Should You Consider Hiring A Coach For Success In Your Business?

If you asked me 12 months ago “Should I hire a coach?”

…I would have probably said NO!

But then… If you asked me today… I would say absolutely YES!

So, why the big shift in thinking?

Well, 12 months ago I thought coaching was something that would cost me $10,000, or more, and so I could only realistically consider it when I was making enough money that I wouldn’t miss the $10,000.

That thinking was flawed… Let me tell you why.

I’ve been “internet marketing” for close on 5 years. The first year I did the usual beginner thing… Paid $497 to go to a seminar, only to be sold to. I bought a $997 home study course that showed me how to set up my first static website and make money from it.

That website was a satellite TV site. It was created on the 11th May 2006. Surprisingly, it still makes a few dollars every other day from the Adsense ads, even though it hasn’t been touched in years.

At the time I was a self employed electrician and trying to do this internet marketing stuff on the weekends and after hours.

The home study course creator had said he was generating over $4,000 a month from his satellite TV site. So, even if I made half the amount he was making, I could work 3 days as an electrician and the other 3 days on my website.

I was desperate to find another way to make money. I had been a self employed electrician for over 10 years and was tired of selling my time for dollars. I was spending more time quoting jobs for free, only to have the client accept a cheaper quote.

Internet marketing looked like the perfect answer.

I spent months tweaking my satellite TV site, trying different banner ads, trying different product ads and every few weeks I would get a $100 commission. It was my first taste of success and it looked like this could actually work for me.

But, I was getting nowhere near the $4,000 a month profit that the home study creator said he was getting.

I had even modified my site to look exactly like his, promoted the same products and was making less than $100 a week.

My results were dismal.

I was spending hour after hour on this website. It took about 12 months to realize that maybe the product creator  wasn’t making $4,000 a month…

So, I moved on. I bought other courses, I subscribed to all the “Gurus” newsletters, I joined membership sites and became a prolific reader and learner.

Over 3 years I had created a portfolio of 63 different websites in different niches.

My thinking was that, if I could get to 100 websites and they each generated just 1 sale per day of $27 that would give me an income of $985,500.00 per year.

Sounds easy right… It’s just 1 sale per day… How hard can that be?

I had websites on koi fish, bad breath, parrots, infertility, freshwater aquariums, beekeeping, wart removal, guinea pigs, model trains, growing grapes, catering and many, many more.

They were complete with keyword rich domains, built on the WordPress platform with all the traffic attracting plugins, professional graphics and great content…

I eventually outsourced the creation of the websites, because I realized that there is no money in creating websites, it was all in the promotion of those websites.

So, I chose article marketing because that’s what the supplier of these niche packs had said to do. I outsourced the article marketing and would tweak the articles before submitting them to the directories.

My days were completely consumed with submitting an article a day for 63 sites… It was tough going and boring. I had no interest in almost all of these niches… But, I persisted!

After nearly 6 months of doing this I stopped.

It was crazy and it wasn’t working!

I was submitting these articles which were getting ranked in the search engines… But, I was getting a dribble of traffic and the traffic that was getting to the site wasn’t buying.

I was getting frustrated… I had invested years of my time for next to no return and spent thousands of dollars on training.

Then someone suggested Google Adwords and pay per click advertising. If you’ve tried PPC then you will know what a disaster and waste of money that was.

So, here I was applying everything I was taught with poor results. The “Gurus” were saying to take action and it will happen… Yea, right!

I’m not sure where I read the article about coaching, but it had a profound effect on me… It spoke about everyone in business needing a coach, or at the very least an accountability coach.

Internet marketing can get very lonely and here I was pounding on the keyboard, creating and promoting websites with no-one that I could talk to and discuss my strategy with.

Sure, there were the forums and chat rooms, but I had to trawl through conversation after conversation of people moaning and groaning about the last product launch or a wayward guru or the latest Google update.

I needed help!

I needed to find someone that had already achieved what I wanted with my online business and would get on Skype with me (or the phone) and coach me to the level they had achieved.

I found that person from Loral Langemeier’s Live Out Loud program.

Now, when I look back at the last 12 months I am astounded with what I have achieved. I still smile when I think of that very first coaching call…

I proudly told Coach John how I had 63 sites, was making less than a $1,000 a month, but if I just could make a sale a day from each I would have a $1m a year income…

There was silence… That’s when I realized I had got it all wrong.

At Live Out Loud they talk about cash machines. A cash machine is a process that makes you money.

Each cash machine has a sales funnel. So, in the case of a website your sales funnel may be that you offer a free report, then a low ticket item like a $27 ebook. The low ticket item is then followed up with a $297 and then a high ticket item for $997.

The sales funnel is like getting married, as Loral Langemeier puts it. You don’t meet someone and go straight for the kiss!

The sales funnel allows you to build a trusting relationship with the prospect.

As that trust is built you offer the products in your sales funnel as a friend wanting to help out.

Trust is incredibly important online.

In my first coaching call John explained that if I couldn’t get 1 of these cash machines making money, then I would never get 63 of them making money…

I had to choose the low hanging fruit. I had to choose 1 website from the 63 that I would focus on…

That was a tough decision because my model train ebook was selling a copy a week at the time, but I didn’t know if the market was big enough to warrant my full focus.

The koi, parrot and freshwater aquarium ebooks were also selling but less frequently.

I did some research on model trains and quickly decided that this would be my first cash machine. It’s a niche similar to golf where people just can’t get enough and spend a huge amount of money. Plus I still had my model train set from 35 years ago, had always kept up to date with the hobby, had friends with amazing model railroads and being an electrician helped with the electrics.

Fast forward 12 months and just this one website has generated $102,245.54 of income!

So, if you had to ask me today “Do you think I need a coach?” I would say absolutely YES!

In fact I believe it is a necessity. Before you buy another how to product, before you spend another cent on advertising, before you try another strategy… Hire a coach!

For about 3 years I spent in excess of $30,000 in internet marketing training from the biggest names in the game. My result was an average income of $1,000 per month.

In 2010 I spent $5,000 on a coach with extra accountability calls with other coaches. My result was an income of $102,245.54 in 12 months.

So, how did the coaching help me to achieve this result?

There were many different aspects of the coaching that helped tremendously, but the 3 biggest factors where strategy, accountability and clearing the clutter.

I had accumulated a huge amount of knowledge about how to attract traffic to my site but had never created a strategy that suited me.

Everyone’s strategy will be different because some people prefer writing while others have the patience to work out PPC.

We are all different and need a strategy that suits us.

I went from tweaking and submitting articles for 8 hours a day to using 1 simple Facebook traffic strategy, which takes less than 20 minutes a day, and get optin rates of over 50%.

I changed my prospect strategy and refined each point of contact with them to increase my average sale value from $17.00 to $98.00 per customer. This was huge!

Sure, there were some long days and late nights because I had tasks I had to get done before the next accountability call. But, this kept the momentum and I knew I was going in the right direction.

Coaching has made a huge difference to my success.

Sometimes you just need that “person in the know” to help you decide which path to take by discussing the options.

That opinion or advice from an outsider to your business, the one that is not based on the emotions you have at the time, can be invaluable.

Sometimes you just need someone to crack the whip and get you moving.

You will be amazed what you can achieve with the right guidance and a gentle shove in the direction you want to go.

You don’t need to pay $10,000.

If you are looking for a coach there are many different possibilities that cater for your budget.

I currently coach 5 people per month. This is 1 on 1 coaching for 30 minutes every week. It is designed to fast track your results by reviewing what you have done in the last week, analyzing the results, making decisions based on the results and then creating a list of to-do’s for the next week. The cost of this coaching is $297 per month. You pay month to month and decide when you want to cancel.

Click here to get access to the “InMyHomeOffice” coaching by Ian McConnell

If you are looking for a cheaper option, you could try the Loral Langemeier Fast Cash Coaching program which has a $1 trial for 30 days and then $149 a month.

The Fast Cash Coaching Program will give you:

• 4 exclusive, LIVE INTERACTIVE streaming video coaching sessionswith Loral Langemeier every month … all from the comfort of your own home or office. These sessions include:
  • Live business makeovers (by application)
  • Extensive Question and Answer periods to help eliminate challenges and create fast cash
  • Specific marketing, sales, time management, and organizational tactics that can be implemented immediately.
• 8 Accountability Calls a Week! These calls are with Loral’s highly trained coaches, and give you an even more personalized experience with the program.
• Daily Tips: Scheduled video, audio, and email messages from Loral to maintain your motivation and focus.
• Access to a variety of hand-picked library of videos, audios, and templates on-demand to help you succeed as an entrepreneur.
• Access to the Fast Cash Coaching Forum and Blogs moderated by Loral and her team of experts.
• Access to Resource Centers… Including access to applications for Health, Car, Life, Dental and additional types of insurance.
• Special exclusive 20-30 minute streaming video of the month available only to you as a member.
• Team building and networking exercises to help build your sustainable team.
• Looped homework and follow up from one team of expert coaches

Click here to get more information on the Fast Cash Coaching Program

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