Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

What Do I Talk About?

Posted by Anonymous on 6/16/2004 at 8:55 PM ET 250 Points
I have been asked to be the guest speaker for a group of 120 young professionals [21 - 35 yo] - lawyers, accountants, stockbrokers at a networking funtion. They want me to talk about life coaching - something inspirational.

I am an ex-Accountant and now Life Coach as well as Business and Executive Coach. The people that I have coached in this age group have hired me more so for Business startup coaching or Executive and Workplace coaching which their employers pay for [or not].

So, I'm trying to work out what to say to these people in the 15 - 20 mins I have been given to capture their interest in working with me as their coach rather than it being a purely educational "What is Life Coaching' talk and telling a success story.

Any ideas would be great. The talk will be in early August.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 6/16/2004 at 9:21 PM Accepted
    One tact would be to provide the top 5 (or whatever number) pieces of advice which people similar to this audience usually want. Think through what help you have given similar clients, and try to figure out if there are a few key pieces that come across a lot.

    Once you get the list, personalize it. Give short stories for each one from past clients (of course, don't list client names or anything like this).
  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 6/17/2004 at 12:40 AM Accepted
    There was an awesome post ealier this year. Actually there were several. Here are the links to one of my favorites and the list of the others:

    https://marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_question.asp?qstID=289

    https://marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_searchResults.asp?action=go&qstCategory=0...

    Good Luck!
  • Posted by telemoxie on 6/18/2004 at 8:37 PM Accepted
    You say, "they want me to talk about life coaching, something inspirational". It seems an obvious topic would be to "inspire" the audience to become more active in coaching others.

    You have some mammoth egos in the room, even without the attorneys. If you approach them as more of a life expert than each of them, you will quickly raise defenses. On the other hand, you can play to their vanities. After all, each of them is a successful business person, each of them is active in the business community (or they would not be at the meeting), each has learned valuable life lessons, each of them know others in the community (friends, relatives, etc.) who could use some advice and encouragement.

    You can talk about the nature of coaching, and how they can help others. As you give examples of how coaching has helped specific individuals, some may see parallels in their own situations. And as they see your enthusiasm and structured approach, and your willingness to view them as knowledgeable people with important lessons to share, some may get the idea that they could benefit from such an arrangement themselves.

    p.s. As a speaker, can you ask for a list of attendees?
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