You know, when you’re first starting off as a business coach it can feel a little slow.  Results don’t always come easily; clients cancel; networking gets tiring; social media messages seem to slip into a void.

It can feel tempting to look elsewhere for solutions.

We’ve all seen this “shiny, new stuff syndrome” in action.  Either with ourselves or with people around us.  Every business opportunity looks like an oasis in a barren desert.

Create a coaching practice? Of course! That’s what I want to do.  But multi-level-marketing too? Oh yes, please! Internet-marketing? Sounds great! Affiliate marketing? Spread -betting? Forex? E-book fame?  Tweeting your way to millions? Commission-based selling? Let me have it all.

And on it goes!

Now here’s  the thing.  Maybe each and every one of these can provide you with the lifestyle and income you want.  IF you focus!  If you take one and run with it.

But if you constantly look to the next shiny, new thing you’ll never achieve what you want.

And so I was thrilled when I heard a business coach friend say to someone who was insisting that the next MLM scheme was the only way forward: “It’s kind of you to offer but I’ve spent years learning these skills and months planning the business.  Do you really think I’ll drop all that to pick up something new? I actually want the business I run to be a huge success and that’s where my focus is!” No dilly-dallying, no feigning interest.  Just the truth.

So if you find yourself being drawn to the the new, shiny stuff; stop and ask if it’s really going to help you get where you want to be or is it really making up a “perceived” deficit in your existing business results.

I spoke in a previous post about the need for tenacity in small business coaching.  This is one BIG area it’s needed.  Stick to your guns and only diversify when it’s the right time or your existing business just isn’t doing it for you anymore.

 

Sometimes as a small business coach we can gape in awe, fear, horror, wonder and sheer frustration at the amount of changes taking place in our industry.

How on earth can we keep up with every social media site worth knowing, every blog worth reading, every new tool for client acquisition, every new strategy for helping clients.

How do we tweet, post, vodcast, podcast, link and share our way to fame and success?

Perhaps it’s easier just to cling to the old adage that ignorance is bliss! Just stick to a bit of networking, a bit of LinkedIn work and some AdWords.

Right?

Wrong!

You’re a business coach.  That means you need to be on the cutting edge.  But you also need to be a lean-mean client-getting, client-supporting machine.

So keep it simple.  Here’s my FIVE step process to master the overwhelm.

1. Choose an approach which is new to you which you believe will give access to your prospective clients
2. Plan your outcomes from using it – clients, connections, awareness and decide how you’ll measure this
3. Then play with it.  Don’t get stressed.  Don’t expect to be perfect.  Have fun learning how you can use it and even abuse it!
4. Measure your success and tweak your way to improvements
5. Master it then outsource the repetitive parts so you’re left with the stuff where “you” matter.

But don’t try to use all of them at once. Choose one and get started.

If you choose webinars then really get to know how you can use them.  Try different approaches – interviews, presentations, sales webinars, educational webinars.  Measure what works. Adapt and measure again.

If you choose Twitter, then read key books on it, check out blog posts on how to use it, plan your outcomes, check the different support software, try different kinds of tweets, see what works.

They say we overestimate what we can achieve in a year and underestimate what we can achieve in a lifetime.  So take it easy and take it one step at a time and you’ll be amazed at how much you can master.