Marketing

(Via SiliconBeat)

With Google Adwords, practically anybody can create and manage an online pay-per-click advertising campaign without the cost of hiring an outside ad agency. Now you can practically do the same with Television ads via a new service called Spot Runner.

SiliconBeat: “The service works like this: The local business owner goes to the SpotRunner site, picks a business category and then chooses from among thousands of generic, pre-taped video ads. Each ad comes with pre-written voice-over text that can be customized (see screen shots below). Once the business has picked an ad, it tells SpotRunner how much it wants to spend on air time and which media markets it wants the ad to run in. SpotRunner comes back with a media plan. It then completes the production work of the customized ad, buys the air time and gets the video into the hands of all the pertinent networks. Later, it sends the advertiser a report of where all the ads ran and when.”

People often confuse logos with what’s really important - the brand image (what people think and feel about the company). Whisper Blog uses Ricoh as an excellent example of such confusion. By definition, the logo is merely the brand (i.e. the symbol).

“A logo is not a brand strategy. A logo is instead a graphic symbol of a brand. Nothing more. A logo becomes layered with meaning only after invested with the emotions of the consumer. Understanding how a brand becomes invested with emotion to create market movement is the science of brand strategy.” (emphasis mine)

How does your brand - logo, name or other symbol - become invested with the thoughts, feelings and emotions of your network?

Harry Joiner repeats an old joke that, unfortunately, contains more than a seed of truth. In the joke, a man chooses to spend eternity in hell rather than heaven because Satan did such a fantastic job of selling the “hell experience.” Naturally, the situation ends badly for the guy:

“Immediately, Satan’s sales rep reappears and escorts the guy to
hell, where he’s shackled to a stone wall. ‘Here’s your new home!’ the
man is told. ‘But wait! You can’t do this!” the guy yells. ‘I was here
just yesterday, and everyone was having a wonderful time. What’s going
on?’

“Satan’s sales rep says: ‘Yesterday you were a prospect …

“‘Today you’re a customer!’“

More often than not, the customer service function is disconnected from the sales and marketing function of winning customers. And I’m not here to beat up on customer service people. Their job isn’t easy. After all, most of the people they talk to are complaining about something, and when you work in that kind of environment day-in and day-out, it’s easy to develop a defensive posture.

However, I am here to beat up on the concept of customer service. It’s an outdated concept that’s rooted in the notion that customer service is about solving customer problems. While it’s true that solving the problem is part of the formula, the larger context to consider is the customer’s experience. I can get my problem solved, yet still have a terrible experience.

As an example, I went to a restaurant with my daughter yesterday. Olive Garden. Normally a pleasant experience. Good food. Relatively low price. Pleasant atmosphere. Service above average (usually). This day, however, not the case. From the get-go, the waitress was surly. Direct. Abrupt even. Bordering on rude.

She brought the initial appetizers, but forgot the bread sticks and grated cheese (problem). After I realized she forgot them, I asked nicely if she could bring them. Really. I was very nice. She brought them and offered some bullshit excuse for why she forgot them. In a surly tone, no less. Did I wait 45 minutes for a table just for this (it was a busy day)? Problem solved. Experience sucked.

Fortunately for Olive Garden, I’ve had enough pleasant experiences with them, and I’m willing to overlook this bad one. It was a very busy day after all. But what about the next time? Every experience your customer has becomes part of the brand (the customer’s gut feeling about you).

Forget customer service. Think experiential marketing.

Seth Godin writes about his experience with American Express:

“. . . a customer just took the initiative to call in, to do business with you, to pay attention. And the company, just to save a buck or so in excess capacity, makes this eager person just sit and wait.”

I wonder how much American Express paid Ellen DeGeneres and Robert Deniro to appear in their beautiful, entertaining and well-executed commercials. I wonder how many millions of dollars went into the hands of ad agencies, marketers, designers and media outlets to help AmEx become a trusted and respected financial brand in the minds of consumers.

And when all those people do their job effectively . . . when their work inspires someone to take the next step toward becoming a customer. After all that goes just as it should, AmEx pisses it away. They fumble the ball on the five yard line.

Little did they know if they could have handled this one customer correctly, they might have earned an evangelist. If they could have blown his socks off with their service (like Captain Denny), they most certainly would have made an evangelist.

Great marketing. Lousy execution. You can shine shit, but it’s still shit.

Conversely, I can’t tell you the last time I saw an Apple Powerbook ad or commercial. Yet, because Ben McConnell talked very briefly about how well Apple executes; how well they managed his experience from start to finish, end-to-end . . . I’m strongly considering an Apple as my next computer.

Ben called it “experiential marketing.” See, besides investing in ads, Apple also invested in Ben’s experience, Ben’s satisfaction. They blew his socks off. And they profited from that investment in his experience. Profit from the sale, and, although it may not show up as a line item on any financial report, they earned a profit on Ben’s mouth. How many people do you think read his blog? How many people do you think hear him speak each year? Will he continue to evangelize Apple? Most likely.

The next time you consider writing a check for an advertisement of any type, ask yourself if you’re just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Ask yourself if that money would be better invested in your customer’s experience. Ask yourself if your company looks as good naked as it does underneath all the fancy advertising.

Go read gapingvoid. Or Halley’s Comment. Or Seth’s Blog. Or Tom Peters. Or any other blog you can’t go a day without reading. It might be a stretch to call these four blogs “brands,” but the fact is, after you get done reading them, there’s a good chance you feel bigger than before you started. Expanded by the ideas, wisdom and energy imparted by their brilliant authors.

Great brands make us bigger. They open doors in us. Doors to the parts of our soul we didn’t even know existed. Or doors that we closed a long time ago because it wasn’t safe to let those parts of us come out. Or doors we closed just because we don’t live there any more - mentally, emotionally or geographically.

Scott Goodson, writing in reveries, states:

“The best brands add value and meaning to people’s lives. They develop a relationship way beyond the sale.”

I think back to the Anheuser Busch, “Honoring Our Troops” Super Bowl commercial. It opened some doors in me. My down-home, Midwestern roots. My eight years in the US Navy and the sense of patriotism that goes along with it. Although I rarely express those parts of myself (because I no longer live in that world), they’re in me, and they always will be.

Will I ever drink a Budweiser beer? Probably not, but after watching the commercial, I feel bigger. In some ways more proud and in touch with lost parts of myself. But what value does that have to Anheuser Busch? Well, other than me blogging about it, not much. To me, it’s priceless. There are, however, plenty of patriotic beer drinkers who still reside in middle America. Think they’re closer to Budweiser products because of that commercial? I do.

Jennifer Rice, What’s Your Brand Mantra:

“Successful brands allow customers to assign their own meaning to a product or service, which gives them a feeling of ownership and self-expression.”

THE HUGHTRAIN: “THE MARKET FOR SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN IS INFINITE.”

Watch an iPod commercial. The product is about so much more than THE PRODUCT. The gadget. The gizmo. It’s about the door it opens in you - the fresh, young, hip space in your soul that you visit occasionally, but should probably visit more often. It’s about the part of you that’s liberated whether you ever actually buy the product or not. It’s about how much bigger you feel because of the entire iPod experience.

Read a Tom Peters rant. Disjointed. Erratic. Energetic. Buzzing along like he does. Like a double shot of espresso chased down with a 40 ounce Red Bull. But it starts the synapses firing off in your brain like Jiffy Pop jumping out of the pan. And you feel bigger. Your mind feels bigger. More alive.

WELCOME TO XYZ COMPANY. HOW MAY WE BLAST OPEN SOME DOORS TO YOUR SOUL TODAY?

That needs to be the mantra of every business trying to make it in the 21st century.

Kathy Sierra from Creating Passionate Users:

“The more you learn, the better you are at something. The better you are, the more engaging it is. If you can help people have more of that feeling, they won’t talk about how good you are– they’ll talk about how much they kick ass.

“And that’s a powerful formula for creating passionate users.”

Great brands create passionate users.

GREAT BRANDS MAKE US BIGGER.

Thanks to Smart Blogging Babe, Jennifer Rice, for alerting us to this fine article in Fast Company Magazine. Makes my manifesto look a little smarter (by the way, did you vote for it yet). And lord knows I need all the help I can get.

“At the same time, the rise of digitized content — plus developments such as online self-service — makes it easier for sellers to atomize previously linked goods. ‘Any product that can be digitized lends itself to being taken apart,’ says Manjit Yadav, associate professor of marketing at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School. Instead of buying a year’s subscription to The New York Times for $481, or even one issue, you can purchase a single article from the online archives for $2.95.”

This post from Dave Young (Branding Blog and WizardofAds) supports my imperitive to “Forget Control. It’s an Illusion.” Surrender control to the god of value.

“At the heart of every moneymaking ad campaign is a powerful strategy, a story that needed to be told. But not every business has such a story. When your ads aren’t working, return to the core, look at first causes, heal the central wound. No writer, no matter how brilliant, can dress up a bad idea and sell it to intelligent people. It usually takes more than good writing to pull you back from the brink of disaster.

“How did you get to the brink of disaster in the first place?

“Business owners wander near the brink when they:
(1.) fail to have an attractive core strategy.
(2.) pretend their competitors don’t matter.
(3.) believe that ‘reaching the right people’ is the secret to success.
(4.) worry about “increasing traffic” more than delivering a wonderful customer experience.

“Give me a business that delights its customers and I can write ads that will take them to the stars. But force me to write ads for a business that does only an average job with their customers and I’ll have to work like a madman to keep that business from sliding backwards. Unless they have no competitors.”

Are you telling a story that needs to be told?

Are you delighting customers?

2a. Forget Marketing. Think Conversations. “For thousands of years, we knew what markets were: conversations between people who sought out others who shared the same interests . . . Conversation is a profound act of humanity. So once were markets.” (The Cluetrain Manifesto by Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Chris Locke and Rick Levine)

Marketing. A 20th century relic originally meant to connect a business to its customers. Yet, with it’s invasive nature and clinical talk of prospects, targets, segments, and USPs, it’s actually become the barrier between a business and it’s customer. Perhaps it’s time to think differently about marketing. No. Perhaps it’s time to stop thinking about marketing altogether.

1. Forget Customers and Prospects. Think Partners. Think network. Better still, think Sally Helgesen’s “web of inclusion.” Invite people into your web and feed them. Marketer vs. prospect/customer is a dead-end. Get used to it.

2. Forget Marketing. Feed Your Network. Stop trying to get/acquire/attract clients. It’s too 20th century. It’s dead. People don’t want to be sold. They don’t want to be marketed to. People are hungry, and they want to be fed. Find or build a network of people with common interests and needs. Find out what they’re hungry for and feed them (wasn’t there a Jewish guy who did that a couple thousand years ago?).

2a. Forget Marketing. Think Conversations. “For thousands of years, we knew what markets were: conversations between people who sought out others who shared the same interests . . . Conversation is a profound act of humanity. So once were markets.” (The Cluetrain Manifesto by Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Chris Locke and Rick Levine)

3. Forget Control. It’s an Illusion. Some marketers dislike blogs because they think it gives too much control to the consumer. “If I don’t have their email address, how can I send them my newsletter? How can I market to them? What will make them read my blog?”

Forget control. It’s an illusion. Surrender control to the god of value. Make an impact. Feed your network. If you do that, they will find you. If you don’t, they might read your newsletter (if it gets past the spam filter), but they won’t buy from you. This doesn’t mean forget email. If you can get an email address, get it. But forget control.

4. Forget Selling. Connect. Show up. Do you. Care deeply. Have fun. Add value, and offer it to your network. That sells itself.

5. Forget Logos. Think Gut Feelings. Logos are not brands. They are symbols. Marty Neumeier: “A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company.” Every single interaction you have with someone contributes to their GUT FEELING about you. Have a logo, because people expect it, but aim for the gut. What gut feeling are you helping to create about yourself?

6. Forget “Think Big.” Think Small. Church of the Customer’s “bite-sized chunks.” Go ahead and offer your $100-$500 per hour service, but know that’s a lot for most people to swallow. Feed your network in bite-sized chunks:

• Free articles
• $25.00 Audio Recordings.
• $15.00 PDF Special Reports.
• $39.00 Email Course.
• $99.00 Live Teleclass

Smaller pieces of value feed more people. Smaller pieces of value are the bread crumbs that lead back to you. Smaller pieces of value build your brand. Smaller pieces of value are easier to share. Smaller pieces of value can be passive revenue. Your $100 - $500 per hour service is much more valuable when you have a solid foundation of passive revenue to support it.

7. Forget “Think Big” (again). Think Be/Do Me. It’s trendy to “think big” about who you are, who you can become, what you can do and what you can offer people. Forget it. Just do/be you. That’s good enough, and it’s all people really want. Test the edges of your comfort zone, and be willing to stretch, but forget TRYING to become anything. It just slows down a process that happens naturally in its own time.

8. Forget “Next Big Thing.” Think Just This Thing. Trying to be/create the next big thing is a distraction. Just do the thing in front of you. Respond to your network’s needs. That’s big enough. Expand your skill sets. Relentlessly. If you do that, one day you may look up and realize you’ve actually created the next big thing.

9. Forget Professionalism. Think Humanism. Stop hiding the best parts of you behind the wall of professionalism. Stop saying “just the right words.” Stop being a stuffed shirt, stuffed skirt, talking head, Mr/Ms. Roboto. Stutter. Stammer. Be vulnerable. Be pissed. Be real. Be human.

Technology is making it easier for you to connect with your customers and build your brand. And lately, that trend is gaining momentum. As evidence, USA Today is running the following story: H-P kicks digital entertainment into high gear.

“The goal, H-P Chief Executive Carly Fiorina says, is ‘delivering simplicity into what is today a much too complicated world.’ Digital electronics in general are too expensive and too difficult for consumers to use, says Fiorina, who will give a speech Friday at the giant trade show. They should “work together easily and intuitively,” she says.”

I’m hoping that’s not a new revelation for Carly. I’m a long-time fan, and I’d hate to think she’s been blind to the complexity thing till now. In any event, I think you’ll see other tech companies following suit to simplify the technology.

If you’re a blogosphere regular, you’ve undoubtedly heard the term podcasting being thown around like a beach ball at a baseball game. If blog is the #1 word for 2004, it’s looking like podcasting may be the #1 word for 2005 (remember, you heard it here first).

ipodder.org explains podcasting this way:

“Think how a desktop aggregator works. You subscribe to a set of feeds, and then can easily view the new stuff from all of the feeds together, or each feed separately.

Podcasting works the same way, with one exception. Instead of reading the new content on a computer screen, you listen to the new content on an iPod or iPod-like device.

Think of your iPod as having a set of subscriptions that are checked regularly for updates. Today there are a limited number of programs available this way. The format used is RSS 2.0 with enclosures.”

Basically, podcasting seems to be the convergence of RSS (blogging), digital audio recording technology and mp3 player technology. And everyone’s talking about it. Well not everyone, but here are a few in my world . . .

Smart Blogging Babes Yvonne Divita and Jennifer Rice, along with Jackie Huba (Church of the Customer), participated in a podcast hosted by Effern over at The Vision Thing.

Kimberly Black of Agile Business Content podcasts from the beach and talks about “podcasting, making money, finding your own voice and making plans for the new year.”

800-CEO-READ podcasts an excerpt of Built to Last by Jim Collins. It’s a nice little try-it-before-you-buy-it kind of a thing. Good idea for you AudioInfopreneurs out there to help sell more stuff.

Although it’s not a true podcast, copywriting guru David Garfinkle recorded a series of short interviews with marketing experts, and made them available on his World Copywriting Blog.

Mike Stewart, The Internet Audio Guy, is capitalizing on the podcasting craze. He even takes it step further, and incorporates video into his sales pitch. Again, this is not true podcasting, but I’m sure you’ll see video becoming available via iPods and other media players.

The Digital Podcast Directory currently lists over 500 different podcasts on topics ranging from business to erotica to travel.

Lately, I’ve found myself saying that marketing is a conversation. 1000 years ago, if you were yak dealer, you had to take your yaks to the market, where you hopefully met people wanting to buy yaks. That’s the only way you could talk to your prospects.

Then the phone came along, and you could just call prospects and talk to them without leaving your home or office. Or you spoke to people through your brochures, flyers and other written materials.

Then came websites, which made it even easier to talk to people, assuming you could get them to your website.

Then came blogs. And the thing about blogs - relative to websites, brochures and such - is to be an effective medium, people expect you to be real. They expect you to write like you talk to your friends. They don’t want the marketing-ease language. They want you to show up as you. And if you do that, and they like you, and you create something of value for them, they will probably buy it.

Now comes podcasting. It’s another was to easily CONNECT with your prospects. It’s not even fitting to call them prospects any longer. These are your friends, your network, your partners. Podcasting lets you talk to them, and it allows them to walk around with you in their back pocket. Assuming you offer value. As suggested in the Customer Evangelism Playbook, it’s another way to “napsterize your knowledge.”

This is how you build your brand in the 21st century.

I’m making my way through The Brand Gap, by Marty Neumeier. Actually, it’s my second time through because it’s a lightning-quick read. Although his central idea is a bit difficult to grasp, there are some worthwhile concepts to be culled. I’m going to use some of Marty’s words to help provide some clarity about the importance of branding your small business. Read More

Sometimes the words just aren’t available to express my ideas. I hate that. For example, I was speaking with a client recently who thought if she could just get her website copy right, she’d get more business. Inside I was feeling that was hardly her problem. Of course, blurting out “that’s not your problem” would surely necessitate a quick, savvy response as to what the real problem was. And I knew what the problem was. I just couldn’t find the words to express it (maybe I should start taking gingko biloba).

Fortunately, I’ve become a rather comfortable resident of the blogosphere over the past six weeks. And as a resident, I found refuge in the words of this post over at Whisper Blog. I’ll boil it down for you.

“Branding is demonstrating. Advertising is explaining. What you fail to demonstrate, you are left to explain.”

Have you ever been to one of those home shows? You know the ones where a colossal coliseum is crammed full of vendors selling everything from Ginsu knives to garden tractors to gold plated tire irons. I’ve been to a few, and it never fails that I end up mesmerized by some guy selling a four hundred dollar set of “gourmet” cookware. I’m certain that if I cooked anything other than frozen pizza, pasta and peanut butter souffle I’d have cookware coming out my Cornish game hen house.

And what is it that so mesmerizes me each time? It’s the demonstration. The way this graceful, gliding gourmet navigates his cooking area like an Olympic skater rounds her final figure eight to take home the gold. The way he slices, dices and chops the vegetables into perfectly fine floret-shaped morsels. The way the sauce pans shimmer, the Hollandaise simmers, and the poached salmon leaps off the plate in an eruption of flavor that reduces a grown man to tears (the guy next to me).

Fortunately, just as I’m about to reach for the magic money card, my inner adult chimes in. “Take it easy there Julia Child. They’re just pots and pans, and you don’t cook.”

Put a perky guy in front of me, and let him try to EXPLAIN why I should buy that same cookware, and I start to look very much like an extra from “Night of the Living Dead.”

You’ve got to be easily accessible to your target market . . .

I love Starbucks. For a lot of reasons. The problem, of course, is the nearest location is 45 minutes away from me, so I get there maybe only 3-4 times each month.

Recently, a new coffee shop opened a few miles north of me. Keep in mind, I live in a very rural area of northeast Connecticut. So this new coffee shop, it’s phenomenal. Very Starbuckian. The interior design is cool - nice tables, big, comfy couch, eclectic feel, etc. The coffee is great, and they even have a Dell set up in the corner for customers’ use. All in all, very unique for this rather Hickvillian area.

Again, I don’t go there often. True, it’s only a couple miles north of me, but it’s out of my neighborhood. Whenever I go anywhere, it’s usually in the opposite direction. If I do happen to go north, I take the interstate, and the coffee shop is located on a back road.

In retail, they say the three most important factors for success are location, location and location. And it makes sense. It’s about accessibility. A strong brand is important, but not nearly as important as accessibility.

Starbucks has a much stronger brand than the 7-eleven where I usually buy my morning coffee. And the new, trendy coffee shop a few miles north of me appeals much more to my aesthetic sense. But the 7-eleven beats them both because it’s right here in front of me. The coffee’s not bad, and I don’t have to go out of my way. It’s easy.

Solopreneurs have an advantage over larger businesses like the ones I’ve been talking about. We’re more nimble. More personal. We can pick up our business and go right to our target market. And we have to capitalize on that advantage. How? Here are ten of the most common ideas:

1. Pick up the phone, and call prospects.
2. Publish a weekly, electronic newsletter.
3. Publish a blog for your target market.
4. Hang out in the online communities frequented by your prospects.
5. Speaking engagements to your target market.
6. Attend the same seminars and conferences as your target market.
7. Mail out article reprints to your target market.
8. Post articles to websites/newsletters that cater to your target market.
9. Build a content-rich website that your target market would find valuable.
10. Spin a wide web of collaborative comrades, and feed off each other.

Naturally, this all assumes you’ve designed a high quality product or service that’s compelling and valuable to your target market. The little coffee shop that’s even closer than 7-eleven has good coffee . . . sometimes. Other times, it’s horrendously bitter. So, despite the fact that they’re closer AND have a drive through window, their inconsistency keeps me from buying their product. The 7-eleven, however, has coffee that’s always the same . . . not bad, not great, but good enough for me. And it’s close - not out of the way.

Starbucks, pleeeeeease come to my hood.

You’ve got to be easily accessible to your target market . . .

I love Starbucks. For a lot of reasons. The problem, of course, is the nearest location is 45 minutes away from me, so I get there maybe only 3-4 times each month.

Recently, a new coffee shop opened a few miles north of me. Keep in mind, I live in a very rural area of northeast Connecticut. So this new coffee shop, it’s phenomenal. Very Starbuckian. The interior design is cool - nice tables, big, comfy couch, eclectic feel, etc. The coffee is great, and they even have a Dell set up in the corner for customers’ use. All in all, very unique for this rather Hickvillian area.

Again, I don’t go there often. True, it’s only a couple miles north of me, but it’s out of my neighborhood. Whenever I go anywhere, it’s usually in the opposite direction. If I do happen to go north, I take the interstate, and the coffee shop is located on a back road.

In retail, they say the three most important factors for success are location, location and location. And it makes sense. It’s about accessibility. A strong brand is important, but not nearly as important as accessibility.

Starbucks has a much stronger brand than the 7-eleven where I usually buy my morning coffee. And the new, trendy coffee shop a few miles north of me appeals much more to my aesthetic sense. But the 7-eleven beats them both because it’s right here in front of me. The coffee’s not bad, and I don’t have to go out of my way. It’s easy.

Solopreneurs have an advantage over larger businesses like the ones I’ve been talking about. We’re more nimble. More personal. We can pick up our business and go right to our target market. And we have to capitalize on that advantage. How? Here are ten of the most common ideas:

1. Pick up the phone, and call prospects.
2. Publish a weekly, electronic newsletter.
3. Publish a blog for your target market.
4. Hang out in the online communities frequented by your prospects.
5. Speaking engagements to your target market.
6. Attend the same seminars and conferences as your target market.
7. Mail out article reprints to your target market.
8. Post articles to websites/newsletters that cater to your target market.
9. Build a content-rich website that your target market would find valuable.
10. Spin a wide web of collaborative comrades, and feed off each other.

Naturally, this all assumes you’ve designed a high quality product or service that’s compelling and valuable to your target market. The little coffee shop that’s even closer than 7-eleven has good coffee . . . sometimes. Other times, it’s horrendously bitter. So, despite the fact that they’re closer AND have a drive through window, their inconsistency keeps me from buying their product. The 7-eleven, however, has coffee that’s always the same . . . not bad, not great, but good enough for me. And it’s close - not out of the way.

Starbucks, pleeeeeease come to my hood.

While reading the local newspaper one day, I stumbled upon a career column written by Jo Miller (www.jomiller.net), a Women’s Leadership Coach. I was immediately impressed with her ability to land a national column. Publicity like that has to be worth thousands of dollars, and she got it for free. She’s definitely a smallbusinessbranding success story, and I had to discover her secrets. Here’s a partial transcript of the interview:

Michael: It’s Dec 3, 2004. This is Jo Miller, and Jo is a Woman’s Leadership Coach. I sent Jo some questions ahead of time, and I’m going to go down the list of questions one-by-one Jo, and I’ll just listen to you answer them.

Michael: Tell me a little bit about your business; how long you’ve been practicing; who you work with; why people hire you; what you like about it and what you don’t like about it, if anything.

Jo: Sure. I’ve been a coach, and now I’m in my seventh year of coaching. And I specialize in working with women who are managers and executives. Some of them are professional women who are interested in stepping up to a greater level of leadership, so they may be a little earlier on in their career, but wanting to fast track themselves into a more senior leadership position.

And what I do with them is . . . my belief is women make wonderful leaders, but there’s something standing in their way, whether it’s confidence or just having the skills and competency to be a better leader. So what I do as a women’s leadership coach is I help them to reach their full potential as leaders and help them step up to being that competent, powerful leader that they know they can be. I provide them with the skill, the confidence and the game plan to make that all happen.

Jo: Most of my clients tend to be women in management and executive level in fortune 500 companies.

Michael: You must have been reading my mind. That was my next question.

Jo: Oh really? (laughs) You know some of them own small businesses too, but that’s a smaller proportion.

And the main reason they hire me? You know most of the women I work with, they’ve experienced some success in their career, so they’re generally very smart and very talented. And often they’ve gotten to a point where their progress has stalled and they can not figure out why. So, they’re interested in knowing what’s holding them back . . . what’s standing in their way.

And sometimes there are some real specific challenges people come up with . . . i.e. they want to get promoted or they want to get better results in their career, or get better results from their team. And sometimes it’s about getting more reward and recognition for the work that they do. So those are probably some of the common themes that people come to me with.

Michael: Let me ask you before we go on. Do you work with any men at all?

Jo: Yea, I do. In fact, up until about 3 or 4 years ago, my coaching practice was 50/50. And as a result of that, I still have 1 to 2 guys I work with. And I really love coaching men. But I also knew that I needed to have a really strong focus and a niche for my business to grow to the level that I wanted it to.

Michael: That’s something I want to talk about as we get into the interview. I’m glad you said that.

Jo: Okay.

Michael: What do love most about your business and coaching in particular?

Jo: That is a really hard one to answer, because I can’t think of what I don’t love. One of the greatest things is the caliber of women I get to work with. It’s just incredible. They’re all experts at what they do. They have had phenomenal success in their career, and so I get to learn so much from them as leaders every day. And so I get to leave every coaching call feeling excited and inspired and like I’ve learned something really valuable. So I really enjoy every minute of the work I do with them.

Michael: I’m guessing you’ve heard of the late Thomas Leonard?

Jo: Yes.

Michael: He was someone I respected tremendously, and I think a lot of coaches did. And one of the things he really drove home what that he learned coaching from his clients. And as I listen to you talk about some of the things you love about your work, is that something . . . I mean do you learn how to coach from your clients?

Jo: Oh yea, absolutely, and not only do I learn coaching from my clients, I also learn leadership from my clients. And just learn the art of living from them as well.

Michael: So you’re not really a leadership expert, per se. You learned it more from your clients than anyplace else.

Jo: Well, probably from a number of places. I had a couple of clients I had early on in my career who were just incredible at having a big vision, stepping up, making things happen, enrolling other people and then stepping away to allow their creation to grow. So I learned a tremendous amount from them, and it sort of made me curious to go read all the books and take all the classes on leadership, especially as it relates to women.

Michael: So, it sounds like a little bit of both.

Jo: Yea, and you know the last couple of years in particular, I’ve really immersed myself in learning everything I can.

Michael: Sure. So, can you think of anything at all that you don’t enjoy about this business?

Jo: Yea. Paperwork, and as I speak to you right now, I’m surrounded by an office that looks like a paper bomb hit it (laughs).

Michael: (laughs) I can relate. I spent an hour today . . .

Jo: It’s something I don’t love, and more and more, want to outsource as much as I can.

Michael: Okay. I’m glad I got something out of you that you don’t like about it.

Jo: (laughs)

Michael: Lets’ talk about the coaching field in general. You’ve been in it quite a while. Seven years, I think, is a long time in relation to how long the field had been around. Do you find people becoming more or less receptive to coaching, and what do think are the reasons for that?

Jo: Definitely more receptive than when I started out seven years ago. Back then, you spent the first ten minutes of a conversation just explaining what the heck coaching was. And I don’t have to do that anymore. In fact, I get contacted by people saying “hey, I’m ready to be coached.” And that lets me know people are aware of what this is and they know they’re ready for it too.

And I think at the same time, coaches have gotten much better over the last couple of years, and I think it’s largely thanks to the work of Thomas Leonard too, but coaches have got more skills at describing the benefits and results rather than the coaching process.

Michael: Yes, very well said.

Jo: And I think that has gotten a lot of the general public more excited and more interested about what coaching can provide.

Michael: So, it’s not so much selling coaching, but selling what coaching can offers.

Jo: Exactly.

Michael: Selling the sizzle rather than the steak.

Jo: Yea. That’s it’s.

Michael: Very well said. Thank you.

Michael: What was you background before becoming a coach?

Jo: I was in human resources and recruiting. I did some executive recruiting.

Michael: Again, the same type of market? Fortune 500 companies?

Jo: Technical . . . I worked for a large high tech company. And I also spent quite a few years in creative recruiting - graphic designers and web designers, etc.

Michael: So, when you went into coaching, did you do you training with CoachU?

Jo: No. I was in Australia at the time. And I trained with Results Coaching Systems.

Michael: I remember seeing that on your website now. And you actually worked with them for a while as well, if I’m not mistaken.

Jo: Yea. I became their lead trainer in Australia and then in the United States when I moved here.

Michael: Now, becoming their trainer, was that something that happened immediately after you completed training?

Jo: Maybe about six months afterwards they invited me to become an assistant trainer. I wasn’t completely confident about it when they first asked me so I let it go about six months before I jumped in. I wanted to build my skill as a coach first before I taught other coaches.

Michael: I think that’s not an uncommon a place to come from, especially as a new coach.