Neil McPherson

Online coach

This service is designed to help you build an effective and unique business communication effort, not to make you a super manager.

 Of course, other services can help you with building your business plan, financing and developing your business structure, designing your ‘look’ and managing your business affairs day-to-day. I will refer you to recommended suppliers for those services, so that I can focus on your business communication style and methods. I will guide you towards the creation of fully effective content that turns to the arts for inspiring examples of creativity. We test techniques that can easiy be carried over to the business environment

 I can assist you online with communicating your start-up plans and announcements, or review your communications after your first several years of operation. I’ll help point you towards fresh ways to thrust your business ahead and help you experience more personal satisfaction and enjoyment in your work.

 Why would a business person in the field, trained or self-taught, even need a mentor coach?

 My first answer is that the struggle at the workface will severely blunt your creativity - in the early years especially.

There is just so much to do, instead of promoting the business! That is probably how you feel now. The challenge for you is to view your business communication challenges with the clear eyes of a child or - as though you were encountering them for the first time.

There must be a space for that fresh feeling of energy in your business. It is the hub of creativity and is can be lost in the general rush.

 Online coaching can save you money. Here’s how…

A true mentor, whose background credentials, credibility and empathy with your business communication concerns, can save you the hefty cost and time of hiring a specialist staff for to tackle each one as it arises. For (think about this) you don’t have to house him, feed and water him, insure him, or pay him off when the time has come for him to move on. He’s fair cost, low maintenance and dedicated to serving you (up to a limit!). Above all you don’t have to spend time and money training him – a long as your briefing at the outset of your relationship is searching, thorough and true to your business goals and ideals.

 Is online coaching 24/7 possible?

 In some cases - because your mentor/client relationship is largely, if not completely, an online relationship) he might live in a different hemisphere from you. That means: while you sleep, he’s at work on your behalf. His brain is functioning while yours takes a rest. This can be a boon when you face a deadline, such as a major pressure-presentation to be debugged and fine-tuned and ready to go - tomorrow morning.

 So, what will I do for you?

 The numerous elements in your marketing mix must hum along in harmony with your business goals. The simple fact is that producing quality content for your communication effort can be dauntingly time-consuming.  These days, many new forms and arenas for business communication demand your attention and time – social marketing of example. And they can swallow huge gulps of content.

Though you may have selected your marketing niche with care, to suit your offer and your skills, and though your marketing plan set up along with your pricing and service policies, you'll find the creation of even raw, unrefined content a burden that grows and grows.

 To define every aspect of your business; to shape it and hone it – all take time and concentration and a lot of talk. So it’s clear that you would benefit from a helping hand. You need to cut a few corners with your communication and your marketing efforts, while you plan and develop your business.

 How can this be achieved?

 Well, to sum it up: using mentor/coaching and my content generation tools refined for you alone.

 I will show you to employ quick, productive and unique methods to back up your own work face efforts. I will share with you my findings and experience from more than 35 years business communication and media experience on three continents. My work will be dedicated to assisting you to reach those goals of yours with crisp, effective communication content that draws on a responsive, flexible resource that responds to your needs quickly – a source that will never run dry on you.

I will act as your guide and qualified and experienced companion for content generation.

 I am not your writer, though. Where further backup is needed to augment your efforts in, say, direct mail, internet online writing, design and production of marketing materials, I will provide not just tips and suggestions but qualified contact with the best available expert in the required field. My role then would be more like executive producer or coordinator; a person who makes certain you keep the input from outside sources, firmly nailed to the mast of your business - its culture and its direction. I have a reputation for inventiveness and creative energy and these can work effectively in the background of your business.

 So where do I position myself in order to offer help to you?

 Frankly, by acting as bridge-maker between the methods of what business experts call ‘the Advertising Age’ - and the emerging face of ‘the new marketing’. It is an unusual kind of mentoring and coaching role.

Here's how a well known marketer said it. A widely-known article by the marketing supremo, Yanik Silver (he called it The Greatest Marketing Secrets of the Ages) kicks off with these words: “If you look back to the great ad men of this century (he was writing at the end of the last century) you’ll find some incredible marketing strategies you can dust off and use for your own business. I hope you realize human nature does not change. Human beings will continue being sold by the same appeals that have been used for centuries.” 

 Yanik Silver proceeds to recall the ideas of Maxwell Sackheim, a Russian-born man (like Yanik Silver is, and nine decades his junior) who wrote a fine book on marketing called My First Sixty Years in Advertising. His principal quotation from Sackheim is worth reconsideration today: “Every advertising man is familiar with the phrase ‘my business is different’. Nearly every time I have tried to convince an advertiser that a plan which has worked successfully in another business might work successfully in his, he has at least thought, if he did not actually say it, that his business is different. But the old and used ideas can be adapted to any business.”

 As you read Yanik, it sounds as if recycling is popping up everywhere including business.

Or was it always there, lurking around? Can remix, lateral thinking and thinking sideways … or whatever you want to call this process that seems like copying of use in business communication techniques that belong legitimately in today’s marketing communication?

 I think the answer is … (to borrow from and remix Bob the Builder) “Yes, they can!”

 I named the approach merging business communication and the arts and I have turned to it again and again with good results for a life-time in teaching and business communication.

The merging of arts and business dips into a bottomless well that any business communicator can drink from, as a source of fresh ideas, effective business copy of all sorts. This claim is the core difference offered by this coaching service. It not my only method but it has a big role to play in the help I provide.

 In what other ways is my service a departure from the norm you have already experienced?

 My mentor/coaching will fill a role as online associate for you as manager, to meet the specific business communication needs of your business. I offer no “all persons template” and no fixed coaching program. I provide no rigid plan for you to follow. The next stage evolves and it will take time. But naturally, short-term advantages could come quickly as your toughest biz-com nettles are grasped.

 What I will be calling upon, as the basis of my comments, advice and ideas will be over thirty-five years experience in media production and training, small business, corporate and business communication, journalism, writing and communication.

 Like most business people and professionals, I have experienced my ups and downs; made dumb errors along the way and “come back for more”. That experience added to my qualifications in education and language, provides a solid base for you to lean on. I offer you access to that background – as your back-up pillar.

 How much time will you get from my service and what will it cost?

 There will be no time limits (within reason). The number of clients I take aboard must be limited.

  My mentor/coaching will be conducted by phone, email and live media. Should you work near where I am, in Germany (Mainz), some personal office visits can be negotiated but these will be somewhat restricted by logistics: my mixed-duty schedule as father and ‘day-carer' of two young children. 

 As for the cost?

 That will vary but is based an affordable rate of US $55 an hour for short-term projects (under four weeks). An average minimum engagement would be US $1100 per month for complete service that would online coaching and rehearsals. This is not a retainer fee in the old sense, but cost for listed, itemized services.

 Perhaps after you’ve read that, you are saying, “My business cannot afford that sort of cost.” But before you opt out for now, consider the idea behind this coaching service.

 Our mutual goal will be to lift results. Correct? Then, if your small business is returning $4000 to $5,000 a month right now, we will be planning to use improved business communication and strategies to double that figure. An extra $60,000 a year. How quickly your business will make up the fee will depend on a number of diverse factors, but principally the strength and commitment you bring to your true market, and a business plan that includes clear objectives and targets. In the end, it will depend more on how effectively you take act on what you and I develop in partnership.

 To put it another way, my mentoring/coaching fee will represent a reasonable investment in your company’s future growth and your expanding income from it.  Even for a relatively new business, the investment now could have a strong impact on its future earnings.

Yes. I do undertake briefer assignments right now, but for practical purposes that service is limited. I can and will quote per short-term assignments on an hourly rate. An example would be a coaching program for a single promotional event, product launch or media conference.

 How much time will I allocate?

 There will be no time limits (within reason). The number of clients I will take aboard will be small.

 I conduct my mentor/coaching phone, email and live media. Should you live and work near where I am, in Germany (Mainz), personal office visits can be negotiated but these will be somewhat restricted by my mixed-duty schedule as father and day-manager of two young children.

 Time to decide what to do next …

 If you have an immediate need and want to get moving immediately, or if you want to ask for more details before you decide to go ahead, you can begin now by emailing me here or telephoning (+44)  6136 908225.  (The line can be busy. If it is, wait for eight rings and use that short time to prepare to give me a few details about your special needs. The phone message you will hear will welcome you to Professionalword.com - my company.)   Whenever you are, I will return your message within a day.

 I am excited at the idea of working with you on your business communication and helping you find fresh, innovative ways to ensure its effectiveness. Contact me today.

 Sincerely,

 Neil McPherson

Business coach and mentor

Professionalword.com