.

Coaching Business Weekly Milana Leshinsky ACCPOW Founder & CEO Every week, you will receive coaching business tips on: - Practice Building - Practice Management - Passive Coaching Income I will also let you peek inside my own coaching business! I am candid and straight forward, and don't hold anything back. I will share with you what worked and what flopped!  Subscribe using the form below, and you'll receive instant access to all the past issues: Name: Email: *Your information is never shared, sold or given away

Contents:

- Editor's Message - Who's the Leader in Your Industry?
- Understanding The Corporate Buyer
- Housekeeping links

Member Updates & Highlights:

- Life Coaches Joint Venture With Nursing Enterpeneurs
- In My Honest Opinion:  Coaching Web Sites Ranked
- Successfully Selling Your Professional Services

Please, forward this issue to your friends and colleagues!

Build Your Coaching or Consulting Practice Without Cold Calling:
Tools, resources and support for independent professionals.
http://www.accpow.com
 

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Editor's Message - Who's the Leader in Your Industry?
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Welcome new ACCPOW members and subscribers!

"Reach for the sky" is the phrase that came to mind, after I read 
an article in this month's Entrepreneur magazine.

The main idea of the article was that if you want to spark 
business growth, you must find out who the leader is in your 
industry, and try to follow them.

If you're a fitness coach, find out who the most popular 
fitness coach is, and why.

If you're a career development consultant, do some research and 
find out who's been the authority in the area of career 
development.

If you can't find a leader in your industry, perhaps you haven't 
defined your target audience very well. Try naming your ideal 
client in a very specific way, then do a search for that term on 
Google.com to find other people who are targeting the same 
audience.

See more on the topic of doing research on Google.com in one of
the previous issues of ACCPOW's Insider:

http://www.accpow.com/public/insider/091903.shtml

Gather all data about your industry leader in a simple text file,
in a list format.  Now put a checkmark next to every item on 
your list that you are willing and able to implement.  The more, 
the better.

Even if you do some of what the leader is doing, you'll see a 
growth in your business.  You may even find a way to do it 
better.  Don't try to immitate just anybody in your industry.  
Immitate the best.  Reach for the sky, and you'll catch at least 
one more star!

Enjoy this week's Insider, and please send me your questions - I 
love hear from my readers!

Warmly,
Milana Leshinsky
ACCPOW, Executive Director & Editor
http://www.accpow.com
 

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Member Updates and Resources
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"Life Coaches Joint Venture With Nursing Enterpeneurs"
A new breed of entrepreneurs presents a great opportunity
for coaches, especially those dealing with health, fitness,
nutritional and emotional problems of their clients.  Since
nursing entrepreneurs are self-employed, they're more than
willing to join efforts with coaches.  Read to find out more:

"In My Honest Opinion:  Coaching Web Sites Ranked"
The good, the bad, and the ugly.  ACCPOW ranks coaching and
consulting web sites, could your site be one of them?  Find
out how we rank sites and why, and discover how to avoid
getting into our hall of shame :-)

"Successfully Selling Your Professional Services"
Have you ever been overwhelmed by the number of promotional
strategies you can use to grow your business?  Ever felt like
you don't know where to start, or how to focus your marketing?
Perhaps you're missing the 7 ingredients offered in this article:
 

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Understanding The Corporate Buyer
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by C.J. Hayden 

Selling your services to corporations is an attractive 
proposition. The contracts are larger than with small businesses 
and individuals, and often longer-term. There's the possibility 
of repeat business worth many billable hours at respectable 
rates. 

But the best clients are not always the easiest to get. If you 
don't grasp the realities of the corporate environment, you may 
sabotage even a hot lead. Here are five important keys to 
working with the corporate buyer. 

1. Managers are busy. This is just as true in economic downturns 
as during a boom. When business is slow, unnecessary employees 
get laid off. The people left behind have to pick up the slack. 

Busy people ignore unsolicited email and letters, and will not 
return your phone calls. Even when you are in the final stages 
of closing a deal, your contact may not return your calls for 
weeks. If you accept this as normal behavior instead of 
obsessing about how you may have caused it, you will sleep 
better at night and use your daylight hours more productively. 

2. Hot buttons open doors. If you want to capture the interest 
of a busy person, you need to tell them exactly how you can help 
them. Calling just to introduce yourself will not get their 
attention. 

What do the people in your target market perceive to be the 
greatest problems they face, or the biggest goals they wish to 
achieve? Ask these questions of the people you serve and the 
other businesspeople who serve them. Read trade literature or 
special interest publications and educate yourself on the key 
issues in your marketplace. Then tell your prospects in every 
communication how you can help address these needs. 

3. Every choice must be justified. When you sell to the owner of 
a small business or to an individual for his or her own use, 
your buyer is free to make purchasing decisions based on 
instinct, whim, or gut feeling. But every corporate sale must be 
justified to someone else in the organization. 

A supervisor must justify choices to a manager, the manager to 
an executive, the executive to the CEO, the CEO to the board, 
the board to the shareholders. Each one of these people wants to 
look good to the next link up the chain, and dreads making a 
public mistake. If you want your sale to go through, you need to 
provide your contact with EVIDENCE why you and your solution are 
the best choice. 

4. The bottom line rules. When you provide your evidence, it had 
better include dollars and cents. If you are more expensive than 
your competition, what added value will you provide? If hiring 
you will cost more than solving the company's problem in some 
other way, what tangible benefits will they receive that make 
the added expense worthwhile? 

Individuals and small businesses buy services in the category of 
nice-to-have, often to improve their quality of life or that of 
their employees. Corporations, especially in lean times, don't. 
You must sell them something they actually NEED and prove how it 
will enhance their bottom line. Real-life examples of results at 
other companies can speak volumes. Illustrations with charts and 
graphs are more convincing than any brochure. 

5. No budget; no project. Even when the company needs what you 
have and thinks you're the best one for the job, the deal won't 
go through if there's no money in the budget. You can ask your 
contact to try for a budget variance, but no budget usually 
means your project will be deferred until the next fiscal year. 

Always ask if the client has a budget at the first meeting. 
Don't necessarily expect them to tell you how much it is -- 
price negotiations will come later. But if your contact can't 
answer budget questions, it's also a strong clue you are not 
talking to the decision-maker. 

.........................................
C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients NOW! Since 1992, C.J. 
has been teaching business owners and salespeople to make more 
money with less effort. She is a Master Certified Coach and 
leads workshops internationally. Read more of her articles at 
http://www.getclientsnow.com 
 

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Housekeeping Links
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To read past issues, visit our online archive, go to:
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If you have already joined ACCPOW, but forgot your password, go
to this link to retrieve it: 
http://accpow.com/pa/manage.html

.........................................
Warmly,
Milana Leshinsky

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