Day 24: Focusing Activities

My focusing activities for this week are to get my business bank accounts setup so that I can easily segregate business expenses from personal expenses, which will be immensely helpful for tax time.  The other activity planned for this week is to reach out to two potential mentors in my network and ask for help.  Finally, my last project is to distribute my quarterly newsletter.

My advertising on linked in has yielded 7 additional contacts who wish to receive my newsletter.  I am excited and hope that these potential leads will yield some clients for me.  

Other administrative items I need to focus on are spending some time reaching out to HR managers and doing some research.  Finding out what they are looking for when they hire a coach, where they go to look for these resources.  I know this is a pretty straightforward step to take and yet I had completely missed it.  A case of where I was too much in my head and not spending enough time doing big picture thinking.  Armed with this information I can refine my marketing strategy target those groups or locations where they are sourcing their coaches from.  In the meantime I have decided to hold off on certification until I do my market research.  It may be that that is not important to my potential clients.

I also  need to find a simple to use book keeping system that I can use to manage my finances and sales.  I want to be able to track this information and see how I am doing against my projections.  I am hopeful to find an online tool with a companion iPad app so that I can access it anywhere I have an internet connection.

I also want to spend some time thinking about my brand, my ideal client, and what my value proposition is.  I think it is unclear when I am sharing with other people.  I will say that I am proud of myself for just opening my mouth.  The other night at dinner I asked a friend if he knew any HR folks that I could talk with.  I explained the research that I wanted to do and sure enough he did know someone.  I will need to spend some time putting together my questions for my research.

I feel the excitement and momentum rising as I embark on this next chapter with my coach.