As coaches, we know that a Web site can bring us many new clients, and depending on how you structure your coaching business, it can be crucial to its success. But if you’ve never had a Web site before, the process can be overwhelming and confusing.

This brings us to today’s Third Degree question:

“I need a Web site for my coaching business, but I am SO not a techie, I have no idea where to begin. What should I do first?”

One of the first things you need to do is find a reliable web hosting company. Of course, this task alone can be quite daunting, but I’ve made it easier for you. I’ve come up with a checklist of essentials that your Web host must have before you should even consider working with them.

Excellent Reliability
Since your site is often the best way for your potential clients to get to know you better, there is nothing more frustrating than finding out your Web site is down, and has been for hours. You must make sure that the Web host you select not only has good reliability, but superior reliability. This is your business on the line, after all. Treat it as such and get hosting that works for you when you need it.

Superior Customer Support
When you do need help, make sure that your hosting will provide it. One thing I recommend is to contact support to ask a simple question about the hosting, before buying. That will give you an idea of what the customer service is like before you make a commitment. Because if they can handle a newbie question in a friendly and supportive manner, without talking down to you, then you can comfortably assume that they will professionally handle any major issues you may face down the road.

The Stats You Need
Several of the most popular hosts do not offer the statistics that every online business owner needs. Why should you be concerned with statistics? Stats tell you, among other things, where your visitors are coming from, how long they are staying, and which pages on your site are getting the most traffic. This information helps you tweak what isn’t working and enhance what is. So make sure you can view your site’s statistics. If the host has a CPanel as their control panel, then you’ll have the stats you need, so find a host that uses a standard CPanel.

Room to Grow
The web host you choose should offer unlimited hosting. This means that, if you add more websites to your package down the road, the price does not increase drastically for each one. Many online businesses start with one site and grow over time. Can your host grow with you?

Bandwidth and Disk Space
Also, make sure that the host you choose is in the ballpark for bandwidth and disk space. Most programs offer approximately the same amount, but if you plan to add a lot of audio or video, you will need to have adequate bandwith. So be sure to look into this as well.

A History of Happy Customers
New hosting companies are popping up daily. Some are being run by a couple of teenagers in their garage. Obviously, that’s not who I want to entrust with my business. I want to know that the company I’m choosing has been around a few years, and has a history of happy customers to show for it. Look for testimonials on the Web host’s site and ask your fellow coaches who they use.

Affordable
Last, but certainly not least, make sure you aren’t paying more than necessary. When looking for a Web host, price is always a factor, so shop around and make sure that the web host you decide upon offers a great price, BUT has all the features you need.

These are the key features that any Web host should offer before you consider doing business with them. Taking the time to find a reliable host at the start of your coaching business will help ensure your success.

If you’re looking for a few suggestions, these are the hosts that I personally use:

Bluehost – I’ve been using this host for a year and have several sites and email accounts with them. I have even registered a few domains through them. The only negative I have experienced was a less than friendly response I received via email on a support question. However, I must say that it is difficult to accurately gauge someone’s “voice” from an email, so I have not let this affect my otherwise excellent impression of them.

Reliable Webs – this is the host for Essential PLR, the site you are on. I didn’t intend to have two hosting companies, because that means I’m paying twice as much per month than I should be. But Reliable Webs has a great deal where you can buy a preloaded blog for a very low price, so I thought I would check it out. Once I purchased the blog, I was so impressed with their service, that I haven’t been able to bring myself to switch my site over to Bluehost. I’ve even considered switching my other sites over to Reliable Webs. (Big sigh.) I’ll have to make a decision soon. I’m a big tightwad and hate spending more than I have to.

Of course, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of Web hosting companies out there, so check out several before deciding. Just keep in mind the essential features above.

One of the easiest ways for a coach to sign on new clients is to offer a coaching package on a particular topic on which they are an expert. Many clients will try out coaching by signing up for a 4-week package on a topic of interest to them.

And an easy way to put together a coaching package is with private label rights content. This can be done in a few quick steps:

1.Choose the topic – As a life coach, you want to pick a topic that you coach on, and one that your clients are interested in. But you can make the decision easier by letting the PLR decide. Go through your stash of PLR on your computer and find one that fits your target market.

2. Determine how many “classes” there will be in your coaching package - The number of classes may depend on your target clients and/or the topic. Some clients want a quick 3-part, “tips”-oriented seminar, while others may be looking for 8-week ”hands-on” coaching. By the same token, some topics lend themselves to shorter courses, while others need several classes to cover all the material. Either way you go, just make sure you cover everything that needs to be covered, or your clients will leave feeling short-changed. And we don’t want that!

3. Divide the PLR into class topics – Now that you know how many classes will be in your coaching package, review your chosen PLR and begin separating it into topics. This step is probably one of the easiest since most PLR comes in packages of articles. Just start pulling individual articles under each topic heading. If your PLR is in report form instead of articles, this report may already be divided up into topics for you! If it isn’t, then you’ll need to do this step.

4. Determine the delivery method – The first option is group coaching. Many coaches offer group coaching sessions either in person, or via teleseminar. But this isn’t the only option. You can also load your coaching package into an autoresponder and turn it into an ecourse. For an example of this, go to the box up in the right-hand corner and sign up for my free 10-part ecourse on how to boost your coaching business by using PLR.

5. Market your coaching package – this topic is an entire article in and of itself. Heck, it’s an entire coaching package! And how you market definitely depends on the method of delivery you chose and your target clients. For now, I’ll leave it up to you to determine the most effective method.

Great sources of PLR that are perfect for creating coaching packages:

• PLR.me – self-help and personal development PLR for life coaches. You get articles, affirmations (these are really great coaching tools), checklists, inspirational posters, etc. Learn more about PLR.me. Or get a free 12-pack sampler here.
• Easy PLR - very affordable article packages on a variety of topics, many of which are suitable for life coaching and business coaching. Can easily be organized into a coaching package.
• Special Report Club – business coaching topics in the form of reports, along with all the marketing material you need. This is an unbeliavable resource for business coaches.
• Mostly Sane PLR – offers prewritten ecourses ready to load into your autoresponder. I must confess, my free 10-part ecourse on how to boost your coaching business by using PLR offered up in the right hand corner is one of the courses offered through this provider.

Check out these PLR providers or use content you already have to create a coaching package this week. Then come back here and tell us about the new service you’ve created for your clients. I always want to share your successes with you.

It’s Tuesday Reviewsday!

Today, I’m going to tell you about a product that I own, and use, myself. It’s Jimmy D. Brown’s Small Reports Fortune. A step-by-step manual for creating small reports and selling them for profit. This course includes everything you could possibly need to get your first small report written and selling online.

Product Description 

The course comes as a 101-page manual in PDF format, 7 downloadable MP3 sessions, 4 exclusive bonuses in PDF format and a set of video tutorials.

For this price, you’re getting a course in market research, a course in copywriting, a course in web creation, and a course in marketing your product. It’s truly a comprehensive, step-by-step course.

Who’s It For

Small Reports Fortune is  for anyone who wants to make money with information products. It’s especially useful for those who want to create ebooks but don’t know how and are intimidated by creating a large infoproduct.

Life coaches can supplement their client coaching with income from information products. And this course teaches you how to easily and quickly create short reports, or ebooks.

How It Can Ramp Up Your Coaching and Your Revenue

The small reports that you create through this manual can be used in your coaching practice in a variety of ways. For instance, you can use the reports as a coaching tool in your coaching sessions, as a supplement to your coaching sessions, as an introduction to your coaching packages, or even as a stand-alone self-coaching package. You can sell reports individually, or package several reports together for a larger info product.

With a little brainstorming, you can come up with many other ways to use small reports in your coaching business.

The Good

I know many coaches would love to add info products to their coaching businesses, but they can’t seem to squeeze the task in among their client sessions. They mistakenly think they need several hours, if not days, of uninterrupted time to write an ebook, but Small Reports Fortune shows you how to create an ebook in your spare time. 

It breaks down the steps for creating an info product into easily manageable tasks.  It also includes examples so that you understand exactly what to do and how.  Not only are you shown how to write the reports, you are also given information on how to best design, price, and sell your small report.  Finally, you’re given tips on how to use and reuse your small reports to build even more income.

The Bad

Although this is a very comprehensive course on product creation, even for a newbie, I think it does fall short in one aspect. The only thing that isn’t covered in depth is how to get traffic once you’ve gotten the report written and ready to sell. If I know Jimmy, though, this is intentional. He likes to stay on topic and deliver only what the course is intended to cover. His method of teaching is geared to avoid overwhelm.

Good news, though. Jimmy does offer several other courses with training to get traffic, especially his Sales Army Secrets and LIST Profit System. And yes, the material in those courses are delivered in the same drip-feed method, so you can implement list-building tasks in a short timeframe.

My Opinion

This course not only made it easy for me to see the huge potential in writing small reports, but it gave me a system for quickly creating a quality product and a roadmap to follow to get it to market, even when I didn’t have much time to devote to writing.

I think most new coaches wait too long to produce an info product, mostly because we often don’t think of ourselves as experts when we first start out, but also because we think it’s a daunting process.

Isn’t it interesting how we life coaches struggle with the same issues, like overwhelm and procrastination, that we help our clients overcome? I guess we can think of Jimmy as our info product coach and Small Reports Fortune as a coaching tool.

However you want to look at it, check it out for yourself at Small Reports Fortune.

If you haven’t tried private label rights content before, you may still be wondering if it’s a good investment for your life coaching business. Well, here’s an easy way to find out. And when I say easy, I mean FREE!

Once again, my friend Ronnie Nijmeh of PLR.me is being awefully generous. He’s just released a 12-pack of PLR samples including:

• 10-page pdf report on gratitude
• Personal development articles
• Affirmation self-reflections

And a whole lot more…

It’s absolutely free and the direct link to download yours is here: http://www.essentialplr.com/selfhelp.

So if you’ve been searching for high-quality self-help and personal development PLR for your life coaching site, you’ll find it at PLR.me.

That just made this week’s content creation a whole lot easier, didn’t it?

If you need ideas on where to put this PRL to use, check out these posts:

101 Ways to Use PLR Content

Use PLR to Create FAQ Pages on Your Web Site

PLR is Perfect for Podcasting