Tag Archives: Coaching

Coaching Top Ranked Players

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First let’s set the scene for you as a coach, to give you a better idea of this situation we are talking about.

“A parent comes to you with her son and wants you to coach him, the kid is already ranked high in his section, but they want you to help him make that rise up in the ranking.”

So, what do you do?

I would follow these coaching rules.

A) Find out how hungry he is.

Tennis coaches should always first find out why they are playing tennis and then get a sense for how hungry they are for success.

You have to start here, because all success is going to come through their self-motivation and desire to be great, there are many great coaches who fail to help their players become Champions, but is that really the case?

What they failed to do is,“Measure the player’s desire and heart.”

A smart coach can size up any young tennis player in minutes and they will then decide on whether or not to work with that player.

B) If you do decide to work with them, start working on their mental game immediately.

Their success, is going to depend upon how strong their mental game is on any giving day.

They already know how to play the game, so focus on daily mental training.

Use practice as a time, to prepare them for the mental battles, that they are going to face in matches.

This means you have to know how to coach the mental game.

Study books on the subject and other great coaches and then adopt and adapt their coaching philosophies, to fit into your own unique style.

I am a mental coach myself and I started about 10 years ago and have never look back.

C) Have Faith In them

This is the part of coaching and support that many coaches don’t ever get in their career.

What I’m I talking about here?

“Tennis coaches must show their players that they have faith in them, until their players can develop their own faith.”

One of the great arts of coaching tennis, is to be able to master these skills and then be able to implement them into your program

I have studied the mental game for years and this is the one master coaching key, that I have discovered and that I try to share with as many other coaches as I can.

Now, combine all of those 3 coaching tips,while coaching your top ranked players and you will be developing some true Champions.

Which is what coaching is all about.

Keep working on these tips too, until you master them.

Good luck in your career!

So, good luck!

Build Your Coaching Business – How Many Calls a Week Do You Get from Your Website? Zero?

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There are three key things to know in any marketing and that includes your website.

  • How many people see it;
  • What Percentage of those that see it actually act on it;
  • And How many did you want to act on it.

Statistically over 99% of all websites don’t deliver what you, the coach, running a coaching business, wanted…..more clients.

The reason is very simple: very few manage the key measurements, How many see the website (your traffic); What is the conversion of the website (the percentage that are COMPELLED to act, to call you, to sign up, or whatever the action you designed…or did you design it?); And how many you wanted to call you each and every week. By the way, did you know that you COULD design your website, or any marketing for that matter, to deliver exactly what you wanted each and every week? Well you can….if you manage those three key measurements.

Do you have any idea why it hasn’t worked up until now? I mean, after all, didn’t you pay some web developer a lot of money to make that happen? Or did you do it yourself? The results are probably still the same….zero clients (or very very few anyway) from the website.

Let’s say, just for the fun of it, that you want 10 calls a week for your coaching. And, let’s also say that you close 50% of those. That would be 5 coaching sales a week. By the way, do any of those numbers sound familiar, or achievable? Maybe you’re doing something wrong, or ….not even managing the numbers?

If you want 10 calls a week, and let’s assume that your website converts 5% (do you even know what your website conversion is? Or are you managing it so that you get something like that? I’ve seen some websites hit 40% when they work on the conversion. In any case, 5% is our current target.) Wanting 10 calls a week, and with a 5% conversion, that means you have to deliver 200 people, your traffic to your site. So, how do you do that?

Let’s start with: Do you know how many people are looking for your coaching services every week on the internet? Go to http://inventory.overture.com , type in your type of coaching, and find out. (By the way, that site has a LOT of traffic, and may time out just waiting for your turn. If you get a “website not found” warning, or something similar, just keep trying. It will come up eventually. This is a very popular site.) The results your see will show you how many people are searching for that search phrase in a month on Yahoo. If you want to know how many are searching on Google, it’s approximately 2 times as many. So, the totals for the two most popular search engines are apprxoimately 3 times the numbers showing.

Here are some examples (just for Yahoo):

  • Business Coach 5,487
  • Life Coach 16,174
  • Career coach 2,508

There are a lot of other types of coaches, and different ways to search for each type of coach, so play with the search terms to see how many people are looking for you in what way. It might be a pretty big eye opener.

Now, let’s pick Life Coach with 16,174 people searching in a month. Let’s say that when those 16,174 people search they come across your listing on a major search engine, and if you are on page 1 of that search engine you get 5% of those searches, that’s 808 that end up on your website. And, if your website converts at 5%, that’s around 40 people giving you a call a month. Neat huh?

Do you come even close to that? Don’t forget that whatever you found, multiply that by 3 to get how many are searching on both Yahoo and Google.

There are lots of ways of capturing that 16,174 people, or at least directing them toward your website. Search engine optimization (consciously writing your website correctly so that the search engines put you on page one….not as hard as it may sound), using pay-per-click (sponsored advertising), article writing on ezines (you’re reading this aren’t you…that’s how you got here, and there’s a link at the bottom of the page to my website…see it does work!), and lots of other ways.

In any case, let’s look at a formula that explains this.

# people who see website X Percent converted = # calls, leads or whatever you want to call them.

You can either just wait for something to happen, which most coaches have been doing, or you can actively manage the three numbers to deliver exactly how many calls, or leads you want each and every week or month.

How?

For number of people seeing your website — actively work on search engine position, start up a pay-per-click campaign (only after making sure you have the conversion on the website), start article marketing campaign, and lots of others. Make sure you track the actual traffic to your website weekly, and manage it to get the results you want.

For Conversion – Write the website content that is targeted on your target audience’s pain or problems. Most coaches make the mistakes of “selling coaching” when the prospect is only interested in “do you understand his pain and problems” and “do you have a solution”. Therefore, when the website starts out: “I am a coach. Been in business 20 years.” or Company name, logo all at the top it takes 3 seconds for the prospect to flip to another website because he didn’t see anything about his pain, his problem, his solution. Notice the use of HIS here. It isn’t about you, your coaching, or anything about you. It is ONLY about your client’s problems, pains, solutions, results. They’d better be the first and only thing he sees in that first 3 seconds…..or he’s gone. In any case, measure your website conversion weekly and manage it to get 5% or greater conversion. If you’re not getting that, and most coaches report zero traffic and zero conversion to me before they start.

For number of leads or calls you want – Well … manage the other numbers. You can literally design the system, your website, your traffic, to deliver exactly what you want, and sometimes the surprise is that there are so many people looking but finding no one, that your chances are pretty good…..only after you start managing these key numbers.

So, coach, are you getting the potential calls per week or per month from your website?

Coaching Certification – It’s Not Important, But What Is?

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In the coaching profession it is not necessary to get a coaching certification. In other words just about anyone can begin coaching without prior certification from any school or institution. Although there are some places that are making moves to regulate the profession, getting a coaching certification is not a requirement to be great at what you do.

What makes a great coach?

Having a coaching certification is not the basis for one to be considered an amazing coach. If you have prior experience in your field of expertise and you have the zeal and passion to support others then you may have what it takes to be a successful professional coach. You know the ins and outs of the business because you’ve been there done it. Anyone can start their own coaching business with virtually zero training or certifications.

However there is one “training” activity all successful coaches partake in consistently. They are always being coached themselves by a coach who is ahead of where they want to be. It makes sense right? If a coach wants to help their clients grow they must be growing themselves. This is where the true learning comes from. Being coached regularly is the best way to improve as a coach and a mentor.

But in case you’re wondering why there are people who want to get certified, they were indoctrinated by coaching organizations and schools. They believe it’s essential and that’s why these institutions exist to certify them.

Many people want to get certified because they want a validation that they are good coaches. But the truth is, it is highly possible to be certified even if you are not that good of a coach. In the same way that there are many great coaches that exist out there without coaching certification.

There is nothing wrong with getting a coaching certification, but then again there is no guarantee that a certified coach can deliver better results than an uncertified one. In fact, anyone with a printer can claim that they are certified coach-and I mean anyone who may not even have experience in business or in other fields. Who knows right?

If a coaching certification doesn’t matter then, what does?

Experience, ability, a great system-these are just few of the elements that matter when it comes to choosing a business coach. Clients want to invest in people who can help them; a person whom they believe in. And coaches must have a solid background in business or in other fields in order for them to gain the respect and trust of their clients.

Experience in their field can speak for itself. Bill Gates, for example, does not need to be certified in order for him to become a successful business coach. Ask yourself, does he need a certification?

What’s also important is whether or not the he or she was able to deliver desirable results for her or his previous clients. Was she or he able to improve a business, achieve goals or improve relationships? This is an effective way to measure whether or not a coach has a system that works for their clients.

The most important reasons why certain coaches succeed in their field is their irreversible passion for what they do. Coaches can make a great difference in people’s lives only when they have a heart for coaching. And having a coaching certification cannot replace passion, experience, real and raw skills.