Marketing Coaching: How It Works $650

Our coaching service shows you how to get more clients on a regular basis to build your business. We bring you the direct experience of decades helping both large corporations and small businesses, so you’ll know what works and what doesn’t –after all, it’s not like any of us have time to waste meeting our goals! Having proved these strategies, techniques and tools on our own business, we now have all the clients we need, and continue to test and learn new media, resources, networks, or technology to stay current for our clients.

Marketing doesn’t have to be pushy, full of spam, full of hype, or untrue to who you are. In fact, we show you how to bring an authenticity to your marketing that makes you feel good about what you’re offering—and how to sell that with integrity.

We know you don’t have the time to learn it all yourself, so our teams of strategists, designers, web experts, SEO specialists, publicists and researchers keep informed in each of their areas so you can count on us to bring you the most practical, do-able, affordable marketing we can find.

Any of the myriad marketing strategies can bring you to a halt unless you have someone to turn to when you need it. That’s exactly what this service is designed to fulfill. We act as your off-site marketing staff that you can call when a marketing task or project needs help. Or when you are sending out important promotional materials but want to make certain they will bring the result you wish. Or you’re having problems with website designers, graphic designers or publicists who are recommending expensive solutions that you want alternatives to from an experienced team. . . all these issues are typical for small businesses who discover rapid improvements when they can depend on experienced consultations.

WHO NEEDS A MARKETING COACH?
Any business owner who feels like they are:

• struggling with their marketing
  
  
• unable to define what they do so people understand it and purchase their products or services
  
  
• lacking the tools or resources to meet their financial or personal goals with their business. This often results in not having clients that one truly wants, or lack of understanding how to obtain those clients.
  
  
• have a fear and loathing of marketing or sales. Just as with anything in life, we are frustrated or fearful of things we don’t understand. Our coaching package strives to teach you the marketing principles and techniques for mastering your own marketing. We believe that if you know how to accomplish something, you can then achieve it—easy, right?  That’s why our tagline is “Knowledge is Bliss”.

WHAT YOU GET
You get 5 hours of one-on-one coaching with hands on help in any area of your marketing including:

• Direction on image design & logos, business cards, stationery, brochures, and other printed collateral or website content and design planning (actual print or website production is estimated separately, but we recommend you clarify your planning/outline first to save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars)
  
  
• Copywriting
  
  
• Website & Customized Optimizing
  
  
• Publicity & writing article
  
  
• Creating presentations and your ‘introductory/elevator speech
  
  
• Direction on how to develop advertising or other marketing strategies
  
  
• Sales training, developing a sales program to expedite and make more sales
  
  
• Instruction on how to build contacts, other list building resources
  
  
• Development of trade show exhibits, materials, strategies
  
  
• Clarity in your marketing messages: describing accurately what you do so others can understand, refer you, or hire you
  
  
• Database training & set up (for filemaker pro, only) to track sales and marketing activities
  
  
• Event production & promotion
  
  
• Developing management systems for estimating and time management
  
  
• Developing outreach to find more potential clients

HOW TO GET STARTED

1. Set up a free 15 minute telephone discussion with us (510-864-8500) so we can assess your marketing issues, ensure that we can deliver answers, or refer you to an expert who can. We know people have deep issues with marketing (we went through the same evolution in our feelings about marketing as our clients), and we want to make sure you have realistic goals for the time and money you’ve budgeted before you sign up for our coaching. Nope, we won’t talk you into something you’re just not comfortable with—that’s not our style.
   
   
2. Once we’re both ready to proceed, you’ll sign our contract and an ‘authorization’ for just this first 5 hour coaching package. Later, if you have not accomplished all you need with this first package, you’ll be able to purchase more packages of time, as needed.
   
   
3. Once the contract and authorization are signed and returned, we’ll send you an intake questionnaire so you can get us up to speed on all you’ve done in your marketing so far, what your goals are-short & long term, and give us some background so we can spot the gaps in your marketing and turn it around.
   
   
4. When the questionnaire is returned, we’ll set our first ‘planning meeting’. This first meeting is for 1.5-2 hrs. where we’ll discuss in depth what is working and what isn’t, define strategies or ‘fixes’ to put into place, and maybe start crafting some marketing messages to bring clarity to your promotion. Generally writing an entire brochure cannot be done in our intake session, but certainly getting some clarification is likely. We’ll craft a marketing action plan for your first year so you’ll know what actions to take and how to go about it. Then, when you need more specific help on any of the items (i.e.; writing a press release, setting up a database, editing a promotional letter, etc.) you can call or email us for help then.
   
   
5. The remainder of your 3.5 hrs. can be used for any specific marketing help you need. Often people email us when they have an important proposal they need to send and want us to review it for improvements. Or perhaps they are already working with a web designer but need advise on how to prepare their website content and design so it can be found by search engines. Or they have an issue with a client they need help resolving. We’re here to answer these problems as they arise, or offer our vast resources to help you.