Embracing the Entrepreneurial Mindset
par Teresia Larocque
Hello fellow coaches!
As a professional coach in business for 12 years, I feel so blessed to be living my dream and helping others do the same. My passion is helping self employed professionals increase their bottom line and live a life they love. Over the years I have crossed paths with many coaches who have a passion for coaching but struggle with building their business. Can you relate? One thing I know for sure is that being a successful coach, also means becoming a successful entrepreneur. Are you ready to embrace the entrepreneurial mindset?
Let’s begin at the beginning…
When someone asks you what you do, what do you say? More importantly, how do you feel?
This is a pivotal moment, it really is the beginning of your marketing campaign; an opportunity to communicate your business to a captive audience that could very well become a paying client or a referral source.
Do you freeze up? Feel nervous? Walk away thinking, “I could have handled that better…”?
Do you know what your company stands for? Can you explain it with conviction and confidence? This is key as entrepreneurs one of our biggest challenges is getting the word out about who we are and what we do, and doing so in a way that makes people want to work with us. If you don’t sound clear and confident when you speak about your own business, how is your listener or prospect going to believe in your work?
A well-developed and practiced credo is a critical component of any marketing plan. What is a “credo”? The word was originally used to signify a statement of religious beliefs; the Latin definition is literally “I believe.” In the modern world, the term has been adopted by businesses to state the fundamental components of the business. The longer versions might include a company’s mission, who it serves, its values and ambitions…in other words, everything the company stands for.
Your credo is the heart of how you represent your work to prospects – both in print and in face-to-face interactions. If you find networking a bit uncomfortable, it’s probably because you don’t have a strong credo to leverage in conversations with strangers.
What I want for you is to feel excited to share who you are, what you do, who you love to work with, and how you make a difference - this is the beginning of attracting business, and more importantly, the business you want. We like to say that a strong credo is the window to the soul of a business. When said with clarity and conviction, you engage people right away by telling them about the difference you make to other people. You also give them much of what they need in order to determine whether you’re a fit for their needs. In that one minute (more or less), you stand in the gateway to more clients, more business, more profit and more success.
To help you wrap your mind around this concept, here’s is an example of one of my credos:
I am the founder of a life-changing business-building program called Passion into Profit. We work with self-employed professionals who struggle to get their business off the ground and suffer from isolation and low motivation. Our clients thrive in an empowering environment that provides foundational support, coaching tools and strategies to build profitable businesses.
Make a commitment to yourself to devote time this month to developing or improving your credo. Having a credo that resonates with your soul and captures the essence of your business is the first step in creating an effortless and fun marketing campaign.
|
