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Upping your speaking game
The Mental Breakdown - Edition #57
The #1 source of clients for executive coaches—after word of mouth—is LinkedIn.
I've spoken with hundreds of coaches and I ask each one, "Where do you find your clients?"
The most common response is, "A friend knew someone who was looking for a coach, who introduced me."
The second most common response is, "I posted about my coaching on LinkedIn, someone saw it, and they reached out."
That's often followed by—"I know I should be posting more on LinkedIn, but I find it hard to stay motivated and consistent."
99% of coaches I talk to want to be more active on LinkedIn, but they find it challenging to establish a habit.
What's ironic is that coaches often work with clients on their own motivation and on leadership and motivating their team.
I love these pieces on motivation from Alisa Cohn and Andrew LaCivita that I shared in The Mental Breakdown newsletter that emphasize that lack of motivation is often the surface-level sign of an underlying miscalibration that needs to get adjusted.
In the case of LinkedIn, what I always hear is, "It doesn't feel natural." It feels fake. It feels forced.
Where I see coaches' eyes light up, is when I help them reframe what LinkedIn means to their coaching practice.
It isn't a way to source clients and ask for attention, it's an extension of your coaching practice where you're actively learning, sharing and caring for your clients, friends and connections.
For those coaches that are active on LinkedIn—how did you build the habit? Would love to heary your different approaches. Just comment here.
Now, on to today’s tips…
From the Coaches
Don Phin shares seven steps your clients can take to improve their public speaking skills in Seven Steps to Up Your Speaking Game.
Libby Gill offers a little advice that could help your clients ease office stress and improve production all at the same time in A Little Phrase with a Big Impact.
David B. Nast says that businesses should be looking to empower leaders throughout their org chart for a more agile company in Talent Optimization - Leaders at Every Level.
Ed Batista shares how your clients can deal with defensiveness in the workplace in Defensiveness Is in the Eye of the Beholder.
Andrea Miller argues that there are too many inexperienced and naive leaders not doing enough to combat harassment in today’s business environment in Workplace Harassment Prevention Needs To Start At The Top.
Adam Griffin makes the case that the key requirement for growth in human beings is to feel discomfort, accept it, and move on in The 1 requirement of growth.
From the Operators & Investors
Manuel Frigerio argues that boosting productivity has a lot to do with your clients’ personal work habits and preferences and not general advice in Productivity routine.
Alexis Grant tells us how he had an epiphany about the importance of blockers and how he perceived them in Embracing the Indie Hacker Mentality.
Oh hey, what’s Heyday?
Heyday is an AI-powered thought partner that helps executive coaches be more present with clients. Modern coaches generate automatic session notes, detect patterns from client conversations, and write authentic thought leadership with help from Heyday.
The Mental Breakdown curates first-person stories about the challenges of leadership and tips from executive coaches on how to navigate them in a free daily newsletter.