alex recommends putting a piece of content out twice a week), you can build on it and branch out into others.

How do you get your ideal client to find the content you are producing?

Alex highlights 2 main approaches to distributing your content online, depending on the speed of the results you want to see and the resources you have available to achieve them.

• The paid approach

By using paid campaigns on LinkedIn, Facebook or other platforms, you can target groups based on the influencers they are following. By targeting relevant influencers, you can determine that their followers are likely to be interested in your content.

• Live webinars

Alex says that the most compelling content that gets the strongest conversion rates online is live content. The idea that people can watch you live has got magic to it that other formats lack. It’s been true for many years and is still the case. People are curious to see what will happen on a live event and are excited to be able to interact and ask questions live.

Other organic methods of driving traffic to your content include posting answers to questions on Quora – a popular help forum where people ask for expert advice on many topics. This takes time to build a reputation and see increased traffic to your website or content.

How much time do you need to launch a webinar?

Once you have the webinar written and prepared to present, you can expect to get a big enough audience with a paid campaign within a week to two weeks. You can expect attendees to be registering from day one of a paid campaign. The total time needed will be dependent on your budget spend on the social campaigns driving traffic to the registration page.

If you’re launching the campaign from an existing email list that you have built up then you could only need a week to get enough registrations.

If you are driving organic traffic to your webinar then you will need to plan at least a month before the actual live event.

Across the board, Alex says, around 30% of webinar signups attend the live event. Meaning aiming for 5-10 attendees in your first few webinars means attracting 20-30 signups.

Even a webinar with 1 attendee should be considered a success

Because every new connection can lead to opportunity.

At the beginning, you should be planning on presenting to only a handful of people for each webinar. You should treat your first three webinars as your training ground. Use them as an opportunity to practice delivering the content, to learn which topics work and which don’t.

Using this chance to hone your delivery is important as your audiences start to grow.

Alex highlights the importance of reaching out to all attendees of your webinar while you’re learning to get feedback on the content. It’s the perfect time to improve your offering.

The biggest challenges that people experience in their first 3 webinars

Lack of practice! According to Alex, a surprising number of people do not rehearse their presentation ahead of their first webinar. Presenting online in front of a live audience can be nerve-wracking the first time so it’s imperative that you prepare appropriately so you’re ready to go when it’s show time!

Another challenge is not getting enough engagement. It’s important to draw your attendees into your webinar by asking open questions to the audience to engage them and get the conversation going. By starting that discussion you are much more likely to keep your viewers through your entire presentation.

The final common pitfall is not following up after the webinar. It’s critical to email each attendee independently (when your audience size allows in the early days!) to ask for feedback. It’s the best opportunity to learn more about the customers and shape the webinar in the future.

How do you engage with clients online?

Every coach is different. Every client is different. The biggest advantage of working online is convenience. Allowing your clients to attend sessions with you from anywhere at any time.

Using online conferencing software may force you to change the way you communicate and deliver content and training to your clients, but it also affords greater freedom of where your clients can be based, how they can feedback to you on the content you are producing, and how you can scale up your coaching business.

Expertise.tv

Expertise.tv is a coaching platform that allows you to deliver coaching to your clients online.

It also includes all the marketing and business tools you need to reach your potential clients, develop content for them to consume, create a community area where you can develop and nurture your relationship with them at scale. And from there convert those engaged audience members into clients through a number of monetization strategies.

It includes a free webinar platform to test it out.

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