Teleclasses are a great way to add new revenue streams to your business, but very few holistic practitioners are actually running them. Certainly it is an uphill battle to make people understand how easy teleclasses are to participate in and run but that little bit of extra effort is well worth the reward.
Even if you just ran one per month with 10 participants paying $50 each – that extra $500 per month equates to an extra $6,000 per annum. Teleclasses could pay for that overseas trip you thought you couldn't afford.
The benefits of teleclasses are many but here are Top Ten I love the best:
1. Amazingly cheap (no room hire or travel costs)
2. Convenience (you don’t need to leave home)
3. 100% efficient use of your time (no need to factor in traffic or public transport)
4. Location friendly (you can do them from home or the office or the beach!)
5. Full interaction of participants
6. Classes are recorded so your participants can listen again until they fully
grasp the concepts
7. You can sell the recordings on your website or create CD’s and create passive revenue streams
8. You only need a landline telephone
9. No fuss - you can do the class in your pyjamas if you like
10. Its fun and easy!
Check out my website to learn what teleclasses I have on offer.
Monday 16 June 2008
Thursday 5 June 2008
Barriers to Coaching Business Success
This is an extract from an excellent article by Steve Mitten an ICF Master Certified Coach in this months ICF Victoria Newsletter Coach Connection.
When you read through replace the word "coach" with "natural therapist" or your modalitiy. Steve does a great job of highlighting how important growing your business needs to be in your consiousness and that business building is a science in itself and needs the proper resources and time.
Barriers to Coaching Business Success
Maybe I have seen a few too many clips of Dr. Phil, berating his guests but I agree with one of his mantras, you really can't change things that you don't acknowledge. So, in service of raising awareness, and in hopes of minimising the suffering of those who are called to coach, here is my list of the actions that have the most negative impact your ability to make a decent living as a coach:
• Get no training, or sign up with the cheapest, unaccredited school that will train you in a matter of weeks, via DVD, and promise you a quick path to success.
• Fall in love with the coaching skills, spend all your time and money learning them, and never think about, or budget anything, to learn the basic business and entrepreneurial skills.
• Jump into coaching with an all or nothing approach, without researching, or budgeting for, how long it will take and how much it will cost you. (Longer than you expect and far more than the cost of tuition).
• Wait until you have finished all your training, all everyone else's training, and gone on to get two or three PhDs before you believe you are finally competent enough to begin to coach.
• Never attempt to find an ideal client group (niche) and thus waste a lot of time and effort on ineffective, unrelated, marketing initiatives directed at people who cannot afford you or are too stubborn to get any help with their problems.
• Attempt to sell this new generic service called "coaching" - that very few people really understand or want - as opposed to finding an existing need, which can be better solved through coaching.
• Never do anything to proactively manage your stress, so you will always be at level 1, reacting to the circumstances in your life instead of creating from them.
• Never grow as a human being, or develop a daily reflective practice, so you remain stuck in your habitual reactions, wresting with your shadow or pain body, and never grow in self-awareness.
• Never aspire to master the coaching skills or seek a reputable independent credential that establishes your competence in the marketplace.
• Try to do it all by yourself, instead of connecting to colleagues (free coaching circles, ICF chapters, using this network, hiring your own coach, etc.) for the support, information and shortcuts you will need.
• Try to reinvent the wheel as relates to finding out what works for marketing coaching services so you can fall into the very same potholes that all the coaches ahead of you have, and quit when you get discouraged. (And you will get discouraged dozens of times along the way).
• Price your services on your fears and insecurities, as opposed to actually doing the marketing work to see what other professionals charge, or what your clients actually use the service for and can afford.
• Believe you need to be some kind of business whiz with a Harvard MBA to coach anyone in organisations or small businesses.
• Offer only one solution, 1 to 1 coaching at one price level, so you only have one offering on the shelves of your virtual store.
• Don't keep track of how you spend your time and money each week, and have no idea how long you have to launch your practice before you run out of money.
• Don't have goals for your practice and have no idea how much time you must market each week to achieve the number of new clients you want.
• If you are not getting any clients from your current marketing efforts, keep doing what you have been doing until you run out of money.
• If you are not getting the results you want, believe it is because of your inherent incompetence, or unworthiness, and shrink away from the world as opposed to trusting we have all gone through the same thing, (and we all have our fair serving of incompetence and insecurities), and ask for help.
• Coach just for the money, never treat your clients - your brothers and sisters - as the great gifts and teachers they are, and never be grateful that coaching is giving you an opportunity to be of service to the world, every day.
About the Author:
Steve Mitten, B.ApSc, CPCC, MCC, is a highly experienced Master Certified Life and Business Coach and former president of the International Coach Federation. He frequently volunteers his time, ideas, and support to encourage coaches to excel in their work with clients. To learn more about Steve and his work, visit his website and blog at www.acoach4u.com or steve@acoach4u.com
When you read through replace the word "coach" with "natural therapist" or your modalitiy. Steve does a great job of highlighting how important growing your business needs to be in your consiousness and that business building is a science in itself and needs the proper resources and time.
Barriers to Coaching Business Success
Maybe I have seen a few too many clips of Dr. Phil, berating his guests but I agree with one of his mantras, you really can't change things that you don't acknowledge. So, in service of raising awareness, and in hopes of minimising the suffering of those who are called to coach, here is my list of the actions that have the most negative impact your ability to make a decent living as a coach:
• Get no training, or sign up with the cheapest, unaccredited school that will train you in a matter of weeks, via DVD, and promise you a quick path to success.
• Fall in love with the coaching skills, spend all your time and money learning them, and never think about, or budget anything, to learn the basic business and entrepreneurial skills.
• Jump into coaching with an all or nothing approach, without researching, or budgeting for, how long it will take and how much it will cost you. (Longer than you expect and far more than the cost of tuition).
• Wait until you have finished all your training, all everyone else's training, and gone on to get two or three PhDs before you believe you are finally competent enough to begin to coach.
• Never attempt to find an ideal client group (niche) and thus waste a lot of time and effort on ineffective, unrelated, marketing initiatives directed at people who cannot afford you or are too stubborn to get any help with their problems.
• Attempt to sell this new generic service called "coaching" - that very few people really understand or want - as opposed to finding an existing need, which can be better solved through coaching.
• Never do anything to proactively manage your stress, so you will always be at level 1, reacting to the circumstances in your life instead of creating from them.
• Never grow as a human being, or develop a daily reflective practice, so you remain stuck in your habitual reactions, wresting with your shadow or pain body, and never grow in self-awareness.
• Never aspire to master the coaching skills or seek a reputable independent credential that establishes your competence in the marketplace.
• Try to do it all by yourself, instead of connecting to colleagues (free coaching circles, ICF chapters, using this network, hiring your own coach, etc.) for the support, information and shortcuts you will need.
• Try to reinvent the wheel as relates to finding out what works for marketing coaching services so you can fall into the very same potholes that all the coaches ahead of you have, and quit when you get discouraged. (And you will get discouraged dozens of times along the way).
• Price your services on your fears and insecurities, as opposed to actually doing the marketing work to see what other professionals charge, or what your clients actually use the service for and can afford.
• Believe you need to be some kind of business whiz with a Harvard MBA to coach anyone in organisations or small businesses.
• Offer only one solution, 1 to 1 coaching at one price level, so you only have one offering on the shelves of your virtual store.
• Don't keep track of how you spend your time and money each week, and have no idea how long you have to launch your practice before you run out of money.
• Don't have goals for your practice and have no idea how much time you must market each week to achieve the number of new clients you want.
• If you are not getting any clients from your current marketing efforts, keep doing what you have been doing until you run out of money.
• If you are not getting the results you want, believe it is because of your inherent incompetence, or unworthiness, and shrink away from the world as opposed to trusting we have all gone through the same thing, (and we all have our fair serving of incompetence and insecurities), and ask for help.
• Coach just for the money, never treat your clients - your brothers and sisters - as the great gifts and teachers they are, and never be grateful that coaching is giving you an opportunity to be of service to the world, every day.
About the Author:
Steve Mitten, B.ApSc, CPCC, MCC, is a highly experienced Master Certified Life and Business Coach and former president of the International Coach Federation. He frequently volunteers his time, ideas, and support to encourage coaches to excel in their work with clients. To learn more about Steve and his work, visit his website and blog at www.acoach4u.com or steve@acoach4u.com
Tuesday 3 June 2008
Media Opportunities For You All
This week there has been comment in the media on two bits of mainstream science confirming a lot of what we know already.
I noticed a TV news article on Sunday night quoting a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia quoting that “from 2001 to 2003 there was a 40 per cent decrease in the number of Australian women taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and a 6.7 per cent reduction in the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer, equivalent to 600 fewer cases”. You can read the article on Medical News Today.
Also this week OpEdNews.com had a significant article about The 2008 Epigenetic Medicine Award Ceremony in LA celebrating the work being done in Epigentics, sometimes called Soul Medicine. According to Soul Medicine Institute (SMI), “Epigenetics is the new science describing influences that alter the expression of genes.” Epi- means above; so epigenetic means control of DNA from above or outside the gene. SMI notes that, “New research shows that consciousness (beliefs, feelings, prayer, energy, thought) may have epigenetic effects.”
The historic, first Epigenetic Medicine Award went to Randy Jirtle, Ph.D., director of the Laboratory of Epigenetics and Imprinting at Duke University. Dr. Jirtle is a professor of radiation oncology at the school's medical center. His groundbreaking research with agouti mice has revealed that a mother's diet during pregnancy can influence gene expression in her offspring by altering the epigenome. The result of changing the diet of the mother mouse caused two genetically identical mice to be born, one predisposed to cancer and obesity and one “normal” mouse baby. Guess which one had the good diet?
Gee whiz, a lot of this stuff is not exactly rocket science to us and the natural medicine world has “known” this for eons but it is wonderful news for your business.
As science starts to prove the theories of natural medicine, more people will feel comfortable embracing some of the more out there concepts like mice eating well during pregnancy.
This means more clients for your business.
I haven’t even read all the facts on either of these things BUT for you guys it is a grand excuse to have an in depth read and then go into the media and quote this research and hold yourself up as an expert on mice eating well (no seriously) on how diet and natural therapies are changing our world and how your business is the place that can help people live healthier and happier lives.
You can read more here:
http://www.epiaward.com/
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/NEW-EPIGENETIC-SCIENCE-AWA-by-Meryl-Ann-Butler-080530-226.html
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/109520.php
I noticed a TV news article on Sunday night quoting a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia quoting that “from 2001 to 2003 there was a 40 per cent decrease in the number of Australian women taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and a 6.7 per cent reduction in the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer, equivalent to 600 fewer cases”. You can read the article on Medical News Today.
Also this week OpEdNews.com had a significant article about The 2008 Epigenetic Medicine Award Ceremony in LA celebrating the work being done in Epigentics, sometimes called Soul Medicine. According to Soul Medicine Institute (SMI), “Epigenetics is the new science describing influences that alter the expression of genes.” Epi- means above; so epigenetic means control of DNA from above or outside the gene. SMI notes that, “New research shows that consciousness (beliefs, feelings, prayer, energy, thought) may have epigenetic effects.”
The historic, first Epigenetic Medicine Award went to Randy Jirtle, Ph.D., director of the Laboratory of Epigenetics and Imprinting at Duke University. Dr. Jirtle is a professor of radiation oncology at the school's medical center. His groundbreaking research with agouti mice has revealed that a mother's diet during pregnancy can influence gene expression in her offspring by altering the epigenome. The result of changing the diet of the mother mouse caused two genetically identical mice to be born, one predisposed to cancer and obesity and one “normal” mouse baby. Guess which one had the good diet?
Gee whiz, a lot of this stuff is not exactly rocket science to us and the natural medicine world has “known” this for eons but it is wonderful news for your business.
As science starts to prove the theories of natural medicine, more people will feel comfortable embracing some of the more out there concepts like mice eating well during pregnancy.
This means more clients for your business.
I haven’t even read all the facts on either of these things BUT for you guys it is a grand excuse to have an in depth read and then go into the media and quote this research and hold yourself up as an expert on mice eating well (no seriously) on how diet and natural therapies are changing our world and how your business is the place that can help people live healthier and happier lives.
You can read more here:
http://www.epiaward.com/
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/NEW-EPIGENETIC-SCIENCE-AWA-by-Meryl-Ann-Butler-080530-226.html
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/109520.php
Monday 2 June 2008
ABC Radio Interview on Sea Change
Audio of my ABC Radio Interview - Wednesday 19th March 2008
MP3 File
I was recently interviewed on the ABC in Perth Australia.
I had a fun time being interviewed by James Lush and Andrew Wynne about Sea Change on the 720 ABC Morning Program.
The program looks at some aspect of modern life and they spoke with me about my own experience of sea change or in my instance tree change, the things I learned from it and the sort of things that are useful to others undergoing a similar change.
Sea change or tree change is something that has become very popular in the last few years but it has it's challenges. If you can last the first few years it has enormous benefits in terms of lifestyle and ability to feel in control of your life.
They introduce me about 5 minutes into the show and I'm on for about 25 minutes. It was really fun to do and I couldn't believe how quickly the time went by.
If you would like to listen you can just click on the link above and it will start to play for you.
MP3 File
I was recently interviewed on the ABC in Perth Australia.
I had a fun time being interviewed by James Lush and Andrew Wynne about Sea Change on the 720 ABC Morning Program.
The program looks at some aspect of modern life and they spoke with me about my own experience of sea change or in my instance tree change, the things I learned from it and the sort of things that are useful to others undergoing a similar change.
Sea change or tree change is something that has become very popular in the last few years but it has it's challenges. If you can last the first few years it has enormous benefits in terms of lifestyle and ability to feel in control of your life.
They introduce me about 5 minutes into the show and I'm on for about 25 minutes. It was really fun to do and I couldn't believe how quickly the time went by.
If you would like to listen you can just click on the link above and it will start to play for you.
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