Josef Martens Ph.D.

I think this is the wrong question. The success of a coaching, consulting and also training business depends on our ability to niche our target client to a very small slice. The better defined your niche is, typically the more successful your professional service business will become. Your niche needs to be the perfect fit for your capabilities. The better the alignment and the narrower the niche, the better. The question you should ask yourself is not whether your network is diverse enough (unless you're a DEI professional), but whether you produce the results that you promise for your clients and whether the results of your business are where you want them to be.

Fears are something fascinating: they feel completely real and at the same time they are not part of observable reality. Fears exist in our mind and nowhere else. Getting someone to realize this, is the first step to reducing them. Once we become fully aware that fears are in our mind, we begin to see that we have control over them. As a coach, I help my coachees identify situations where they had similar fears and we explore how these fears went away. Seeing the possibility for fear to go away, is gaining access to the power to make them go away (or manage them) in any situation. Often we forget that we are the author of our thoughts and emotions, and when we forget this, we loose the author-ity to create different thoughts and emotions.

There is a super-simple way to get out of overwhelm. But before we get there, it's well worth acknowledging that getting to a full book of business is an impressive achievement. Well done to getting to this point! It usually means that clients come back to work with you again and again, because they say value in the service you provide. So, to get out of that overwhelm, increase your fees. One consequence of this will be that you loose some clients. (Maybe for the special few, grandfathering them into your pricing.) The (maybe) surprising consequence you'll discover is that you'll also attract clients that would not have worked before.

Remember, there is nothing wrong with you! Thoughts like "I can never do this" or "I always knew this was nothing I could achieve" are not only not helpful, they are in fact wrong. Catch yourself early, when you notice any such negative thoughts. Instead of the general thought that you have, redirect to a more accurate and empowering thought such as "I have not yet taken the action to get me to my goals". This is much closer to the truth, and - more importantly - unlike the earlier thoughts, it leaves you in full ownership and power. The hard truth is: a thought like "I can never do this" is avoiding responsibility and ownership and in fact a declaration of victimhood. Don't do this - chose empowering thoughts instead.

The #1 marketing piece you need to show on a speaker website is a mind-blowing demo video. It needs to show you on a stage, ideally with a large audience, and it needs to show how you move the audiences emotion. #2 are testimonials from past clients. Select the ones that are outcome focused, talk about take-aways and what audience members plan to take to their teams.

Having clear goals is the beginning - and the cornerstone - of understanding how much impact you had as a leader. The second component is for you to take an honest look how much of the goal achievement was really up to you. Having impact means that you are the cause in the matter. Anything short of that, and you probably weren't the one with the most impact. Nothing wrong with that. It just means that next time you need to ask yourself: "Who am I in this matter?" If you decide to be a cause in the matter, you need to take a stance and do whatever it takes to make the outcome happen (within legal and ethical limits, of course). Stepping into that level of accountability shows the impact you have, and it makes you grow as a leader.