NCCA Meeting Notes

28 July 2005

Attending

• Cindy Furst, John, Sue T, Carl, Susan, Carmen, Jeff, Lloyd, Holly, Judy Iverson-Gilbert, Sue Rocha

What segment or client type can you provide the most value to?

• Lloyd/ Relationship coaching, small business coaching (especially startups), wellness coaching
• Carmen/ People who are overwhelmed, chaotic, who don't know where to start. Who have done a lot but are still dissatisfied.
• Jeff/ People with diabetes, who would like it to be easier than it is.  May be new to it, or more experienced.
• Susan/ Small business entrepreneurs.  Women who doubt their abilities.
• Holly/ Teacher and change agent for new families. Teachers and other people who need to nurture themselves.
• Carl/ Individuals who are struggling with being effective and liking their job.  Executives and leaders who are trying to lead organizational change and re-building the HP culture.
• Sue T/ People who want to do soul searching.
• John/ People with a strong desire to follow through but fail to do so.  Often this might be with ADD. People might be unable to admit this. I'm starting up a new effort in tele-group-coaching based on Ginger Cockerham's materials.
• Cindy/
• Judy/ I'm new to Fort Collins. My tag line is "tools and support for learners." I do remote teaching and enjoy working with individuals and organizations to help them see the missing pieces. I'm working with Fresh Start Coaching in southern California.
• Cindy/ I started with HP in HR/Organizational Development, and moved into marketing.  In consumer marketing there's a big emphasis on branding. More recently I worked with Pentax in Golden.
• Sue R/ I'm a virtual assistant, my niche is coaches. I help coaches to obtain their financial dream of obtaining the 6 figure income. This includes marketing, developing products, taking that to groups.

Announcements

• Next meeting will be a retreat to Bobbie's house in Platteville.  August 25, 6:00-8:00, bring something to share. A map is on the website at http://nccoaches.org/maps/Bobbie.htm. She'll talk about how she uses her yurt in coaching, and we'll have a bit of  walk. If you're interested in carpooling, contact Susan at Susan@KeepItSimpleCoaching.com.
• Susan is handing out evaluation forms for the meeting, so we can get feedback on how well the topics are meeting the members' needs.
• Joan is doing a book signing Saturday at 2:00 at Barnes & Noble. http://www.beyond-success.com/calendar.cfm

Group Fun

• How does the word "hot" show up in our vocabulary?
• Carmen handed out several squirt guns for people to use whenever someone uses the word!

Branding for Life Coaches - Cindy Furst

Click here for Cindy's slides (PDF format)

• I leverage my templates from what I've learned from companies who specialize in this area.
• HP's 10-step business planning process starts with the customer need.
• It's all about figuring out what lets you deliver unique value to address your target customers' needs.
• A Value Proposition helps clarify how you differentiate your products or services. It's an internal exercise which helps you get clear.
• A Brand Image encompasses not only the services you provide, but also how you approach it.  Why is it that you can deliver the results for your clients?  You can get a lot of useful insight by asking your former clients what value they received from you.
• If you don't have lots of experience, you're still starting up a business for a particular reason, and you have to think about what makes you unique.
• You do branding to help you communicate your value to the world. It helps customers decide whether they should work with you.
• There's a fine line between claiming messages which are currently true, versus aspirations.  You need to have credibility with your customers, and perhaps target customers who aren't quite so worried about attributes that you don't have well developed yet.
• Is there a concern about over-promising with your brand promise, and having clients be dissatisfied or even sue? You have to be careful about how you communicate concrete promises.  You have to find the words which are appropriate for communicating to your customers.
• Cindy has some questions to ask your clients and others - don't have to be paid or formal clients.  Why did they "buy"? What would cause them to return? The questionnaire is here.
• Companies which are the most powerful have consistency between their internal messages to employees and their brand promise to customers.
• You can contact Cindy at: cindyfurst@msn.com

NCCA Promotion

• Susan sent out some notices for our meetings to be put in the newspapers, please let her know if you see any notices or announcements
• Jeff and Carmen will help out by contacting radio stations