Coach.io

Almost every day on Facebook or any number of other channels, we get basically the same question from any number of different people.

The question goes something like this:

“Can someone please help me get started making money online?”

There are a number of variations, but when you read them you can see the deer standing there, blinded by headlights. It’s not hard to relate to the frustration or even sense of helplessness the questioner might be feeling either -- we all started somewhere and we all suffered our own frustrations.

Often these questions are short and vague and difficult to address effectively. Moderators and admins will usually delete such questions simply because they’ve been asked a million times before and responded to. Moderators will often politely point out where those answers can be found. Moderators accept this as a matter of course, much like a Walmart employee expects to be asked where the bathrooms are at least a few times a day.

The question

On Coach.io I spotted this question asked very effectively and answered very effectively,  thus making it well worth sharing. It’s not a magic answer because there is no magic answer. If you’re struggling right now, read Sean’s answer and give it some real thought before you reject it. Understanding it might be the difference between you reaching your goals or not.

“Based on the courses I own and worked through in the last years I should have been a millionaire - easily. I'm not.

What are the real success-habits?

How to develop, maintain and incorporate them?

How do I make "it" work on a daily basis?

How do I stop distractions, following new "stuff" and shiny objects?

... "Just do it!" - please …” - Roland V.

The answer

It’s an honest question. It’s a specific question and it’s a damn good question. Thankfully, it got a good answer from Coach Sean Mize:

“This is a question that so many marketers struggle with. In fact, I'd say most of my clients are just like you - they know all the right answers, but focus and implementation are the problems.

First, you probably don't need anymore courses right now. You know what to do - and I believe you know that the next step is to "just do it!"

Stop the courses, and stop the distractions. Close Facebook, close your email, close Youtube, close the latest marketing guru's sales page and promises.

Do you have a niche picked out? Are you adding content to your website on a daily basis? If not, start there. Pick a niche, or get 12 books on your niche and start becoming an expert if you're not there yet. Then publish fresh, insightful content daily.

Create a squeeze page to start getting folks onto a list, and write good content to them every day. Ask them what their biggest problems are in the niche.

Record a product based on their questions - 30-60 minutes every day for a few days. Then write a letter for that product, using their own problems to help create the bullets.

Sell that product.

Repeat this - create content, build trust and relationship with that daily email, and create products based on your clients' needs.

You probably already have courses that outline how to do all of those things - you know how to do them. So now commit to really doing it daily. You'll get a feel for what works and what doesn't to optimize over time, but right now, just establish those daily habits. Take action!”

A tall think of wisdom

Years ago I was in New York city for Ad-Tech with a few colleagues from a well known email service provider. As we strolled through Times Square a gentleman approached us asking for money. He attempted some small talk by asking us where we were from and what we did for a living. When we told him we were email marketers, he replied, “Oh! Your the guys who send me spam!”

The Wild West Days

To be brutally honest, at the time he did have a point. The industry was still in embroiled it what amounted to the email marketing battle for better inbox placement while simultaneously trying to keep spammers out. The digital equivalent of trying to control entry while walking around and around in a revolving door.

However, it seems the wild-west days of email marketing and more specifically, inbox placement are over. According to Return Path’s latest deliverability benchmark report, At least 85% of promotional emails are reaching the inbox compared with 77% last year. In truth, the email inbox is a much kinder, gentler and user friendly place now than ever before.

It’s interesting that the United States actually lags two points behind most other countries which average 85% inbox placement but, I only mention that for the sake of those outside the US since the difference is negligible. The important points here are the high inbox placement percentage and the fact that it’s up nearly ten points from this time last year.

Long Live Email!

This is good news to anyone who relies on email marketing to generate new leads and sales. It’s been about 10 years since the Wall Street Journal attempted to declare email dead - the editors are still wiping egg off their collective faces for that one.

Email is your channel. You own your list and unlike other social channels, they can’t simply change the rules and kill your business with a few taps of a keyboard -- you have the option to take your list to another email service provider. The truth is that email marketing is the solid foundation of any digital business.

Need Email Marketing Help?

And don’t worry! If you’re new to email marketing, there are ways to avoid the pitfalls of new users. Ask a free question about email marketing on Coach.io and get free expert answers! Then book a one-to-one coaching session to take your email marketing to the next level with help from an expert on Coach.io!

Certain technology eventually becomes ubiquitous, for example, the TV, radio or the venerable toaster. Just about every household has them. Of those three things, only radio and TV can be used as advertising channels. Only 2 decades ago most of us would have never considered the possibility that handheld screen devices would rival or overtake those two. According to a new report from the Consumer Technology Association, for the first time, the three most own household devices are screen devices or smart devices.

Smartphones rival TVs in US homes

According to the report, TVs are found in 96% of US homes. Smartphones are in 87% of US homes and the report predicts the possibility of them overtaking TVs in just 5 years. When a device is capable of being applied in multiple ways, it will surpass other technologies which are not capable of same. And while no one is seriously predicting that TVs will be obsolete anytime soon, they are on the decline despite more and more content being produced.

Virtual reality and augmented reality will eat into the finite entertainment time people have. And while TV reduces us to an open-mouthed state staring at a box with no interaction, smart devices at least encourage interactivity -- which is not to say they don’t have a zombie effect of their own on people.

People agree on “content being king” but, what they don’t often agree on is what should be crowned as queen. I’ve always believed that context is queen. A king with no relevance to his subjects will soon fall -- even history bears this out. And so, the relevance and therefore the engagement of your audience is tied to context.

What is context?

Context is simple the reality of the moment you are attempting to engage the person in. What are they doing or thinking about? Easy examples of this would be holiday marketing campaigns. But that’s on a much bigger scale. Today, you have to tighten the focus and think about what your audience is doing and thinking when you engage them.

Consider that it’s not outrageous to suggest that you should be thinking about not just what people are doing on a bigger scale in the great wonderful world. But what they may be doing in their smaller world at home. And even what different members of one household might be focused on at the same time, if you plan to approach one or more of them.

One size fits all fits nowhere in the digital marketing world. Marketing is as much art as it is science and that’s a good thing. Marketing is one of the few disciplines where you can still be more an artist than a scientist and a little guy can win -- even if those days may be numbered. 

Connections are the essence of what makes the internet so powerful and such an agent of change. When people connect, interact and trade views and ideas, amazing things can happen.

Bidirectional means interactive

The internet is the first bidirectional medium in history. This interactiveness and the connections and insight it fosters are changing our world dramatically. You now have a tool on your desk or in your hands which can truly unlock your potential.

Flash!

We’ve all had those flashes of insight or ideas for a new product, business or service. Before the internet, getting anywhere with those ideas was rather complicated for most of us, because the information to take those ideas further wasn’t very accessible.

The very first day I logged onto the Internet almost a quarter century ago, I realized two things:

1 - That connecting people and creating communities would drive the web.

2 - The sharing of knowledge the internet facilitated would change our world.

Those flashes of insight and inspiration (thanks to the web) are today less flash and more fire -- if you use the internet to fan the flames.

Coach.io

Take Coach.io for example. The idea behind Coach.io is to connect people with experts via an affordable ala carte platform which allows entrepreneurs and small to medium businesses to budget only for the expertise and time they require to either solve problems, vet new ideas or consult over strategy.

Coach.io exists because the internet has become so good at those two things I mentioned above. Coach.io connects digital business people with expert consultants and allows them to easily share knowledge via our platform with live video conferencing built right in.

The amazing idea factory

Have you ever noticed how the best product pitches also tell a great story? It’s true. Information is a lot like medicine and a good story is a way to help that medicine go down in a delightful way. I often like to relate my posts and articles to something which has happened in my life that’s relative. Many of the lessons we want to convey in business have very digestible and even very entertaining parallels in everyday life.

Of church and bacon

Think of it this way, most of us who go to church would rather listen to a sermon that doesn’t sound like one because it’s wrapped in a really good story. Think of your pitch as you would the lesson of that sermon and serve it up in a way that entertains people. Learning is a lot like giving a dog a pill -- you have to wrap it in bacon for most of them to swallow it.

The older you get the easier it gets

This is true when it comes to telling a good tale. Life gives you a vast range of experience that you can relate your content too. It’s one of the few gifts of age that we all appreciate as opposed to the not so great ones we all have to cope with.

However, that doesn’t mean you have to be old to write great marketing content! First, not every story has to be epic or even close to it. What it has to be is relatable and that means you can seek inspiration or even the stories themselves elsewhere.

Where to find stories

A web search is one. Try using vague search terms for a relevant story then narrow the search terms down. Or try Wikipedia (topic searches) or history sites or even check a this day in history site to see if there’s anything in the past you might be able to leverage for inspiration or even the story itself. If it’s true that “past is prologue,” then every new story to some degree or another is a older tale retold in our time. What we experience today may be different because of advances in civilization and/or technology, but the human condition (and thus the experience) hasn’t changed that much over the centuries.

Videos have been the buzz in online marketing for over a decade but, are really just coming into their own as a must have tool for marketers online. Of course, if you’re a large corporation then online video marketing might be just another channel to you for repurposing content but, it shouldn’t be. The whole idea of marketing with video content is to leverage the unique properties that online video can provide. However, this post isn’t about corporations. It’s about you.

Know your audience

Who are you trying to reach and how do those kind of people like to consume information? Put yourself in your prospect or customer’s shoes and check your ego. Our priorities are not always simpatico with prospects and clients. Don’t let your own subtle biases dictate your message. You always need to be starting from: What’s important to my prospect? What’s in it for them?

Context

Now that you are sure you know who your prospect is, what are they doing? That is to say, what are they doing as they hit your video? Are they likely in an office, a store or some other location? Where they are, what they are doing and thus, how they are thinking affects how well your presentation will go over.

Elevator

You don’t have more than 15 seconds to impress them. Get your ducks in a row and make sure you can read their names off in 15 seconds. What’s the problem? What’s the solution? What’s the value?

Fit the funnel flow

Make sure your videos fit nicely with their landing pages. Think about the logos and graphics you are using in the video and how they flow (match) with your website layout and your landing page layouts. Even give some thought to how the video flows with the content on the page -- is the video in the right place? Test the layout and ask yourself if you like the feel and flow.

Keep it simple

I got an interesting email recently from a client who has done very well marketing their business via email for years. She explained that she wanted to bolster her lead gen efforts in email with other social channels but, she also pointed out that her and her husband were older and they didn’t have the time or inclination to learn all the new social channels and so, she wanted to know which one had all the people so they could focus on that one. It seems like a good time to trot out some favorite analogies of mine again. Before I do that, jus let me say that age is no barrier to learning new technology, it’s really your own preference to do or not do.

The Frogger analogy

The simple, disappointing answer to the question at issue is none of them have all the people. The more complicated answer has a lot to do with an old video game known as “Frogger.” In that game you have to guide a frog across a busy highway and then across a fast moving river to get to the safety of the frog’s lily pad.

Consider the frog to be your lead/prospect -- there’s no way in today’s social media world to predict what path that person will take to get to your conversion point (the lily pad). Even with the tools available out there to help automate this whole process, it can be overwhelming to a small business person or entrepreneur.

Channel dialect

Keep in mind, every channel has its own “dialect.” That may be visual such as Instagram or it might be mostly dialogue as with Twitter. So, to some degree how you interact with people will be different depending on the dialect -- because how you tell a story depends on the tools you have to tell it with. But you don’t have to be on every channel. What you should think of is where your biggest potential target demographic is.

Do you know who your customers are?

You don’t need a supercomputer to figure this out. All you need to do (especially if you’ve been in this business for a number of years) is sketch out their basic attributes such as age, gender, education and so on. Then you can use data from a source such as Pew Research.

to figure where most of them are. And so, you can focus on learning and using that channel. I’m not saying I think only one channel is perfect, but if you are committed to only using one channel then this is likely the best approach.

One of the biggest myths that people buy into is multitasking. Humans do not multitask well. We want to believe we do, but the facts say otherwise. We’re good at what we can call “time-slicing,” but we are not true multitaskers. Human brains simply are not wired to multitask.

Time-slicing is a term from the old mainframe computer days which describes how those older systems shared resources in slices of time -- they weren’t multitasking either. The system gave it’s attention to one thing at a time for a brief moment than another and another. It kept coming back to each task doing a little until all were done -- almost like mowing a lawn. Humans are more suited to this kind of time and resource management but, it doesn’t make it any more affective.

Remember, each time you interrupt a thought process you are currently on, you creating a distraction and even though you are touching on a lot of tasks, the distractions are impairing your ability to actually make real progress.

There are some simple and basic things you can do to help with your productivity. Let’s take a look at five now.

Close the tabs

Web browser tabs are the blinky neon signs of evil when it comes to productivity. The absolute worst thing you can do is leave a tab open for a site such as Facebook or LinkedIn because they notify you of a new post or other activity. Same goes for email. You don’t have to respond every time your email goes ping.

Segment your work with breaks

As I planned this post, I established my usual process and built into the process are optional breaks. I usually prefer to write the outline of a post, then the body. So, I build in breaks after the outline and then often after X amount of paragraphs are written or points established. Sometimes it’s best to take that break after you’ve made a point so that you can review your argument to be sure you are on track. Sometimes it’s the opposite and you want to keep rolling so that you don’t lose your train of thought -- Use your breaks as a reward for reaching goals.

Music or news in the background

I often like to have the news on in the background as I work from home. I do this partly because as an ex-broadcaster, I’m a news junkie and partly because I live alone and I suppose I like to feel as if there’s other activity going on here. However, this may be very distractive. Music and news in the background can take you off track for just a second and a second is all it takes to impact your productivity. If you lose your train of thought/focus, it could take a good deal longer to regain it and all those moments and minutes add up. It might be well worth it to simply try working one day without the TV or the music on in the background and just test if you get more done.

Do the hard tasks first

As the day goes on your battery discharges. If you leave the biggest jobs for the end of the day, you might not have enough of a charge left to effectively deal with the problem. A task that should take an hour might take two or you may not finish it at all. The tendency is to blame the task itself for poor results, but perhaps it’s the way you are going about it.

Keep a notepad

I have always kept a notepad by my computer and on my coffee table. Now, since I’ve become a father it’s harder to actually find a pen to go with it (crayons and or markers are everywhere however) but it’s a habit which has served me well. I write 3 tasks that I need to get done and any notes that are helpful. Ticking those off during the day are almost as good as a Snickers bar break, but with less calories.

You can be productive

Let’s talk about two of the most important factors for digital marketing, your voice and your content. In other words, what you are saying and how you are saying it.

The voice

Perhaps a matter of opinion but, to me it’s very important to write and speak one-to-one. There’s no direct connection if you speak, tweet or email as if you are talking to thousands or even a dozen people. If you want to make a real connection with prospects, take Ringo Starr’s advice and act naturally.

Think about the voice

Before you create a post or an email or a tweet, do a little mental preparation and put yourself in the mindset that you are sitting across a kitchen table from someone having coffee or a beer and chatting casually. But remember, you’re in someone else’s kitchen so don’t be too comfortable.

Be sure that you understand your topic. That doesn’t mean you have to be an expert, so long as you know when to cite such an expert source over yourself -- you don’t have to know it all. You just need to know when you don’t know.

The content

Relevant communications is a topic that could and has filled volumes. Marketing was not a real-time industry until social media came along. The entire industry has been trying to rediscover itself and adapt for years and is still struggling with the change today. This is why entrepreneurs have the advantage -- they can turn sharper.

Real-time

With real-time marketing you need to consider not just what the person is interested in but, what they are doing at the moment you trying to interact with them. Who are they? What time is it where they are? What’s the weather like? Do their kids play soccer or hockey? Is today a special day or holiday? All of these and more are factors in how you approach people.

Big data small data

Big corporations use big data technology and AI to find and qualify leads. In some operations a human isn’t even involved until the prospect has been through several AI interactions. Of course, you don’t have these resources but, you don’t need them. You really don’t! This is where you being an entrepreneur comes in again. You’re working with a smaller subscriber or prospect base. You can afford to make some informed guesses about who they are and what they may be doing. You can optimize your approach based on the response.

Think about how you consume content. Think about how your family and friends consume it. See any commonalities? Yes? So, that suggests these common factors might apply to a lot of people, even those you are trying to market to. You know a lot more than you think you do.

You’re smarter than you think

You really are! Your experience and the insight that comes from it can be and should be applied to your digital business. If you think you don’t have that experience and insight than you are just not looking hard enough for it.

lil help

We pretty much spend  most of our lives trying to figure out life. Or more to the point, we spend most of our time trying to figure out why the hell whatever is happening to us at the time is happening to us at the time. If we can just make some sense of it then we’ll have peace of mind and always be prepared. I’d point out that “Always be prepared,” is also the Boy Scout’s motto, which is a cliche uttered by a cliche -- so take from that what you will.

(I have nothing against the Boy Scouts -- please don’t email me.)

Yes, you can be prepared but, you can’t be prepared for everything always. The truth is that life is mostly a result of your own reactions to any given situation. In fact, I’d say at least 90% of it results from your actions in response to events.

Pitty patterns

Have you perhaps noticed how a pattern seems to develop when unexpected or even expected things happen to you? Most of us realize this to one degree or another. We might ask ourselves why we seem to be stuck in a rut or wonder why the same negative results keep happening.

Why is this happening to me?

For years I suffered from depression without realizing what I was dealing with. I allowed that depression to cloud my judgement and my perception and I fell into a pattern of reaction to events which assured me of having to deal with more negative events as a result of my negative perceptions and reactions. I kept asking myself why this was happening to me, but the question I should have been asking was…

How do I fix this?

“How” is a word that starts a sentence that asks a question that opens the door to a path of possible resolution. I don’t want to sound like some kind of self-help guru (because I’m certainly not) but that’s a pretty apt way to put what I see as a fundamental truth.

When you focus on the “how” more than the “why” in such situations, you begin to think about solutions.

It’s the only control you have

A fundamental truth I’ve learned is that the only real control you have in this life is of how you react to any given situation. You can’t control everything that may happen to you, but you can control how you react to those same happenings.

You can test this

You can actually put what I’m saying here to the test. It’s simply a matter of using the path not traveled the next time you face challenge or unexpected problem. Before you react, stop, think about what you are about to do and consider the path you would normally not take. As long as that path is reasonable, take it. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Hopefully, it’s the best thing that could happen because the result this time will be more positive.

Small steps

When everything seems to be out of your control, the best way to start regaining your confidence is to start small with the little things you can fix/control. That’s how you set a foundation for a different thought process which offers you more positive alternatives and frankly, a better outlook on life in general.

So, you’ve decided to head out on your own great adventure and make your own way in this world, congratulations! Breaking away from the traditional kind of employment is scary. If you’ve been an employee your whole life then you are use to having structure and knowing what to expect usually. It’s almost like being released from prison -- no one is going to tell you when to get up or when to eat or when to go to bed -- that’s all up to you now. It’s not an easy adjustment to make.

The ten thousand foot view

Right now you may only have a dream or you may not even have that. You may only know that you don’t want to be where you are now forever and you are ready to make something happen yourself. So, you’re looking at things from a very high level and that’s fine so long as that is only your starting point and not your whole map.

Focus

So, your looking at your success map from very high up and that means the details will be fuzzy. That’s OK to begin with because you can start filling it in from the top down. If we’re using a map analogy, then we want to have our goals as the destinations and plan the route to get there. What steps will you need to take to reach your goals? Answer the questions you can, then find the answers you don’t have. Don’t worry about what you don’t know! Worry about what your not willing to do. Because I will tell you this, the main thing which separates successful digital business people from those who fail, is the drive to succeed.

GPS (Get Pretty Smart)

People don’t even go on vacation without at least googling or reading up on possible places to go and yet, we will leap into an online business with both feet. The virtual world isn’t padded with bubble wrap. What happens in cyberspace does not stay in cyberspace. And that play on the old Vegas line brings me to some important gambling points:

Learn the game by watching others who win

Take a look at the leading products on WarriorPlus (for example), find a vendor who is a consistent leader with a product you understand

Start small and build success

Look for less complicated products that have a quick turn around on profits. Reach for the bronze ring but don’t try to swallow it first time round.

Never risk more than you can afford to lose

Digital products in general are affordable and so you don’t have to break the bank to get started, but finish what you start! Don’t fall into the trap of buying one product after another looking for the big score -- you might as well buy a lottery ticket.

Put your skills on the map

I can tell you right now, one of the most important skills you can have as a digital business person is relationship building and nurturing. You may be sitting in front of a monitor, but you’re doing business with people sitting behind their monitor and the better you are with people the better you will be at this.

You have a lot of other skills too. Take stock in them and write them down. Then look for the same skills in successful digital business people who have products you may be considering. Follow up and read their blog or Facebook posts.

Walk don’t run

Look, there’s no reason whatsoever for you to leap at the first thing you see with no plan hoping to strike it rich. Set aside at least a week or two to make your plan and do your research on a product before you leap. Seriously, this should be baked in -- if you need money that fast, then you are looking in the wrong place for it.

Hire a guide

One of the best fishing trips I ever had was the first time I ever hired a local guide. Aside from the fact that he had a motor on his boat (all I had was a canoe), he also knew what fish were where in the lake and quickly homed in on a good spot. It cost me $40 bucks, but it saved me hours of wasted time looking for that perfect spot.

Over the years I’ve had a lot of webcam chats with very successful internet marketers and digital business people. I’ve noticed something that the best of the best seem to have in common -- very spartan, neat home offices. Now, it’s true that a view of an office via webcam can be limited -- there could be a month’s worth of laundry out of view in the corner afterall. But I doubt it. For it fits with the clarity of vision I find in most successful digital business professionals.

And while I’m not going to try and romanticize online marketers as Spartan warriors and use some tired battle analogy, I am going to make a connection between internet marketers and the Greek/Roman Stoic philosophy. At least their work spaces seem spartan. No paisley wallpaper patterns here or painting of dogs playing poker.

Now I doubt most of these folks are consciously thinking about this -- in fact, if they were, it wouldn’t quite fit with my profile of them. That’s because I don’t think they set out to keep their home offices so tidy. I think they're neat and organized offices are simply an expression of their clarity of purpose and vision.

How do they?

I didn’t write this post to give you step-by-step instructions on organizing your home office. I wrote it to drive home the fact that if you want to know why some people are so successful in online marketing, you need to study not just the products they produce or market, but how they do that. How they work and what they say about how they work, will provide more insight into their success than anything else.

How do I?

Every single day I see a post, tweet or email from someone new to internet marketing which asks, “how one does one make money in this?” People have been asking that same question since internet marketing first started. On most boards and groups those types of questions are quickly deleted by moderators. It’s not that moderators don’t care and it’s certainly not that they don’t want people to know how to prosper online. It’s simply that such questions are perceived by most to be lazy and there is no magic answer to the question in any case. These questions can cause a lot of noise and distraction very quickly for online communities. They get asked over and over again, and can clutter things up.

As well, veteran internet marketers are also concerned about such people who post that kind of question because they’re worried they will jump into all sorts of bogus get rich quick schemes, adding to the noise online, buying junk email lists, spamming email and other channels and generally, polluting the river everyone is trying to fish in. It’s a valid concern. After all, there’s a reason you have to get a license to drive a car or a boat. It certifies that you’ve learned how to act/operate responsibly and safely. So, don’t misconstrue the lack of response to such questions online, this is not elitism, this is self preservation.

The question of helping newcomers to internet marketing has been top of mind for years and years. Dozens of leading digital business people have created turnkey products and integrated courses to help people learn the ropes and build their own businesses. For many, this has worked and let them reach their goals and live their dreams. But, this is and never has been a panacea -- not everyone learns the same way.

A temple of learning

Coach.io is a direct response to this. We saw a need to help people find answers and get one-to-one guidance when they needed help and coaching to build towards their dreams. We reached out to digital business leaders and legends and asked for their feedback. The result of this was Coach.io -- it is not a template site. We didn’t hire a few guys a thousand miles away with no dog in this fight to build us a site. We rolled up our own sleeves and built this from the ground up. We took everything we learned from the WarriorPlus community and integrated it in to Coach.io.

Think! Think!

This is your learning place. This is your testing ground. This is where you can sit among the masters and learn not just how they do it, but how they think. It’s always better to learn how to  think than be told what to think.

There’s an old saying which goes, “the clearer the target, the surer the aim.” It means that having clear goals and steps to get there are critical to not just success, but happiness and satisfaction in one’s work.

You can’t hit what you can’t see

The problem just about all of us have faced is that too few managers in traditional corporate cultures, don’t give their employees clear targets to aim for. That means insecurity and job satisfaction and that means low moral and a loss of productivity. Those unfortunate results may be why you are reading this blog right now, looking for an opportunity to be your own manager and boss.

A good manager is a good leader and a good leader is a great coach. A manager who does not make the effort to align the goals of customers, the corporation and the employees is a failure. Most of us have experience with negative workplaces and the memories are likely not pleasant ones.

Take aim

So, if you are breaking out on your own to build either a passive income or a full-time career online, that old saying still applies -- perhaps even more so. You’ll need to set a clear target/goal and then aim for it. What is it you want to accomplish and what tools and steps do you need to reach it?  There are long term goals and short term goals (milestones) and you should map them all out, then set down a plan to get there.

Your own coaching staff

You will likely find that as you draw out your success map, you will not always see the path clearly -- details may be elusive. You need perspective or an expert opinion or perhaps you need to sit down with someone who’s walked your path and already built a successful business. It’s OK, no one has all the answers, but at Coach.io we bring together people who have asked and answered all those questions you probably have swirling in your head.

How Coach.io helps

We all know the classic stereotype pep talks that coaches are expected to give their charges before and during games. There’s been more than one movie focused on such stirring speeches. However, is a coach's greatest gift their ability to tell it as it is or is it to ask what it is? I’d say the latter first and the former second. Good coaches spend as much time assessing their charges talents and skills as they do encouraging them to work on them.

Everything in coaching hinges on listening because what we are listening for affects where we are speaking from and unfolds how we are being with and for each other. - Marilyn Atkinson; Rae Chois, Step By Step Coaching

You don’t bestow confidence

A good coach motivates people by increasing their confidence in their own skills and helps them improve those they may be lacking in. You can’t work on weaknesses effectively if you don’t have the confidence and sense of control in your ability to address them.

Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you're in control, they're in control. - Tom Landry

You don’t bestow confidence, you build it. A good coach knows that the best way to build control and confidence is to focus first on the skills their student has mastered and then show them how to build the skills they may be lacking from that confidence and sense of control.

Ask your coach good questions

If you’re looking for a coach on Coach.io it’s important that you review their past answers to questions on the site to be sure they have the kind of approach you like. It’s also important to ask them how they work when you are communicating with them regarding a possible one-to-one coaching session. Are they listening to your questions and understanding what you want when they reply?

Be honest with your coach

A success coach has to rely on your honesty to help them access what kind of help you need. They don’t have the luxury of training camp to evaluate you. So, indeed they have to be good listeners and ask good questions, but you as the student have to be open and honest with yourself and them.

When you’re thinking of starting your own online business, the first thing you should do is take stock of yourself. Before you jump at any product, online course or sales program, you have to sit down and assess what you’ve got, what you enjoy and what you want.

What you’ve got

What skills, experience and talents do you have? What of those are unique enough to leverage your value proposition over others? If you’re older, it’s a simple matter of experience -- you can offer years of practical hands on work and the wider perspective that goes with it.

What you enjoy

I’m pretty sure most of us would never think of taking on a second job unless we desperately needed the income, right? Why give up your nights and weekends to start your own business? The answer is simple, passion. You love what you do and so it doesn’t feel like work. In fact, nothing keeps one as young as doing something you love every day.

What you want

What’s your end goal? You’ll have clients coming to you for help with their goals, so I hope you know what yours are. Is this a business you intend to build and grow or are you just looking to supplement your income by freelancing at something you’re already good at?

Scrapbook or scrap?

It’s best to have these answers before you get going and you need to write them down. Many years ago when the internet was young, my ex-wife started an online scrapbooking store. I was enlisted to design and maintain the website and online store. However, because I didn’t know the difference between a grommet and parchment and because I thought “velum” was the fabric you make bath robes out of, I was pretty useless in helping her.

For the first two years it was fun and it paid its way, but then it grew just enough that it was too much work to be part-time fun and it wasn’t generating enough revenue to be a full time undertaking. She had to make a decision to throw all of herself into it or walk away -- she chose to walk away. That wasn’t such a bad decision considering that shortly after that, the scrapbooking market took a tumble.

Keep pace

You can see why it’s important to have perspective, a plan and a pace to follow. While anyone would be happy with a passion becoming a full time gig, it’s not that easy to accomplish. If you rush into it without enough care and a clear perspective, you may find yourself in an uncomfortable position of having to jump one way or the other.

Don’t sell your time cheap

Your time is the most precious thing you have. Never sell that time cheap. Find out what the going rates are for the services you want to offer and charge what you deserve while remaining competitive. If you’re planning to sell a product then look for products that you believe will provide a return that is worth the time you put in. If you are not sure it’s a good product or that it can’t deliver, find another option.

Expert advice

Recently I was chatting with an acquaintance regarding good luck, bad luck, success and failure. The kind of discussion you have every so often that goes a bit deeper than you were expecting it to go because you find you have shared experiences. During the course of a pretty broad conversation, he said something about depression which I think is one of the most insightful things I’ve ever heard.

It’s not the depression that will kill you, it’s the inertia

It was one of those “oh” moments for me. He’s right! It’s not the problem at the root of our situation that kills us. It’s the reactions which become habits, digging deeper ruts that beat us down. It’s so easy to fall into those habits and get propelled along from one disappointment to the next – as if you are caught in some rapids, being smashed from one rock to another, trying to catch your breath.

With the inertia, everything begins to seem to rush along and you stop thinking and simply react. The problem is that without thinking, we develop the habit of responding the same way over and over again, even if that pattern keeps bringing the same negative results. People caught up in this cycle are not stupid. It can happen to anyone and has happened to a lot of very smart people.

Pavlov’s Duck

I like to call it “Pavlov’s Duck.” As you know, Pavlov worked with dogs in his research and not ducks. However, I think it’s cute and apt. It reminds me of how to change my responses so that I don’t start “drooling” every time someone rings a bell. I’m reasonably sure ducks can’t drool, but then again, I was wrong about a duck’s quack not echoing.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result

You know where that goes. It’s just nuts to keep reacting the same way if you want to change things. But when you get caught in that fast rushing stream of reaction and emotional triggers, it’s hard not to be swept away. I’ve found the best way to fight the inertia is to allow myself to react, but only to me. In other words, I have my own rant session, make my silly proclamations and perhaps even some threats. After I cool down a bit, I force myself to think of alternative reactions and I speculate to myself on how things might go for each practical response. It might be a bit anticlimactic depending on what you were expecting, but it works for me.

Magic! Not!

It’s not that this is magic. Once you recognize that the real threat is the inertia of your own thinking that’s hindering your happiness and success, you  can slow down, think and improve the circumstances you are reacting to.

The only control you have

The only real control we have in this world is how we react to any given situation. We can’t control everything, but we can control how we respond to most things. I’ve found that the best thing I can do is pause before reacting and ask myself if I’ve reacted this way before and what if any good that did for me. It takes less time for this thought to run through your brain than it does for you to make the same mistake again -- all it takes is a second thought and a simple question.

We’ve been working hard on building the best knowledge base to answer your questions and make your experience with Coach.io the best! The KB is finally live and you can check it out here!

The knowledge base is packed with all the information we could stuff into it and just about every question we could think of is answered there. You’ll get a full rundown of how each amazing Coach.io feature does for you and how to use it effectively.

Of course, if you happen to have a question that’s not in the knowledge base or even a suggestion for us just click the talk bubble in the bottom right corner of the site and ask away! You’ll get a fast and effective response almost immediately.