NCCA Meeting

26 January 2006

Attendees

• Susan, Mandy, Lloyd, Carl, Carmen, Kristen, Pat, Janet, John, Lloyd, Lisa, Tiffany, Maureen
• Welcome all the new NCCA members! If you still need to sign up, please go to http://nccoaches.org/Pay.htm

Introductions

• Kristen Truman: Coach, Outward Bound instructor, Nursing instructor, emergency nurse. My marketing challenge is bringing in money.
• Janet Duvall: Marketing person, interested in business coaching. Marketing challenge is how to reach those people.
• Mandy: Retirement coaching, going toward financial people as potential partners. Marketing a book that I'm writing with my mother, hoping to run some workshops related to the book.
• John Henry Peck: Guest of Lloyd. Retired engineer, minister, social worker. I do some informal coaching and guidance.
• Lloyd: Life coach. My marketing challenge is to differentiate between marketing, selling, visibility, and setting boundaries on my practice because I do a lot of other things too.
• Lisa Eaton: Coach since 1997, CTI trained. Current project is "STEPS" for entrepreneurs. My marketing challenge is time
• Tiffany Lehman: New coach, helping people with finding their passion and wellness. Marketing challenge is leveraging my limited amount of money.
• Carmen: Certified Life/Business Coach through CTI. Pushing more toward spiritual coaching. My marketing challenge is following through.
• Carl: Doing some coaching in HP, and just got first paying client outside HP. Challenge is to convey the value of coaching to key stakeholders in HP.
• Maureen Radice: With Dale Carnegie. Also a life coach. I've done workshops for women. I haven't yet marketed my personal coaching in Colorado. Challenges are finding time to do marketing.
• Susan: Leaning more toward business coaching, but life coaching bleeds into that. My marketing challenge is to come up with some products that people want, and knowing what people want and are willing to pay for.

Adrienne Zoble

• Adrienne has been marketing specialist for small businesses since 1977. She has groups and clients across the nation, and has written a marketing plan book. She displays a passion for the success of your business.
• Adrienne's website: www.azobleassoc.com
• People tend to get confused, and confusion means you don't make a decision. It's not really about websites and brochures, they don't solve the problem.
• Relationship between marketing and selling: Marketing is the cause, sales is the effect. Polar opposites.
• Deterrent to doing marketing: that you might get too busy, have too much business.
• "Delay factor" is the time between learning about something and taking action. The delay is getting longer and longer, people are getting busy and too much information to process.
• AON = All Or Nothing. SIBTN = Something Is Better Than Nothing. Two different approaches we take to taking action.
• Marketing isn't about quantity - it's about quality and continuity.
• Three different ways to market:
  1. Unknown to unknown: cold calls, cold mailings, media advertising
  2. Known to unknown: PR, referrals
  3. Known to known: relationships, additional business from existing clients
• Use media advertising when you're busy, and you're not relying on immediate results
• 7 components of marketing: Price, Place (marketplace), Product/service, Promotion (PR increasing, advertising declining), Distribution, Positioning, People
• Advertising is riskiest, slowest to work, yet receives the most attention. "No one-shots allowed!"
• For small businesses, the issue isn't branding - it's positioning (and differentiation).
• Relationships: do your clients and associates know everything you do? It only takes 15% of the work to sell additional value to an existing client.
• TOMA = Top Of Mind Awareness. Newsletter, note with your business card, calling & having lunch. How do you stay in their faces?
• Marketing is built in layers. Have to start out with something simple, and then it can get more complex over time. Don't burden people with information they don't need to know.
• Possible ways to spend marketing dollars, people and time:
  • Articles and columns: Good choice, positions you as an expert
  • Brochures: Almost in the category of media advertising. Can be a stall tactic. Also people tend to put too much information on there, too much at once.
  • Client/Customer Check-ins: Phenomenal. Costs you nothing. You care.
  • Company Marketing Teams: We all have a marketing team: clients, previous clients, colleagues, associates, advocates. Are you leveraging these people?
  • Direct Mail: Your own generated lists are always better than buying a list. Waste of money to send mailings to generic lists.
  • Marketing letters: Good if you're writing to people who know you. Too often people close letters in a passive way. You should always indicate your next action you'll take. Don't send every piece of collateral that you have.
  • Market Planning: Adrienne has a book and does coaching on this. Marketing plans: Diagnosis (analysis, introspection), Prognosis (where will I be if I change nothing), Goals/objectives (where do we want to be; quantifiable and specific), Strategy (how are we going to get there in general), Tactics (getting there specifically), Control (how am I doing, am I meeting goals)
  • Media Advertising: Not a good investment
  • Networking: Reference Adrienne's networking calendar. Can be quite inexpensive. WIIFM: What's In It For Me?
  • Newsletters
  • Public Relations: including giving interviews. Good investment but has land mines: hiring an individual PR firm, paying a monthly fee or retainer. Better off to do some of your own first, you'll understand more about how it works. Resource: book "The E-Myth Revisited". Get PR contacts on your newsletter mailing list.
  • Referral/Advocate Programs: Nothing better. How are you thanking them, staying in touch, staying top of mind?
  • Sales Follow-Up Calls: Check in with clients in a week. Open-ended questions.
  • Special Events: Open houses, parties.
  • Seminars and Workshops: But bring people in through referrals and human contact.
  • Telemarketing (Cold calls): Forget it
  • Website: Tells people you're in the 21st century, but questionable how much business comes from it. Website designers are NOT the same as website marketers. Go through the marketing exercise first.
• It's not really about time and money, it's about priority.
• Leads Groups are best when you get together people who are successful in different businesses, who can help each other.
• Educating and selling aren't the same thing.
• Don't say, "If you know anybody who needs a coach...." - be more specific, say exactly what you need
• Adrienne does a marketing workshop on the 2nd Wednesday of each month.

Announcements

• We're changing the meeting time, place, and day, based on the survey that we did at the dinner on January 6th.
  • Meetings will be 6:00-8:00pm on 2nd Wednesday of the month. Location unknown at the moment.
  • ASTD is doing alternating times, one during the day followed by one in the evening. They meet at Norlarco and Cottonwood Club. We may want to consider doing that.
• Next meeting we're looking to have a website designer/marketer.
• We could have some meetings as teleconferences occasionally.