"

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 48 seconds

Business Coaching: Go to the Video

coach goldenDo you know what’s changed the most in business over the last 30 years? It’s not computers. Or phones. Or travel. Or technology. It’s business coaches. Business coaches didn’t exist thirty years ago. At least not the way they exist now. Oh I’m sure there were some super rich executives in the 1970’s living in LA and snorting cocaine who thought it would be a great status thing to have a “business coach” at their side to impress their friends. But nowadays everywhere you look there’s a “coach”.
They work out of their houses. They charge $200 per hour for their advice. They seem like they’ve got it all figured out. Except it’s never really clear what they did before they became a business “coach.” None have them are licensed, because there’s no such thing as a licensed business coach. But they all give advice on life, love and running a successful company. Even though I don’t know many who have accomplished even that.

Except for Brad Finberg. CPAs looking to enhance their client service can learn a lot from Brad.

Like any profession, the “coaching” profession (if you can call it that) has quality people that rise to the top. Which means there are people who spend their lives coaching that actually know what they’re talking about and provide a valuable service to their clients. Brad Finberg is one of those guys. He’s actually not a full time coach – he runs a construction business outside of Dallas. His business has done incredibly well, even during the last recession. He’s grown it to the point where he now has a general manager running it day to day. So he started his own coaching thing to help other contractors succeed. As coaches go, Brad’s pretty legit. He has a good resume. He’s had success. And he’s coaching because he not only likes to work with others but he’s got good advice to give. His clients love him.

Brad’s not the typical business coach you’ll meet. First of all, he’s a man (and for some reason you don’t get too many of those doing coaching). He’s actually runs a successful business, and didn’t go into coaching because he was fired from his last job or “needed more flexibility.” He doesn’t hawk his own corny books or videos. He doesn’t ridiculously describe himself as a “life coach” because, as he says “when you find someone who actually knows how to understand life let me know who that is.” He doesn’t wear a turtle neck sweater. He voted for George Bush.

So when I asked Brad what has helped him the most in becoming such a good coach he said simply “videos.” Brad uses video technology as one of his key coaching tools. And video technology has helped make his coaching business a success.

That’s because Brad’s business, like an good CPA relationship, is based on personal interaction. He coaches other business owners how to make more money, balance their lives, manage their daily professional challenges. His clients are all over the country. They’re busy people too, so he meets with them at all times during the day. He speaks to his clients at least once a week, sometimes more. He has pre-arranged sessions and is available for ad-hoc calls. And he does this all from his home office.

“Without using the video tools I use I could never have been this successful,” Brad admits.

Brad likes a service called Oovoo (www.oovoo.com). It’s a two way chat application that’s very much like the popular Skype chat application. Brad finds it much easier to use than Skype. All he does is download the application (once) and sets himself up as a user. Then he can send an email to his clients inviting them to a chat session.

With Oovoo, the client only has to click on the link in the invitation email. They’re automatically directed to Brad’s session and within seconds Brad’s smiling face appears on their screen. If the client has a webcam on their computer than Oovoo will recognize this and show his smiling face right back at Brad. (Unfortunately most of Brad’s clients aren’t smiling - remember they’re in need of coaching, right?) The two way chat session is…free. If you want to hook in more users, higher resolution or the ability to store calls you can purchase a plan. Brad, the penny pincher that he is, has never found the need to do so.

Brad also likes to use Talk Fusion (www.talkfusion.com). TalkFusion costs $175 to start and then $20 per month thereafter. For this price you can record up to a five minute video message and then blast out an email with your video embedded to one or hundreds or recipients at one time. You can do this as many times as you want. TalkFusion also offers video conferencing, live broadcasting and other features for this price too. A slightly more expensive plan expands the service, offering more users and increased video time.

Brad likes to use Talk Fusion for sending video messages. He records a weekly general business tip and then sends it out to all of his clients. Sometimes he’ll record a video message aimed directly at a particular client. “For some of my clients, it’s better to communicate my thoughts via video than writing it out in an email.” He says.

Video making isn’t for everyone. Unlike most business “coaches” Brad is a normal looking person. He does not have overly curly hair, out-of-date sport jackets or androgynous suit outfits. He’s comfortable in front of a camera. He always keeps a spare jacket and tie in his office in case he wants to make an impromptu message. And his office is clean and professional – no sheep dog snoring behind him, no mood music playing in the background, no barf inducing posters on the walls that say stupid things like “we cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”

Brad also suggests a good, high resolution camera. He likes the Flip phone that’s made by Cisco for when he’s mobile. And he also invested $150 in a decent web camera for his computer. And good lighting too. You don’t want your message looking some type of Al-Qaeda terrorist message. Your video doesn’t have to look like Avatar either. But quality is important. “People get distracted by bad video.” Brad says. “And the message can get lost.”

Which brings us to the last piece of advice from Brad. “Video isn’t everything, it’s just one part of my communications.” In other words, just because you use Oovoo or Talk Fusion doesn’t meant that you’re still not sending emails, making phone calls or…gasp…meeting with your clients face to face. Video technology is a good way to communicate but Brad uses it effectively because he uses it as part of his communications and not his only form of communication. “Nothing replaces a face to face meeting,” he says.

Unless you’re meeting with one of those other annoying business coaches that is.

 

 

 

Gene Marks
Gene Marks, a columnist, author, and business owner, writes monthly online management and technology columns for Forbes and Business Week and a bi-weekly column that appears nationally in American City Business Journals. His books include Gene\'s books include the #1 Amazon Small Business Best Seller The Streetwise Small Business Book of Lists (Adams Media), The Small Business Desk Reference (Alpha Books, 2004), Outfoxing The Small Business Owner - Crafty Techniques for Creating a Profitable Relationship (Adams Media, 2005) and The Complete Idiot\'s Guide To Successful Outsourcing (Alpha Books, 2005).

He owns and operates the Marks Group PC, a ten-person firm that provides technology and consulting services to small and medium-sized businesses. Before starting the Marks Group, Marks spent nine years in the entrepreneurial services arm of the international consulting firm KPMG in
Philadelphia where he was a senior manager.
Read 5726 times
Rate this item
(0 votes)

Visit other PMG Sites:

Template Settings

Color

For each color, the params below will give default values
Tomato Green Blue Cyan Dark_Red Dark_Blue

Body

Background Color
Text Color

Header

Background Color

Footer

Select menu
Google Font
Body Font-size
Body Font-family
Direction
PMG360 is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal data we collect from our subscribers/agents/customers/exhibitors and sponsors. On May 25th, the European's GDPR policy will be enforced. Nothing is changing about your current settings or how your information is processed, however, we have made a few changes. We have updated our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy to make it easier for you to understand what information we collect, how and why we collect it.