Coach Express

For 12 days in December ICA brought you Business Basecamp - a series of teleseminars designed to build your business. For this series we scoured the web, our networks and lists of well known entrepreneurs to select the 12 most essential steps to getting any business off the ground and soaring. You can see the list of speakers here:

Its a very intense experience to sit through 1 - 3 hours of fast paced quality content each day for 12 days. I found it both exhilarating and exhausting. And an interesting thing occurred…after about day 3 I started to notice some repitition from the speakers. As the days went on this happened again and again. So although each speaker was presenting on substantially different topics, elements of their message was the same.

Here then is a list of the Top 5 Tips for Successful Entreprenuers in 2007, incorporating the most common themes and threads from http://www.businessbeacamp.com (more…)

By Robyn Logan
Strategy Director, ICA

In the last newsletter I shared some of the most frequently asked questions new coaches have around blogging. In this edition I continue, this time focussing not on WHY, but HOW.

Q. OK - so I want to get a Blog, but I have no idea how to go about it.

This one is easy. There are several free blogging options. Each one offers a very simple step by step approach to setting up your Blog. You can also choose a colour or style theme and you can even have it hosted for free!

Here are three of the most popular choices. They all have their pro’s and cons. I suggest you have a look at each of them and choose the one you feel most comfortable with.

Blogger
Wordpress
Typepad

Q. I am not sure what to write about, or what tone to adopt in my writing.

Like all forms of writing, Blogs are a genre with unique rules and conventions. The best Blogs are direct, to the point, personal, sometimes funny, informative… A List Apart has some good guidelines…

My favourite Blogs fall into 2 camps:

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ICA graduate Kelly-Lee Mansi shows how coaching made a difference at The Electricity Distributors Association.
Download PDF here

Sally Bridger
Chief Operations Officer, ICA
Budgets. For many, just the mention of this word can create feelings of overwhelming dread. Budgets are often perceived as multi page spreadsheets, streams of multi decimal numbers, binding rules, inflexible guidelines or penny pinching spending limitations. And, unfortunately, in some organisations this is actually the case.

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By Robyn Logan,
Director of Strategy, ICA

Web 2.0 is a term that is still being defined to a certain extent. To get a quick understanding check out the wikipedia definition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

And here is another definition I came across this week:

“Web-based applications and services that make it easy to create, distribute and share content (often collaboratively), while helping users find and connect with like-minded people and form social networks based on common interests. It is also described as the Read/Write web.”

Apart from the obviously amazing technologies, I have become interested in the philosophies and principles around web 2.0 as they apply to business. So by that I mean how these new ways of doing things online change the way you need to think about business and in particular your relationship with your customers and their relationship with you. (more…)

By Robyn Logan,
Director of Strategy, ICA

“Email is for old people, the only time I use email is when I talk to my Mum ”

“You have to slow down when you talk to teachers”

These quotes are from a 14 year old schoolgirl in Scotland. Her chosen forms of communication are SMS and Instant Messenger. She thinks of asynchronous communication as outdated.

I came across these quotes in a great podcast the other day by an Australian man, Michael Coghlan. It is an analysis of a recent conference presentation by Marc Prensky who wrote an article called Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants [Download Article] There was something Michael said when he was talking about Marc Prensky and his ideas on technological change and education that made me think of myself and my colleagues.

I invite you to listen to the podcast:

http://michaelc.podomatic.com/enclosure/2006-03-05T06_14_42-08_00.mp3

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Robyn Logan, Strategy Director at International Coach Academy, participated in a panel of industry speakers representing businesses exporting into China. The panel was hosted by BSI in cooperation with Austrade and explored the various issues around doing business in China. (more…)

What makes a good business presentation? Is it the content, the ways its delivered? We all certainly know how to pick a bad business presentation. Hands up everyone who has sat bored listless while some poor misguided soul flipped through a never ending power point show. I certainly have. My favourite is when the aforementioned misguided soul then actually reads every single word on the screen verbatim. But enough torture - lets move onto how to pull together a great presentation. (more…)

By Robyn Logan,
Director of Strategy, ICA

DoubleClick is an online media agency that, amongst other things conducts primary research into marketing and advertising trends, mostly in the online world. They have been around since 1994, which is early days for the internet.

DoubleClick have just published a report detailing a decade in online advertising from 1994 – 2004. This is a fantastic report and one that I recommend to all coaches, consultants and trainers. In fact anyone trying to do business on the internet should read this report. (more…)

The Art of the Business Presentation
By Robyn Logan
Director of Strategy
ICA

What makes a good business presentation? Is it the content, the ways its delivered? We all certainly know how to pick a bad business presentation. Hands up everyone who has sat bored listless while some poor misguided soul flipped through a never ending power point show. I certainly have. My favourite is when the aforementioned misguided soul then actually reads every single word on the screen verbatim. But enough torture - lets move onto how to pull together a great presentation.

I have spent most of today putting together a presentation to deliver in China next week to potential business partners. The process has been an interesting one. Not only has it required me to succinctly distill my business processes and thoughts into 2 - 3 bullet points, it has also required me to think very carefully about what makes a good presentation.

Here are my top 10 Do’s and Dont’s (more…)