Google Places is designed to allow business owners to create and edit their listings in Google’s local database. From the business owner’s perspective, every unique listing has its own Place Page that he can manage and monitor for his account dashboard. Out of the three major search engines, Google Place has the most intuitive interface and is much more open with analytic data.

If you are starting you off-site local search campaign from scratch, the first thing that you need to do is head over to Google Places to find out whether there is already a listing for your practice. Before you log in, take a moment to consider whether you want to use your current Google account for handling your business’s listings. If it’s likely that you will have someone other than yourself managing your listings down the road, you may want to create a separate account just for your practice.

Once you’ve logged in, you can easily find out whether you business is listed in Google’s local database by entering your practice’s telephone number into the appropriate field. So long as there is no information listed under that number, you will be prompted to start entering your basic information. Google Places has a very useful feature that lets you see what your Place page will look like in a screen to the right that is updated every time you enter a new field.

While filling out the basic information for your page might seem pretty straight forward, there are a few important opportunities that you don’t want to overlook. First, be sure to provide a local telephone number as your businesses primary number, as your area code may play a role in how you appear in local results. Next, take some time to come up with professional, engaging description for your practice. This field is a great chance to stand out, as many business owners miss this opportunity to communicate their organization’s message.

The category section is a particularly important field to consider. You can select as many as five categories that apply to your business, and whether you should use all five will depend largely upon your professional service niche. If your practice offers services that apply to five different categories, the general rule of thumb is to enter all five. If you have a more specialized service, on the other hand, you may want to avoid looking like a jack of all trades and master of none.

As for the rest of the form, the more information that you can share about you practice the better. Be sure to take advantage of the opportunity to upload an image or two of your practice, such your logo and a photo of your building. If you work from home and typically meet with your clients in the field, there is an option for removing your street address from your Maps listing.

Before you submit your listing, spend a moment reflecting over the open ended Additional Details field. This is an excellent opportunity to specify the professional services that your practice specializes in, whether it be a particular body of law or medicine. By using this area to specify your areas of expertise, your listing will stand out to potential clients who are searching Google specifically for your professional service.

Once you are finished, you can expect to receive confirmation from Google that your listing has been approved within the next two to three weeks.  After your Google Place listing is up and running, you can update your site with new information, photos and videos as necessary. You will also have access to your account’s Google Place dashboard, which will provide you useful analytical data like page impressions, how often people interact with your listing and the top search queries directing users to your listing.

This article is a brief abstract from a core learning module included in a Marketing Jump Start program provided to our association and Power Practice Network members. As a member, you will gain access to our four key courses and Success Tools Pro, which provides a constant update of tools and resources for building your practice.

Goals

The first step of the GROW coaching process revolves around helping clients clearly identify their aspirations in such a way that they know precisely what success will look like when they reach it. Many clients have a general idea of what they are looking for in their personal and professional lives but have not taken an organized approach to outlining their goals. By asking probing questions about what your clients seek to achieve out of coaching, you are setting the stage for allowing them to create their own road map to success.

Current Reality

The next step of the GROW model is centered around coaching your clients to have a frank look at where they are right now compared to where they want to be when they have reached their goals. The Current Reality stage often requires coaches to pose difficult questions to their clients in order for them to identify how their own behavior may been holding them back. At the end of this stage, both the coach and the client should have a crystal clear picture of both a client’s goals as well as their current circumstances.

Obstacles and Options

With a client’s goals and current reality clearly outlined, the rest of the GROW model is focused on navigating from Point A to Point B. This requires coaches to ask the right line of probing questions to identify what is currently standing in the way of reaching success. A solid set of listening skills is required during this process, as many clients have a fairly muddled picture of what may be holding them back.

After you have identified the obstacles that a client is facing, it is time to help him or her figure out what options are available for moving forward. Be careful not to make the mistake of trying to tell your clients what to do during this stage. Instead, focus on using questions that lead them toward identifying the options, skills and resources that they have at their disposal on their own.

Way Forward

Finally, the GROW model comes to a close with asking what a client is going to do within the next few weeks in order to start moving forward. This stage tends to be easier than the other steps of the GROW model; just be sure that both you and your client have settled on clear plan of action by the end of each coaching session.

Placating Your Clients

Individuals who have limited experience in mentoring or coaching often make the mistake of avoiding confrontations at all cost, even at the expense of helping clients realize and reach their inner aspirations. In order to help clients recognize their present reality and the real or imagined obstacles that have them from reaching a particular goal, coaches sometimes have to rock the boat by asking probing questions regarding difficult topics.

Information Overload

Even the most sought after business and life coaches sometimes make the classic mistake dumping more information on a client then they could possible want or use. Although it can be helpful to provide clients with a manageable quantity of information and feed back, don’t allow your desire to educate others overstep your commitment to the core fundamentals of coaching.

Jargon Overload

As you have probably noticed, there is no shortage of cliches and jargon out there when it comes to the world of professional coaching. Due to the fact that there are so many coaching professionals out there who are constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, there is a constant stream of new terminology circulating the industry that is essentially casting the basics of coaching in a new perspective. However, your clients have not come to you to hear about the latest book on coaching that you have read, so be sure to stick to basics and language that they can understand.

Failing to Maintain a Professional Distance

When you are getting to know your first set of clients as a professional coach, it is all to easy to start sharing personal information or becoming overly familiar with the people that you are trying to coach. Remember, maintaining a professional distance is a crucial element of preserving your role as a coach, and identifying on a personal level with your clients can make it difficult to listen to what they are really trying to say.

Counseling Instead of Coaching

This point deserves particular attention because it is such any mistake for new coaches to make, and it often runs completely counter to the whole purpose of coaching. Many clients who have not worked directly with a life or business coach before are under the impression that a certain amount of counseling or therapy is part of the process. Although addressing difficult topics is part of coaching, it is up to the coach to make his or her role clear and steer sessions towards focusing on a client’s goals, present circumstances and discovering solutions to obstacles that are standing in the way of moving forward.

Choosing Goals for Your Client

As we touched upon above, many coaches make the mistake of identifying with a client’s goals or obstacles when they are first starting off. As a result, some new coaches finding themselves recommending goals for clients that they would have chosen for themselves if they were standing in their client’s shoes. Instead, use your solid coaching fundamentals of probing questions and effective listening to guide your clients toward discovering their goals for themselves.

This article is a brief abstract from a core learning module included in a Coaching Jump Start program provided to our association and Power Practice Network members. As a member, you will gain access to our four key courses and Success Tools Pro, which provides a constant update of tools and resources for building your practice.

Image by Dirk Beyer

The profession coaching industry has been growing exponentially during the last decade for one reason: Coaching works. Other approaches like counseling and mentoring are designed to address patterns of behavior or telling people what they need to do in order to improve themselves. Coaching is based on allowing clients to set the agenda themselves and find the perfect trigger points that will unleash their true potential.

Most clients seek out a life or business coach to address one particular obstacle or aspiration that they would like to confront. However, they nearly always find that the recognition of their own inner capacity serves as a catalyst that has a systemic effect throughout the personal and professional lives.

This article is a brief abstract from a core learning module included in a Coaching Jump Start program provided to our association and Power Practice Network members. As a member, you will gain access to our four key courses and Success Tools Pro, which provides a constant update of tools and resources for building your practice.

• Therapy – Many people who have not been exposed to professional coaching before incorrectly assuming that the process is essentially a less formal version of psychological therapy. While clients do discuss some of the obstacles that they are facing with their coach, life and business coaches are focused on the present and the future rather that resolving issues from the past.

• Counseling – Counseling deals with treating a specific issue such as bereavement or marital distress by providing patients with advice and suggestions for moving forward. Coaches deal with a client’s personal or professional life as a whole and refrain from giving direct advice or guidance.

• Mentoring – The coaching and mentoring processes have a few things in common, but they are not interchangeable terms. Mentors frequently use coaching techniques to help their students, but they also provide them with tutelage and direct advice. The purpose of coaching is based solely on guiding clients to overcome obstacles and reach goals on their own.

• Training – Training is a process that assumes that a person does not already have the experience, knowledge and resources necessary to reach their goals. Coaching is a process that’s based on the assumption clients already have what they need to succeed and just need someone to help them realize it for themselves.

• An Activity – Lastly, coaching is neither an activity or an event; it’s a process. Coaches help clients change their perspectives on their goals and obstacles, and the process is about much more than attending a coaching session itself.

This article is a brief abstract from a core learning module included in a Coaching Jump Start program provided to our association and Power Practice Network members. As a member, you will gain access to our four key courses and Success Tools Pro, which provides a constant update of tools and resources for building your practice.

Photo by Nepenthes

Since the first modern coaching models were first developed during the latter half of the 20th century, coaching has rapidly spread across the world as both a profession and a communication technique that has been applied to everything from corporate management to personal growth. Professional life and business coaches have helped countless clients realize that they themselves hold the keys to success in both their professional and personal lives. Today, the coaching industry is growing faster than every as more and more professionals become certified coaches in order to improve their own leadership and mentoring skills or build a rewarding coaching practice of their own.

Coaching is a process of questioning, listening and assessing that leads clients to clarify their goals while determining the best method of overcoming obstacles and making their aspirations a reality. Although most people have a general idea of what they want out of life, professional coaches are trained to ask the right types of probing questions in order for clients to clearly articulate exactly where they want to be in the future. At the same time, many people have a muddled view of what has been holding them back, and coaches know how to lead the clients toward taking a good look at precisely what obstacles are standing in the way and the best way to begin moving forward.

The coaching process is centered entirely on the clients themselves and is focused on overcoming inner doubts and limiting concepts in order to for them to recognize their true potential. When coaching is done right, the client is always behind the wheel while the coach asks him where wants to go next and how he plans on getting there.

This article is a brief abstract from a core learning module included in a Coaching Jump Start program provided to our association and Power Practice Network members. As a member, you will gain access to our four key courses and Success Tools Pro, which provides a constant update of tools and resources for building your practice.