Coaching Blog

If you're a business of life coach, or any type of solo professional, then attracting coaching clients via social networking sites can be incredibly valuable.

If you're new to social networking and social media marketing, it can be pretty overwhelming. The great news is that you only need some essentials to get started. From there, it's pretty easy 'to learn as you go'.

The first step of course, is to join and build a following on social networking sites. From there, if you know how to do it, you can easily attracting paid coaching clients. I share two brief stories about how two coaches filled their coaching practices quickly with clients by leveraging their social networking relationships with Coach 100 in the new eBook, The Essential Guide to Social Media Marketing for Solo Professionals. To Get the free eBook, click the big button below. To learn more about how to attract coaching clients via social networking and many other approaches, join Coach 100. More info below. But first, here's one section from the new eBook.

How to Build Your Following on Social Sites

1. Start by following others. Makes sense, doesn’t it? People like to connect and they’ll be more likely to connect with you, if you make the first move. Don’t be shy. This is a lot easier than asking somebody to dance at a high-school mixer. But here’s where it gets similar to school: the more popular you are, the more people will want to connect to you. Get the ball rolling and eventually momentum will start to help you out.
2. Consistently Add Fresh Content to Your Social Profiles. Social networking doesn’t have to take more than a few minutes per day, but do be consistent. Try setting aside ten minutes per day to share something relevant. An easy way to do this is to share great blog posts from blog sites that are related to your specialty. Most blogs today have social sharing buttons built right into the interface (see ours above). You can amplify your shares across numerous social sites by taking advantage of their sharing options. LinkedIn has this built into posts. Just click a box to share something from LinkedIn to Twitter, for example.
3. Self-Promote Minimally. Even on sites where self-promotion is well tolerated, such as Twitter, the rule of thumb is to post something promotional once out of every seven tweets. Exceptions are made for commercial accounts, such as Starbucks or Amazon, that people follow specifically to receive discount offers. If you’re running a high-end solo business, such as coaching, you want to primarily engage in conversations and add useful content, with an occasional offer to buy your book, attend your seminar, or try a sample session. Be even more judicious on Facebook, which is primarily social, unless you have a (free) Facebook Page for your business.
4. Be Somebody People Want to Follow. That’s one reason why a head shot of you is so important to your social profile. People generally follow people, not companies. Let your personality come across. Are you philosophical? Share deep thoughts and/or quote other famous people (and share the thoughts of people you follow – which is a great way to get them to follow you back). Love humor? Make an occasional wisecrack or share the jokes of famous comedians you follow. Care about social issues? Update your accounts with links to important online petitions. All of this pays off when your clients like what you like. The better you know your market, the more you can hone your voice.
5. Be conversational. Reply to people who message you. Retweet or share their comments. Join in the conversation. This can be as simple as ‘liking’ what somebody says on Facebook or as involved as participating in a lively conversation in a group on LinkedIn.
6. Focus on the social networks that matter most to your clients. You can’t be everywhere, even on the internet. If you have a business-to-consumer service (as opposed to business-to-business), then LinkedIn may not be ideal for you. If your clientele are older, then maybe the latest hot new social site (currently, that’s Pinterest) isn’t important yet for your business.
7. Invite your website visitors to join you online. Add ‘Follow Me’ buttons (you can get them free from Twitter, for instance, or Google to find 3rd-party buttons) to every page on your site (See our 'Follow Us' buttons to the right). This encourages your visitors to talk about you in a potentially viral venue. Likewise, be sure to add social sharing buttons to all of your blog posts (if you have one – recommended). All the major forms of blogging software (like Wordpress) have them available. Finally, you can add social conversations to your website by adding social streams from Facebook, Twitter, etc. (scroll down to the right to see one of ours) The more ways people can find you and talk about you online, the more people will find you and talk about you online. Trigger the viral nature of social networking and your customers will market for you!

To get indepth instructions on how to build your coaching business with social media, along with many other approaches, join Coach 100. There are three levels to choose from, depending on your experience and how much you want to spend. Each one provides a proven system for attracting paying coaching clients and filling your business.

To get the free eBook, The Essential Guide to Social Media Marketing for Solo Professionals, click below.

One Million Master Coaches Worldwide? It has a nice ring, doesn't it?

One Million Master Coaches Worldwide...

• will mean one coach for every 7,000 people on the planet
  
• will mean coaching will saturate currently underserved areas, like South America and Africa
• will mean the economics of coaching will change - but how?
  
• will mean people everywhere will have access to personal empowerment, growth, achievement and fulfillment
• will mean billions of people will operate far more effectively in their lives and businesses
• will mean people will think at a level that can (easily?) solve many of today's most vexing problems
• will mean a global transformation that is (almost) unimaginable
• will be a game-changer for sure

Want to know what kind of salary a life coach makes?

I wrote about international coaching salaries in the 2012 Trends in Business and Life Coaching post, based on the new ICF coach survey, which sheds light on the parts of the world where coaches earn the most. But a Sherpa Executive Coaching Survey of international coach salaries just came out, so here's some new info, broken down by type of coach.

It's important to note that executive, life and business coaching incomes vary wildly, (anywhere from free to thousands of dollars per hour) so these averages may not represent what most coaches actually make. However they do offer some clues.

Average coaching salaries according to Sherpa:

• Executive Coaches make $325 per hour
• Business Coaches make $235 per hour
• Life Coaches make $160 per hour

What's the difference between a life coach, a business coach and an executive coach? Sherpa's definition of an executive coach is someone who coaches executives on behavioral issues, which basically means an executive coach is a life coach for executives.

I take issue with Sherpa's definition that business and life coaches are consultants and advisors. Real coaches are neither consultants, nor advisers. Real coaches help their clients think and act more resourcefully, resulting in personal growth and achievement and for that reason, coaches usually make a lot more money than consultants or advisers.

In my experience, new business and life coaches can charge $100 - 200 per hour and veteran coaches with established results can often charge $250 - 600 per hour. What makes the difference is the skill of the coach and who they coach.

It's pretty extraordinary that someone who coaches by phone in their jammies from their home office could charge more than a Park Avenue lawyer, but it happens - if their clients get incredible results and can afford to pay for them.

Here's how: most successful coaches only have a few clients. According to Sherpa,  coaches average between 6 and 6.5 clients per week. When you only coach a few clients, you can be at your best virtually all of the time, which makes it possible to give incredible service and results. That's when you can charge a lot.

So average annual incomes, according to Sherpa, range from $55K to $116K. That's pretty close to past ICF survey averages for a life coach (or business or executive coach) salary.

Learn more about life coach salary rates and how to set your own coaching fees:

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, where everything always looked as it should, if you hired a life coach, s/he was most likely older than you. Prevailing wisdom said more experience meant greater wisdom and that's what you want in your life coach, right? Maybe.

In the world I live in, life coaches come in all ages and aren't necessarily all sages. Does that even matter?

At left, is Life Coach, Traci McMinn-Joubert, CCC. She's one of the many under-forty coaches who studies at School of Coaching Mastery and who hold their own with most of us older coaches. Apparently, that's surprising to a lot of people, including some coaches.

For instance, yesterday, the New York Times ran an article called, Should a Life Coach Have a Life First? about the growing trend toward younger coaches in this profession. I found the online comments on this article more interesting than the article, itself. They're loaded with misconceptions and skepticism from folks who aren't sure what life coaching is but suspect they don't like it, plus the occasional plug by an actual life coach that tends to seem self-serving. So I thought I would try to help clear up the confusion. Here goes...

1. One reason younger coaches do well is that life experience is only a fraction of what life coaches offer. As I tell my students, advice is the least of the deliverables you have to offer your clients. Coaching is far more than that. Author, David Rock, says life coaches help people think better. That might not sound like much, but if you need to make life-changing decisions, having someone help you think better is priceless. And that pretty much explains  why coaches command such high fees when everyone knows that advice is free.

2. Another reason is that experience is relative. Clients hire life coaches who are on a similar path, but further along. If you just graduated from college, for instance, and want a coach who can help you make that enormous transition from student to full-fledged adult in today's world (that's a big need), it makes sense to hire a coach who's a few years older than you, rather than someone your grandma's age.

3. A third reason younger coaches do well is that experience has a short shelf life in today's world. Maybe you have awesome experience on how to climb the corporate ladder from the 1960's through the 1990's, but you struggle with social media, smart phones, apps and tablets. If so, then you may not understand the culture, much less have the skills needed by today's workers, who are intra-preneurial and know that there's no gold watch, nor life-long pension waiting for them.

Let's face it, young coaching clients are an ever-renewing potential source of business for life coaches and some of them want young coaches who they can relate to.

Then again, Baby Boomers are still asking themselves questions like, "What do I want to be when my children grow up?" And in some cases, older coaches are the ones who can help middles-aged clients make better choices that lead to happier lives (another big need).

The real issue isn't how old your life coach is, but how much 1) personal development, and 2) coaching skill, they have under their belts. Too little personal development and their egos and issues will get in the client's way. Too little coaching skill and their clients' thinking and behavior won't be impacted enough to make a difference in their lives.

Rather than choose your coach based on age, I'd suggest you ask the following two questions:

1. Did someone you know and trust highly recommend a life coach who helped them achieve something that you want? Don't hire a coach just because his/her age is appropriate or marketing is convincing. Look for outside evidence of results.

2. Does your life coach have substantial coach-specific training (not just a related degree) and/or a certification from the IAPPC, IAC or ICF? Unless your coach has been at it for 20+ years, they need to be well trained and certified.

A good coach doesn't have to have both of the above, but they probably have at least one.

Here's my last thought on age and coaching, for whatever it's worth. In my twenties, I personally, would have made a lousy coach. I was too immature and had too many issues to work out. Not everyone improves with age, but I suspect that, like me, many coaches do.

What do you think? Should your life coach be older or younger?

If you want to become a certified coach and you're ready to get started, consider the Certified Positive Psychology Coach Program which leads to IAPPC certification. Our students range in age from their twenties to their seventies.

Find out all about it here:

The Sherpa Executive Coaching Summary, a large-scale annual survey on the state of executive, life and business coaching, was just released yesterday, with a startling statistic that 10% of all coaching schools worldwide go out of business every year - every year.

I've heard this statistic tossed about in reference to specific years, but now it's becoming an annual trend? This flies in the face of an old coaching myth, that the real money is in coach training, not coaching. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Why are coaching schools going out of business when the profession of coaching is still growing?

1. One theory is that there are too many coaching schools. As Donna Steinhorn mentioned in her recent The Truth About Coach Training post, 10-12 years ago, there were only a few coach training schools, but now there are well over 100 coaching schools, worldwide. Sherpa says there are actually over 300 coach training schools in the world. In fact, peer.ca, which tries to compile all the coach training schools worldwide, lists 508, as of today.

That means around 50 coaching schools will go out of business this year. Will one of them be yours?

2. Another theory is that many professional coaches, believing the myth that 'the real money is in coach training', started coaching schools when their businesses were challenged recently during Depression 2.0. If that's the case, I'm guessing most of them have/will go out of business, because it is actually much more expensive and time-consuming to run a quality coach training business than it is to run a coaching business.

Personally, I made more money per hour as 'just a coach' than I do running School of Coaching Mastery. Education, done well, is labor-intensive and labor is expensive.

Why do I do it? SCM is a labor of love for me. I have a vision of one million master coaches worldwide and I'm just getting started.

3. Another theory of why 10% of coach training schools go out of business, is that coach training has become a commodity. There is so much competition that schools are competing on price, rather that value. This was further supported by the incredibly high unemployment rates of the past few years, when people were desperately trying to start coaching businesses with little or no money.

When money is extremely tight, unlikely promises, such as the promise of one coaching school mentioned by Sherpa, that you can 'Become a Certified Professional Life Coach in Just 16 Hours' for $397 or $497, or whatever the price du jour is, become alluringly tempting. If such a school also brags about their 3000 successful graduates, you have to wonder about their criteria for 'success'. I've talked to quite a few 'graduates' of these 2-week wonders (because eventually they realize they need more training and contact me) and not one of them has told me they ever got a single paying client.

So in the race to the bottom, some schools, even the huge schools that were founded in the mid-nineties, have become less profitable. And if you're not in it for love, you'll get out if there's not much profit.

School of Coaching Mastery is about to turn five years old in March. We've weathered Depression 2.0 and our international Ultimate Coach Training coach-students are spreading their masterful coaching skills to thousands of grateful (paying) clients. 

I wouldn't close this coaching school for anything. I've got too much work to do to get those one million master coaches out there changing the world for the better.

What do you think? Do 10% of all coach training schools really go out of business each year? Why or why not? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section, below.

Have you worked with monster coaching clients?

Every master coach has at one point or another, because it's tempting for life and business coaches to try to help  everyone - until we get chewed up and spit out.

If that's happened to you, thank those monster clients for teaching you a critical lesson in your master coaching career: You can't help everyone and if you don't choose your coaching clients well, you can't help anyone.

Here are ten types of coaching clients you should run from like they're Tyronnosaurus Rex:

1. Failus Gnossos - The client who thinks like a failure, no matter what. This client will spend their coaching sessions trying to convince you that it's not their fault; everything is going wrong because life's not fair. Yes it's true; life isn't fair, but it's the folks who take responsibility for what happens in their lives who succeed. If your client thinks this way on a frequent basis and your efforts to shift their focus are unsuccessful, suggest they work with a therapist, instead of a coach.
2. Controllos Everythingess - The client who tries to control their end of the conversation - and yours. Speaking of therapists, I once has a therapist client, who tried to psychoanalyze me while I tried to coach her: "Why would you ask me that?", "Why do you think that is?" Needless to say, the coaching sessions were a waste of her time and mine. Coaching clients need to be collaborative to benefit from coaching. That doesn't mean you control everything; it means the two of you are partnering for their benefit.
3. Responsibilities Nothingess - The client who refuses to take responsibility for anything. One of my clients had already worked with several coaches. She told me that none of them delivered on what they promised. I found her impossible to work with, because she kept making me responsible for her choices. I ended the coaching relationship with her early and I'm pretty sure she told her next coach that I didn't help her, either.
4. Dirtus Cheapess - The client who has a scheme to get more out of you for less. This type of monster coaching client comes out more during a recession, but the hard-core version is around even in boom times. Probably a fairer name for them is, 'misguidedly frugal'. You know the type: The distant aquaintance who calls for free coaching help because afterall you're 'friends', the total stranger with the sob story who wants you to coach them for free, the person who requests a complimentary coaching session with you, but who nervously ends it early when you mention continuing the relationship. As a master coach, you know people will move mountains when they really want something, so don't be overly sympathetic with people who want more from you than they're willing to pay for.
5. Nano Inspirationess - The client who is uninspired to the point of being depressed. It's easy for me to have compassion for depressed people, because I occasionally suffer from mild depression, myself. Unfortunately, even mildly depressed people are hard to coach, including me! I once gave a complimentary coaching session to someone who wasn't inspired by anything. When I broached the possibility that she was depressed, she told me that although she had been suicidal at one point in her life, she didn't think she was currently depressed. I'm no psychotherapist, but that was enough for me to decline to coach her. Depression is a serious problem. Trying to coach someone who is depressed is a serious mistake.
6. Victimus Dramaticus - The client who could 'really benefit' from coaching if they were just willing to let go of their perpetual dramas and victim status. Many new coaches fall for this mistake: They have a friend or relative who is in constant crisis and the coach just knows that coaching could help them. But it doesn't. That person you know who could 'really benefit' from coaching has to get to the place where they really want to change before outside assistance can make a lasting difference. When they are ready to take responsibility for their lives, they may need a 12 Step Program and/or therapist, before coaching is really helpful.
7. Lazy Mixedupedness - The New Age client who thinks all they need to succeed is abundance thinking. This one is slippery, but the 'evolved' client sometimes is the most dysfunctional. They may take the Law of Attraction so literally, that they do nothing but think and feeeel what they want. Good luck with that.
8. Greedus Monsterus - The client who measures their success and your performance in terms of dollars, only. Many clients hire coaches to help them make more money. There are few coaches who can really help them with that. Why? Because many coaches don't really understand money. It's a stand-in for everything else the client wants or 'needs'. Few clients really want money for itself; they want freedom, they want to get over their self-doubt, they want to win, or they want something else. You can never get enough of what you don't really want. Don't coach greed or need unless you really understand it.
9. Elephantus Blindness - The client who has a gaping blind spot that's wrecking their life and refuses to look at it. I once had a client whose fiance, an entrepreneur who had lousy credit, refused to marry her unless she loaned him $50,000 to start a new business. First she refused, then she relented, because after all, 'he's a sweet man who really loves me'. This client had several blind spots that to me were as big as elephants, but if I broached those topics, she'd deflect my questions with replies such as, 'I don't know. You're the coach. I thought you'd tell me.' I told her I couldn't be her coach.
10. Parasiticus Dependantess - The client who needs you to do  their work for them, because they're too 'sensitive', scared, unsure, etc. Sometimes going the extra mile for a client will inspire them to step up to a new level of greatness. But beware the client who 'needs' you to do what only they are responsible for. This client will eventually fail, but not until they've drained you dry.

Okay, maybe it's not fair to make fun of these coaching clients. After all, they're doing their best, just like everyone else. But a little humor will get you over the pain of firing a client who otherwise will devour you. In time, you'll spot these folks before you've given them your all.

So what are your monster coaching client stories?

Try Coach 100 and learn to identify great coaching clients faster.

Have you ever wished you could get insider tips on how to succeed at something?

Like how to win a contest or how to attract more clients? Well, I'm about to give you insider tips for both.

Marketing experts say that blogging is one of the most important tools for client attraction in any type of business, particularly if you don't have a big advertising budget. That advice couldn't be more true for coaches.

That's why we sponsor the Best Coaching Blogs Contest each year. Coaching Blogs offer some of the most cutting-edge information about coaching and they are free. That's awesome for the consumer and it's a great marketing strategy for coaches. The contest highlights the very best and it's an effective inbound marketing strategy for School of Coaching Mastery. Everybody wins. But not everybody wins the contest.

Winning at Best Coaching Blogs is a lot like winning at blogging. Both will attract more clients to you, so listen up!

9 ways to win Best Coaching Blogs:

1. Know your audience. The easiest audience to write for is yourself, your friends, or your clients, in that order. But if you're writing to attract more clients, you need to work harder to offer value, to be understood, to create fans and attract clients. If you're writing to win Best Coaching Blogs, remember that your blog will be read by folks who don't know you and you'll need to win over both coaches and non-coaches. They are very different audiences.

2. Know the difference between a business blog and a personal blog. A personal blog, or weblog, can be quirky, weird and profane. A business blog can be all of that, too, depending upon your audience. Generally speaking, a business blog needs to offer more service and value and build more trust than a personal blog, because you ultimately want your readers to spend not just their time, but their money with you. That usually requires more discipline and perhaps less soul-baring. Service, value, trust and discipline will go a long way to help you win the Best Coaching Blogs Contest.

3. Actively create trust. Notice that the word, 'trust' is coming up a lot? You may have already created a fantastic level of trust with the folks who know you, but if you want to attract more people (and contest votes) via your blog, you'll have to create trust through your actual writing. How do you do that? Tell the truth. Give away your best secrets. And show up consistently, meaning develop a consistent voice and blog regularly and frequently enough that people start to count on your articles. As a rule of thumb, you need a minimum of about 20 articles to create blog credibility and you should be blogging once per week or more.

4. Titles are critical. Learn to write titles that engage quickly and pique curiosity. You only have a second or two to convince someone that it'll be worthwhile to spend their valuable time reading your article. Check the right-hand column of this blog for a list of our ten most popular blog posts and you'll see examples of many of the types of posts that engage and create curiosity. If people don't read your articles, you won't attract either clients or votes.

5. Make sure the article delivers what the title promises. Piquing someone's curiosity and then immediately pulling a switcheroo to get them to buy or download something is just plain rude. It's also marketing suicide and readers will mentally blacklist you in a heartbeat. Don't use your blog to sell. Also, don't use it just to write about a product or program, unless your audience tells you they love that. Do offer something of value at the bottom of your posts for people who may want more. Treat your readers with respect and they'll come back. They may even vote for your blog.

6. Be remarkable. Thousands of life coaches write about the Law of Attraction. Don't be one of them unless you have something different to say. Write what no one else writes. Empower your readers. Help them achieve their goals. Make them feel smart for discovering you and they will tell all their friends. And their friends will tell friends. Soon, you have raving fans for your blog and for your work. Fans vote with a vengence.

7. Be Social. Success in the blogosphere is achieved through cooperation, not competition. Read other blogs and comment on them. Link to the best ones. Guest post on some. And announce what you and other bloggers are up to throughout the social media web. This advice is especially important during the contest. Treat your fellow contestants like friends instead of enemies, because in the end, the semi-finalists choose the Top Ten Winners.

8. Play nice. Every year, at least one blogger succumbs to the temptation to cheat and it's the other contestants who notice it first. That's a dumb strategy, because the contestants are the ones who choose the winners. Either play nice or loose. 

9. Break the rules. Although I'm giving you awesome advice for writing a successful blog that wins like crazy, your audience may want something completely different. Pay attention to them first and foremost and watch your blog grow in popularity. Best Coaching Blogs is in many ways a popularity contest. Write for your readers (and voters) and win!

Go here for a related article called, Best Coaching Blogs: Why a Winning Strategy Might Not Win.

Are you a blogger or even winner in one of the Best Coaching Blogs contests? What strategies do you use that I've left out here? Please share your best blogging strategies in the comments below.

Want more ideas? Download the free How to Blog Effectively for Your Coaching Business ebook here.

If you are a coach because you enjoy helping people, the last thing you want to do is bombard them with marketing hype.

And yet, most marketing programs do just that. Here's one that doesn't and it won't cost you a cent, because it's free on this site.

We use it and we love it. Maybe you will too. But don't take our word for it. Use it because it's right for your business.

5 Reasons why inbound marketing is right for your business:

1. Inbound Marketing is based on relationship building and mutual respect. This is the foundation of any effective coaching relationship and you simply can't have it if your marketing is based on annoying or manipulating people. So if you've been put off by marketing up until now, your intuition has been steering your right!

2. Inbound Marketing is all about listening first. As an advanced communicator, you know that listening is the first step in any transformational conversation. How can your attract your ideal clients if you're not listening to them first?

3. Inbound Marketing is not about you. Great coaching is always all about the client, so how can you market your coaching if you make it all about you? Learn to attract clients by making it all about them from the very beginning.

4. Inbound Marketing leverages your natural generosity. Great coaches are creative and love to give. If that's you, then inbound marketing is the perfect way to leverage your creativity and generosity. What could be more fun?

5. Inbound Marketing works. Don't let any 'marketing maven' tell you that you have to do things that make you cringe in order to be successful. Inbound marketing works better than traditional marketing, because your clients hate be treated like 'Joe Customer'. They love be treated with respect, generosity and listening. And quite frankly, they love it when you make it all about them!

If you really want to succeed as a coach, use marketing that reflects your own values. For most coaches, that's going to be inbound marketing. I've put together a page for you of some of my favorite inbound marketing tools. Enjoy them all for free!

Visit the Inbound Marketing Hub here.

I love social media for my coaching business.

I've been attracting coaching clients and students with online social tools for the past five years. Some of my favorite clients, ever, have come from web 2.0. Many of my Coach 100 students have had extraordinary success building their businesses with online tools. School of Coaching Mastery has had a strong social presence since its launch in 2007. Heck, we even have our own social networking site!

So I'm not the coach you'd expect to say that social media could kill your business. And no, I don't mean that your Facebook addiction might keep you from working on your business as you should (although it could). And I don't mean that you should be out shaking hands at live networking events instead of using online social networking (although some coaches really should be networking live instead of online).

I mean that the actual tools of social networking, if used poorly, can cost you coaching clients. And given how time consuming a good marketing plan can be to implement, tools that actually work against you can indeed kill your business.

What kinds of social networking tools could hurt a coaching business? Anything (and I mean anything) that annoys people. And let's face it, that covers a lot of territory.

Most new (and some veteran) business and life coaches have poor marketing and sales skills to begin with, so opportunities to do it poorly are abundant. But if you screw up your elevator speech at a live networking event, you only risk annoying a few people (and if you can laugh at yourself, you'll probably make a few friends, instead). But tools that allow you to contact everybody in your network in ways or at times that they don't want, can help you annoy thousands of people with one innocent little click. Ouch!

Repeat that innocent action again and again and your coaching business will be dead in the water before you know it.

Why is annoying people such a big deal when it comes to marketing your coaching business? Well, remember that cliche: 'Long after people have forgotten what you said, they'll remember how you made them feel'? You don't want to be remembered as the annoying coach.

Question: If you were looking to hire a business or life coach and you had narrowed it down to two coaches who both seemed to meet your criteria perfectly, would you hire the one who annoyed you are the one who didn't?

Sales decisions come down to subtleties. Sometimes a client doesn't even know why they chose to hire one coach over another. You don't have to annoy someone very much to tip the scales away from you.

What do you need to avoid in order to not kill your business with social networking tools? 

Well here are a few items that will help you to not annoy me. But get feedback from your own networks to find out what really bugs them.

1. Social SPAM. Any social app that's designed to spread itself automatically at the expense of annoying your network is social SPAM. The inspiration for this post is an innocuous little tool called, Boxbe, that's spreading around School of Coaching Mastery. Everytime someone I know joins it, I automatically get an invitation to join, too. I don't want to join. And I don't want to get email invitations to it several times per day. It's social SPAM and it's annoying. Plaxo is also annoying. Some poorly designed Twitter apps do this sort of thing. (And don't get me started on SpamArrest. I consider SpamArrest SPAM.)

2. Social Temptation. How often do you get invitations from Facebook or any social networking site to invite or notify everyone in your Outlook,Yahoo, Google, or other address book? How often do you do it? In my book, you get to do it once. One time. Resist the temptation to tell everybody you know about something unless they followed you or joined your group or fan page. Otherwise social temptation becomes social SPAM.

3. Social Scams.  @UnMarketing just posted a link on Twitter to this blog post about scam apps on Facebook. It's easy to get tricked by these because they look like so many other apps on Facebook. Maybe you should avoid temptation and not allow every app out there to connect to your account. (While I was researching this, I came accross Scott Stratten's - A.K.A. UnMarketing - blog post on how to lose friends and tick people off on Facebook.)

4. Social Abbrev. There's nothing wrong with LOL, WTF, Ouch! and KEWL unless you use them constantly. Remember you annoying uncle, cousin, spouse who said the same things over and over until you wanted to stuff mashed potatoes in your ears? Don't be that coach.

5. Social Games. As well as gifts, etc., ad nauseum. You can have fun at work but please stay focused so the rest of us can. Sorority Life, Mafia Games, Farmville, etc., I tolerate these from my relatives (barely), but not from you (unless you find a way to combine all three, which might be interesting). Don't you feel silly posting your latest livestock aquisition on Facebook? I don't think this would persuade even Old MacDonald to hire you to be his coach.

6. Social Pics and Tags. Not all of them. Most are great. You probably don't need me to tell you not to post the pics of you throwing up at that college binge party (the real sorority life). If not, stop reading this post and get thee to a 12-step program, fast. But consider your headshot. If you coach kids, then a shot of you with your kids is appropriate, but if you coach Fortune 100 execs, maybe not. And if somebody else posts or tags you in an unflattering shot, quietly request that they take it down. If you haven't annoyed them, they probably will. If not, be prepared for radical transparency. You have no more secrets.

7. Social Compulsion. Please don't fill people's Twitter streams with constant inane tweets. They will unfollow you. Direct messages are even worse. And you're not kidding anybody by tweeting nothing but Twitter names in the hope of getting noticed. Don't tweet or post unless you have something to say and definitely don't tweet constantly.

Well that's it for now. I could annoy you with a bunch of links to friend/join/follow us, like the 'Find us on Facebook' link above, but probably more valuable to you will be for you to get some training on how to attract clients effectively, which we do in our Coach 100 classes. They start again in February and they teach what actually works.

WARNING: You'll have less time for social networking when your coaching practice is full.

 Check out Coach 100 classes here.

Are you a coach who writes a great coaching blog?

Want the world to know how great your blog really is? Then the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Contest was designed for you!

Enter your blog for free. This is an awesome way to spread the word about your blog and attract new readers to it. It's also a fantastic way to engage your current readers, by inviting them to vote and give feedback. People love to get involved supporting the folks they believe in and now you can give your readers the opportunity to support you by voting, adding comments (love notes?) to your entry and inviting their friends to come support you, too! 

Who can enter? Any self-described coach (Life coach, business coach, executive coach, corporate coach), coach organization, coaching company or coaching school can enter, as long as the posts in your blog are about coaching related topics. We reserve the right to reject a blog that is not about coaching or coach related topics, is pornographic or offensive, or is just an ecommerce site pretending to be a blog. (No appeals, sorry!) 

Who decides the winners? The people who vote decide! We're using an automated voting system. We do not control who wins, except for one blog, our own. Our blog can be voted on (we want readers and feedback, too!), but it  won't be allowed to win.

What will you get if you win? You'll get a badge for your blog and/or website (similar to the one above) that declares you the winner (1st, 2nd, 3rd Place, Top Ten, or Honorable Mention), plus a write up in this blog that includes a few cool comments left by your fans and a permanent link from this site to yours. Plus bragging rights!

Why are we doing this? Blogs are a great way to reach out to the world and engage in transformative conversations. And isn't that what coaching is all about? We see this as a cool way to spread those conversations wider and wider and exchange more wisdom with great people. Read more about why coaches should be both reading and writing blogs.

When can you start voting? We're targeting May 8th for the date the contest goes live, but nominations start today and will continue through May. Voting ends June 30th and the winners will be announced July 1st! [Update: Vote for your favorite coaching blog here.] Watch for announcements that it's time to vote!

Know someone else who should enter the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Contest?  Send them this link to enter: http://tinyurl.com/coaching-blogs Or, use the links above to share with your friends and colleagues on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc.