The Coach/Client Relationship - What to Expect

"I learn golf from golfers. I learn winning from coaches." - Harvey Penick, American Pro Golfer and Coach

We get a lot of questions from prospective clients who have never before worked with a business coach. If you haven’t been through that process, it’s tough to know what to expect. What will the coach bring to the table? What benefits will I get from coaching? And one of the most common concerns of all – how will this coach know enough about my business to help me?

Here’s some insight into the coaching process and the coach/client relationship. It might help you to zero in on the coach who is best suited to support your set of circumstances.

1. A coach’s job is to hold you accountable for the results you want to achieve. The coach should not have too many opinions about your goals and objectives. They are your goals and objectives. The coach is there to make sure you show up and deliver on those intentions.

2. A good coach does not need expertise in your field of endeavor. A good coach should speak the language of business, not necessarily the language of your industry. We are not here to tell dentists how to be dentists or manufacturers how to make things. We are here to open up new possibilities for getting the business to work.

3. Expect objectivity. The coach should not become attached to your situation. The coach is there to help you identify the core issues that are standing in the way of your success, and give you tools and actions that will get things working.

4. Expect commitment. Your coach should be committed to helping you deliver on your intentions. Part of that commitment may involve some “tough love” – intrusion into your circumstances and willingness to confront what isn’t working in your business.

If you are ready to get some help in your business, give us a call for a free initial consultation. We’ll give you a feel for the coaching experience and map out a structure for getting results. Remember, every elite athlete needs a coach to achieve his peak performance and win the game. Business is no different. Working with a business coach will keep you in action to win the game.

Are you ready to win?

Uncovering Client Concerns

“You can observe a lot just by watching.” – Yogi Berra, Hall of Fame Baseball Player & Manager

You might think that your client’s concerns about you, your service or your product might be negatives that you should avoid at all costs. Maybe you think “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is the best strategy for keeping people happy and managing client relationships.

In the sales world, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, client or prospect concerns are the window into their thinking that can give you the advantage over your competition. When you take the time to find out what your client wants, what his likes and dislikes are, then you can address the situation and take away the prospect’s concerns. When you do that, you open the door to making the sale because the customer will believe that you understand him and you value his business.

You have to ask a lot of questions if you want to identify the prospect’s core concerns. Here are a few examples of the types of questions that can yield a lot of valuable information:

1. Yes/No Questions: Do you like this? Do you think this will work for you? Then follow this with Why/Why Not Questions. Why is this not the best solution?
2. Loaded Questions: Describe a common situation that happens when people use your product. Has this ever happened to you?
3. Reversal Question: If you were me, how would you design the product? How would you set up the account?
4. Best/Worst Questions: What do you like best about your current provider? What is missing from that relationship?
5. Perfect World Questions: If you had the perfect vendor for this product, what would that relationship look like?
6. Closing Questions: If you had A, B, and C would you buy from me today?

These are just some of the things you can ask prospects that will illuminate what they are thinking, what they really want, and give you the opportunity to provide it. When you take away a client’s concerns, you are showing them that working with you is a winning proposition.

If you want to learn more about how to handle customer concerns, listen to The Business Beat, Wednesday, May 19th at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on http://www.healthylife.net/. We’ll be talking about how uncovering client concerns can help boost your closing ratio and win the game of sales.

Are you ready to win?

SWOT - How Do You Stack Up?

“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” - John Wooden, Legendary College Basketball Coach

We spend a lot of time working with companies to develop their value messages. How do they differentiate themselves from their competition? What do they do well? Where can they focus their resources to become more competitive?

A helpful tool in this process is the SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis looks at your company from the inside out and can quickly paint a picture of what the company should be working on. We also encourage our clients to do SWOT analyses on their known competitors to highlight where they stack up.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are your company’s internal forces, things that are under your control. Ask yourself some core questions about your company’s performance:

What do you do well?
What are your advantages?
What are your competencies?
What do you do poorly?
Where are you losing money?
Where do you lack resources?

Opportunities and threats are external forces, things that happen in the larger world that will impact your company’s ability to do business. They are things you can capitalize on or mitigate if you are aware of them:

What are the new market trends?
Do you have a niche that your competitors are missing?
What are new technologies or customer needs?
What obstacles are standing in your way?
What are your successful competitors doing that you aren’t?
Are there government regulations or negative economic trends that impact you?

Once you have completed a SWOT analysis you can develop an action plan to turn weaknesses into strengths, and threats into opportunities. Prioritize your projects and determine the resources you need to devote to them. A periodic SWOT analysis will keep you competitive and position you to win the game of business.

Are you ready to win?