I love my iPod.

It’s funny because I didn’t think I’d be an iPod person. I got an iPod a few years ago because I wanted to put all those educational audios on it rather than carting around a million CDs. I didn’t think I’d be that interested in the music part.

Why? Because I never could get the hang of the whole music thing. I have such eclectic taste that radio never worked well for me — I found myself picking stations not because they played more of what I liked but less of what I didn’t like. I almost never bought records because for the most part I would like one song from a band and that’s it.

But that all changed when I started to get ready for my first marathon. I decided maybe I better bring some tunes to keep me motivated. I started going through the CDs my husband had (my hubby has about 400 CDs, the complete opposite of me) and loading songs. And I started downloading those 1 or 2 songs from other bands from iTunes.

And now I finally get it. iTunes has allowed me to finally create the mix I want. I mean, I can’t stand country (although I have 3 songs from Faith Hill) and I got a lot of 80s and hair bands (but there’s a lot of bands I can’t stand in those categories who will never be MPW iPod-worthy). My taste ranges from Boomtown Rats to Queen (lots and lots of Queen, they were an exception to the no-album-buying rule, but no “Another Bites the Dust” or “You’re My Best Friend”) to Def Leppard to The Guess Who to George Michaels (gotta love him) to even a Ted Nugent song. (My husband couldn’t believe I put that Ted Nugent song on the iPod. I’ve often thought someone should have a contest, can you guess which Ted Nugent song I have on my iPod? In fact, I think I will have that contest. If you email me the correct answer I’ll send you a digital download of one of my info products. But I digress.)

Anyway, so where am I going with all of this? Well, I read an article about how the music industry is having a heck of a time making money now — for a variety of reasons, but one of the main ones is because they can no longer make money the way they used to.

You see, as I learned in this article, the music industry is financially based on selling albums, not individual songs. In other words, they make money by cramming albums down buyers’ throats, even if those buyers only wanted 1 or 2 songs. Now with iTunes, buyers buy the songs they want, they’re not forced to buy everything.

And the music industry is having some problems adjusting. So that means I’m actually in the majority of music buyers rather than the minority. And that’s why iTunes is making money hand over fist (because they’re allowing buyers to buy how they want, rather than forcing buyers to buy how they want to sell to them) and the record companies still haven’t figure out what hit them.

So what does this have to do with you? Well a couple of things. First off, is your business based on a way of doing business that makes more sense for you (the business owner) or your customers? If you aren’t selling your products or services in a way your customers want to buy, you ARE vulnerable. Even if this is the “way it’s done” in your industry, you’re a sitting duck for an Apple to burst on the scene and take it over. (Note, if this is you, there’s a big opportunity here for YOU to be the Apple in your industry.)

Second, are there ways you can restructure your products or services to make it a no-brainer to do business with you? Is there an opportunity to sell to your customers the way they want to buy?

Remember, buyers always have the power. They can choose to do business with you or not. It’s up to you to decide if you want to make it easy for them or not.

One of the biggest challenges almost all coaches face is getting leads – high quality contacts of people who are interested in improving their life, relationships, or career.

First, an important distinction:

Building a mailing list is not the same as getting coaching leads. I know many people with mailing lists who are not making enough to pay their bills!

Getting coaching leads means building a database of people who expressed interest in your type of coaching.

There are five sure ways to attract high quality coaching leads, and I will reveal them to you today.

These five lead generating strategies have worked for me and thousands of other coaches and entrepreneurs extremely well.

Here they are:

1. Web site It has to be a mini-site whose only purpose is to get your visitors to opt-in to a free e-course, an audio course, or a toolkit. You may even have several mini-sites to have multiple points of entry into your “funnel.”

2. E-Course/Newsletter Each segment in your e-course or newsletter must bring your readers closer to becoming your client. It must be relevant, useful, personal and calling them to action.

3. Articles In my experience writing a handful of high quality articles and submitting them to as many targeted places as possible is much more effective than writing many articles of lower quality. Every article must help solve a problem and invite readers to take the next step with you (request your e-course, buy a CD, enroll into a program, etc.)

4. Teleseminars Don’t want to have just 4 people on your teleseminar? Use the first three strategies to build up your database of leads, then announce a teleseminar to them on a highly relevant topic. You may even re-purpose one of your articles by turning it into a teleseminar. Also, keep in mind that the goal of every teleseminar is to enroll coaching clients into a program. This means that you should have your program concept ready before holding your teleseminar.

5. Joint Ventures I left this one for last, but it’s certainly not the least! In fact, if you use joint ventures and nothing else in your business, you’ll generate more coaching leads than you’ve ever wanted. The key is in partnering with people who have large databases and who need what you have to offer – your expertise and ability to coach.

Are you ready to boost your coaching leads?

Quick action-plan for you:

- create an e-course that coaches people – create a mini-site that gives away an e-course – write a high quality comprehensive article – invite your article readers to request your e-course – submit your article to highly targeted publications – when your list of targeted leads reaches 500, hold a teleseminar and enroll participants into your coaching program.

Hope you find it helpful to jump start your coaching business.

Back in September of 2006, I did a K-cast with Nicki McClusky, of findyourvoicecoach.com. The theme was, “What are the qualities of magnificent coaches?”

Exquisite listening: they have a way of listening from the soul: for values, for vision, for purpose, in addition to hearing the client’s actual words.

Seeing the client as they truly are: which is absolutely magnificent! You see the client in their true magnificence. You see them in their very best, that they can do anything, and that they really do have all the answers.

Encouraging the client: through this often-messy process: Self-development can get messy (just think of the mud! Could that be why people don’t choose to dig deeper for the buried treasure within them – because of the messiness?

A Strong Capacity to Love: true appreciation of the client’s magnificence.

Exquisite Selfishness: Magnificent coaches support the client in two ways:

1. Shining examples of self-care in action
2. Elicit the self-care strategies of their clients, and help them implement them.

Choosing to support yourself as coach: In giving yourself the self-development, self-care, and other nurturing activities — you allow more support, energetically, to come into your life.

Exquisite coach-ability: The magnificent coach is open to learning, open to being coached; open to self-introspection and self-growth.

We will leave you with this final question, “What qualities do you look for in your coach?”

Listen to the 24-minute audio:

Do you know who your ideal client is? Most business owners don’t really know. They guess!

And because they guess, they’re working way to hard, marketing too much, spending too much money. I know I’ve been there, done that.

Now, my bottom line definition of an ideal client would include a client who:

• Easily pays you top dollar, and on time, for your services.
• Comes to you already understanding what you services can help them accomplish.
• Refers you to others without you even asking.
• Comes back for more of your services, whenever they’re ready for another “shot” of what you offer.
• Gives you “energy” – emotionally and financially!

I made two big mistakes when I started my business. I didn’t create two of the most important “business keys” upfront – a business plan and an ideal client profile. The result? Well,I ended up broke, used the money from the sale of my home to live. Of course, since then, I’ve made some hefty changes!

One of those changes was getting over my “fear” about narrowing my client base. You see, I thought that if I created such a small base to get clients, I’d be broke and bored – a place I found myself in anyway, because I was doing thing “my way”.

Here’s what I learned:

Niching does not mean that I can’t accept clients outside my niche. Niching is done to make MY life – and YOUR life – easier. It’s another one of those business tools that is created to help save money and time. For marketing purposes, for the sake of clarity, for a business owner’s health and well being, so you’re not all over the place “chasing” marketing – spending dollar after dollar after dollar. Heck, isn’t there more than enough “stuff” for us to do as business owners?

I remember the first time I went into a networking meeting and introduced myself simply as a “Business Consultant and Coach” who helped “women who own service business and service professionals.” I left the “life” off in front of “Coach.” I left the word “career” out of the sentence about who I helped.

I was so nervous! And what happened? Well, I survived the meeting, obviously. And, after the meeting, someone asked if I could coach their husband who was in transition between CAREERS! Boy, did that teach me a valuable lesson. If you are clear and confident (or seem that way) people will provide you with wonderful business opportunities that you can say yes to… or no to.

Do I ever go out of my niche for meetings or to speak? Yes, although rarely these days. There are 5 or 6 life topics that I speak on – usually at recovery conferences or for stressed out business owners who are just tired of the same old speakers speaking about business

Even after you define your niche, that doesn’t mean that you can’t choose to take on clients outside that niche – if that’s what you want to do.

And even after you choose a niche, that doesn’t mean that you can’t change it. I did just this year. I’m big on monitoring my efforts and I noticed that 40% of my best – ideal clients – clients are men, while 60% are women. That’s a big change over 2 years ago, when most of my clients were women. So I decided to “drop” the women service business part of my niche. And that allows me to change who I market to; for example, I no longer look for organizations that have the word “women” in their name. I’m actually more interested in knowing how many business owners are in their membership who have been in business at least 2 years.

What else happens when you niche and really monitor your business? You have time to start notice patterns in what your clients are doing. Here’s two examples I’ve noticed recently: 1) 95% of my new clients want to create multiple streams of business income from their knowledge and expertise – ebooks, CDs, audios, etc., 2) All the solo-preneurs who hire me are ready to hire consultants or employees. Now, what am I going to do with that information? Use it in the way I market. Use it to create programs that will attract my niche.

Niching is also about knowing what makes you special – or what’s known as your USP – unique selling proposition. Knowing what makes me special in the large world of business consulting, coaching and training, has led folks to know me as “that NY Coach” (I currently live in Washington State, so my accent and attitude stick out just a teensy bit). I’ve taken another part of what I’m known for – as the person service business go to for resources and to get organized by creating systems and plans – and become The Resource Queen. I’m known as the business consultant who can speak “geek” but does it in plain English. Heck, to be remembered – for some wonderful worthwhile things – that’s part of what counts!

So…. take a risk – and niche!

It looks like I might be teaching a version of Turbo-Charge Your Marketing this February at a local community college as part of their continuing education program. I’m working on the class handout now and found these resources I thought I would share with you, as well.

Identify Your Ideal Client Profile by Nancy Michaels

Profile Your Ideal Client First by John Bowen

How to Identify Your Ideal Client Profile to Generate More Revenue by John Assaraf