Every time we turn on the news or read the newspaper there is a story about the declining health of the economy. We have two choices. We can either do nothing or we can take action. Doing nothing increases stress and feelings of hopelessness while taking action gives us hope and energy.

This is the perfect time to turn your passion or expertise into a part-time business. A business allows you to supplement the income you earn from your job and take control of your economic destiny. In addition, you could even aim to grow your business so that the business income equals or surpasses your job income. Once this happens consistently, you can decide whether to stay in or leave your job. The ultimate in job security is when you don’t need your job income anymore.

Here are three ways to start a part-time business.

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Now that you know what your prospects want, you’re ready to start creating your products and services right?!  Before you start consider the following question:

What are the intended results you want to achieve with each of the products and services in your funnel?

It’s beneficial to determine this before creating or offering the product or service as your answers will influence your marketing strategy.

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Before you start creating new products and services, find out what your prospects want. Most people create the product only to find out that their target market isn’t interested in it. It may not address their market’s most pressing challenge or the price point may be off. Then the product creator either has to find a new target market that does want the product or ditch the product.

An ideal target market is hungry for the solution to their challenge and is willing to pay for the solution. It’s much easier to give your market what they want than to guess what they want.

Here are four ways to find out what your target market wants:

More on What Do Your Prospective Clients Want?

If you’ve been on the internet long enough, you know that everyone who visits your website or finds out about your services will not hire you as a coach.

Say only 1% of prospects hire you as a coach, what happens to the other 99%?

Do you have an email newsletter visitors can subscribe to so you can develop a relationship with them? Do you have other products and services they can purchase at a lower price?

Let’s face it. $250+ a month for a coach is a big investment for most people, especially if they’ve never experienced the benefits of coaching before.

While some prospects will intuitively know that you’re the right coach for them. Others will need to get to know you better before spending their hard-earned money. You need to prove you’re credible and can support them to get the results they want.

More on Creating a Funnel for Your Coaching Business

We’re half-way through January 2009 already!  Have you set your intentions for this year for the various areas of your life? If you haven’t, make sure you set some time aside to set your year up right!

Given that you’re reading this blog, I’m assuming that you’re interested in coaching and likely fall into one of three groups:
1.  You’re thinking about becoming a coach.
2.  You’re training to become a coach or to add coaching to your current business or job.
3.  You’re already a coach.

Regardless of what group you fall into, what is your intention this year with regards to coaching?

More on Your Intentions for Coaching in 2009