growasacoach

3 ways to make the most of reading marketing/ business/ coaching books

I don't know about you but I have found recently that I have just a ton of books that...

...sit on my shelf ready for me to read.

...and sit...

...and sit....

It's like I think that they are going to jump off the shelf themselves and help me to learn and take action!  As most coaches I know have a full shelf of books I wanted to put together some ideas, following from my post on my newsletter about making the most of things we have already invested in - low and no cost ways of learning. (By the way - want to receive these all the time - use the links on the side of this blog to sign up for Lessons for Life)

So onto my tips to make the most of your book investment...

Ways to serve your customers rather than sell in 2009

I was inspired by a twitter post from @sparkspace about thinking about how to best serve your customers rather than just sell to them in 2009 and beyond.

So here are a few of the things I thought about for my biz coaching coaches.  Hope they start your creative spark going!

A great list of networks & coaching organisations

I was looking for coaching networks I could attend for CPD & Networking reasons, and came across this great site from Peer Resources.

http://www.mentors.ca/coachorgs.html#networks

I have to share....

I've just found this coaching superconference - and it doesn't cost a penny to register (presuming there are the usual phone costs!)

http://2008superconference.com/index.html

Lots of good names signed up - worth a look at maybe!

About upcoming trends and resources

I had an interesting link through my inbox that I thought it would be useful to share.  Andrea Lee, of the Multiple School of Coaching Income fame, is going to be running a summit on key coaching trends with some great support offers.

You can find out more at the link here - it's also good to get a sneak preview at what experienced coaches feel are the upcoming trend niches in coaching.

http://www.leadershipincoachingtelesummit.com/

How does that fit with your niche thoughts?

Coaching Networks

I wonder if like me, you ever stop to wonder where the other coaches are out there - and how you can easily meet up with them in person!

(Yes, we are real people!)

Great Communication

Great Communication is essential to a coach.

If you are a coach who really gets that, can do it in their coaching business with clients but maybe needs some extra support when it comes to pitches and presentations, there are some great tips in the blog of my fellow coach & member of several peer networks I am a member of, Felicia Slattery

Another great tool recommended by Linda Fox here - I love the tips she has pulled out.

I'll be using mine first of all to test how it works with the Get Clients Now(TM) programme that I am going to be facilitating and am first running through as a client myself.

It's called Joe's Goals and you can find out more here

Business resources

I was mooching around on the technorati directory today and came across this great site

http://www.bizbuildingblocks.com/

I really liked it as it stood out clearly about what it was - an affiliate site - and yet told you about lots of different resources or other blogs.  I'll definitely be having a go at the reformatting tip under articles to 65 characters, as I know that this is something that constantly comes up when I am writing the ezine!

What do your customers think?

Are you doing what I used to do, and just guessing what your customers think?  If you are, here is a great tool to help you actually create short one question survey's to ask your customers what they think.

Read on to find out more about this great tool...