Coaching by Mom

Let me paint the picture for you--son in college, a couple of nights in jail due to drag racing (and not paying a few speeding tickets), and no job. We are not only paying for his college, we are also paying his living expenses. There is a book available called "This is Not the Life I Signed Up For" by Donna Partow and I can relate to the message.

This no-job thing has been going on since Memorial Day when he had his run in with the law. If you have been reading my posts you will note my profession of choice is Business Coaching/Advising. So last weekend I thought, "Why not utilize my skills on my own son?" People pay good money for career coaching and I didn't have any to spare for someone other than me so thought I would give it a shot. It definitely couldn't hurt. Here is a shortened version of our conversation:

(Mom)--Do you know what a Business Coach does?
(Son)--No.
(Mom)--My job is to help people to find out what holds them back from succeeding on what they are trying to achieve. I am going to be your coach to help you figure out why you are not getting the jobs that you are interviewed for. Pretend like it someone else you are speaking with and you are paying for these phone conversations.
(Son)--(snicker)Ok
(Mom)--In your interviews of late, why do you think they did not call you back?
(Son)--I Don't know.
(Mom)--Were there other applicants or interviewees present? If so, how did you compare in presentation of yourself?
(Son)--Good. (Good meaning blue jeans and a collared shirt).
(Mom)--Do you think it might be better to show up in khaki's instead of jeans?
(Son)--On a bicycle? (Lost his license).
(Mom)--Yes. Your goal is to outshine anyone present so they will want to hire you on the spot.
(Mom)--If you could identify one behavior or area you need improvement what would it be?
(Son)--I don't know.
(Mom)--Do you want a job?
(Son)--Yes, I need the money.
(Mom)--Money is a good motivator but people want to hire employees because of other factors besides money. How about because you would like to work there, be around other people, enjoy the environment, love hamburgers?(he was applying at Burger King).
(Mom)--Do you like girls?
(Son)--Yes
(Mom)--When interviewing just imagine all the new girls you will meet while working and taking orders. That is a different type of motivation for wanting to work in that venue. Do you understand what I am saying?
(Son)--Yes (very agreeable).

The conversation went on like this for about 20 minutes. At the end of the call I told him he owed me ??? for the 30 minutes of coaching time and gave him a plan of action for the following week. He laughed, I didn't. I just pray it helps.

Here is his goals to be accomplished:

1. Identify one area needing improvement when interviewing or applying for a job and modify.
2. Pay attention to other applicants when applying for a job. Note their appearance, their actions, how they represent themselves to a stranger, etc.
3. Apply for one job daily.
4. Call on Friday to update on progress of goals.


I do not know if this will work or not but I figure it cannot hurt. I will update you when I have more to report and let you know how my test is going.

Are any of the readers having problems finding a job recently or in the past? If so, what turned the key for you? Perhaps I can use your ideas in my coaching with my son.

Carole DeJarnatt
Alliance Advisors, Inc.

Business to Business--No Customer Service

I was speaking with a friend who owns a childrens hair salon the other day and she was expressing her dismay of the business world today. She told me in the past year she has been in business, almost all of her B2B contact has resulted in no follow-up and poor customer service.

She currently has her business listed with a business broker since June and from the day she listed she has not had any contact from them. I guess they have her listing under contract so that is all that mattered. Do they not realize what word-of-mouth advertising she could give for them? What is wrong with this company?! An update would be nice!

She said the same happened with her liability insurance. Where is the agent that signed her up? They must have got the commission and ran. She asked me if I thought this was regional mind set or did I think it was across the US.

I have stated this before, to beat out the competition all you have to do is have excellent customer service. Following up on your orders, meetings, or business interaction, with a phone call makes you outstanding in the eyes of a business owner. Most get the order placed and move on to the next business. Repeat business is the easiest to maintain because all it takes is customer service. You do not have to sell them on your product or service because they already know what you offer and have purchased previously. Now they would like a little TLC--Tender Loving Care!

Recently I was putting together an E-book titled "The Ebook on Customer Service" to offer to new subscribers when signing up for my newsletter. As I was in the process my thoughts were, will people want this? If they do, will they utilize the information in the book? Seriously, I doubt it. But if the information compiled will help just one business owner/manager/entrepreneur have better success when trying to achieve excellence in customer service, I have achieved my goal.

Carole DeJarnatt

P.S. If you would like a copy of this Ebook, visit the company website, Alliance Advisors, Inc. and sign up for my newsletter. If you are not interested in the newsletter, you can always opt out at a later date.

USP--Unique Selling Proposition

Identifying Your Unique Selling Proposition.

Your USP. Also called Unique Selling Position or Unique Selling Point.

If you’ve done your homework well and have chosen a specific target market – you might have nailed an untapped group of people and you’ll be in the enviable position of not having any competition.

But for the rest of us – even if we have narrowed our target market down well, we’ll still have others who are attempting to reach and serve the same group of people.

Some tight markets are incredibly competitive. Standing out from the crowd is hard work.

Every small business with any competition at all needs to identify or develop their Unique Selling Point.

This means, when a potential client lines you up with the half dozen or so possible competitors – why will they want to pick you?

Question: How is what you offer different from what your competitor offers?

 Are you cheaper?
 Are you faster?
 Have you been doing it longer?
 Do you have more training?
 Do you have a bigger staff?
 Can you offer around the clock support?
 Do you work with a spirit of excellence?
 Are you more modern or traditional?
 Do you have more choices?
 Are you more earth friendly?
 Do you offer them a shared perspective?

There are probably a lot of different things that make you unique – but you have to identify the areas that will best resonate with your target market.

It would be a great idea to make a list of what you feel gives you a unique approach to your business and ask for some feedback from others who have a grasp on your target market. (A business coach would be great.)

Whoever you ask for feedback, have them tell you if any of the items on your list make them think ‘so what?’ (Perhaps you think it makes you special but nobody else really cares.)

Ask them if knowing any of these things about you inspires additional trust or makes them feel drawn to you in a special way.

If you bounce these ideas with a few different people you can narrow it down and start to develop your own USP – then you’ll be on your way to communicating it to your market and working it into your overall business brand.

Steps To Identify Your Target Market

Answer a few questions… but I warn you not to answer them too quickly. This takes a lot of thought and consideration to do correctly.

Question: Who would like to buy what you have to offer?

Do not just say ‘Women’. That is a gender identification, not a target market. All women are not alike. They have a wide variety of lifestyles, values and interests.

Do not just say ‘Golfers’. That identifies a group of people who partake of a sporting activity but it’s not a target market. Among golfers there are huge differences. Are you targeting the ever so often golfer with a cheap tips video or are you targeting the lifestyle golfer who travels regularly to play in competitions.

Be very specific. ‘Start up Fundraiser Coaching Professionals”

Question: Why is she interested in what you have to sell?

Don’t say ‘She will like it because she is a Mom’ because there are no products that ‘all moms’ are interested in. (Unless it’s an Artificial Intelligence Housekeeper and I think even then you’d get a few naysayers.)

Be very specific. ‘Start up Fundraiser Coaching Professionals” will want to secure this product because it contains the tricks and skill builders they need to attract their first clients.’

Question: What stage of life is she in?

 Young & Single
 Young & Married
 Young Motherhood
 Middle Motherhood
 Late Motherhood
 Empty Nest
 Older & Single
 Older & Married

These stages of life are important factors in identifying a target market. How you choose to communicate with your potential clients, you will need to take this information into consideration.

What motivates a young married woman isn’t going to motivate an empty nester.

For example, if you want to reach young singles you’ll probably want to use graphics and promotional materials that look trendy and highly relative or popular to modern day media.

On the other hand, to reach older married people you will choose a more traditional style and convey a stability that will resonate with older consumers.

Question: How much money does she have to spend?

 Frugal
 Average
 Upper Middle Class
 Wealthy

Financial income brackets are one of the most important issues in choosing and communicating with your target market.

The financially strapped client will be attracted to messages that imply that they’re getting a great value or saving money. Wealthy clients will be more interested in hearing that your product is made of the best ingredients and created for distinctive tastes.

Some individuals will only be interested in products that clearly demonstrate that they’re cheaper than everything else. They’re so driven by their tight budget or their personal commitment to frugality that they’ll choose one product over another on price point alone.

And in the other extreme, there are consumers who will purposefully choose the most expensive service provider on principle. Maybe even just to be able to say that they hired the priciest ‘most exclusive’ provider – or perhaps because they believe that the higher cost surely means that they’ll get the best quality. (Which may or may not always be the case!)

For some, impressions are everything.

Can you see how it would be literally impossible to create one sales message that rings true with all markets?

If you’re having trouble thinking of a niche to target, let’s dig deeper.

Question: What core needs are effected by your product or service?

 Family, Relationships and Love
 Spiritual Life
 Creative Expression
 Recognition, Success and Pride
 Provision and Finances
 Health and Safety

If you are particularly motivated by any of these areas, this could give you a greater clue as to which niche to move in.

If you want to be a coach and ‘creativity’ is a buzz point for you, you can become a Creativity Coach. Or if Family & Friendships are really important to you, perhaps you would be a great ‘Relationship Coach’.

If your spiritual life is paramount, perhaps you’d build your business around the tenants of your faith and communicate this in a way that attracts others of similar beliefs.

Maybe you’re addicted to success tips and motivational tools. You could become the first ‘Success Driven VA’ and promise your clients a regular dose of motivation with every task completed. You’ll attract others who consider themselves very driven in the same way.

The rest of the story tomorrow. Until then. . .

Carole DeJarnatt

What is a Target Market?

What Does Target Market Mean Exactly?

For the small business owner, target market is the term used to describe the group of consumers being targeted to purchase their products or utilize their services.

Another word that may be substituted would be to call this group your ‘niche’.
How about an Example?

That sounds good to me.

Let’s consider a Virtual Assistant.

Virtual Assistants are the Administrative Assistants, Secretaries and Receptionists of yesterday. They bring the everyday support services needed by a variety of business owners and professionals to the internet, making it easy for anyone to maintain a well staffed office – even if technically they don’t have one.

The Virtual Assistant industry has literally exploded. The demand for quality virtual support is still growing and it’s not terribly hard for a new VA to introduce their business with some basic networking and have a few clients to start with.

However, the market is mature enough at this point that to truly thrive as a VA, you have to do something to set yourself apart. (We’ll talk about this more later when we discuss the Unique Selling Proposition.)

One way to help gain momentum and grow your business is to focus on a specific niche or target market.

Rather than saying that you are a VA for anyone – you introduce yourself as the Coaches VA or the Podcasters VA or the Real Estate Professionals VA, etc. By identifying clearly with a specific target market, you let them know that you feel you are uniquely suited to meet their needs and this will help you to stand out from the rest of the crowd.

But I Don’t Want To Risk Excluding Potential Clients.

This is a common fear.

Yes, by declaring a niche – you are excluding the wider general market. But really, that’s just fine. If you try to position yourself to appeal to everybody – you won’t specifically appeal to anybody.

Does that make sense?

Let’s give another example.

Say that I am a Health and Weight Loss Coach and I am hunting for a VA to help me manage my business and free up some of my time. It’s really important to me that my VA make my life easier and that she will be comfortable with my topic matter and be able to discuss things intelligently.

I cruise around the web and I find hundreds of Virtual Assistant websites and directories. I read many testimonials and compare prices.

Then – I stumble into a VA website that says this:

“I specialize in supporting Health and Wellness Professionals.’

My eyes widen and I get excited. I can’t wait to talk to you and see if you are indeed going to be a great fit for me.

If that VA had been afraid of excluding the rest of the web – she would have missed out on connecting specifically with me.

And truthfully, the majority of service providers DO fail to make a specific connection with a target market.

Because they fear missing out on even one client, they create a website and promotional materials designed to cover every base and meet every need. They work so hard at being all things to all people and they end up being nothing to nobody.

Determine today to identify your target market. It will help you to have a clearer vision for the success of your business.

Carole DeJarnatt
Alliance Advisors, Inc.

In Search of the Finish Line?

One the most common mistakes a new entrepreneur makes is to launch off into business without knowing who their target market is. They may have a great idea, a great set of skills, all of the tools and plenty of time and money – yet a few months later they are struggling to make ends meet and cannot figure out why.

How can you seemingly do everything right and still fail?

Imagine that you are in a foot race. You line up with all of the other runners and when the gun goes off you run like the wind!

You pace yourself well. You breathe right. You use great technique and maintain proper form. Anybody watching would say ‘there is a natural runner!’.

You run your heart out – doing incredibly well and feeling positive you will surely win the race.

Time passes and you realize you no longer see any of the other runners. You feel a thrill because surely that means you are so far out in front you do not have competition anymore.
More time passes… and more. And you wonder where the finish line is. And finally it occurs to you that maybe – just maybe you missed it.

Alright… so that is a silly story.

But you get the idea right? Unless you run for a certain goal – you will not know when you have met it!

That is what it’s like when you get up in the morning and try to run a business without any idea about who you are aiming to serve.

This is why knowing your Target Market is so important.

For the Lurkers and Readers, Give me some input

Another work-week is a few hours away and I am thinking about a topic I would like to write and think about. This week I am going to focus on Target Marketing.

Marketing for a living gives you an outlet for creativity. I think that is why I enjoy effectively researching and working on various techniques to increase business. The outcome of the finished product is to share your message and increase business.

Before I started my coaching business I was an avid scrapbooker. I taught at a local scrapbook store, was published in a few magazines, and had an online bio with a personal gallery and submitted to it frequently. I was obsessed to say the least.

Marketing is somewhat like scrapbooking. You bring together what you are trying to share with others, create a design that tells the story, and bring it all together for the pleasure of yourself and others.

Well that was then and this is now. Now I am obsessed with being the best business coach/advisor possible for those who need and utilize my services. To effectively share my services I have to create my own unique selling point and know my target market. This week I will share and give ideas on what I believe is effective marketing tactics.

For the lurkers and readers, give me some feedback on marketing techniques that have been successful. Any specific areas of marketing you are struggling with; viral, direct, guerilla tactics, or more? I will do my best to find information of value and interest to you. Let me hear from you.

Carole DeJarnatt
Alliance Advisors, Inc.