The Business Growth Blog by Rob Cuesta

Are you standing on the shoulders of giants?

It was Isaac Newton who famously declared that he was "standing on the shoulders of giants", referring to the fact that all his knowledge was a development of ideas that other, greater, people had developed before him.

In that sense, it has a role to play in your positioning as an expert--however I think of it in a very different sense when it comes to running and growing your coaching, consulting or training business.

6FBP Brief #37: stop charging for your time

 

As a coach, consultant or trainer, you can't afford to sell your time. Selling your life by the hour for an hourly rate is one of the biggest mistakes I see practitioners make when they market coaching, training or consulting. Think of it this way: if the next hour you work were also the last hour of your life, would it really only be worth whatever you're charging for it? Probably not.

So watch this video to see what to do about it.

Then head over to www.robcuesta.com/6figureblueprint to see me live

6FBP Brief #29: Track your results

  

 

Whether you're selling coaching, consulting or training, it's easy to make expensive mistakes when you are marketing. The secret to making sure you avoid those mistakes is to track the results of everything you do. You need to know exactly how much more you sell every time you do something to promote yourself as a coach, consultant or trainer.

Watch this video for more.

Then head over to www.robcuesta.com/6figureblueprint to see me live

 

UBC8: One mindset shift that will TRANSFORM your relationship with your tribe

You know already you need to build a tribe, right? I mean you may call it your list (I tell my clients not to, for a variety of reasons), your community (better), your army of raving fans, or whatever, but you know you need to gather a bunch of people around you who care about what you have to say to them. You'll have heard that over and over again.

You also probably know that having built your tribe you need to engage with them, and the bare minimum for that is an email sequence or "autoresponder series".

The problem a lot of business owners have is that it's easy to write 20 emails, but that doesn't make an autoresponder sequence.

There’s a key thing they’re missing.

So I want to tell you what that is.

I’m sitting in my room at the beautiful Radisson Blu St Helens in Dublin, a former stately home turned 5-star hotel that is quickly becoming my second home in Ireland’s capital. I have to run to get a cab back to the airport in a moment, but I had a blinding flash of the obvious that I feel I need to share with you before I set off.

You see, I just said that most business owners are missing a vital point when they write their autoresponder sequences.

It’s taken me a few years to get it, but it finally came to me this morning.

The mistake most entrepreneurs make is to write a bunch of emails in isolation and expect them to make sense as a whole.

What happens when you write like that, though, is that each email stands alone. So it’s easy for a reader to drop out at any point.

For some time I’ve been teaching my clients the secrets to creating successful products. And this morning I finally made the connection.

YOUR AUTORESPONDER SEQUENCE IS A PRODUCT JUST LIKE ANY OTHER.

 

When you think of it that way, everything becomes easy.

If you prefer think of it like this: when you write a 20-email follow up sequence, write it as though you were writing a 20-chapter ebook.

You see, the thing about an autoresponder sequence (just like your products) is that it’s useless if the reader doesn’t get ALL THE WAY THROUGH.

If they bail out (i.e. unsubscribe) they won’t get your full message, so they won’t get all the benefits, so they won’t take anything else from you, and they won’t tell other people about you.

And if you’re going to put calls to action in your autoresponder sequence (and you should!), then they won’t be there to see them.

So you need to write your autoresponder the same way as you would a product:

1. Top and tail it with an intro that tells the reader what you’re going to tell them, and a closing summary that reminds them what they’ve learned. And add summaries along the way.
2. Structure it. Follow your system step by step, and have a narrative thread that runs through it
3. Throw in case studies and examples. And exercises for people to do.
4. Tell people what’s coming up in future instalments (the next day AND two weeks from now) so they’ll want to stay—you can only do that if you’ve planned out every step of the sequence!
5. Leave a few cliffhangers to make sure people tune back in
   This is so key that I’m going to be adding a whole workshop on autoresponder writing to my Protégé program from February.

Now I’m off to the airport—enough travel time to overhaul at least one of my autoresponders!

UBC5: Use Social Media Strategically If You Want More Clients

 

 

Most coaches and consultants use social media very badly. In this 6-Figure Blueprint Brief, Rob Cuesta discusses how to use social media to help you market your coaching, consulting or advisory practice and get more clients, make more money and have more fun.

Key points?

1. Figure out where your clients are i nthe Social Media space

2. Figure out what they're doing there

3. Join the conversation, don't hijack it

 

Visit www.PracticeMomentum.com to get a copy of my book

UBC3: If you want more coaching or consulting clients, you need to have better conversations

Today I want to talk about conversations.

One of the key things I discovered while I was building my business was that the quality of the conversations you have will dictate the quality of your business results.

To put it another way “clients = conversations”

Think about it like this.

Most of the coaches, consultants and trainers I speak to who are still struggling face one of four problems.

1. They can’t get enough clients
2. They have enough clients, but they can’t charge enough
3. they have enough clients, their fees are good, but they’re not the “right” clients
4. they have good clients, paying good money, but they feel like their business is out of control, like it’s taking over their life and there aren’t enough hours in the day any more

Let’s take each of those in turn

 

Not Enough Clients

If you’re not getting enough clients, then ask yourself one simple question. Are you talking to enough people? Are you having enough conversations?

When I started my business, I was excited about the possibilities this new fangled thing called the Internet was opening up. I sat at home and designed my website. I designed brochures to download, and business cards, and had them all printed up on Vistaprint. I wrote ebooks that people would download from my website.

The only thing I didn’t do was get out of the door or get on the phone and talk to people.

However much technology can help us build our business (and it can--getting your web presence right is a cornerstone of the Natural Expert method I’ll be sharing at “Thank You!” 2012), there’s no substitute for engaging people in conversation.

That conversation can take many forms. You can meet people one-to-one, you can talk to groups, you can engage with your audience through social media--whatever it is, make sure you can engage in a TWO-WAY conversation. The mistake a lot of marketers make is that they confuse broadcasting with engagement. Your audience wants you to engage with them.

So, get out and have more conversations. Indeed, if you want to get clients now go out and have a conversation now. If you want to book yourself solid, fill your diary for next week with clients. And if you want multiple streams of coaching income, have multiple streams of conversation going on!

 

Can’t Charge Enough

If you’re struggling to achieve the fees you want and deserve, then the conversations you’re having don’t create enough value. One of the Power Principles I share in my workshops is that “Money follows value”. The fees you can charge directly reflect the amount of value you’re creating for your clients, and that starts with the value you create in your conversations.

So, if you want to charge more, have higher-value conversations.

 

Not The Right Clients

OK, I shouldn’t need to say this by now, but if you’re not getting the right clients, guess what’s wrong with your conversations? That’s right, you’re not having conversations with the right people.

If you’re a business coach or consultant, you need to be talking to business owners. If you’re a relationship coach, then talk to people with relationship issues (and remember that being in a good relationship and wanting it to stay that way or even improve is just as much of an issue as being in a bad relationship or being in no relationship at all!). If you’re a parent coach, go and talk to parents.

The mistake many professionals make is that they try to talk to everyone in the hope that their ideal client is somewhere in that group. Focus down on having the right conversations with the right people and you’ll get the right clients for you. And yes, people know people who know people, but never mistake networking for marketing!

 

Out Of Control

No, I’m not going to tell you that your conversations are out of control. But I am going to tell you that you’re having the wrong conversations.

If your business is out of control then you need to think about boundaries. Are your clients taking up too much time? Or expecting you to be available at unreasonable times? Talk to them about what they can expect from you. And don’t be afraid to sack clients who don’t want to accept those boundaries.

Are other areas of life encroaching? Then you may need to have a boundaries conversation there too.

And finally, maybe you also need to have a serious conversation with yourself about boundaries.

OK, that’s it for today, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this - feel free to post on the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/6FigureBlueprint.

 

Videos that say "I'm the expert"

Video is a great tool for showcasing your expertise and positioning yourself as the natural expert in your field, and technology has made it easier than ever to get the videos you create in front of your target audience.

I'm a great fan of video - it's why I have so many on my youtube channel (www.youtube.com/robcuesta), on my facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/6FigureBlueprint) and in the member's area of www.PracticeMomentum.com.

So I'm always on the lookout for great examples that we might not otherwise see.

I just finished watching The Conspirator - a movie about the trial of Lincoln's assassins.

Watching the "extras" it became obvious that this film was made with love, care, and attention to detail by a group of very highly knowledgable experts. There are ten featurettes - each only a minute or so long - that each highlight a different area of expertise.

If you want to see how to show your audience how much you know without being salesy or pushy, I really recommend that you rent the DVD and watch the extras.

Oh and the film is great too :)

 

Rob

Six-Figure Blueprint Brief 28: test everything

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In marketing, if you're going to fail then fail fast, learn and move on. In this Six-Figure Blueprint Brief, I challenge you to test everything if you want to get more clients

Six-Figure Blueprint Brief 23: get accountable

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In this Six-Figure Blueprint Brief, I discuss how to make sure you keep working on your business objectives

Six-Figure Blueprint Brief 8: your quarter pounder

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In this latest 6-Figure Blueprint Brief, Rob Cuesta discusses the cornerstone of your efforts to get more clients for your coaching, consulting or training business