Let me share with you a list of 33 different techniques and tools you can use to spread the word about your new infoproduct, coaching program or service offering:

1. Send an e-mail announcement (with a deadline for getting the early bird discount) to your ezine, client and personal lists and address books.

2. Send a postcard announcement to people in your snail mail address book.

3. Write a press release and submit it to a number of free press release sites (you can find a list here).

4. You publish a blog or ezine, right?

5. Write a press release with a local angle that your nearby newspaper(s) might pick up.

6. Get speaking engagements with local groups whose members might be interested in your program.

7. Set up a free introductory workshop for people who might be interested purchasing the entire program or product.

8. Write an article on the topic and submit it to some of the free article directories on the Web (include information on your product or program in the resource box).

9. Once the article is published, tweet about it.

10. Also, share links back to your published article on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

11. Submit an article on the topic directly to large, established ezines such as the one published by SelfGrowth.com.

12. Offer a free teleclass on the topic.

13. For greater impact, visibility and reach, coordinate a telesummit event with coaches who specialize in other areas (see my earlier blog post on how to launch a telesummit event ).

14. Promote the program on Twitter as often as you can without chasing off your followers.

15. Offer a contest on Twitter that for everyone who retweets the link to your program sign up page, one person will win a prize (perhaps a previous book or product you’ve written).

16. Set up an affiliate program so that others can earn commissions from selling your product or program.

17. Offer yourself as a guest speaker to local radio talk show hosts.

18. Do the same with local TV station talk show hosts.

19. Why not shoot for the moon and contact representatives of some major radio and TV talk show hosts? If the topic of your program/product is relevant enough, you just might generate some big time interest.

20. Offer yourself as a speaker to people who have established Internet radio shows on sites such as http://blogtalkradio.com.

21. Speaking of Internet talk radio, consider hosting your very own show on a regular basis.

22. Look for opportunities to offer meaningful feedback on other people’s blogs, with links back to your product or program.

23. Update your e-mail signature with a short blurb about and link to your offering.

24. Create an inexpensive business card specifically for your product or program (or use more of the postcards from suggestion #2) and leave them everywhere you go—restaurants, hair stylist, doctor and dentist offices, etc.

25. Mention your program or product during your voice mail or business answering machine message, including the URL.

26. Create a free report that gives people a taste of what your product or program is about, and make it available to people who sign up with their e-mail addresses.

27. Have a follow up autoresponder series sent to the people who sign up to receive the free report.

28. Make a list of all online forums and discussion groups that you to, and bring up your program (or at least its topic) on all of them.

29. If you haven’t already, create your own fan page or group in Facebook and/or LinkedIn and invite people to talk about the topic of your product.

30. List yourself as an expert on your topic on websites such as http://expertclick.com , http://helpareporter.com/ , https://profnet.prnewswire.com/ and http://www.askmehelpdesk.com .

31. Post your product or program on some free online classified ad websites. You can try sites like http://www.usfreeads.com/ , http://www.classifiedsforfree.com/ and http://www.classifiedads.com/ .

32. Do you belong to any associations or organizations either on- or off-line? Have your offering announced in the association’s newsletter or ezine, which almost always have a “member news” section.

33. Contact freelance writers who have written articles in the past on topics similar to yours or of interest to your niche market and propose article ideas they might want to use, with you as a resource (look for bylines by people who have written for well-known magazines such as Redbook, O Magazine or Ladies Home Journal, and be sure to check both print and Web-based versions of your targeted publications).

OK, I trust that there are enough ideas here to get you started, yes? Then I challenge you to select a handful of them and get going on your own road to promotional success.

And, to create more products, programs, and other streams of income from your topic, passion, or experience, be sure to watch this FREE presentation now: How I Escaped The Client Chasing Rat Race, Started Working Only Four Hours a Day, and Quadrupled My Income – All In Just 12 Months“

So the most important thing you can do for your business is to create a continuity income stream. Regardless of what type of business you own, there are five continuity income streams you can easily create.

Create your first subscription-based income stream.

At least 50% of my income comes from automated monthly streams in subscription-based programs. There is nothing better than having monthly payments arrive in my bank account automatically. We always hear Internet marketers talk about passive and residual income, but most entrepreneurs still haven’t cracked the code of how to do it effectively.

I started out with a membership-based web site and charged $17.95 a month, then kept adding other continuity programs over the years. Some require more of my time, others don’t require any time at all. What I love most about automated income streams is that they free me up to be creative.

Five Continuity Income Streams

Here are five continuity income streams you can easily create, in no particular order:

1. Content.

This is the most common subscription-based income type you’ll see. You can publish industry trends, news, interviews, newsletters, CDs, and any other information of interest to your niche market. You can deliver this information digitally or by mail, weekly or monthly. You can create content yourself or hire someone else to do it for you.

What I love about content-based membership programs is that I can re-purpose the content from my monthly newsletter by including it in my other information products.

2. Community.

Although not the most obvious, this might be one of the easiest subscription-based income streams to create. In fact, my very first membership-based web site was a community site, an association for coaches. At first I thought that I needed to have some kind of license or lots of legal paperwork to fill out before I could create an association.

Then I learned that since I am not trying to start a non-profit organization, this was just like starting any other online business. I offered a membership forum, monthly tele-seminars, interviews with experts, and a member directory. This has not only given me a growing monthly income stream, but significantly raised my profile in the coaching industry.

3. Software.

If there is a truly automated income stream, I’d have to say it’s web-based software. Every industry, profession, and group of people wants their own tools that make their lives easier. I discovered a need for two particular tools, which coaches use to improve their lead generation and enhance their group coaching programs. The reason I hardly ever touch these two web-based tools is because they’re fully automated or delegated – from sign- up to training to customer support. My assistant communicates directly with the programmer to add new features or to fix a bug if necessary.

If you have an idea for a web-based tool, head over to a site like www.rentacoder.com and post it for programmers to bid on. I had a complete version of a tool developed for less than $500, and it brings about $2500 a month and growing every year.

4. Coaching.

Entrepreneurs and experts all over the world offer coaching to their clients as a way to support them on a monthly basis, and to generate additional income stream. Coaching can be done professionally (in fact, you can become a professional coach by attending one of the 298 coach training schools, with my favorite being www.coachtrainingalliance.com); or, you can offer support through coaching club, coaching “gym,” group coaching, or mastermind groups.

Which one you do depends on how much time you want to spend on the telephone or in person. Some people offer three one-hour calls a month, others prefer shorter “laser-style” support calls during specific call- in days, while others enjoy four annual mastermind meetings as a way to support their clients.

Whichever level of access you decide to provide to your clients, this is a great way to add a continuity income stream to your business. You could also create your own coaching club, which is a membership-based mentoring program with a huge income potential.

5. Affiliate.

This is something you see all the time. There is nothing easier than referring people to another web site and generating affiliate commissions from the products they offer. The only twist I want to suggest to you is that instead of joining dozens of product-based affiliate programs, why not find a handful of continuity-based affiliate programs to refer people to? Once someone subscribes, you’ll get monthly affiliate commissions for as long as they are members. Years after I recommended a web-based service, I still receive my affiliate checks from them.

As Tom Antion likes to say, “I couldn’t stop this income even if I wanted to!”

Simple Formula to $100K

In spite of so many people struggling in the first few years of their business, getting to $100,000 in is not that hard. Here are the basic steps that will easily allow you to do that:

1. Specialize in a “hungry” niche market

2. Create a high-ticket product or program for them

3. Market this program via articles, teleseminars, and simple strategic alliances

This is all there is to it, really. To create $100K a year, you need to generate $8,500 a month. And that means getting 15 people to pay you $567 a month; or 5 people paying you $1000 for private coaching and 10 people paying you $350 a month for group coaching; or a combination of some coaching and speaking income.

At any rate, it doesn’t take a lot of clients to create your first six figures.

The Journey to $250K

I remember the day I realized that my income surpassed $250K.  It hit me then that it’s a quarter of a million dollars. Such a wonderful ring to it! It’s the first time the word “million” was in my income!

$250K starts with several mind shifts.

I think the most important mind shift is 1) deciding that you want to grow your business to the next level. Many people are completely happy operating at their current level and there is nothing wrong with that. But this is where you can’t have a “wishful thinking” attitude.

Last year Lori Davila was like many coaches, working hard in her business but deep down knowing she wanted something bigger, yet not knowing exactly how. That was what led her to attend my event.

All too often people go to conferences, come home with a bunch of notes, and don’t do the legwork to make real change in their business. So before Lori left, she decided that rather than let this be a conference of gathering information, that she was committed to making it an experience of deep transformation.

One of the key shifts that Lori got from the event was hearing the stories of very successful coaches who had started from nothing and truly built empires just by shifting their beliefs and taking the right steps. Hearing that they had made the journey from where she was to something bigger fired her belief and helped her realize “if they can do it, I can too!”

So 2) seeing that it was possible and already done by others is another key step to reaching your next income milestone.

Another major shift was the realization of how important leveraging your time was by 3) moving away from a one-on-one client coaching mindset. Lori quickly saw if she wanted to help people on a greater scale and boost her income, she needed to 4) develop a line of products.

When Lori got home, she made the space in her life and discovered the products came POURING out of her. That big discovery was the spark for her core product  “The Secret Sauce for Creating Wealth Doing What You Love”.

These fundamental changes in Lori’s business not only exploded her income, but also made more time for her to enjoy her life and spend time on the lake with her husband.

“I have my new website, blog, products, thousands of subscribers, retreats for wanna be writers, and I’m changing the world!” says Lori. “The summit completely motivated me, and I am projecting $250K in revenue my first year!”

So, how do you get from $100K to $250K in coaching in more practical terms?

Designing a coaching program, getting your group coaching going, and creating a few educational products is a great way to reach $100K. But to get to the next level a few other things become important:

1. Start a membership-based mentoring program, also known as a coaching club, which allows you to work with a lot more clients and significantly grow your continuity income every month.

2. Getting a virtual assistant and outsourcing becomes essentially at this stage in your business – there are simply not enough hours in the day to do it all, so delegating lower-hourly-pay tasks is key.

3. Becoming more skilled at strategic alliances and joint ventures will help you get to that next level much faster. In fact, it might take only ONE good deal to push your income over the edge and into $250,000.

4. Creating different levels for people to experience your value. A line of educational products and coaching programs (one for each goal, topic, or level) will allow you to leverage your time better and become a highly valuable resource in your niche.

5. Automating many of your processes, systems, lead generating, sales, and other tasks you used to do manually is going to free up the time and energy for you to do what you do best!

6. Stop using coaching jargon and start using the language of your prospects!

But there’s one very important factor that many people continue to dismiss… Surrounding yourself and spending time with people who have already reached that level.

You can’t cheat the process of shifting your thinking, which takes listening and watching other people who have achieved YOUR goal. And that’s important at EVERY level of the business game.

The basic process is simple: plan first, create second. The closest description of my process is found in the article I am including below by Cara Lumen. She nailed it. It’s all about planning and being clear before you create a single word. I hope you enjoy it.

“How to Organize Your  Content so It Practically Writes Itself”
By Cara Lumen

I once wrote a play. Well actually I wrote a lot of scenes and found myself laying them out all over my bed trying to sort them in some sort of sequence. (This was before computers). It was the only way I could take what had emerged from my imagination and make any sense out of it.

Of course, now I know better. Even now if simply start writing content as I get inspired, I find it much, much harder to organize than if I had a plan in the first place. Being able to see the overview of what you are going to create is actually a talent, but it is also a skill you can learn. Here’s my method.

Find your core message

Why are you writing this? What one point do you wish to make above all else? I’ll use the example of a book I’m working on now. It’s “How to Write Magnetic Sales Pages.” My purpose is to create a ebook/workbook that helps people pull their ideas and phrases from their subconscious and put it into a specific structure in order to create a compelling sales page. That makes sense. This core message is the clothes line that will go from beginning to end upon which I will hang my points, one chapter “clothes pin” at a time.

Find your beginner’s mind

Who are you writing to? How much do they know? What foundational material do you have to include in order to orient them to your content? I’m beginning my book with information on why people buy. That makes sense. We’re writing sales pages to get people to purchase so understanding that process is an invaluable foundation upon which to build.

Build your path

Lay out your stepping stones. What do they need to know next? What after that? These are your chapter headings. Don’t worry about the name for them, just get the idea. In my case, I need for people to get very clear about the purpose of their sales page so I have organized my chapters and exercises to help them make internal decisions that will affect their content. It takes them step-by-step to a finished product.

Choose your equipment

What “tools” will your readers need in order to reach the conclusion you are taking them toward? Again, in my example, it’s fairly easy to see. We have to talk about the mechanics of creating content – headlines, subheads, keywords, the circular paragraph, etc. Fill your reader’s tool kit before you move on.

The key question

Now comes the magic organizer. Imagine that you have just mapped out a nature walk. You have posted signs along the path to mark the places you will stop and discuss with your students the scene before them. Why did you choose one viewing point rather than another? You have to know exactly what you want them to learn. The most powerful phrase you can ask yourself is “Students leave with an understanding of….” If you place that question at the beginning of every chapter heading you have created and answer it, your content will practically write itself.

The first time I created a Table of Contents for the Magnetic Sales Page book I found that on one chapter heading, when put in the line “Students leave with an understanding of….” I had to answer it with “I have no clue.” Needless to say I rearranged that particular point.

This key question is a powerful measuring stick for making certain your content is heard and understood.

Review your overview

From your work so far, create your table of contents and look it over for a logical sequence. Do you need to move the chapter on one topic higher up? Have you answered a question in another place? Do chapters need to be combined? Remember your beginner’s mind and build your case one logical sequential step at a time. Look at your core “clothesline” theme. Look at the “garment” chapters you have hung on that line. If you have made your point, if you know what your students will leave with an understanding of… start writing.

Are they students or readers?

We all want to be heard. We don’t write unless we want to communicate. Whether it is fiction, a how to book or a sales page, we want our content to be understood, So of course, we want to make our point. For me a reader can be a casual observer. A student, on the other hand, really wants to “get it.” That’s why I use “Students leave with an understanding of…” and let my content write itself.

Cara Lumen, MA, Your Idea Optimizer helps you turn your ideas into steady profit. As a business developer, content developer and educator, Cara helps you make money from what you already know. You can learn more about how to put your wisdom to work through her radio show www.blogtalkradio.com/passioantelyonpurpose and her Passionately On Purpose emagazine at www.caralumen.com

Several years ago, after getting my share of “difficult” clients, I wanted to find a quick and systematic way of pre-qualifying each person before I say “yes.” I created a simple self-assessment for my web site and asked people to complete it before scheduling a call with me.

After using that form for a few weeks, I created a few more self-assessments. Visitors to my web site could test their Internet skills, find out whether their web site needs a makeover, and discover how much they know about building a business. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be great if other coaches could create self-assessments just like mine. That’s how Assessment Generator was born.

I have later developed software to help those who run group coaching programs, called Group Coaching Manager.

The point I am trying to make with my story, is that by being tuned into my target audience, I was able to create a piece of software that was missing from the coaching industry. In addition, when I released this tool to the public, I noticed that coaches started using it for many other purposes – generating client leads, pre-qualify clients, collecting data during intake, using self-assessments to add value to their coaching programs, and much much more.

So, how can YOU develop software programs for your target audience? Here are the 4 steps:

1. Surround yourself with your target audience by reading what they read, going where they go, interviewing a few of them in person or by phone, visiting their message boards, and surveying them. This can be accomplished much faster if you already know who your target audience is, and if you represent your target audience in some way.

2. Find out what their biggest problems and challenges are and what software or web-based service could make their lives ten times easier.

3. When you have an idea for a software program, do some research online to find out if anyone else is offering something like that. If it already exists, how could you make it better? Different? Easier? Less expensive? If it doesn’t exist, approach a few members of your target audience (4-5 people) and share your idea with them. Ask for honest feedback on whether they think it’ll be useful to them.

4. When you make a decision to go ahead with developing your software, write out a good description of what you want it to do. Then, go to RentACoder.com and post your project. Programmers from all over the world will bid on it, and you’ll be able to choose the person you want to develop it for you. This resource has been my secret weapon for over a year now! I’ve paid as little as $300 for a fully developed software, and can’t recommend it highly enough.

What software could YOU develop for your target audience? What’s missing in your industry? Remember, simplicity is the key – many times large software companies overlook smaller tools they could develop for certain groups of people, and you can easily jump in and create it!

Put on your thinking cap and ask yourself this question: “What tool would make the lives of my target clients easier?”

They all sell products beyond their core services. Watch almost any successful coach, author, speaker, or consultant, and you will see they are constantly releasing new e-books, e-courses, home-study courses, audio programs, and other information products.

Why? Because products allow you to multiply your time on an exponential scale. Instead of only getting paid based on the number of hours you spend working with clients, you get paid even when you’re not delivering personal services. It’s like cloning yourself hundreds of times over to deliver your message to people all over the world.

But if you’re like many professionals I’ve talked to, chances are you haven’t created products for a couple different reasons…

• Perhaps you’re already so busy working with clients and trying to promote your business, that there just isn’t time left in the day to spend coming up with ideas, doing the extensive research, and actually writing quality information products.

• You may be struggling just to make ends meet. And when clients are your only source of revenue, you get caught in a vicious cycle of constantly working with clients and trying to bring in new ones.

• You may simply just not know what to create. Or if you do have an idea, there are so many elements you have to bring together in a clear way that it’s easy to get overwhelmed and not know what to do.

I love creating information products, but I know how time-consuming it can be. It took me 3 months to write my first e-book, and a whole year to develop my first home-study course.

And that’s just products. What about marketing content, such as articles, newsletters, press releases, video, audio, teleseminars, and other content to market your business? You’d think that we’re in a content creation business!

But as I said before, coaching is a content-driven business, and in order to get visibility and credibility in your niche market, you need to create content.

Here’s something else I discovered – resale rights. Basically, you can take e-books, articles, and text written by someone else (usually with expired copyright) and make them your own. In fact, for a whole year I scouted antique book stores looking for old self-help books. I was shocked to find texts that could have easily been written today, on topics such as:

Self-improvement
Time Management
Dating and Relationships
Success Strategies
Personal Efficiency
Innovation and Creativity
Sales and Communication
Leadership
Goal Setting
Spirituality
Procrastination
Organizing
Health and Wellness
Retirement
Investing
Depression
Public Speaking

Self-improvement is not new. Around the turn of last century there was literally an explosion in new ways of thinking about things. It was a revolutionary time when people began exploring the human mind and what motivates it more deeply than ever before. A lot of the ideas and concepts we hear about today for becoming successful and living a happy are not new at all. You can easily trace them back to this period in history.

These are the same ideas and strategies that are used by coaches today. And when you get the rights to the content you can do just about whatever you want with it.  For example, you could:

• Put your own name on the content as author.
• Sell as many copies of the content to others as you want to,
• Give the content away
• Bundle it with other content to create special package deals or bonus offers to go along with your regular products or services.
• Edit and rewrite the content to make it targeted and unique.

Here are my personal 10 favorite ideas of how to make the most out of resale rights material:

Create A Mini-Course

Extract Articles From The Content

Use The Content on Your Web Site

Add The Content To Your Membership Site

Customize The Content With Your Own Examples And Illustrations

Package Your royalty-free Content With A Workbook, Checklist, Assessment, Or Any Other Coaching Tool

Extract Important Points From The Content Create A PowerPoint Presentation

Use The Material As A Bonus For Your Other Coaching Products Or Programs

Create A Coaching Program Based On The Material’s Concepts

Insert Your Existing Articles Into The Material To Expand And Customize It For Your Target Audience

Insert coaching questions to make your readers think and interact with the product.

Get your readers into action by adding implementation exercises.

Sequence the content into series of steps to create a coaching process.

Create a conversation with your reader by inserting “Coach’s Notes”throughout the product.

Include a “15-minute question answered by e-mail” bonus with the product you sell.

In other words, don’t just sell products – turn each product into a coaching product that pre-sells your services!

#1. Build a relationship with someone over time, which includes networking and referrals. This approach may take months or years, although many people do very well with it.

#2. Establish yourself as an expert, sell information products and educational workshops, then offer your services. This approach also includes public speaking, teleseminars, article publishing, and product launches.

Both are wonderful ways to fill your practice, and you can decide which one is best for you based on your personality and lifestyle goals.

But there is ONE major problem with these methods of building your business. While you are out networking, writing, and speaking, you’re not generating any income. Sure, you may sell a product or two, or get a new client every month. But wouldn’t it be great if you could network, write, and speak with complete peace of mind from knowing that you are also getting paid, even while you are marketing?

Here’s my best secret weapon for selling more coaching this year than ever before… A membership web site!

But not just ANY membership site. First of all, here’s how and why it works:

1. A membership-based web site allows you to build a community of people who trust you – one of the major barriers to getting a client is taken down with your own membership site.

2. They already gave you money to become a member, so you know these people are truly interested in your topic. They have already shown that they are buyers, not tire-kickers – a great way to pre-qualify prospects.

3. You can communicate with your members on a regular basis sharing your expertise, ideas, and resources with them. You are not only their trusted adviser, but you’re now an expert in your field. People LOVE working with and buying from experts!

4. You are generating revenue, while you’re promoting your life coaching practice. What a great mental place to come from, when you’re not desperate for money.

There are many more benefits to creating your own membership-based web site (recurring monthly income, ever-growing database of your knowledge, etc.).

But here’s one I want to emphasize when it comes to your life coaching career.

THIS IS A BIG ONE!!!! ARE YOU READY?

You can actually build your coaching or consulting service right into your membership site! Here’s how:

1. First, treat it like a coaching club. Create multiple tiers of membership and include coaching in the top tier.
2. Always remind lower-tier members that they can get help and coaching from you when they upgrade to the top tier.
3. Allow your top-tier members to contribute content, classes, and ideas to your membership site.
4. Add a coaching retreat (fee or free – depending on what you charge) as part of their top-tier membership.
5. If you run live events, create a “VIP style” treatment package just for your top-tier coaching club members.

Now, what do you offer in your coaching club? What type of content do you add to your membership site? How do you set everything up? How do you price the different membership tiers? All of these questions and many more are answered inside my How to Build a Six-Figure Coaching Club program so be sure to check it out.

Another thing I really love about having a membership site is that it can sort of become your “play pen” – you can share your best ideas, strategies, tools, discoveries, and breakthroughs.

Most importantly, when you speak, write, network, or teach, always invite people to join your membership site or coaching club. Don’t try to sell coaching right upfront. Once they join your low-tier membership site, they’ll become aware of everything else they’re missing if they’re not a top-tier member, and upgrade if desired.

They’re coming to you from books, CDs, seminars, interviews, mastermind groups, and your coach. The only thing you can do is learn to manage your ideas effectively.

So, how do I decide which idea or project is most viable for me? Today I will share with you my personal project selection criteria. I hope you find it useful!

1. What kind of return on investment can you expect?

I’d have to invest time and money into any project I decide to work on. I want to know that it’s going to be all worth it at the end.

2. How quickly can you get it off the ground?

Unless it’s a project with a huge return on investment, I don’t want to spend too much time on it. My book, for example, took me over 2 years to write and it’s finally coming out in a few weeks. It started out as a collection of articles and newsletters. I then hired a ghostwriter–a former New York Times reporter–to assemble and edit it. (Biggest mistake, by the way! He “stripped” my book of my voice, and I had to spend another six months putting my voice back into it!)

The time investment, however, was worth it here because it’s a high payoff project that will last me for many years.

For the most part, many of my successful projects take up to 30 days to develop or put into place. Sometimes I invest a day into a project that generates as much revenue as my one-year salary before I quit my job (HINT: a joint venture!).

3. Does it have any leverage and re-purposing?

“Get the most out of what you’ve got” — great motto I learned the hard way, when I was still designing full-blown web sites for $200-$300. I like to feel productive. Any time I can say that I am “killing two birds with one stone” is a sign of a great project for me!

4. Do you have or can you develop a “back-end” product for it?

This is a big point–pay attention! Many times I come up with an idea, which is a “bright shiny object.” It looks great, it sounds interesting, but it’s a stand-alone product. In other words, I don’t have anything else to sell to the same group of people.

Getting buyers takes a lot of effort, so if they buy one product, I want to be able to offer them something else. (That’s why you always hear the words “product funnel” in marketing.) Unless you have or can find a way to develop a second product or program, it might make sense to drop this project altogether.

5. What kind of resources do you need to make it happen (people, research, tools)?

Sometimes I find that I need to partner with someone else to work on a project effectively. Or perhaps I need to invest time into further research, or money into new software or equipment. I will only do this if I know the project will bring significant results to my market and my business. Trivial products bring trivial rewards.

6. Is it going to solve a big problem?

Creating a product or program that is too narrow-focused, or that solves a very general problem is not best use of your time. Not only will you not generate any revenue with it, but you will also waste valuable time and energy you could’ve put into a more important and valuable project.

7. Will it generate revenue for your customers?

This may not necessarily apply to life coaches, but it is a key point for business, executive and career coaches! Any time you can create something that will generate revenue not just for you, but also for your clients and customers, it is a winning project. In other words, create something that your customers can use to increase their in/come.

8. What is the potential size of the customer base and can you easily reach them?

I always want to know that there is a sizable audience waiting for my product or program, and that I’ll be able to quickly and easily reach them. It doesn’t have to be your own database, you can form strategic alliances with companies who already have a mailing list of the people you’re trying to reach.

Many times companies want to offer something to their customer database, but don’t know how or don’t want to actually develop it.

9. Can it take off and function on its own once you launch it?

I come up with new projects all the time, so I need to know that I don’t have to “babysit” any specific product. If it fits in my “funnel” then it will automatically be promoted through my other products and services. Or, I could set up a pay-per-click ad on Google and generate traffic to it that way. Either way I want my products to become self-marketed after the initial launch.

10. How congruent is it with your overall message?

A project must fit into my message. For example, “The Apprentice” is fun to watch on TV, but it would be incongruent for me to develop a product on how to become Donald Trump’s next apprentice. Grueling work hours, being on standby 24 hours a day, and hearing Donald Trump issue commands is not my idea of a great lifestyle. It might be someone else’s though

11. Are you passionate enough about it to create a compelling marketing campaign?

Creating a product and not taking the time to create an effective marketing strategy simply doesn’t make sense. I always plan the marketing before I develop my products. Many times I’ll even create a web site before I start working on the project itself. If I am stuck and don’t feel inspired to create the web site, I may cancel the project completely.

12. Will it help you accomplish your long-term goals faster?

I have some very specific goals for the next 12 months. If a project will not bring me closer to my goals, it will become a major distraction and sabotage my success. Of course, sometimes a project comes along that doesn’t fit these criteria, but feels like I can’t let it go. I sit down and analyze why I am so excited about it and decide how to proceed next.

So there you have it!

Do you have your own list of criteria for choosing the right project?

Take a look at all you’ve got on your plate right now and ask yourself these questions:

• Where is the highest payoff?
• Which project is going to take the least amount of time and bring the most revenue into my business?
• What am I most excited about right now?
• What are my 12-month goals?

Many entrepreneurs tend to go into different directions, while the best thing is to choose your “biggest payoff project” and focus on it until you make it happen!

If you could cut your work hours in half, and at the same time double your coaching income, would that make you excited? Here are some of my favorite strategies that have built-in leverage – use them to take your coaching business to the next level!

1. Create Group Programs

A group program is an excellent way to make more money without putting in any more effort. Rather than working with clients one-on-one, which is time-consuming and exhaustive, you can teach the same material to many individuals. The way you do this is by taking maximum advantage of today’s technology.

A group coaching session is somewhat like online learning. You as the leader determine the number of sessions your “course” will consist of, the length of time each session will be, and then you put together an agenda or an outline of each session. That way, all those who plan to participate know ahead of time when to meet, for how long they will meet and what will be discussed during those meetings.

For example, you might decide that you will hold a total of eight 90-minute sessions, and the sessions will be every Tuesday evening from 6:30 – 9:00 pm EST. During each session, you’ll cover the materials outlined on your agenda. And best of all, the coaching doesn’t have to be one-way. It can be totally interactive, with participants able to ask questions during the appointed “question and answer” period. If you want, you can even assign work that is to be completed before the next session.

Go ahead and start imagining the possibilities. Then start thinking how much more income you can earn by switching from teaching individuals to teaching groups of individuals.

2. Look For Joint-Venture Opportunities

Joint ventures are excellent opportunities to partner up with one or more industry-aligned partners in order to share resources, expenses and client lists.

The goal is to establish a working relationship with other professionals who offer services that do not compete with yours yet would be of interest to your clients.

The type of joint venture that you arrange will vary widely depending upon your goals. You might do something as simple as having all parties agree to send out a personal endorsement of the other partner’s services to each other’s mailing lists, or you may want to go as far as planning a jointly-sponsored event.

Regardless of the type of joint venture you’re planning, always keep these rules in mind:

· Create a Confidentiality Agreement

There is a good chance that you’ll be sharing sensitive or proprietary information with your partners, even if it’s your mailing list. Not all joint ventures work out and you may not part as friends if things go terribly wrong. That’s just one reason why it’s important to draw up a reciprocal confidentiality agreement. Better yet, share the costs and have an attorney do it.

· Get It In Writing

Create a written agreement setting out each party’s responsibilities for work and expense sharing. If there are deliverables required, establish who will produce them and what the deadlines are.

· Know Your Partner

When you create a joint venture you are placing some of your reputation into the hands of someone else. Make sure to perform your due diligence regarding all partners’ reputations for honesty and integrity, their business standing in the community, and their financial ability to participate, if appropriate.

3. Consider Licensing Your Program or Workshop

You can leverage your high-quality materials by licensing the content to other coaches. Since it’s your content, you can set the rules. You might not want to offer a license to coaches in your immediate market in order to avoid helping your competition, but you certainly could consider making your materials available to coaches outside of your immediate market.

There are copyright, royalty and other issues involved in licensing, and you don’t want to pursue this option on your own. Your best bet is to hire a Copyright Attorney to get you started.

4. Do Public Speaking

Other than writing a book, or appearing on TV, nothing sets you apart from your competition like being a guest speaker. If you’ve got something to say, then you need to get yourself in front of a group who will listen.

If you’ve not had much experience speaking publicly, start by speaking in front of familiar faces. If you’re a member of the local Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club or other similar type of organization, find out the person you need to speak with to get your name on an upcoming agenda.

When you’re ready to branch out from there, consider appearing as a guest speaker on a local talk radio station. Contacting the show’s producer is the approach you want to take here. Before making contact, be sure you’ve got your pitch all figured out. Make is strong and compelling because producers are busy people. It might take a few rounds of telephone tag before you actually get to speak directly with the show’s producer, but persistence will pay off.

The nice thing about appearing on the radio is that you don’t necessarily have to appear in person. You might be able to arrange a call in during which you are interviewed right over the telephone. If you do land a spot as a guest speaker, make sure you write down the details – the date and time you’re scheduled to speak and most important of all how long you’ll be expected to speak.

Anytime you do get an opportunity to speak before an audience, always find out if you are allowed to make a “plug” at the end of your speaking session. If you can, be sure to take advantage of this type of free publicity. After all, you never know who is listening.

5. Create A Coaching Club Or Coaching “Gym”

A coaching club is a membership-based business that you set up to offer specific types of coaching support. You simply take your current coaching material and rework it to appeal to a highly-targeted market.

Once you have your materials available, you can sell membership in your club on-line, where all materials are delivered via the Internet on a monthly basis, or you can conduct the sessions in a group format over a telephone bridgeline.

The benefits of the club include the ability of your members to interact with other members to share ideas and strategies with each other as well as with you.

A coaching gym is a highly-specialized form of coaching where you are laser-focused on obtaining one particular result such as teaching health professionals how to improve their referral network.

Because you are offering highly-specialized information, your coaching sessions can be shorter and you can charge more! Gym services can even be delivered over the phone or via e-mail.

6. Get A Virtual Assistant

As a coach, your billable time is your most valuable asset. But if you’re tied down in the “business of managing your business”, you’re burning hours that could be sold.

Also, if you have a lot of great ideas like building a web site or writing a marketing letter, but you lack the skills to get it done, you’re a perfect candidate for a “virtual assistant.”

They’re called “virtual” because they work in their home or office and not yours. You can outsource as much or as little of your work as you want to, and you can even hire different assistants to perform different tasks.

Not only will you instantly free up more time that you can bill to customer, but you’ll be more relaxed and stress-free to boot!

7. Start A Coaching Team

The concept of a coaching team is a lot like the way law firms are set up. There are typically one or more senior attorneys and a lot of junior attorneys. The firm provides the business infrastructure, such as accounting and administrative support, marketing and advertising, etc. The senior attorneys provide their name and reputation to the business and the junior attorneys do all of the grunt work.

Now, simply substitute the word “coaches” for the word “attorneys” and you’ve got the picture!

8. Create Your Own Affiliate Program

An affiliate program is used to pay people for providing you with leads that turn into sales. At its simplest level you can just hand out your business cards to your network of friends and contacts who, in turn, distribute them to their friends and contacts. Mark each set of cards that you give out with a code, or the referrer’s name, so you’ll know who to pay the commission to.

If you have a web site, you can install affiliate management software that will handed the process for you. What? You don’t have any idea where to find or how to install affiliate software? See Item # 6.

9. Re-Use And Re-Package Content

If you’ve spent time developing content that you’ve used once and then forgotten about, then in a sense you’re missing out on an opportunity to earn royalties on your own work! If you’ve spoken at a seminar, and your speech was recorded, then hire someone to transcribe your work. The transcription is something you probably can sell on your website. Those who attended the seminar in person were willing to pay to hear what you had to say and others will be too! Think about everything you’ve written and then think what you might be able to sell or use as an incentive for some other promotion you are running.

10. Create Your Own Annual Event (Conference, Seminar, Mastermind, Or Other Gathering In Your Industry)

Seminars are big business and they’re a great way to raise your visibility and make a lot of money in the process. If you can put together a seminar on a topic that you know others are interested in learning more about, then all you’ve got to do is attract attendees.

With all of the technology available today, arranging a seminar has gotten a lot easier and a lot less expensive. For example, a teleseminar offers an excellent opportunity to start promoting yourself as an “expert” in your field. Such an arrangement is not going to cost nearly as much as it would if you held a seminar at a conference center and you had to coordinate travel, meals and lodging for your attendees and special guest speakers.

The key to marketing your seminar is to establish yourself as an expert. Give yourself a title, elaborate on your pertinent experience, and offer a few incentives to entice people to sign up.

Plan on making your seminar an annual event and if your first one goes off well, you can be assured that your attendees will want to come back for more next time around!

11. Run A Retreat

Retreats are another segment of the coaching business that’s on fire these days. They operate a lot like group coaching that was mentioned in Item # 1, and a coaching seminar like was discussed in item #10.

The difference is that these sessions are usually held over a weekend at some relaxing location that provides an opportunity for recreation and fun as well as learning.

The best results are usually had when the recreation takes the form of team-building events like whitewater rafting where everyone has to work together or they end up getting wet. However, golf or tennis-based retreats, or any other kind, can work just as well depending upon your clientele.


A lot of the planning will be similar to the planning required for an event, so you might want to hire an event coordinator to handle the details.

12. Record Everything You Do Then Sell It As Audio/Video Programs And Products (Teleclasses, Live Events)

If you conduct teleclasses and events and you don’t record them, then now is the time to start. If you do record these sessions, then it’s time you do something with them so that they can start adding to your bottom line. If you make your sessions available on a CD or via a download on your website after the fact, you will have another chance to get money out of every person who did not or could not attend your teleclass or seminar. Don’t miss this money-making opportunity!

13. BONUS! Hire A Cleaning Service

As with a Virtual Assistant, the time you save by having someone else clean your home or office can be spent on building your business and generating more income. Where’s the break-even? Just compare how much you pay the cleaning service to how much you charge per hour or how much you make on a sale of your content or licensable material. I’ll bet the ROI is a lot quicker than you think.

Hey, even if you spend the time you save doing nothing but chilling on the couch, you’ll be happier and more relaxed – so just do it!

You can also hire or certify other coaches and consultants to deliver your system and create a multiple-income-stream business around it (with workshops, retreats, live events, home-study courses, virtual university, and so much more!).

Finally, your confidence level (and your fees) can go up significantly when you develop your own system or method for coaching or helping your clients.

If you already have written a book or an e-book, putting your own coaching system together is really about expanding it and supplementing it with actionable items. Here are just a few tips for getting started:

1. Many books are conceptual – a collection of thoughts, ideas, discussions, and ramblings. If that’s your book, you may want to first organize the content into a step-by-step process. Each step doesn’t have to be actionable. It can be a mind shift, a principle, or anything else designed to create some kind of transformation by the time your client completes your system.

2. Engage your customers – create ways to make your clients think, explore, change their habits, fill-in-the-blank, write down their thoughts and ideas, and other activities (mental or physical) that allows them to interact with your coaching system.

3. Track their progress – find a way to help them track and measure their progress. Are there any tangible milestones they can identify and celebrate? Did they lose 3 lbs? Did they create a blog? Did they have fewer fights with their teenager this week? Did their list reach 500 names? Worksheets, tracking sheets, or even online progress tools can help them stay on track and clearly see the benefits of using your system.

4. Keep the structure simple – complex systems are not only overwhelming to use and implement, but also hard to train your team in. Keep it simple. For example, you may have 7 modules with 3 topics in each one. Each topic could be an audio lesson and a worksheet.

5. Get creative – find ways to make your system unique and be authentic to you. For example, you could add a visual to each of your topic, or you could create a graphic map of your entire system showing the flow of steps.

6. Turn it into a multi-delivery program – your coaching system can be delivered as a stand-alone home-study course, or become a component of a bigger program. For example, you may have a coaching retreat and send your system to each of your participants as a way to prepare. You could also use your system to deliver a live workshop. Or, make your coaching system a part of your year-long coaching program and guide your clients through using it.

You can expand your book or e-book into a coaching system many different ways. Sometimes it can be as simple as adding a few audio CDs, a workbook, and a list of recommended resources will be enough. The questions I like to use to help me expand into a great coaching program or system are these:

After reading my book, why wouldn’t they implement?

• What is missing?
• What’s holding them back?
• What tool could I suggest or create to push them into taking action?
• What preconceived notions do they come with?
• What mind shift do I need for them to experience before they can take action and succeed?