The following is taken from David’s interview with Bob Davies in 10 Super Coaches.
What were the biggest doubts you had in your early months?
The only doubts I ever had was that it cost me money to actually coach clients. Each moment I spent coaching was time away from marketing my more profitable speaking business.
I continued to coach however, because of the impact and feedback from the clients and because of the long-term nature of the relationship. Also, the income was more secure than the unknown from the speaking engagements and a diversified source as well. I made a deal with myself, if I’m going to take clients, then here is the marketing I agree to do to compensate for the time away with coaching…
The following is taken from David’s interview with Michael O. Cooper in 10 Super Coaches.
What was the most interesting or exciting thing for you about building your practice?
Three things, really:
- Watching clients arrive out of nowhere!
- Clients wanting to hire me even before experiencing a sample session/collaborative interview!
- Watching passive revenue dollars add up in my bank account – when I’m out at the beach or on vacation!
The following is a transcription taken from Explode Your Practice.
David: I’d like to clarify, are you saying you want to coach her, make a contribution to her because she helped you out a lot
Ah no, not necessarily that, it’s just that she seems the ideal sort of person and she be compatible with
David: Ok Terry, I want you to forget everything I said before
Yeah Ok
David: How do you feel about saying what you just told me?
Yeah
David: Well it’s the truth. She’s seems to be doing really well, she seems to be somebody you’d be compatible with and she is successful and you feel there might be some other avenues she would like to focus on because she is already so successful in business
Yeah that’s right
David: I mean what a great thing to say and what is great about that to is that it is coming from your heart.
The following is a transcription taken from Explode Your Practice.
David: Right. Now, do you have a bio as a speaker?
No, not as a speaker.
David: There you go. Se we need a bio, and in there you need some testimonials, well you don’t need it, but it is great to have a one pager that looks good, has your photo on it, says bing, bing, bing, here are the benefits of my speech, here is the title, something punchy, and two or three testimonials with people’s names and the companies. And probably only use the company if you spoke for that company. But their name and their title. Now you’ve already done some speaking. So go back, beat the bushes, get testimonials from people, let them know what kind of testimonial you want, you know, maybe send them a draft and say hey, can you give me something that feels good, and then whack it in. When you’ve got a great bio, and the first speaker seeker you speak to, you can fax them your bio or e-mail, and you’re in. Because you’ve already spoken. How does that sound?
The following is taken from David’s interview in 10 Super Coaches.
What was the most interesting or exciting thing for you about building your practice?
There are a few events along the way that I found very exciting. Firstly I’ll say it’s very exciting when you have a client make a big life change and they’re absolutely thrilled by it and they say “Thank you so much! I wouldn’t have done that if you weren’t my coach” That’s always wonderful.
But some of the really exciting things were when I got an opportunity to coach for television, I don’t think it had been done before and I was very excited about being on TV. And recently I got a chance to go to New York and audition for a television show over there, so I think there’s a lot of scope once you start getting known in the coaching community to do radio interviews, to do some television stuff, to do some magazine articles which is a lot of fun.
David: The whole point of this is simply that everyone has the ability to help someone else.
Great
David: Now what you need, you need 50 sessions under your belt.
Right
The following is a transcription taken from Explode Your Practice.
David: It’s that simple. And it doesn’t have to be with paying clients, what I say is get out there do the sessions, you can call them practice sessions but what I prefer to call them is exploratory sessions.
David: That way there is no pressure on you to be a guru because you’re exploring
David: Now if you went and did 50 practice, one off sessions and now of those people tuned into clients then you would still learn an awful lot about yourself and about coaching.
