ROSE COACHING Effective use of one-on-one meetings How to use meetings to close deals and gain referrals Laura Lee Rose 2013 W W W.LA U R A L EER O S E. C O M
This is Laura Lee Rose. I am a business and efficiency coach. I help people who want to take their professional development to the next level in the corporate environment and others that want to take that big leap into entrepreneurship. Over the past several months, I have freely shared my social media and networking tips in a few quick videos. I ve developed and spoken a SNAP (Social Networking Assistant Process) system entrepreneurs and coaches. I designed a 3-day tele-seminar (Light Your Fuse) for coaches to speak and expose their products and services to a different set of clients. Since then I have received several follow-up questions about how coaches can: 1. How to get coaching to pay 2. How coaches can best leverage and productize their coaching and consultant services. 3. How to best market and price their coaching services 4. How to get the BNI (Business Network International) and similar referral systems to work for them. 5. How to use social media to get the proper exposure 6. How to effectively convert leads to sales 7. How to convert coaching services to salable products 8. How to leverage their current network to go beyond their current reach 9. How to handle discounts requests in a professional manner 10. How to find time to do the necessary networking Today s discussion is How to make better use of referral and business networking groups 1
Regardless of the type or title of your referral and networking meetings, there are a few things that you can do to increase your success and profitability. I am a business and efficiency coach and I have attended several different types of networking meetings and catalysts events. Many of them were disappointing, but still a learning experience. The first thing you need to acknowledge is your purpose or reason for attending these meetings. Regardless of how nice the participants are; if they are not going to give you money-making referrals, you are wasting your time. I have been a member of BNI for 2 years. I was their regional time management trainer, providing monthly presentation on how to find time to network. I also was my chapter s Secretary and Treasurer. I will be sharing these experiences in this ebook. 2
As a Coach, I too thought this way until I approached referral groups differently than the other businesses.. 3
First suggestion is to take advantage of any and all the training your particular referral group offers. BNI is just one example. It provides training on your 30-45 second commercials, your speaker sessions, and your one-on-one meetings. These tips are very good and valid. But as coaches, we need to take all these things a step further because our industry is a little different then selling insurance or showing houses. Because coaching isn t as tangible as legal services or banking services, we need to approach referrals a little be differently Also use these training sessions as additional networking opportunities. Through your class participation, questions, and suggestions, you are illustrating your professional coaching methods. 4
Many coaches simply write-off referral groups as BNI because they are not initially getting the results that they want. It takes time, energy, and focus to build relationships in any networking and referral group. People do business with people they know, like and trust. And trust is not any overnight accomplishment. Coaching is not much different. Coaches enter a referral group like BNI, Coffee and Contacts, or Power Core. They witness several referrals going back and forth. And they surely expect to get the same amount of referrals that others seem to be getting. Because they don t, they often through out the baby with the bathwater (meaning they decide that the referral groups are not working for them). It might well be the wrong tool for them. But it also may be that you need to use the tool a little differently than the rest of the group. 5
The 45 seconds does not really build the relationship and trust with your team. As mentioned earlier, it takes time for people to know, like and trust you. And 45 seconds ain t going to do it. Make full use of your one-on-one meetings. Offer free introductory sessions so that they can experience what you do. Don t limit your one-on-one meetings to your referral group. Visit other BNI chapters and referral groups. Whenever you come across others in your contact sphere, setup one-onone meetings with them as well. They don t have to be in your specific BNI or referral group. I have a ebook on how to best conduct a coaching one-on-one meeting to improve your referrals and profitability. Contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info for more information on that ebook. 6
One mistake that most newcomers to referral groups make is that they feel that once they have done a one-on-one meeting with someone, their work is done. Far from it. You need to continually meet with the same individuals over and over again. The best method is to set them up in advance and recurring. Keep a list of all the members in your group and prioritize their importance to your business. For instance, you will want to meet with your contact sphere twice as often as the other members. In my INS (Individual Network Strategy) workbook, I outline an effective way to prioritize and schedule your networking strategy. Contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info for more information on the INS workbook. 7
Another opportunity for one-on-one is after your speaker day. In the ebook How Coaches can make better use of referral groups we mentioned that your speaker day should be focused on asking and receiving referrals. Once people provide you with some names, follow-up with one-on-one meetings. Ask them as much about their lead as possible; ask how they way to be included; and how they would like to be appreciated. I would like to encourage you to use these same tips at any speaking engagements that you have. It doesn t have to be in a referral group. Get used to asking for what you want in any social environment, including your other speaking engagements. 8
Sometimes coaching is difficult to understand. And training others to be on the look out for coaching opportunities is not easy. One trick that I have used is to use trigger phrases. I am a business and efficiency coach. I focus on time management, project management and career management issues. Therefore, I ask friends and referral partners to listen for the following phrases: I can t find the time to.. I never seem to get to. I have lots of dreams and ideas, but don t seem to follow-through I am not very organized I m not getting anywhere at work I m fearful about loosing my job When they hear someone in their network say things along those lines, they know that they may be good candidates for my services. This opens the door for a conversation on coaching. I also provide my team with breaking-ice scripts. I give them some phrases that they can use to start the conversation around coaching. Remember the easier that you can make it for them to help you, the more successful you will be. Unfortunately, people won t do this on their own. It s not that they are against helping you. It s that it never occurs to them, especially if they are not in your contact sphere (not in a business that is downstream to coaching). 9
Another training exercise is to be open (and offer) 3-way calls. Encourage your members to call you at any time with the potential referral in front of them. Use this same method in any telemarketing or networking endeavors. One idea is to barter your coaching services with telemarketing or referral services. Provide your staff with the proper trigger phrases, opening scripts, videos and audios, organization contact lists, etc. Devise a payment schedule based on the staff lead to client conversion ratio. Your payment schedule could include discounts on your coaching products and services; to straight payment. One thing to consider is to pay based on quality of performance. Someone can report to have contacted 100 people or groups but with no results because they were the wrong types of people. This does not help your bottom line and possibly illustrates that you need to either do more training with this person or release them. Be careful of groups that sell you leads and contact lists. They may guarantee 5000 twitter names but they could mostly be teenagers. If your business centers around middle-age women going through a divorce, these leads list are irrelevant to you. Before spending money on leads, do your due-dilligence to vet the list. 10
Any networking referral group takes time. Making it profitable for coaching may be a little more challenging, but it can be effective if you use it correctly. Also expand the tools that you use in your referral groups to other scenarios such as: Speaking engagements Look out for contact spheres and collaborative partners outside the meetings Create catalyst events on your own Create barter and referral programs on your own to gain leads and sales Anything you do in a referral group, you should be doing in real-life. 11
I realize that I went through this very quickly. We covered lots of information and tips in a very short amount of time. I have more detailed workshops on how to better use Social Media, Branding, 52 Week Topic Worksheets, Campaign planning, etc. I also have a set of e-books especially for coaches and entrepreneur. The ebook series contain information on: Client Attraction marketing plans Client Experience Flowcharts How to use the coaching product funnel Finding time to network Getting Coaching to pay off How coaches can make better use of BNI How coaches can make better use of one-on-one sales meetings Leveraging Links Pricing coaching products and services Contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info for more information to get the entire set for a discount price. 12