I was recently working with a client, Bree Robbins of Paddington Pups in Brisbane. As her business coach and mentor, we were discussing how she can differentiate herself within her existing product and service offering.

I’m not advocating this is the primary theme, but rather a secondary or additional Pathway to Profit™.

When a dog attends a doggy day care it’s not just about having someone else bear the burden of keeping it for you. There are many socialisation skills your dog will benefit from.

For Bree to become an expert, she needs to start documenting what she already knows about dog socialisation skills. For example:

• What are the steps to proper socialisation?
• How is each one of the steps approached and how do you know it’s been ‘passed’ to move on to the next one?
• What is necessary for each stage to occur?
• What are the variables to be played with?
• What are the most popular conditions to overcome?
• What are the % of the most common afflictions?
• What is the diagnosis and prognosis for each?
• Aggression and unruliness, what are the tell tale signs?
• Sources of the unwanted behaviour?

By documenting her expertise, Bree is able to demonstrate her level of skill and mastery across multiple media, including her blog, direct mail, classes and of course YouTube.

This is a great idea to raise funds for charity. I share ideas like this with you to show you that when you adopt Exponential Mindset Thinking™ you can and will become more creative and innovative. Exposure to new and different ideas stimulates your Reticular Activation System (RAS) so it gets easier and easier with time. Like a muscle, your brain can be trained to seek out new ideas. Enjoy this video and let me know which one you think won the race.

Coaches are everywhere these days. Coaching is a recognized discipline used by many professionals.  However, as a distinct career it is relatively new and there are no set regulations.  Government bodies have not found it necessary to provide a regulatory standard for coaching and do not govern the education or training for the coaching industry.

Australia has no industry group or association of business coaches and no accreditation is required. You simply set yourself up as a business coach and let your work speak for itself.

Deciding to hire a business coach is a big decision. One that could mean the difference between brilliant success and utter failure. If you don’t know what you’re looking for and the qualities you need in a coach, you may end up wasting a LOT of time – and money – and end up no further ahead than you were when you started.

Life coaches are not therapists, nor consultants, therefore psychological interaction and business analysis are outside of the scope of their ability.  Some critics claim that life coaching is similar to psychotherapy, without restrictions, oversight or regulation.

So hiring a coach sounds simple enough, but you may need coaching yourself just to learn how to get the most out of a coach!  The key to success is understanding that you are largely responsible for keeping your coaching experience on track and on target.

The coaching industry is very crowded. You need to identify the right one for you. A professional who can deliver quality coaching services.  Anyone can claim to be a “business coach,” but only the top small-business coaches have skills, abilities and aptitudes and personal characteristics that make them stand out and worthy of consideration.

Here are some of the warning signs to look for when selecting a business coach:

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I recently competed in the 2009 Australian Masters Squash and World Masters Games Competitions reaching the top 12 and 18 National and International Rankings respectively. I tell you this so you know I am qualified to make the statement that squash players make terrible referees. But here’s the thing that boggles my mind. They don’t know they suck.

At the 2009 World Masters Games, I had a match that was horribly refereed – I mean it was absolutely horrendous – it wasn’t biased – the calls were bad for me AND my opponent. But the calls were just plain wrong. The referee and the marker BOTH had NO CLUE how to referee a match EVEN THOUGH they were 50 to 60 year olds with 30+ squash playing experience.

How can that be?

Then it hit me, like a beginner’s exaggerated follow-through on the back-hand swing across the head…

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