As a coach or consultant do you follow your own advice?
I know how important it is to blog regularly and will stress the point with my clients. If you want to get found online and be seen as an authority in your niche and seen as someone who knows what their talking about, you simply need to contribute regular, decent and helpful content in your area of expertise. However I digress….. I was saying that I know how important it is to blog regularly in terms of an excellent and long term marketing strategy, yet I got so caught up working on client’s stuff that I had stopped doing the very thing that I teach others to do… Blog!
Established your environment as one of continuous improvement
As soon as I realised the error of my ways I started creating content that would be helpful to coaches and consultants (my niche). Remind me later to tell you how I came to determine that my niche is in Social Media Marketing for Coaches & Consultants if I forget (it has something to do with love).
So what do you teach others that you are not actually putting into practice yourself? It might be a matter of having a coach yourself to keep you accountable and to keep driving you in an area of your business that you are not 100% strong in. Or it might be that you have a nagging issue that you would like to have nipped in the bud. If we want others to commit to our coaching services we need to lead by example. Who are you accountable to, what are you doing and learning that has you be the best coach for your clients?
We all go through times where we feel the good old “impostor syndrome” rearing it’s ugly head but if we are practicing what we preach we are way ahead of those coaches who don’t. We are also coaching from a place of integrity and authenticity. We can slam that slimey imposter syndrome out of our heads and into the dark alley ways it belongs!
Choose to lead and be someone others want to follow
Take for instance, I stumbled across someone’s Facebook page and as I am a social media consultant and manager, I am always really interested in seeing what other people are doing that is adding value and increasing engagement with their followers on their pages. Well, low and behold I came across this page from a person who has told me she is a great copywriter and does social media for her clients and I also noticed (through one of her rare posts) that she had presented to a group of businesses about the importance of regular blogging. Guess what I found on her FB page??? Nada, Zip, Nothing! Ok, no biggie as her forte is in copywriting. So I jumped over to her blog (given she had just presented to a fairly large group of business owners about blogging) and what do you think I found there?? Yep, you guessed it…. Zip, Nada, Nothing again. Now I’m not saying it’s right or wrong but what I am saying is that it actually brought her credibility down a few pegs in my eyes. What do you think it does for anyone else who goes to her site and finds it empty after listening to her presentation? You guessed it, we have a bit of an integrity issue!
Set the pace and expectations
In most areas of our coaching businesses we really do need to model the behaviour we want to see in others. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Become the change you wish to see in the world.” And, it will happen. So that begs the question…. What are you not doing that you are going to step up and promise yourself to do?
What has all this got to do with Social Media and growing your coaching business I hear you ask? Great question, thanks!! It is about you being your brand and being the person you want others to see you as. Everything we present to the outside world of ourselves is a little piece of marketing and being a coach who practices what we preach is a really cool thing indeed! People are buying you because of who you are and the lessons you have to teach so be the best version of yourself you can be. Presenting yourself online as someone who does as they teach means you are a coach who has “Social Media Authenticity” 🙂
I’d love see your promise to yourself in the comments below. Share what it is that you are going to do so that as a coach you are walking your talking (I wrote talking cause it rhymes more than talk)!
Cheers
TracieD
Great post Tracie 🙂 You know how big I am about authenticity 🙂 I too get busy with clients and don’t always get time to blog regularly, however I also believe that if you are nailing it, you can infact continue to grow and be found without necessarily blogging every other day, in fact consistency is key even if its monthly. When you speak about people who offer services but you don’t see evidence of it, I have found that often. Sometimes I think that people decide to add a branch to their service without the due diligence. My “talk” is about honesty, transparency and authenticity and I believe I certainly do that “walk”. We all have a different path and it’s not one size fits all. I personally think that doing lots of small count blogs can be a negative compared to great content longer form blogs which you do less often. I like your tag “imposter syndrome” see a bit of that. I also see how many people seem to be easily swayed by “fog and mirrors” – look for depth is something I teach 🙂
I agree Fiona, that’s why I suggest choosing a level of commitment that works for you. I mentioned it in my previous post too. If you find that monthly blogging works for you then commit to the consistency of blogging monthly. I don’t think we need to blog daily just consistently! It would be great to have the time to blog daily and I think if it is right for someone and fits in with their business model then go for it however most of us would find daily blogging to hard to stick with! There is no such thing as perfect! Yes, being your authentic and transparent self really is what builds relationships in both business and our personal lives. Thanks for you comment Fiona x