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I had a great conversation with Sports Success Consultant Jonathan Griffin this week, after he contacted me and asked to take me up on my free 30m telephone consultation call offer.

Before Jonathan saw me speak at the recent Coaches and Consultants Superconference, he was pretty-well confused about web sites. He wasn’t sure what his website should look like, nor more importantly how to get one created without spending thousands and thousands with predatory web design companies…

After watching my presentation about just how straightforward it can be to set up a proper-looking, ‘normal’ website using inexpensive easy-to-use blogging software like WordPress, he immediately took action. Within a few days he’d registered his own domain – www.jonathangriffin.co.uk – got his own low-cost hosting account, installed a copy of WordPress and instantly his website was live!

Although WordPress is designed primarily as blogging software, its also immensely flexible and can easily be used as a ‘content management system’ i.e. a means to create and edit basic pages on your website. For example, I used WordPress to create a website for a local Osteopath client of mine, even though it doesn’t have a blog at all. But now at least the Clinic owner and all the practitioners can edit and update their pages themselves without having to pay the web designer they had to previously.

During our call, I was able to give Jon some further pointers about where to find the best WordPress themes, what some of the key plugins are you need to allow you to track your website visitor statistics, easily embed videos onto your pages, and ensure that all your pages are naturally optimized to rank well in Google search engines.

We also discussed the vital importance of building an email list via an opt-in page and again, I gave Jon some useful resources to use to kick-start his new coaching business.

So, if you’re a coach or consultant who currently either don’t have a website at all, or have one that your not happy with and would like to change or at least take control of, then you too need to contact me and request a *free* 30m telephone consultation (update – this offer is no longer available).

Because my time is limited, however, so are the number of spots available, and these will be filled strictly on a first-come first-serve basis. So, don’t delay, and I look forward to also getting you ‘unstuck’ with your website soon.

If you’re a coach or therapist with an already established, successful business, then you’ve probably already asked yourself this question whenever you hear the word ‘website’.

Let’s face it, if you’ve already got more clients or patients than you have time for, what possible reason could there be for adding more work and expense to your already busy schedule?

Are you already successful in attracting new bookings? Does word-of-mouth from your existing clients bring you plenty of new referrals? Perhaps you have an effective strategy for leafleting local homes or businesses, and that brings you enough new business as it is?

I recently listened to a podcast interview between Yaro Starak and Leigh Peel about Leigh’s successful ‘Fat Loss Troubleshooter’ blog.  Despite (or I would suggest perhaps thanks to) Leigh’s busy schedule as a personal trainer during the day, she has also built up an even more successful blog and internet business, including her popular ebook on weight loss and dieting.

There are many lessons to learn from Leigh’s experience about how to grow a successful blog and web business in addition to a successful ‘day job’, which I won’t go into here, but you can listen to the interview and read the transcript at Yaro’s blog.

So, if you’re already a successful coach of therapist, with a busy day-to-day working life, then I’ve written this post just for you.

6 Reasons Why Successful Coaches or Therapists Should Have Their Own Websites

1. Its easier to be successful online if you’re already successful offline

This should be obvious but is worth emphasizing. If you already have clients, patients and a network of contacts and influencers who help refer new business to you, then a website will only make it quicker and more convenient for people to get in touch with you. A website will allow you to communicate with people collectively rather than purely on a 1:1 basis or via small groups.

2. You’ve already got lots of useful knowledge and advice to tap into

You’ve already proven that you have valuable expertise and knowledge. Yes, despite what you might think that is absolutely true. If it wasn’t true, would you have any clients at all? In Leigh’s case, she is able to publish useful tips and advice to her entire web audience in one go, rather than just repeating the same thing to people individually face-to-face.

3. You’ve got a ready-made audience from your existing clients and contact network

If you already have clients and patients, then its easy to mention your new website when you see them. A simple “I’ve started a new website with lots of special tips and advice,  feel free to go and check it out at ….” will instantly start to build your audience. And if your content is as good online as it is offline, then your audience is only likely to build up and up.

4. Your perceived authority and expertise will only increase

If you haven’t yet published your own book, then a website – and especially a blog – is almost as good. People who write books are perceived as experts, period. So, if you have a blog for the whole world to come and read, with lots of useful content, then in some ways that is even better than being a published author.

Why? Because unless your book is free not everyone will buy it, and of even those who buy the book, only a minority will read it. With a free website however, its much easier for people to consume your content as its free and in bite-size chunks. If they like what they read, they’ll devour the rest of your information and will return for more as soon as you have some. Therefore, the more people that read your content on your website, the higher you will be perceived as an expert in your field.

5. You can replace manual labour with automated systems for generating new and repeat bookings.

This is probably the most important reason for having a website if you are already in a successful business. The chances are that your business works thanks to lots of manual processes e.g. answering the phone, making bookings, answering queries about pricing etc, perhaps even chasing payments. Well, if so, then a website can start to automate as many of these processes as you wish.

To start with,  it certainly should capture people’s details via an enquiry form. It can automatically send out a reply to that person immediately thanking them for their enquiry. Your website could also offer a page of information in the form of ‘frequently asked questions’, thereby reducing the number of phone calls with the same questions time after time. Finally, you can even make special offers to people and take orders at the same time. Are you offering a special course of treatments, or a new seminar on a hot topic of likely interest to your existing customers?

6. Google is the new Yellow Pages.

Its a fact that more and more people, especially when they are looking for local services, are turning to Google before going anywhere near the Yellow Pages or other offline directories. So, if you are ranked highly for the following search term ‘physical trainer + the name of your town”, your details will be the first that they see. no longer do you have to change your business name to be ‘AAAA_Your_Name’ just to get first in the Directoty listings!

Instead, people will potentially be seeing your name first in the list! And providing your website is of a suitable professional standard, how positive a first impression do you think you’ll make? Chances are they’ll be contacting you straight away, either by phone or perhaps more likely, that very convenient, simple contact form on your web site. Indeed, they’re also likely to sign-up for your e-newsletter or blog at the same time…

On Sunday I attended a meeting in London along with other members of Dan Bradbury’s marketing mastermind group for coaches and NLPers.

Among the audience where a number of Master Coaches who work for the New Insights Life Coaching & NLP training organisation. The subject for the session was product creation, as that is such a great way to leverage your time and earn passive, recurring income in addition to more traditional coaching sessions.

Many of the questions from the group, however, focused on exactly how to get things done on the internet. This was clearly a subject where many people felt right out of their comfort zone as it is clear that many of the Master Coaches in particular are not currently using either websites or email newsletters to promote their coaching services.

So, for anyone who currently has no experience of using the internet for their business, here is the first of a 3 part series of articles about where to start…

Three Quick Ways You Can Start Using The Internet To Promote Your Coaching Business

Step 1) Creating a brochure website

This should be every coach’s first step on the road to getting the internet really working for you. Unfortunately, its also the main area of difficulty that people often face and can even be such a frustrating enough experience to put people off the idea for good.

In my first business running a small cafe/deli, I also experienced pain, frustration and expense – without any sort of positive outcome – in getting our first website up and running. The problem was, after handsomely paying for a small website, I was unable to make any changes or additions to the website without either learning a lot of technical programming languages and software, or else paying someone every time to do so for me.

What I soon came to learn, however, is that there is a much, much easier and more cost-effective way to setup a perfectly good brochure website and still be able to edit it without going to night-school to learn tech-speak stuff. These simple, stylish and easily-editable websites are called ‘blogs’ and the one I created for our shop won us our 2008 Website of the Year Award.

There are three important things to know about blogs. They are:

a) Blogs are absolutely free (no wonder many web-designers don’t want you to know this…)

b) Blogs can be installed incredibly quickly with just a couple of clicks if you have the right kind of web-site host.

b) Blogs allow you to easily create ‘static’ web pages like any normal website, but using a very simple interface that is just like writing an email. No html or other tech-language knowledge is required. This means you can easily update your website without having to ask and pay someone to do it for you!

So, if you want to create a professional-looking brochure website that you can easily update yourself then using a blog is without question the quickest, easiest and by far the most cost-effective way to do so.

Image credit ‘Found the Internets’