by Dr. Caron Goode | Oct 19, 2018 | Business Training & Marketing Courses
Are you struggling with a decision to become a parent coach? Do you wonder how to succeed with business training?
Entrepreneurship calls to the restless souls who want to serve as financially successful parent coaches. Like you might have questions, I questioned my own decision to start the Academy for Coaching Parents International.
I thoroughly grasp the hesitance in starting a new business and committing to its success–your success. However, one fact will always be sincere….
…In economic tough times, entrepreneurs flourish. Focusing that same worry about time and energy on developing a new service or filling a need in a community is worth your time and effort. You can become a financially successful entrepreneur in a relevant coaching business.
A recent news article stated that in times of economic downturn, the time and energy any person spent looking for another job can be exhausting. And not finding one can cause a sense of hopelessness. I get that too, as I applied for 300 different counseling jobs at the time I received my doctorate. The timing was honestly the worst as government funding had been cut to all major institutions for higher education.
That made sense to me. I understood hopelessness. Major surgery in 2000 left me feeling like attempting anything more than getting well was overwhelming. Then, after the events of 9/11, my seminar business ground to a halt quickly. I refused to give up finding a passion that could also make me financially successful. I had to keep asking myself, “What’s Next?” every time I wanted to quit.
What Next to Be Financially Successful?
If people could not come to us, we would go to the people, and the Academy for Coaching Parents International forged ahead to offer other entrepreneurs and nurturers the chance to work at home and be available to their children. Many have become financially successful entrepreneurs.
I had cultivated optimism well, and I would need it.
In January of 2013, all of the fifteen websites associated with my books, coach training and wellness crashed when the hosting server ignored my pleas to examine my site. I asked myself a hundred times if throwing in the towel was the right move.
One of my mentors for the Academy whose book I was ghostwriting was a self-made multimillionaire. When I asked how he went from being a physical education teacher to a millionaire, he encouraged me to focus one hour a day on the marketing of the Academy for Coaching Parents. He explained that focused attention on an object has an exponential effect – in short, what you focus on manifests. That was his secret and soon became mine also. Focusing on the act of creating something new provides a different perspective from those around you.
Focus on the formation of a financially successful business like the Academy brought out strengths that were waiting to be used again. Resilience surfaced and opened the door to passion, which fueled more focus. That kind of discussion moves helplessness out of the way, making room for hope, creativity, and of course, more focus, and eventually financially success in the role!
By now if you have decided to become a financially successful parent coach, but you want to explore the possibilities, we might have something for you.
Explore the coach training programs and decide for yourself, the best training course which aligns with your passion.
by Dr. Caron Goode | Jun 21, 2018 | Business Training & Marketing Courses
Do you design or plan your social media marketing campaigns to help gain more social following? The following tips help guide and increase brand visibility and drive traffic to your website, especially when rolling out your next social media campaign.
1. Reserve the same username across platforms
Reserve all your usernames across all the social media marketing platforms even if you don’t use them right away. As your business and online activity grows, you will need those usernames.
2. Decide which social media platforms suit your needs.
Not all social media platforms are suitable for your kind of marketing campaign. Building a presence and staying active on all available social media marketing platforms can be time-consuming. Identify platforms that bring the best results and focus on them. Initial research indicates that Facebook has the best advertising venues, but your ultimate question to answer is where does your audience hang out?
3. Optimize your social media platforms
Once you’ve decided on the platform you intend to use, focus on optimizing your profiles to get more followers. Consider using a real profile picture. Write a clear and comprehensive About page for each profile and include a link to your website.
4. Connect your social media marketing accounts to your site
Having all your active accounts connected to your websites helps to keep the conversation going. Visitors to your website can link to any of the listed accounts, and your followers on social media can find out more about your offer.
5. Find and follow leaders in your niche.
Find the most influential people in your niche and follow them to find inspiration. The chances are high that they share useful information about your niche or share their progress about a specific project. Look over their shoulders for inspiration.
6. Don’t forget the hashtags
Yes, it’s not just a pretty function to make your phrase turn into a link and look cool. Most people use hashtags to search for topics on social media. The practice puts your article, product, ebook, or training in front of your audiences.
7. Stay social
Whether you are running a personal profile or company/brand’s social media account, you need to actually stay social and interactive. Follow other users, send friend requests, comment on people’s posts, and update your status regularly.
8. Stay out of trouble
Each social media platform has its own sets of rules, and some regulations cut across all the networks. For instance, Twitter has a limit on how many people you can follow per day. Facebook has a restriction on friend-requesting people you don’t know and so on.
9. Track mentions
By tracking when and how you or your website are mentioned every day, across platforms, is how you regulate your public relations. Use available tools to track every mention of your brand across all platforms. Discover what people are saying about you or your brand. Don’t miss a chance to neutralize any negative talk and re-post the positive aspects.
10. Post as many times per day but again, don’t overdo it.
The number of times to post per day for social media marketing will depend on the media network, the numbers of your followers, and how interactive your audience is.
by Dr. Caron Goode | Jun 16, 2018 | Business Training & Marketing Courses
When you see a successful online entrepreneur like a parenting coach, how do you respond?
Are you jealous because you want to be that person?
Are you wishful and feel like the success couldn’t happen to you?
Are you scared and back away because it hurts too much to be who you are and not that successful entrepreneur?
When you feel bogged down in your personal or professional ruts, take note of your wish or longing to be in your own online business. After all, running a successful online business looks comfortable from the outsider’s viewpoint.
What is the online entrepreneur doing that is different?
How does he seem to have a great life without working that hard?
What you don’t see is the slow, yet persistent, process of long hours at the computer, tedious tasks, and focused time on these key elements:
Wearing the beginner’s mindset
Focusing on the intention, not the goal at first.
Recognizing and using leverage.
Building a set of useful contacts.
Hiring a valuable mentor
All of the elements are crucial to the success of your online business. Let’s take a closer look.
Wearing the Beginner’s Mindset
The success of any brick-and-mortar or online business needs the best personal mindset from the beginning.
A healthy mindset doesn’t guarantee success, but it is the best step of strength in the right directions.
[ctt template=”5″ link=”upfNV” via=”yes” ]Healthy, prosperous thinking is a foundation stone for an online business success. @parent_coach[/ctt]
What Is A Heathy Mindset?
1. The willingness to focus on the task as long as is necessary to achieve your goals, even if you set only one goal per day.
2. Start with a sound business plan from the beginning and don’t fly by the seat of your pants. Don’t believe that you can learn and earn as you go along.
3. Don’t hope for the best. Rather, make the best happen through your intentions and goals and get help when you need it.
Recognizing and Using Leverage
Stretch your time and dollars far as you learn to use the power of the Internet to make your online business successful.
Your first temptation may be to do everything first. That isn’t possible. Building your foundation first is more realistic.
The foundation is your base of operations:
Business plan
Intentions and values that guide your business
Determine your brand and how you want to represent yourself or your business.
Website – leverage search engine optimization
Gain page rank on Google through content like blogging, a course, or through articles on blogs or videos on vlogs.
These steps leverage your becoming indexed and available in the search engines. Leveraging also includes branding yourself, your website and your products.
Your reputation and credibility are everything on the internet. Don’t take any shortcuts.
Want to start a successful online business but don’t know where to start? Does all the steps for making a business successful seems dreadful to you?
Have a look at our course Successful Business Set-up in systemized steps and join us for a journey to take your business from a startup to a success.
Successful Business Set-up in systemized steps
by Dr. Caron Goode | Jun 2, 2018 | Business Training & Marketing Courses
Host a Giveaway Event With Other Marketers
A giveaway event startles some newcomers to online marketing. First, they don’t like the idea of giving away anything and not being compensated for it. That’s just a part of developing loyalty and good branding so you have to think of it like you’re walking through Sam’s Club for groceries and someone hands you a bite-sized taste. You appreciate that, right? The second that worries them is the thought of sharing their up and coming list with others. If you join a giveaway event with 5 other marketers, it’s not just you sending your list to them – it’s them sending their list to you, so you have the potential to increase your list five-fold! You have to eliminate your stingy mindset and think in terms of providing your list with a value opportunity. You’re going to share your audience. You probably already do that anyway if you’re an affiliate marketer (or plan to be). It’s no different.
Research Other Thought Leaders in Your Night
So once you decide you want to host a giveaway event with other marketers, yo have to find who you want to line up with. If you don’t already have a group of people in mind, you have to start finding them. Spy on other marketers who are on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. Look for the people your followers follow and see if you see any candidates. See who is talking about the same topics and who are the leaders who have people sharing their content. Look on Amazon to see which Kindle self published authors are on there using Kindle to attract a new audience. Look inside their book to see if you like what and how they teach and look for ways to contact them. SEO (search engine optimization) rank is another way to find thought leaders in your niche. If you are a leader, chances are you have stability in the search engines, and people are sharing your links and helping fortify your position, so reach out to those people who have earned that ranking. You want to see what the size of their following is. Ideally, you’ll be hooking up with other marketers at or above your level of list strength so that you pull in more people to your own list. Sign up to list to see what they offer and how they operate. You want people similar to what you do. You definitely don’t want to align yourself with any scammers or unethical individuals. Reach out for JV giveaway partners on threads in marketing forums. The Warrior Forum, for example, has a JV section where you could post your opportunity, but make sure you filter the people instead of allowing it to be a free for all. If your audience exists, and you already have a list going to some extent, then ask them who they align you with. You’ll usually have people responding to tell you that they know of 1-2 other people similar to you who they respect. Contact each person you vet for viability and then ask if they’d be interested in forming a joint giveaway with you. Gauge general interest at first or, go ahead to the next step and create your guidelines and email your prospects the guidelines along with your initial request.
Create Guidelines for the Giveaway
After you contact the others (or even before), create a list of guidelines for the participants. There are several things you can include, or leave out what doesn’t matter. Size (like number of pages) might be a consideration for you. For instance, it might be a 50+ page eBook or 5 page short report. Maybe it’s an article pack or even five hours of video or audio tutorials. Maybe you’ll want to put a dollar limit on it and make it value based. For example, “Must be something you normally sell for at least $27.” You’ll want to put the value on the offers to show the visitors everything they’re getting free. Topics might be a consideration, too. You’ll already be honing in on people who are in the same niche, but you might want to go one step further. For example, let’s say you are in the diet niche. Your giveaway event might be built around one topic, like nutrition. So everyone has to submit a product for the event about nutrition. They can’t focus on diet drugs or exercise. Themes are similar to this concept, and you might want to create a theme for your giveaway event. Using the diet niche as an example again, you might use something like this: • 7 Ways to Kickstart Your Diet • Eliminating the Quitter Mindset • 14-Days to a Trimmer Waist So everyone who submits for a certain theme must produce something that helps back up that concept. You also want to detail the time until the event for your prospective participants. They need time to create something unique for the giveaway. The less time you give them to prepare, the fewer people who will join in and the worse the quality will be. So plan well in advance of your event. Figure out how people will get each offer. Will they go to a squeeze page and opt in to the person’s list to receive their download? Or will you not make opt ins a requirement, but instead add promotions to the download area or zip files? You might also want to set guidelines on whether the submission has to be something 100% brand new or if it can be older products that they already have on the market.
Set Up the Page for the Giveaway Event
Like sales copy, the giveaway event should have copy that promotes the offer. You want to inform, educate and excite your audience about what they’re about to receive. You’ll want to include some simple instructions for what they need to do to get their free downloads. The more complex you make it, the worse off your event will be. Terms and rights will need to be included in some instances. For example, if you’re hosting a private label rights giveaway event. Each marketer might have different terms, so those should be listed with each offer. Start with a catchy headline and maybe a subheadline before launching into a bit of storyline for the sale. Beside each offer name, include a picture of the marketer, tell what their offer is, give the specifications or details of their offer, and provide the link to where they grab it. The promotion should have some sort of time scarcity. You don’t want to leave it wide open forever. If you have plenty of advanced notice and build a lot of buzz, then you should be fine doing a 24 hour to 7 day giveaway event, max. Create graphics for the sale just as if you were launching an info product. That means a minisite feel, ecovers for the offers if applicable, and even promo banners for the event. You might want to create a set of swipe files for the event too. This makes it easy for the participants to either use it as is or as springboard content that they can tweak and blast out to their list.
Promote the Event
You can’t just make the event go live and expect people to find it via the search engines. Your page would need time to get indexed and ranked for domination. So you need to manually promote it. Building a buzz should take place shortly before the event and every day thereafter by every member who is onboard for the special giveaway event, not just by one person. Come up with a daily promo idea such as asking people (your list, your social networking followers), “Who’s your favorite?” Discuss the various participants and get their feedback on which offer blew them away. Share that feedback with your audience online and bill that favorite as a “can’t miss” free download to drive more traffic to the giveaway. Discuss specific offers in more depth like a review – or offer a tutorial for them. So for instance, if you were in a PLR giveaway event, and there was one pack for a 35-page eBook, you might do a lesson on how to repurpose that person’s giveaway freebie. You’re showing your people (your blog readers, etc.) how to get more mileage out of this event, and that will hook the people who heard about the offer but passed over it because they were unsure how to put it to good use. Social networking sites will need to have a buzz about your event. Whip up posts for Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook (as well as Pinterest). Make sure you provide a call to action that says they should visit the event and share the post with others! Host a webinar with the participants of the giveaway. Invite everyone’s list to the event and then have each person do a short presentation. If you want to up the ante a bit, do a Q&A afterwards. Have everyone in the event blog about it. Each person should email their list a link to their blog to read about the event and get more details, in addition to linking directly to the event itself.
Choosing a Cross Promo Instead of a Giveaway Event
Picking one marketer to cross promo with is another option. You don’t have to have a big group of individuals initially. Sometimes it’s hard when you’re relatively unknown with a small list (or no list at all) to get people to agree to be part of your event. So if this happens, just try getting one person to agree to an event. If you have a list yourself, and are trying to grow it, choose someone with a list approximately the same size as yours. If you have no list, then choose someone with a bigger list and make an unbelievable free offer just for their list. Why would anyone want to come onboard for this type of exchange? Because your offer is going to be so awesome, they’ll be providing something great for their list. What you’ll have to do is explain this to the potential joint venture partner and go above and beyond in what you create for their list. In fact, try to tailor it to their subscribers’ needs. The JV partner will probably also want to know what kind of marketer you are. If they’re established, then they probably get requests all the time for promotions and other deals. They’re looking for someone ethical. Why is this important? Because they’re about to put their own reputation on the line and recommend that their subscribers sign up with you. If they send them to the jaws of a scammer, they’ll be the one blamed. So somehow, prove to the prospective JV partner that you’re on the up and up and that it’s safe to engage in a cross promotion with you. You can do a free event, or if the prospective partner won’t go for that, see if he or she will possibly entertain the thought of letting you give their list a different kind of perk – a discount on a paid product. Coupons are also special and show a list that you’re working on their behalf to get them good deals. Make it a special offer so that it’s not just the same discount everyone else online gets. Giveaway and cross-promo events can be a great list building activity. It forces you to give it your all and showcase the best that you have to offer to the paying public and they’ll be more loyal from that point on.
by Dr. Caron Goode | Jun 1, 2018 | Business Training & Marketing Courses
With 200+ opportunities for social networking online, what is right for your business? You gain authority and leads, but you might take a closer look at the top five social networking opportunities.
You may find that some of those networks fit perfectly in with what youíre doing, but for the most part, youíll probably focus your efforts into the some of the five big systems we’re discussing in this post. My goal is to help you understand what these networks are about and how they might fit in with your marketing plan.
Facebook
Was launched in 2004 and reported as of the first quarter of 2018, Facebook has 2.19 billion monthly users who are active. Facebook social networking reaches by far a wide audience and age ranges.
Facebook could serve you in two ways:
(1) You create your account page and start networking with people who fit your client or buyer persona.
(2) Facebook offers marketing through ads directed to your well-defined audience. Facebook has become a more visual network of companies and individuals sharing higher numbers of photos and videos. Your ads, then, are visually appealing. In summary, businesses advertise cost-effectively to grow their following and Facebook provides insights and also analytics to help understand the effectiveness of posts.
Having a Facebook group provides you with an interactive network that allows for content sharing, and the commenting system offers a stronger or cohesive connection. Interestingly enough, Facebook is a closed format, more so than networks like Twitter and Pinterest. Still, with a large number of people on Facebook, you can build a strategic presence and monetize that.
Twitter
Launching in 2006, Twitter now has over 500 million active users and receives over 1.6 billion search queries daily. Twitter also reaches a broad demographic as Facebook does.
Twitterí’s uniqueness comes from the 280-character limit on tweet updates. Can you create concise tweets for your business that interest and entertain the users. While you can upload photos to Twitter, the text-based social networking serves some businesses well.
While twitter updates are private, any user can search the content of people they follow. Can you imagine 6000 tweets go into cyberspace every SECOND? That amounts to “200 billion tweets per year.” (www.internetlivestats.com/twitter-statistics)
LinkedIn
Linkedin, the oldest of these five social networking opportunities, was launched in 2003. By design, the network was for professionals making professional connections. You will find that searching for professionals by the job, skill set, or interests is easy. Linkedin is smaller than Twitter and Facebook, but it is a focused network. With a claim of over 500 million users, the networking professionals can also purview the job market, which has increased since the recent change in ownership to Microsoft Corporation.
Service providers do very well on LinkedIn, but most businesses can benefit from a LinkedIn presence. The site is a source for not only finding employment and clients but also allows like-minded business people to share ideas, advice, connect to work on projects and more through groups.
Google+
Google, a relative newcomer in comparison, launched this network in 2010: http://plus.google.com– Of 2.2 billion users, the active ones amount roughly to 111 million. Google+ attracts an audience with technical minds and offers interesting possible connections with Google’s other products, including the search engine.
Google+ allows for the sharing of lengthy content, creating discussions, and sharing photos. And while Google+ does not necessarily reach the average social media user, the strength in Google+ comes from some important sources:
The +1 button – On the network and throughout the web, Google users can show appreciation for content by giving it a +1. The +1 can help grow word-of-mouth audiences, but also have an impact on traffic through search engines.
Google Hangouts – Sophisticated video / audio conferencing software is built into Google, allowing businesses to make more meaningful connections with their audience. Even the President of the United States and other public figures have held their personal Hangouts.
The bottom line is if your audience is on Google+ (it may or may not be), you should explore the possibilities.
Pinterest
Currently, Pinterest is social media popular destination. They officially launched in 2012 and according to Comscore, by January 2012, had 11.7 million users. While on the surface, it seems like they have a tiny audience, it ís a unique network that many business strategists are keeping an eye on and businesses are tapping into the image extravaganza.
This network is the most visual by far, as its focus is on sharing photos (videos can be shared too) of things that interest users. These shares are called pins and allow users to create virtual pinboards in a variety of categories. The site also attracts considerably more men than women, giving you something to consider in your participation.
If your web content tends to be visual or your product photos are visually appealing, there could be a place for you on Pinterest. Like Twitter, Pinterest is a very open network, and you will find that your Pinterest content is readily seen and shared by people who don’t directly follow you.
Parting Thoughts
Where you put your focus is where you will succeed. It is always better to do one or two things well, instead of a bunch of tasks haphazardly. If you are just getting started with social media, pick one in which to get your feet wet. If you’re already involved, consider if you are putting your attention into the right areas and perhaps make a plan to explore new areas or dig deeper into existing ones.
by Dr. Caron Goode | Dec 23, 2017 | Business Training & Marketing Courses, Learn about Coaching
Your coaching clients are out there, and they are looking for you! In my training as a therapist, counselor, and coach, I’ve heard this phrase often and always wondered at its veracity.
A dozen years later of online experience and building the Academy for Coaching Parents experiences, I can again state: That potential clients want you is true. Clients are out there whether you are a life coach for parents, health coach for seniors, a dating coach for men in mid-life, or a business coach for creative people.
The mindset to hold for successful coaching clients is you have a large audience, and they are eagerly anticipating the help only you can provide.
Check the list below to see if you are missing the mark in important areas. Doing so may cause potential clients to turn away for another coach.
Make it Easy for Them
When selling your products and services online, you have to make it easy for your customers to buy. The process sounds easy, but customer connections is in how you organize the information. You might be shocked at how often coaches (and others) miss
- The distinct steps are clear and obvious on your web site or on other social media platforms. The days of reading content are over. Invite visitors to download a syllabus of courses, an ebooks, take a quiz, listen to a free podcast, or watch a video that tells a visitor in three minutes abut the site and provide three options to take the next step. Would they enjoy a blog article, or would they download affirmations to stay calmer?
- The “buy” buttons are not obvious. The primary color for my websites is blue and variant shades. The buttons to link a potential client to the next page or product should stand out – bright green, cherry red, and orange are popular colors that attract attention.
- They don’t make contact information easy to find. This should be obvious to you while it may not be obvious on the website. Most websites have a contact page, which is obvious in the menu on top of the site.Here are a few more ideas: At the end of each blog, have a contact form. It could also serve to sign a new client for blog traffic, as well as to contact you with any questions, no matter how small.
- They don’t provide clear calls to action on their website. By calls to action, it means you provide instructions: click here, download this, go to the posts in children’s category, review this book chapter, buy this book. In my reviews of coach’s sites, I have seen a leading report on the page. A sample of content and the book cover populate a page. The button reads “Learn More.” The button may lead to another page of content, a blog article, and such. The button should be much more precise: Buy this. Download the Ebook now, Read the post sample from the book, and leave a comment ti my questions: Can I email this book to you? Can you see a yes answer is more likely to be forthcoming than just learning more.
- They don’t create easy website navigation so readers can quickly find what they need. In the ideal world, you would list the pages you wanted your clients to visit in order like first, second, third etc.. Too often web builders put the basic pages up and add them to the menu with no specific navigation instruction.
The list goes on, but the bottom line is this: make it easy for your customers to buy from you. Not only will you make more money, but your clients will be singing your praises.
Court the Potential Coaching Clients
Even if your ideal market is established as business owners, you will still create your site navigation for up and coming new clients. While they might not be ready for you yet, and they’ll remember you if you treat them well and have organized-easy-to-find content and giveaways.
Some ideas for helping the new coaching clients learn to trust you and your offerings are:
- Low-cost self-study products. Could you offer a short, free course, a video, or an audio file?
- E-books or guides – An ebook that you give away is called a Lead Magnet – an ebook which magnetizes a new to you? Man sure the topic is one that your clients would want to read.
- Email courses – This is a safe bet for those who don’t mind leaving their email address, because they can read what they are interested in as well as learn about you also.
- Membership sites and forums should be your business model with new offers, products, or services at regular intervals.
- Facebook groups can serve as memberships also, and you have the option of making your presentations live on Facebook Live.
Get Personal
In every crowded niche, your personality is what sets you a part from every other coach out there. Don’t be afraid to shine. Stand out brightly in your image, what you write and how you present your materials. That’s how your potential customers will get to know, like and trust you. You cannot stop to worry if your efforts are working. You have to assume that your efforts work, and whether you are shy, non-techie, ora private person, you must shine online and in social media if that is where you are building a business.
- Share personal updates on social media so that potential customers can see the “real” you.
- Post photos of your life outside of business on Instagram and Facebook.
- Take a stand for what you believe in, whether or not it is controversial and unpopular.
- Be available to answer questions and stay on top of the most popular social media that you use.
