FOCUS ON THE CHALLENGE

What is your biggest challenge right now?

When coaches come to me for help, they aren’t looking for coaching. They are looking for solutions to their biggest challenge.

If you want to succeed, don’t try to solve all of your problems. Focus on your next most important challenge. Stay focused until you reach success.

Distraction is the enemy of our success. How many courses and books have your started but never finished? At that time, you had a challenge you were trying to overcome.

Did the challenge just go away? Or, did you get distracted by the next big thing.

LOSING CLIENTS

A year ago, my business hit a plateau. I wasn’t gaining clients as fast as I wanted. Things really slowed.

My business expenses hadn’t slowed down. And my revenue wasn’t growing.

One day I was on a call with a long time client. She was my most tenured client at the time. We had been together for quite some time.

It was time to renew our agreement, and she dropped the bomb on me.

On that call, she let me know she was doubling down on her business coach and did not want to renew with me. She said she appreciated all we’ve accomplished, but it was time to try something new.

Now, most all business relationships come to an end at some point. In sports, players get traded, cut or retire. In business, leaders leave for other opportunities, get fired for sub-par performance, or leave due to life changes.

Things come to an end and this was no different.

But it felt different. I was getting comfortable with our relationship, but she needed more focus.

Suddenly, I lost an important stream of revenue. And my business wasn’t growing.

More importantly, I wasn’t growing. I wasn’t doing anything to intentionally grow my business.

GETTING CLIENTS

It suddenly hit me that my clients was trimming back to gain focus. She had an important challenge she needed to solve, and focus would help her get there.

When I evaluated my situation, I realized I too was following (and paying) three different experts. They each had a different strategy to achieve a different result.

That’s when I decided landing more clients was my number one priority. So, I decided to not renew one of my coaches.

The second mentor was trimmed back tremendously. I remained involved in the group, but not to the level I had been.

And, I doubled down on the one coach that had the clearest path to helping me land more clients.

That was a year ago. In Q4 of 2022, I had my best quarter ever. More clients. Increased revenue. Incredible momentum.

That is the power of focus on your most important challenge.

Are you ready to overcome your challenge?

First, identify your most important challenge that needs to be solved today.

Next, find the one person or resource that can help you overcome that challenge.

Finally, focus on that one challenge until you overcome it. Don’t waiver.

Eliminate all other distractions. Be diligent until you succeed.

Coaches recently shared with me their most pressing challenge. Let’s give you a few examples of how to overcome your challenge.

LONG CONTENT

My biggest challenge is setting time to prepare long term content, which I am working on, but not efficiently.

Janie

Take time to create a process.

Each quarter, I create a content calendar. This calendar maps out the topics over the next 13 weeks.

By laying out the topics, I have a roadmap to see how each topic connects to the next and supports the long-term strategy.

Next, I create a rough outline for each of the 13 topics. This process takes a few hours.

Block out the time once a quarter and your content creation will be much easier.

Now that I have the outlines, I just need to create the episodes. And I repurpose the content.

Define all of the steps that need to be completed to create your episode each week. You already have the outline. Now you simply need to perform.

These steps will include equipment set up, recording, editing, exporting and publishing.

Finally, schedule it. What gets scheduled gets done.

You don’t have to do all of the steps at the same time. In fact, it’s wise to split them up.

Recording and performing require a different part of the brain than editing and posting.

There are times of the day when you are better at performing with high energy. And there are other times of the day when you are more focused for the detailed work of editing and posting.

Do the work when you’re in your zone of genius for each.

The most important part is scheduling. Put it on your calendar and honor it.

GETTING SALES

My biggest challenge in my author business right now is getting sales for my already published books and also launching myself as a Speaker.

Regards,

Creg

Which is most important? I would think being a speaker would lead to more book sales.

Many coaches spread themselves too thin.

My radio general manager once gave me a great piece of advice.

We were planning our television advertising. Part of that process was deciding which shows to advertise on.

He told me, “It’s more important to go deep rather than wide.” He wanted us to get in front of a focused audience many times rather than a broad audience once or twice.

Instead of buying every show, we purchased ads on a few shows that we knew our audience was watching. Then, we were on that show multiple times to ensure our audience saw the commercial.

When you are working to grow your podcast audience or grow your business, find three marketing vehicles that can help you get there and go all in.

Don’t try to do every strategy. It will take too long to build an audience.

Instead, pick the three that you enjoy most, you can do well, and you can do consistently.

That might include speaking at events, daily email, and podcast appearances.

It might include social media groups, YouTube advertising, and webinars with JV partners.

Pick your favorite three.

Focus on those three only. Don’t get distracted by the shiny new strategy. Stick to your three.

REBRANDING CHALLENGE

I’m rebranding my podcast to unify my business. My challenge is should I start a new podcast, or just rename the one I have?

Is there a traffic/audience size tipping-point that it makes more sense to do one over the other?

-Ryan

There isn’t really a tipping point. It all depends on the audience.

Will the new show have the same audience as the previous show?

If so, just change the name and keep going.

When the new show has a different audience, start a new show.

Cliff Ravenscraft was the Podcast Answer Man. That was also the name of his show.

Podcast Answer Man launched in December 2006 to help podcasters with everything podcasting.

Cliff pivoted to become a life coach rather than simply a podcast coach. After 438 episodes, he rebranded the show to The Cliff Ravenscraft Show.

The new podcast is devoted to helping people take their message, business and life to the next level.

The Podcast Answer Man audience could also be the Cliff Ravenscraft audience. The target just expanded a bit.

However, Cliff has now released a new version of Podcast Answer Man. He launched it in August 2021.

Every episode of the new Podcast Answer Man will be evergreen content on the topic of Podcasting. Unfortunately, he has only posted 14 episodes in 2 years.

Many podcasts have changed the name. It’s not the name that matters. It comes down to the audience.

Who are you trying to attract. Does your current audience fit that description? If so, just change the name and keep going.

 

LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR CHALLENGE

If you don’t have a mentor who can take your hand and walk you every step of the way, go to www.PodcastTalentCoach.com/apply, click the button and apply to have a chat with me. We will develop your plan and see how I can help and support you to achieve your podcast goals.