“In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different” Coco Chanel.

6 simple steps to differentiate yourself from competition

If you want to succeed, you need to stand out from competition. Almost all business owners know that; however only few of them really do it. The common reason why they don’t differentiate their offers is because they don’t know how to do it. In this article, you will find a complete process of 6 simple steps to help you create a competitive advantage that will make you different from your competitors:

1. Know your target market: This is the starting point of any business. Your business will always depend on your customers. You need to know them as much as you can. Start by knowing who they are (age, gender, geographic location...Etc.) but also their buying habits, their problems and needs, their values and common traits. See where they go, with whom they spend most time, who they go to in order to solve their problems. Try to hang out with them: listen to them, observe their behaviors and understand their needs.

The more you know about your customers the better is!

2. Know your competition: Your competitors must be your first teaching source. See what they are offering, how they are offering it and what do customers think about their offers. You will be amazed by how valuable this information is. Do some research, visit your competitor’s websites, subscribe for their newsletters and get their brochures and all their free resources. Analyze their offers: what is working and what is not; what are their strengths and weaknesses. Try to understand how they are serving the costumers’ need (which you have already identified in step1).

3. Know yourself: This is key in the process especially when you offer a service. Keep in mind that you are unique: you need to identify your unique skills, strengths, passions and expertise. Now that you know what your customers are looking for and what is already being offered by your competitors, all you need to do is to fill what is missing by a combination of the customer’s needs and your UNIQUE product/service.

4. Choose a differentiation strategy: there are several strategies that one can choose. Here again, you need to know yourself so that you choose the one that suits you better. Take the whole process (before and after the sale): from the expression of the need to the customer care service. Pick-up one chunk, the one that- knowing who you are- you believe you can add value in.

It is important to mention that while choosing a strategy you need to be careful about three crucial factors:

· Your target’s perception: some strategies might be negatively perceived by a target market. For instance, if you are offering high quality product/service, ( and your target is wealthy people) you cannot differentiate yourself by adopting a low cost strategy because wealthy people associate cheap services/products to low quality.

· The value to your target: some differentiation strategies might not be seen as compelling by your target market. This is why it is very important to understand your customers so that you offer something valuable to them.

· The difficulties to be imitated: is it possible for your competitors to imitate your strategy and offer similar products/services? The best strategies are the ones that make you unique for a long time. However it is not always possible to find such strategies, thus, you need to always look for new ideas of differentiation. The point is to always offer something different.

5. Create a competitive advantage: The hard work is done: now you have all the information required, just assemble the parts of the puzzle and build your offer around the specific and unique thing that makes you different.

6. Inform your customers about your unique offer: A huge mistake that lot of entrepreneurs make is skipping this step. You might have an outstanding and unique offer but if you don’t communicate about it you will miss several opportunities. To inform your prospects about your offer, choose the language they use, the words that talk to them. Here again, knowing your target is very important because it will help you attract and keep them.

20+ Powerful coaching questions

I created this post to celebrate my last days as a "student-coach". Here is a collection of more than 20 powerful coaching questions that I used with my clients. You can download the pdf file by clicking on the link below:
20+ powerful coaching questions

Top 10 mistakes to avoid to fully benefit from Coaching

Coaching is becoming a famous tool that most successful people use in their businesses or lives. In fact, Executives, business owners, leaders, but also new graduated students or retired people can hire a coach. Anyone wanting to achieve a target can use Coaching but not everyone could take the most out of it. Here are the common mistakes that prevent clients from fully benefit from Coaching.

1. Coming to Coaching without knowing what it is: some people are so desperate that they want to try anything to get results. Coaching would be for them one of the things to try. Hence, they work with a coach without really knowing what is coaching or what its benefits are.

2. Not choosing the right coach: Coaching is a relationship between the coach and the client. Like all relationships, the fit between the two persons is fundamental to make the experience successful.

3. Not believing in yourself: Coaching is about achieving goals. If you want to succeed you need to believe in yourself and be sure that you can do it. Believe that it is possible and you’ll make your dream come true.

4. Not making coaching your top priority: A lot of people don’t give importance to the coaching process they are following because of the their Many people, due to their problems in their daily lives, don’t give importance to coaching process they are following.. If you want to benefit from the experience and return your investment, you need to take coaching seriously: avoid session cancellation and keep being committed.

5. Giving little importance to some steps during the process: if you want to fully benefit from coaching you need to follow all its steps and complete all its tasks even those that might seem unimportant for you. To succeed, never underestimate tasks.

6. Being impatient: A lot of people are so eager to get results that they can’t wait for completing the whole Coaching process. They tend to skip some steps to make the process shorter and get faster results. Give time to time, do what you need to do and you will automatically get results.

7. Keeping problems and information for yourself: some people are ashamed of sharing problems. Sometimes, they just think that it is not that important to talk about it. They seem to forget that information is important no matter how pointless it might seem.

8. Not taking actions: Coaching is about taking actions. No matter how successful you are in planning; if you don’t take actions you will never achieve your goals.

9. Waiting for answers: we all like to ask for advice and wait for others to give us answers to our problems because it is easy. Keeping that attitude in Coaching will never help you get what you want. Instead, Coaching will teach you how to look for answers by yourself and look within you to find out what is the solution to the problem.

10. Not completing assignments: The assignments given by the coach are reflections and exercises to be done by the client in order to see clearer and easily find answers. This is why completing them is a must to succeed.

I am a coach... a business one and it has nothing to do with sports!

When people ask me about my profession and I answer “I am a coach” they reply with unexpected answers like “I didn’t know that you’re working in the sports domain” or “what is the team you’re coaching”. Unfortunately it seems that a lot of people are still not aware that there is coaching outside the sports world. Many people do still not know what coaching is and what its benefits in life and work are.

Because the coaching field is relatively new and because coaching is a successful discipline that works for people like you and me not only for athletes, here is a brief comparison between coaching in sports and coaching in other areas of life (like business, career transition, relationships...etc)

All types of coaching have the same purpose which is getting better results. Like an athlete, someone can hire a coach looking for better performance, a higher level of productivity or improvements in some areas of his/her life. Hence when we think of coaching (in all areas, sports included), what first comes to mind is: setting and achieving goals. However what makes coaching in sports slightly different from business or life coaching is the way of getting that result. A business or life coach asks questions and listens to the client’s answers (this includes what is said by the client but also what is NOT said through body language, eye contact, voice intonation...etc) while the sport’s coach gives instructions, orientations and advice. Another difference is that it is the responsibility and the role of the sport’s coach to come up with solutions, choose the best tactics, and strategies to improve the team’s or the athlete’s performance. Whereas, the business or life coach’s talent is to drive the client to think about solutions and ways of improvements.

If we take a look at the similarities, the most common one is that both coaches support, enthuse and encourage their clients or athletes but each type has its own way to do it.

My conclusion is that coaching in sports is different from business or life coaching though the purpose is the same. So, if you have the chance to work with a coach keep in mind that the process is different from the one used in sports.

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it (Marcus Tulius Cicero)

This is what I was thinking …
The first time I was exposed to coaching was about 3 years ago when the company I was working for tried to offer group coaching to his staff. Unfortunately; for several reasons; that experience was too short and didn’t teach me a lot about coaching. That is why I feel that my real experience with coaching started just when I enrolled in the ICA program.
I was thinking that a coach has to be an extraordinary super man (woman) who has the duty to solve all my problems by himself (1)without any effort from the client. That person would ideally be a 50 year-old person with a 7 pages CV, a lot of experience and expertise (2) and who has the answer (3) to all the questions.

This is why I was wrong …
Actually, the definition above is closer to what coaching is NOT and here are the reasons:
(1) A coach is the partner of the client and both will work together to achieve the client’s target. Only the client can guarantee the result because it is all up to him.
(2) Neither the age nor the experience are an indicator of a good coach. A coach doesn’t have to be an expert in one field because he is not a consultant or a mentor, he just has to be an expert in coaching
(3) A coach doesn’t give answers. He asks questions and the client gives answers because he has all the potential and the resources to do it.

How I see coaching from what I learned
Coaching is a new business which has a lot of similarities with other fields like consulting, mentoring, therapy… etc. However a coach is a coach because his profession has its own features that make it unique and different from any other discipline.
Coaching is a partnership between a coach and his client where both are committed to work together in order to achieve the client’s target which means in almost all the cases making the client better.

How I see coaching from what I feel
In simple and few words, a coach is your mirror he can see all what you can not see in you and works to make you see it because once you see it you will become better!

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. F Roosvelt

Fear of dark, fear to fail, fear to be disappointed, fear to be hurt, fear of the unknown …etc.

Who didn’t feel afraid of something at least once during his life journey? We all let fear, consciously and unconsciously, come into our lives without asking ourselves about how would our lives be without fear. Sometimes we are so monopolized by the daily life that we don’t even take few minutes to think about that issue. That’s why I want, today, to take a break and think about the impact of the fear on our lives.

Is it that bad to be afraid of something?

What if fear is able to change our lives to the best?

Let’s take the example of the fear to fail (which is definitely my big fear). This fear could either drive us to success or overwhelm us and dramatically limit our experiences in life. To be more accurate, let’s take an example:

Mr. X is afraid to fail; he is so obsessed by this fear that he developed, unconsciously, a process in his mind: each time he feels that fear he thinks about how could be his life if he fails. He hates so much that image of his life. And that’s what motivates him to do all his best to avoid this situation. Therefore, he made a list of all the things that cause failure in order to avoid them.

In that case, feeling fear has stimulated the person and drove him to success.

Let’s see now the case of Mr.Y who is also afraid to fail; he is also so obsessed by the same fear that he developed, unconsciously, a process in his mind: each time he feels this fear he thinks about how could be his life if he fails. But, oppositely, when Mr.Y thinks about failing he becomes stuck and so overwhelmed by that situation that he takes a passive attitude. And at the most of the cases he will relinquish to even try the experience.

In that case, feeling fear has overcome that person, prevented him to live an experience and thus, limited his life.

Thus, fear could either be positive and helpful or negative and stopping us. Franklin Roosvelt said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself… I would say that the only thing we have to fear is our perspective of fear….