Business Coaching

Yesterday we reported Google has listed Facebook as a top competitor. Then Hitwise released a report saying Facebook was more visited than Google. It seemed like social Media had overtaken the search engine! Huzzah!

Not so fast.

Industry Pace has pointed out a few facts that make the above false. A major biggie that affects the above statistic? Hitwise purposely didn’t count how often people visit both sites via mobile phones. That’s a huge chunk of people right there that weren’t even counted!

Read what else Hitwise ignored on Industry Pace’s article page here.

What does this have to do with business coaching? A lot — if a client ignores parts of their business that should be helped, a business coach can’t help them. If they tell you they know their numbers and give you wrong ones, or try to cover up “embarrassing” parts of their business, all will come out in the end, and even though that’s a better situation, you’ve wasted a lot of time where you could have been helping their business.

Keep that in mind next time you take on a new business coaching client. Encourage honesty…it’s the only way clients can be held accountable.

What are the things you need to accomplish before setting up your own business?

A business isn’t something you can rush into…it takes preparation and planning to make it work. And then, you have to work on it — not in it — to get it to succeed.

Who better to share the best To-Do list of what to check off your list when becoming an entrepreneur than Brad Sugars? The Founder and Chairman of ActionCOACH and contributor to Entrepreneur.com came up with a checklist every entrepreneur should have. Read it here.

TV news anchors can breathe a sigh of relief everywhere: a recent survey found that local and national TV news programs are more popular than online news.

According to the Pew Research Center and American Life Project’s survey, almost everybody (92%) gets their news from multiple platforms. For 78%, that includes local news; national news — including both cable news like CNN and network broadcast news — comes in at 73%; online news manages 61%; radio sneaks away with 54%; local newspapers snag 50%; and national newspapers like USA Today get only 17%.

So, what have we learned? While print journalism might still be suffering a long-impending death, at least people get their news from multiple platforms, which include the ever-increasing online news and good, old-fashioned TV news.

Read all the findings in the full article.

Why are local TV news stations more popular than local online news? Any ideas, readers?

What would you decide:

In 2006, some school students in Turin bullied a schoolmate, suffering from autism, and even worse, the incident was recorded and uploaded to YouTube. The Italian police became involved, and notified Google officially about the offending clip–it was taken “down within hours.” Google’s team then cooperated with the police to identify the perpetrators, and the data was subsequently key in convicting the female uploader, who received 10 months community service as a penalty, along with other involved male students.

That’s normally where Google’s involvement would end, right? Except not in this instance. Italy’s legal system finds Google execs to be at fault.

Google’s blog clearly presents the poor victim at the heart of the affair as suffering from autism, but Reuters reported that the the youth concerned had Down syndrome, and that the legal case was brought at the request of the victim’s father and an Italian advocacy group for Down syndrome sufferers, Vivi Down.

Read more about this case here. Who knows how this will turn out, but it sounds like a tricky situation. How do you think this will turn out for Google?

Marla Erwin helped Whole Foods master social Media.

Think you’re busy trying to constantly update your own Twitter page? Imagine handling more than a million Twitter followers.

Marla Erwin, Interactive Art Director for Whole Foods, is credited with Whole Foods’ social Media success. In its first year on Twitter, Whole Foods gained a million followers. Since starting with Twitter, Whole Foods now has several separate accounts for users who have more specific questions about the store’s products — a Twitter account for cheese, one for Whole Foods recipes, etc.

How did Marla garner so many followers? She incorporated user-generated content onto Whole Foods’ Twitter and Facebook accounts. Recipes, product ratings and reviews and comments on the Whole Foods’ blog all went onto their Twitter feed.

Marla then went on to use Facebook and Twitter for different uses: Facebook she uses for more editorial content and to start discussions among fans and friends (since users can see others’ comments on Facebook, it’s easier to have a discussion), and Twitter she uses for Whole Foods promotions, information for customers, to answer customers’ questions and tweet out links to Whole Foods’ blog.

Read the whole article here,  and see if any of what Marla did for Whole Foods’ Twitter and Facebook can be used for your business.

People become business coaches for perks like flex work hours.

It’s a story that’s becoming fairly common — people leaving careers they’ve had their whole lives to follow their true passion — but often times, even though people leave careers to start their own business in something that’s been a hobby for years, they still need help.

The Wall Street Journal recently published a story about high-powered executives who left their careers to, for example, start their own restaurant or work for a nonprofit. Even though they were executives at one point and know exactly what needs to be done in order to make their businesses successful, sometimes — as business owners might know — it’s easier said than done.

A lot of people the Wall Street Journal interviewed also wanted to work less and have more time for friends and family, and with their career changes, some have been able to do just that.

Said Rick Walleigh, 59, who left his management position at a tech company for a position in a nonprofit, “Work is a lot more fun if you’re not the one who is ultimately responsible for everything.” Walleigh now works 25 hours a week as opposed to 60-70 hours a week at the tech company.

Read the full article here. ActionCOACH and Brad Sugars is mentioned toward the end of the story because, let’s face it, lots of people become business coaches after long careers with other companies at other positions. Set your own hours and help other professionals in situations you once experienced — there’s lots to gain from a career change like that.

As if you didn’t know that already. Heck, it’s been changing. But just so you know, it will continue to change.

According to an article in the Marketing Watchdog Journal, with social Media marketing picking up the pace, marketing and PR will converge, measuring and ROI will increase in importance, and CEOs are paying more attention to what’s being said about their brand to ensure their marketing efforts and customer service efforts are both promoting the company.

Read the full article here, and see what changes you might need to make at your own company’s marketing department.

Business owners already go through an unbelievable amount of hard work to get their businesses up and running, much less grow it to a successful business.

Imagine if in addition to all the “normal” challenges to being a business owner, you had another challenge thrown at you from left field? A challenge that could not only affect your business, but also your life?

That’s exactly what happened to Michele Alexander, a top business coach, when one morning, she woke up completely deaf. Alexander isn’t a business owner herself, but a certified business coach. Not being able to hear her clients, business owners, who needed to work through business issues, could have proved detrimental, but she managed to get through the day. She didn’t let any of her clients down, despite the fact that she couldn’t hear them!

Michele’s experience going through what seems like an impossible challenge — business coaching clients while deaf — just goes to show the lengths certified business coaches go to to make sure their clients succeed and reach their utmost potential. Find out more about what a business coach and business coaching session can do for any business here.

To read more about Michele’s amazing story here.

An important part of business from an expert, Jim Rohn.

All you need is a distinct market, an idea that’s feasible and detailed planning or a marketing strategy to pull it all off. That’s all it takes to build a small business – those three little things.

Well, they might not actually be little. They take a lot of work, but with hard work — lots of it — and possibly small business coaching, those things become three big things, which lead to a successful small business. Read the full article here.

To see how your small business fares against the competition, click here.