What can a Couch do for you

According to Terri Levine, The Biz Growth Guru, “The role of a business coach is simple: to help you grow your business, make more money, and have more time off.”
That is true, but a coach can provide much more specific help, if that’s what you need. For me, my coach guided me into a more focused approach to my work. Once I had discarded a lot of the extraneous and unnecessary “noise” of competing ideas, I found that I attracted information about things, people, books, and classes into my life and awareness that were much more targeted towards my newly defined focus area. It’s as though the universe was waiting for me to make up my mind where I wanted to go and then it began to supply what I needed. Amazing!
Certified professional coach Jim Jenkins in the article cited in Sources below says, “Fast Company magazine reports that up to 40% of Fortune 500 companies hire coaches to improve their businesses. There’s a proven, significant return on investment. A 2001 study by the Manchester Review said that the output of executives involved in coaching programs averaged nearly 5.7 times higher than the initial investment.”
How do I choose a business coach? This, at first, seems a daunting task. According to Inc.com contributing editor, Alison Wellner, “…despite a few noncompulsory credentialing efforts, the coaching profession is completely unregulated. Anyone, with any amount of experience, can crown himself coach and start offering advice. Hairstylists face more stringent licensing procedures.” There is an important element of matching and mutual suitability that must take place—even a top coach may not be the best coach for every client.
If you’ve been using the Internet for any length of time, you’ve probably identified a few business leaders whose advice and style you’ve come to admire and rely on. Please note that this is not always the one whose name you see the most frequently. A lot of people are better at hyping themselves than they are at helping others. Find out if they have ever used and benefitted from a mentor or coach. Often this will be readily apparent from their site. If you can, find out what they liked about their coach and what they accomplished through their work together.
Next, check with any industry or niche sites that you use and see if there are ads or mentions of coaches in your field. Certainly you can do a search using the word “coach” plus any keywords appropriate to your field. These may be very industry-specific individuals, so they certainly don’t have to be famous, but you want to take some time to follow them (read their ezines, check out their Websites, read their books, look them up on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) long enough to know that they offer value and not just fluff.
The Coach Connection, BusinessCoach.com, ActionCoach, and the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches are interesting sites, though I don’t know anyone who has used them. They claim to offer help in matching you up with a coach that’s right for you.
Read Alison Wellner’s piece called “What Kind of Coach Do You Need?” This covers the pros and cons of four main types that she calls: 1) The Best Friend, 2) The Guru, 3) The Number Cruncher, or 4) The Drill Instructor. Never forget that most coaches are really good at selling themselves, so beware of the hype and be a smart shopper. Wellner also warns to beware of the cult personality that seems to be present with some coaches.
Here are some things you should ask yourself before you start looking for a coach:
What are your primary goals in hiring a coach – to improve a specific skill? To attain a specific income level? To map out an action plan for the next year? A good coach will have you do some sort of evaluation to start out, but you will save time if you’ve already done some thinking about this and it will help you decide what kind of coach will best meet your needs.
Are you looking for a few coaching sessions or a long-term relationship with a coach?
Are you willing to protect yourself by insisting on a trial period and getting references?
How much does it cost to hire a business coach? I found the range to be between $150 and $400 an hour, but often there are packages that lower the hourly cost, and I’m sure there are coaches below and above that range. In my case, I decided I was going to invest $1,000 in myself. Some coaches were willing to lower the hourly rate significantly when they found out I was serious about more than one session. For some of you, one or two sessions may be all you need to really help, especially if you and your prospective coach are very clear with each up other front about what you can spend and what they can provide.
This is not the time to be shy or bashful about discussing what you want, what you expect, and what you can pay. A good coach will expect your honest questions and will be up front with you about what they can—or will—do. It is completely appropriate to ask for references.
As mentioned above, this is a case in which you will save yourself a lot of money if you try to do some hard brainstorming first about what you want and what you think you need. Even though that may be part of what you want a coach to help you with, it will still save you some time (and time is money with a coach) to think about it ahead of time. This can even be only to get yourself to the point where you have written down a list of things you’re good at, things you think you’d like to do, things you know you do NOT want to do, and what you want or expect to get out of it.
Ten Signs that you’re ready to invest in a business coach
1. You want to achieve more in some aspect of your business: more clients/customers, more exposure, better brand recognition, etc.
2. You want to make more money -- you feel you need help getting to a significant level of increased profitability with your business.
3. You need the accountability offered by a business coach.
4. Your work is not as satisfying as it should be.
5. You spend too much time for too little productivity: you’re not working smart.
6. You are procrastinating too much.
7. Your personal relationships are suffering or non-existent.
8. You feel stuck.
9. You feel stressed out and overwhelmed.
10. You think about work all the time with no clear way to stop.
SOURCES
Bruckhartz, Terri. “What is Business Coaching?”
Hyman, Grant. “Business Coaching: How to Choose a Business Coach.” Flyingsolo.com Website, Jan. 18, 2006.
Jenkins, Jim. “Buyer Beware: How to Choose a Coach Carefully to Get the Results You Want.” WomenToday Website, 2009.
Wellner, Alison Stein. “Do You Need a Coach?” Inc Magazine Website, April 1, 2006.
Wellner, Alison Stein. “What Get the Right Coach” Inc. Magazine Website, April 1, 2006: .
Wellner, Alison Stein. “What Kind of Coach Do You Need?” Inc Magazine Website, April 1, 2006.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~© 2009 Elizabeth H. Cottrell. All rights reserved worldwide.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Elizabeth H. Cottrell is a home-based entrepreneur, freelance technical writer, and owner of Riverwood Technologies, a desktop publishing company in Maurertown, Virginia. She is currently a staff writer and editor for IAHBE and has written extensively on issues facing home-based and small business owners. Follow Elizabeth:

How to decrease your Profits and hurt your bottomline

One good way to ensure you'll lose out on potential customers and business building team leaders is to ignore those less-than-perfect signups coming into your team. One example of this strategy is a tendency of many SFI sponsors to not bother e-mailing affiliates whose e-mail addresses show up with a yellow or red light beside it on their Affiliate Manager pages.
To review a bit, a green light () next to your PSA's e-mail address listed on the Affiliate Manager page indicates an affiliate who has confirmed his or her SFI registration. Yellow light () e-mail addresses refer to affiliates who have not yet confirmed their registration in SFI. E-mail addresses with a red light () next to them have been confirmed as undeliverable.
SFI Executive Affiliate Leon Bowes says you ignore those "yellow lights" at your own risk. Leon has a series of canned e-mails saved in a draft folder. One of those e-mails is directed at "yellow lights." It doesn't take long to insert an affiliate's name within the e-mail and send it.
"I can not imagine ignoring even one 'yellow light,'" Leon says. Out of nine previous "yellow lights" he recently had, for example, five have become "green lights," and one has sent him an e-mail wanting to know how to get started.
You just never know, Leon says, a "yellow light" may turn out to be a future Stone Evans (one of SFI's biggest team leaders)—all because he decided not to ignore a "yellow light."
A side note: If you haven't heard Stone Evan's story, his sponsor quit SFI not long after Stone joined and is probably kicking himself a lot right now; and when he isn't, I am sure his wife is. :-)
SFI Executive Affiliate Jim Golding takes it a step further, sending e-mails introducing himself to every one of his PSAs, even the "red lights." If the e-mail doesn't bounce back, then they get Jim's personal "about me" e-mail in a couple days. He's even had some success with this method, with one PSA responding to his e-mail and ready to start accumulating VersaPoints.
By taking the time to send personable messages to their PSAs and not giving up on those less-than-perfect "yellow lights" and "red lights," SFI team leaders can improve their upgrade rates and make sure that potential team members don't escape into the ether. They're YOUR personally sponsored affiliates—don't ignore them!
If you are not a SFI affiliate and would like to learn more about SFI please explore http://cloakeasy.com/az08

Get new Customers and keep them

• Five Ways To Gather Customer Information • Viral Marketing - A Basic Training Manual• Getting Started With The Free eBay Desktop• Earn Money Via Text Link Ads• QUICK & EASY Microsoft Word Web Pages• Microsoft Word Bookmarks To Sell Your Books• How To Launch A Lead Generation Campaign
Five Ways to Gather Customer Information
These five ways to collect information from your customers will help you keep in contact with them for future sales.
Viral Marketing - A Basic Training Manual
This article explains the necessity of viral marketing. You have seen viral marketing being used in the large companies, such as Pepsi. The idea is to look for an idea or image that gains the notoriety and makes people talk about a product – this is called “buzz.”
Getting Started with the Free eBay Desktop
eBay has new beta software (eBay Desktop) that manages buying items on eBay from your desktop.
Earn Money Via Text Link Ads
By using text ad links on your website or blog, you can add revenue to an existing income or to a new income with the Internet.
QUICK & EASY Microsoft Word Web Pages
Learn the best kept secret on how easy it is to create Microsoft Word web pages and upload them to your FREE Yahoo hosted site.
Microsoft Word Bookmarks To Sell Your Books
Learn how to create bookmarks using Microsoft Word to help sell your books. You can do this in eight simple steps.
How to Launch a Lead Generation Campaign
More often than not articles discuss different details of how to make a marketing campaign work or what needs to be done. Managers and marketing professionals, however, often overlook the necessary steps that should be taken prior to the actual campaign.

Eye Earn

How about being paid to drive your Car? http://www.moreinfo247.com/10720314/EE is a marketing site that is constantly welcoming new folks wearing their shirts,caps and posters on your car.
They are reliable, They pay you every month.You should collect some of this money too.