As I write on pages 61 and 62 of Coaching Business Builder, “Consistency doesn’t mean that you can’t do different things and that you have to do the same thing all the time. It is important that people see how things tie together. Consider what you’ve created when products can be developed into other projects or purposes. Part of this may be to consider how you can reduce, reuse and recycle.”
 
I remember vividly being in grade 1 and the 3Rs – Reduce, reuse, recycle mantra was coming into play in public education. I continue to think about this as I move my own work forward, focusing on:
​
#1 – Reduce – “Less is more”. In addition to the 80/20 rule being known as the Pareto Principle, distilling things down in group programs is also very important. In fact, for years I’ve practiced a design rule also known as the 80/20 rule, which I’m pretty sure I picked up years ago from a program with Bob Pike. In the 80/20 rule, to design we want to pull out at least 20% of our original design ideas to create more space for discussion, dialogue and reflection. In content creation, reducing may mean having shorter posts, or doing a series over the course of a week or month. What are the elements you want to distill downwards?

#2 – Reuse – What can you do to reuse or REPURPOSE content? Perhaps two blog posts become an article, or an article becomes a short video. What can you do to repurpose your content? Take a look at what you have created, perhaps by looking back at your Content Trackers in Section 5 of your Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner. What do you notice about content which can be reused?

#3 – Recycle – How can things be recombined to create a WHOLE NEW entity? As a program designer, I built most things in discrete modules. Like building blocks, when put together these can create a whole new spectrum depending on the combination.
What is useful for you to take action on this week around content creation and the 3 R’s?

All the best,
​Jennifer

Content creation can be an important part of business development, marketing and visibility. Content can signal to others the areas we focus on, are passionate about, or work with clients on.

Content creation can involve focusing on several different areas, including:

• Videos
• Blog posts
• Articles
• Social Media Graphics – i.e. Instagram quotes, Facebook graphics

What type of content do you want to be creating?
Ongoing content creation starts to build a body of work overtime, in step by step basis. As we write, shoot or create, our voice and message become clearer to us, and to those we serve. Note that with many of the channels you may choose to become active on, you can syndicate or share content from one channel to another.

How to get started:
Take 15 minutes this week making a list, or creating a MindMap, or using post-its and index cards to map out all your ideas for content. Don’t self-censure. Just make a list! From there, create a list of possible post titles for videos, or articles, and schedule in blocks to write it out.

Remember, what doesn’t get scheduled, often doesn’t get done!

Where to go: If you have a copy of Coaching Business Builder, take a look at section 3 – Marketing Essentials, and work through the exercises associated with the areas you are interested in. Also be sure to use the Content Planning Tools available to you in the Planner Section. You might want to use the Content Planner to lay out your Annual list of themes, and then start capturing ideas or tracking posts/items with the Monthly Content Tracker and Monthly Content Journal – One Line a Day.

Let us know how you are using the Coaching Business Builder – Send a photo or two of the planner in action!

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

I often get asked “Why would I need to create content as a coach? I thought I’m not supposed to be a content expert”. So true, AND, a business owner who is likely to be creating a podcast or blog posts, or also offering other services than coaching, it’s likely that making space and time to focus on content creation can be useful.

As someone who has sustained blogs for many years, I have learned how important it is to have a plan to go to, especially when writer’s block happens – and it does happen to all of us!

Today’s post gets you to think about your content planning for the rest of the year. I hope that you will take a few minutes to work through these questions, and short activities. They don’t all need to happen at once.

Step #1 - Take 10-15 minutes to get your ideas out of your head – what are possible post ideas? Think about what your clients have been asking for? What have been the themes you have been coaching around?

Step #2 – Go back and review any past posts you have done. What hasn’t been covered yet? What ideas does this spark for you? What’s a deeper dive into topics you might have touched on? What’s a synthesis of other topics?

Step #3 – Review the metrics you have around blogs. What have people enjoyed? What do the numbers say?

Step #4 – Once everything is down on paper in a Mindmap or list, now think about creating a consistent schedule for posting or creating. Are you committed to posting every week? Twice a week?

What about when you will schedule creating it? Most of my blog writing happens in an hour block I have on Tuesday morning, or sometimes in an hour block first thing on the weekend.

Step #5 – Consider whether you want to get some help on this. Having a VA create some graphics for you and/or schedule the drafts can be of benefit, and some accountability, for getting things done.

Step #6 – List it out, schedule it in, and start to execute!

BONUS – Consider what you can do to repurpose

A couple of the forms you may want to use from the Coaching Business Builder:

• One Line a Day – Use this to capture new content ideas on a daily basis
• 31 Day Challenge

Be sure to write out your content needs as part of your Monthly To Dos. Once you have a monthly content plan in place this is easy. It also means that you have that month’s content at the forefront of your mind at all times.

What tips do you have for others? Looking forward to your suggestions!
​
Jennifer

One of the emerging themes I identified back in my book, From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching, was Design Thinking. While this was several years ago, Design Thinking has now exploded into business practices everywhere. As a longstanding program designer, myself, it’s been natural to be integrating many of the principles and practices of Design Thinking into my own way of doing things.

In this week’s blog post, I wanted to share a little more about design thinking to get you thinking about how you might incorporate it into your program design, or conversations with clients.

“Design is the action of bringing something new and desired into existence—a proactive stance that resolves or dissolves problematic situations by design. It is a compound of routine, adaptive and design expertise brought to bear on complex dynamic situations.” —Harold Nelson

As we step into a new year, and new decade, what is it that you want to create? My guess is that there are probably many design opportunities for you on the horizon.
Design Thinking has emerged from many areas, and is a human-centered approach to any program design. If you’ve worked with me before, you’d know my affinity to the Group Coaching Design Matrix and how it gets us thinking through WHO our client really is.

CEO of IDEO, Tim Brown defines Design Thinking as:
“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” — Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO

Design thinking is grounded in several principles:

• It needs to be human-centered
• It should be fun and creative
• It is a mixture of analytics and intuition

IBM has created what they call the Design Thinking Loop – Observing, Reflecting and Making.

Design Thinking usually consists of five or six steps including:

1. ​Empathize – who is your client and what do they want. Next call we will explore one of Design Thinking’s most popular tools – The Empathy Map
2. Define – What do they want, what do they need
3. Ideate – what’s possible
4. Prototype – build a prototype and test it out. Program design may be
5. Test – Test it out – what works, what doesn’t. Iterate again!

 
And the cycle continues….
 
What’s important about thinking about your program design in this fashion?
 
For more on this topic, check out https://designthinking.ideo.com/

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

There are a few more days before we wrap up the year and I’m excited to be gearing up to get going with the 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator program on January 1st. We’ll be taking 60 days of consistent action on your business.  Today’s the day we get started with the 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator. Imagine if today was day 1 of taking 60 days of consecutive action on your business.  I hope you will.

Here’s what some of the people joining us on the 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator are choosing to do:

• Focus on growing out a new program
• Focusing on marketing consistently for 60 days
• Blogging and vlogging for 60 days – drafting, shooting, producing
• Creating a podcast
• Focusing in on creating the foundations of their business
• Developing a new group coaching program

​Over the first 9 weeks of the year we’ll be exploring a number of focus areas including:

• Week 1 – Coaching Business Foundations and Measurement
• Week 2 – Your Internal Ecosystem and Strengths
• Week 3 – Who You Serve – Clients and Offer
• Week 4 – Brand and Messaging
• Week 5 – Product and Program Design
• Week 6 – Marketing and Promotion
• Week 7 – Scale it Accelerate and Magnify
• Week 8 – Momentum and Celebration
• Week 9 – Next Steps

In addition to on-demand calls I’ll bring you weekly, there are two live calls each week – Mondays and Fridays where we’ll check in around your goals for the week, and also check back in at the end of the week to see how it’s gone. There’s two call times to choose from: 8:00 am – 8:45 am EST and 4:15 pm – 4:45 pm EST on both Mondays and Fridays.

• What do you want to move forward in your business?
• What’s that one goal you know you want to knock out of the park?
• What else is important to keep a focus on?

Click here to learn more about the program and I hope you’ll join us. One payment options, as well as three monthly payments, and 8 weekly payments are included as options.  Let's make your 2020 your best year yet!!!!!

Wishing you all the best, 
​Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton - GroupCoachingEssentials | Potentials Realized
Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Author of Effective Group Coaching (2010), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Check out my author page on Amazon for all publications.
Email: [email protected]

In this month’s Group Coaching Essentials newsletter I focused on Keeping the Conversation Going with clients as you are running a group or team coaching conversation. You can read the October 2019 Group and Team Coaching Ins and Outs newsletter here.

Coaching is a process of change. Changes take time and involve a series of ups and downs. Likewise, people are probably having lots of insights and AHAs in between our conversational touch points. What can we do to harness this? Community building for your groups. 

Earlier this year I focused on starting to launch the Conversation Sparker Zone on Mighty Networks. It’s a venue where coaches can come together to focus on and discuss what’s important to them around group coaching, team coaching, virtual conversations and business development. I hope you’ll join us! Be sure to check it out here.

In keeping the conversation going it can involve some pre-planning on your part. Consider some of these different strategies:

1. Hosting a Mighty Network feed
2. Putting out a poll to different people
3. Peer Coaching Rounds
4. Hosting a Facebook Live call
5. Creating an Instagram Series around your topic

What are the things you want to do to keep the focus alive for the people you are working with?

Best,
​Jennifer

The rate of podcast growth is astronomical. With the advent of Alexa and Google Home devices, audio can go anywhere. From the kitchen, to the car, to our walks.

Whether you are hosting your own podcast, or showing up as a guest on others, podcasting is another important potential vehicle for getting the word out about what you do and what you have to offer. Given that coaching is a verbal modality, it’s also a great way to introduce yourself and let others get to know you.

Some of the questions you might want to consider when exploring podcasting as a possible vehicle are:

• Do you want to start your own?
• Do you want to partner with others?
• How much time do you have to dedicate to this?
• What is your overall goal for podcasting? Raising visibility? Expanding your network? Enhancing brand presence? Offering another connection and relationship building opportunity with your community and prospective clients?

There really is a range of possible podcasting options available. One great starting point to see what’s out there, and who is looking for guests, is to check out the PodcastGuest.com site.

If you host a podcast, let us know what it is, so we can follow. If you need guests, let us know what type so guest you are looking for. I would be more than pleased to drop in for a conversation as well, to talk about leadership, teamwork or business development issues from a coaching or virtual lens.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

As a blogger for more than 14 years now, I am passionate about this as a vehicle for those who like to write and want to be a content creator. Blogging can be a great first step to creating a more regular writing practice.

Blogging is often more informal than other writing approaches, and can be shorter in length, with many blog posts ranging from 300 – 500 worlds. Of course, posts can be longer than that, especially if you post less frequently.

In addition to written blogs, vlogs - or video blogs – have also become a popular vehicle. Vlogs weave together video in delivery the blog message.

From Wordpress, to blogs hosted on your own site, to the old school blogger platform, blogging is a powerful way to become a publisher.

If you are considering blogging as one of your marketing vehicles, reflect on these questions:

• What’s the purpose of the blog? Your blog can become another community or platform hub of your brand or identity. Beyond your website, what are the key themes or focus areas you want to provide information around or content? The beauty of a blog is that it creates what I term a “digital footprint”. That footprint can remain in place for much longer than the lifecyle of other items such as the 24-hour lifecycle of a story.
• How can your blog provide a focus on issues of importance to your audience? Consider your audience and what they find useful. Take some time when starting out, and at regular points, to make a list of what you might write about. Be listening for the questions you get asked, or the resources you are suggested. These can be valuable pointers to possible blog content. Be clear on who the audience is.

​Connect with others who can spread the word about your blog – There is a rich ecosystem of blogs in the blogosphere. In addition to publishing on your own blog, consider connecting with other bloggers in your community who might be interested in linking to your site and/or sharing your content. One of my favorite community vehicles I used to leverage (which still exist more than a decade later!) are blog Carnivals, where a group of bloggers come together to share content around a specific topic. This is a great way to connect in with new readers/followers and other community members in your niche.

If you have a copy of the Coaching Business Builder, or PlanDoTrack, check out the activities in the blogging part of section 3. There are five or six useful questions for you to consider as you go to focus on blogging.

What are the key steps you want to take this week around blogging? Writing and blogging are topics we are exploring at the Learning Lab and Design Studio this summer, and it’s exciting to hear about all the different areas people want to focus on.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Author multiple books including the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018), Effective Group Coaching (2010)
Potentials Realized
Phone: 416-996-8326
Check out the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series of daily prompts for your work and business over on  Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder.

 Each month I am providing a series of daily action prompts. The Coaching Business Builder suite is grounded in the notion that "Consistent Action + Daily Steps = Momentum". With this in mind, I created this year's 2019 1 Biz Step a Day series.
This month, in July, the theme is Signature Programs!
Also known as our body of work, this might include a program, a book, a process. What do you want your signature program or body of work to be?
This month, I hope you'll follow along with the daily prompts...let us know how it's going over at the Conversation Sparker Zone
I  hope that you'll enjoy this month's Check it Off themed 1 Biz Step A Day. You can download it here.
Be sure to share with a friend, and let them know about the Planner, and associated resources!

Thanks - Jennn

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Author Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018), Effective Group Coaching (2010), From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching,
Host of the Coaching Biz Growth Lab(TM)  - a coaching group for coaches
Potentials Realized
Phone: 416-996-8326
Check out the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series of daily prompts for your work and business over on  Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder.

One of my favorite activities over the last few years has been to create a summer project list of small, and larger tasks, to complete in what some find to be a quieter time. There always are lots of project possibilities in the summer months. Have you considered:

• Updating your website
• Incorporating a new system
• Catching up on the reading you have piled around your office (or bed)
• Taking time to plan for a new program
• Writing some blog posts (and getting ahead of the curve)
• Creating a content calendar for your business
• Writing your newsletters for the next few months
• Starting a new series on Instagram

Some useful questions to consider as you go to decide what projects you want to put attention around:

• What have your clients been asking for?
• What are your key goals this year?
• What new activities would support your action and achievement of these?
• What projects would you like to move off of your “TO DO” List?
• What milestones would you create for yourself so that this is completed before the end of the month, or the end of the summer?
• What resources do you need in order to be successful with this?

For some more inspiration around this topic, listen into this 20 minute video I did last year on 2018 project ideas – check it out on my YouTube channel.

Best wishes,
​Jennifer