Why you lost my business…

Dear Sir,

About this time last year I was beginning to realise that I needed a coach. As a soloprenuer business owner I was enjoying my ‘freedom’ from corporate restrictions a little too much and knew I needed someone who could hold me to task on my business objectives and personal goals.

Around this time I received an email out of the blue from a business coach (you) inviting me to a free talk. Free is never really free of course, there was bound to be a sales pitch but that was fine as it seemed like a great opportunity to assess your credentials with a view to asking you to be my coach.

The only ‘cost’ to me was to give up an evening but to someone who highly values time with my family I wanted to check you out first, just to make sure I wasn’t wasting my time….so I naturally turned to LinkedIn (as you do….or should do!).

I found your profile pretty quickly and saw a good quality, professional looking profile picture and a headline of ‘Business coach’ – I’ve seen much better headlines but I guess it was suffice.

You didn’t have a profile summary which was a shame as I would have liked to know a bit more about you, especially why you enjoy being a coach but I could forgive you for that.

In the employment section your current employment confirmed to me that you were a business coach and that you worked for yourself and assisted a ‘wide range of corporate and individual clients’ and that you are a qualified NLP practitioner. You had been in your role for about 3 years at that point.

Then came the killer…..

Nothing!

That was it, no previous experience at all! I looked at your profile picture again, no offence but you were obviously over 30, how odd I thought. I checked your qualifications and saw you had graduated from university 13 years ago, which seemed about right.

So what on earth had you been doing for the 10 years prior to being a business coach?

Maybe you had been travelling the world…for 10 years!

Maybe you had been in prison or maybe you had been travelling in space….cryogenically frozen perhaps?

Or maybe the truth is that you, like many on LinkedIn, felt it was irrelevant to reveal your full background.

I suspect you weren’t a coach during this time but that would be no problem to me. I’m sure your experience would have served to help you be a better coach – everyone’s back story serves a purpose.

I didn’t attend the event, instead I spent the time searching LinkedIn to find a different coach, one who had a good, comprehensive profile.

We met for a coffee a week later and she has been my coach ever since!

I just thought you should know.

Kind regards

Mark

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