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This morning I found 17 ezines in my email spam folder. That's not even counting the 8-12 regulars I already had waiting to be read in my inbox.
I realize we're in the Information Age -- but I'm drowning in ezines. Does this happen to you?
Part of what overwhelms energy, and sabotages time is a subconscious fear of missing out on something important if we don't keep up to date all the time on everything we think we should know. Problem is, there's just not enough time in a day, or a life, to absorb, process, integrate, and use all the information circulated on a daily basis.
Funny thing is, though, that lots of ezines out there are all saying the same things. Maybe not in the same week, but over time there's only so many ways that universal wisdom can be explained. So how can we get what we need in the most efficient way possible?
Here's a creative alternative to drowning in your email inbox:
1. Limit real reading to no more than 3 ezines a day / no more than 5 minutes each.
2. Skim topics -- save only those that are addressing what will help you complete this month's highest priority.
3. Unsubscribe when an ezine fails to give you brilliant, easy to implement tips for 3 issues in a row.
4. Keep ezines that you'll use, but be ruthless in weeding them out once you've incorporated their advice.
What if you could be 10 times bolder in the face of fear? How could your life be better right now if worry could be reduced significantly? Where would you act courageously if you could trust that all will be fine in the long run?
Coaches ask bold questions, designed to help clients keep their focus glued on an achievable vision of an ideal future -- questions like these. All of us have our growing edges, that line we're afraid to cross because the unknowns on the other side are too big. Many of us reinforce our fear and stagnation by telling ourselves catastrophe stories of imagined awful outcomes.
What if we took a different approach instead, one that is more empowering? One that looks fear in the eye.
Think about this:
- Successful entrepreneurs feel the fear of failure all the time, they just don't let it stop them.
- High achievers prioritize the potential gains of taking calculated risks over the known comforts of feeling safe.
- Worry can be turned into supportive structures and practical action steps if we treat it as "just information."
- Trust is a choice -- it's a decision to remember your own resilience and see an abundance possibilities.
What do you need to be more bold about? What's the first step you'll take in that direction?
What information is your worry giving you today? What productive choices can you make based on that information?
Will you decide to trust yourself, and your knowledge and abilities? What empowering one sentence can you believe about your ability to survive, no matter what?
There ya go -- coaching by blog! LOL
I'm hearing coaching students voicing reluctance to declare a niche in the same way that my counseling colleagues are reticent to do so. In the coaching spirit of reframing and shifting perspectives, I offer these thoughts:
What A Niche Is
A niche is a magnet. It's a way of presenting yourself as a specialist in helping an identifiable set of people with a defined range of problems, and drawing those people to you to aquire your help.
A niche is a focusing tool. It helps you determine how to put the range of your skills into language that people who will want them can recognize.
What A Niche Isn't
A niche is not a description of you. You are not the niche. Your clients and their problems are the niche.
A niche is not a way to limit who you work with. It's a way to better ensure that some if not most of the people you work with will be ideal for you -- ideal as in, have issues you really like to work with and feel exceedingly expert at, and who perfectly match your preferred way of working, your personality, don't blink at your policies, and think you're worth every penny.
A niche is not about the work you do. It's about getting clients so that you can DO the work you do. Despite believing that a good coach can coach anyone who is coachable (or that everyone is coachable by a good coach), that idea is not helpful in marketing. In fact, it's counterproductive because it promotes vague, overly general, and confusing messages.
Prospective clients will not care or be impressed by the fact that you can coach everyone on everything. That actually may sound implausible and therefore suspect. It will make your marketing backfire.
We all feel special and unique, and when we need help we want the specialist who is expert at our unique problem. We don't want the jack of all trades.
Ironically, holding yourself out as a specialist in one area will make you seem more client attractive to others in other areas. They psychology is that if you are an expert at one thing, you're probably pretty darn good at a few other things. Whether that's true or not, it works for the purposes of marketing.
And that's why niche marketing works for coaches like it does for counselors.
