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Well, we’re closing out 2011, the last 6 months of which has been a great start to the GrowLoop adventure. I can’t believe GrowLoop has been up and running for a full 6 months – it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, however, in some ways it seems like it has to have been longer with regard to how much has been accomplished.
It’s funny, because when you start any sort of venture it feels a little like being blindfolded and trying to hit a pinata. However, once you get the stick to hit the pinata you get a sense of the pinata’s location even though you’re blindfolded. Your goals and your target audience for your creative business are the pinata. You simply have to start swinging and connect with the pinata to get a sense for where it is so you can refine your approach to hit your target every time. A great book that I just finished is Steve Pressfield’s Do the Work (Amazon affiliate). It’s about the creative process, or really just making progress. Pressfield urges you to not worry that you don’t have all the answers, but unless you do the work you’ll never find them…Don’t worry about the blindfold, find the pinata, hit it, refine your approach and keep hitting it until you reach the candy inside. Being a Lovecat and developing your GrowLoop Lately, inquiries for GrowLoop’s coaching and creative marketing services have been really finding me, which is a great indication that my own GrowLoop is working – meaning I’m growing my connections, being a positive and ethical resource for others, and as a result those seeking my services are looping back to find me…it’s business karma that is very fulfilling. A great book that was suggested to me, and is very much in line with GrowLoop’s business philosophy, is Tim Sanders’ Love is the Killer App (Amazon affiliate). Read the book and being a “Lovecat” will make sense. GrowLoop is a Life Coach Certified Coaching Practice This month I finished up my life coach training through Coach Training Alliance – I passed my exam and fulfilled all the “hands-on” coaching requirements to become a certified life coach. What does that mean for you? Well, it means you’re getting better, more well refined coaching from me than you ever have. The certification process was a 6 month program that helped me more fully understand what makes up a good coaching framework in a way that will benefit my clients. My commitment to you is that I will continue to be a student of the coaching process and digital marketing for creative professionals to continue to help you find success from your marketing and your craft. The Advocate Business Because coaching services are a newer business model I often get asked, “what business are you really in?” This question comes up for a few different reasons, but mainly it’s because coaching is not truly consulting and it’s definitely not therapy, but to the outside person who has not had experience with a coach it can seem like it should be some level of consulting or therapy. That’s primarily because consulting and therapy are concepts they know and understand so they try to relate it back to that which they understand. Then people look confused and say, “If clients are not paying you to really have all the answers like a consultant and they’re not paying you to assess why they are they way they are to find a solution that will fix them, then what does a coach really do, and for what are clients paying?” The truth is, as a coach, I’m in the advocate business. I work with clients who are intelligent and motivated to improve and get where they want to go. However, because they’re smart, they recognize that they need some assistance beyond themselves to increase their forward progress toward their goals. Such clients aren’t fully aware, at least on the surface, as to what assistance they need to accelerate their forward progress to reach their desired objectives they simply understand that they’re struggling to figure it out on their own. A coach is their advocate to help them break through what are often self-doubting, self-imposed mental barriers (not always, but often). For whatever reason those are the kind of barriers that keep people spinning in circles or paralyzed from pushing forward. As their coach and advocate, I’m an unattached outside business partner hired to be supportive and objective about the client’s challenge. As the client’s advocate I ask questions to help build the client’s self-awareness about much of their own expertise that the client may have been reluctant to tap into due to preconceived notions or various fears. As their advocate I help them identify a road map to where they want to go and help set incremental action steps – steps that the client will help identify and agree to. As the client’s advocate I hold the client accountable to those identified action steps, supporting and encouraging the client to take those actions within the time frame for which we agreed. This is where rubber meets the road and accelerated progress begins to take shape. Subsequent coaching sessions will build on the progress of the previous session and actions steps taken by the client. Accomplish your goals in the new year with a coach Learn more about coaching. If you’re interested in starting your new year off right and are thinking about hiring a coach, contact me (Nick Venturella – owner of GrowLoop) for a no-obligation free phone consult to find out how coaching might benefit you. Posted by: Nick Ventuerlla
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