Discover Your Coaching Niche

So far in this article we’ve discussed motivation, and that as coaches we want to motivate our prospects to buy our coaching services.  Now we’re going to deal with the presentational style associated with motivational speaking.

If we’re going to motivate our prospects to buy from us, we should adopt a style (or form) appropriate to that aim.  Now, let’s read on… 

Form follows Function

Many people confuse the presentation style often associated with “motivational speaking” with the act of motivating someone to do something useful – such as to buy your coaching services.

Your presentation style is a decision you make based on your audience, their needs, the environment, your aim and what you’re comfortable with.  You can learn different styles appropriate to different audiences and environments, of course.  And it’s good to gain that flexibility.  But motivational speaking is not the presentation style.

The architect Louis Henri Sullivan is credited as saying, “Form ever follows function.”
That is, the form – in our case presentation style – must follow, or support, the function it will perform, in our case motivating our audience to buy.  Form and function are inseparable.  Form, or style, is meaningless without its underlying and driving function.

Don’t put the cart in front of the horse

If you try to remove “motivational speaking” from the context of who is being motivated, and to what end, you are putting the cart in front of the horse.  Motivation, as we said, is not a free-standing thing that exists in isolation.

So what do you do?

First decide on your target audience - your coaching niche, if you like. Ask them what they want most – what are they starving for?  Then offer to supply it in the form of a presentation.  If you are genuinely supplying what they want, they will be motivated to turn up and listen.

If they value your offering, and the price is less than the perceived value to them, they will be motivated to hear you out.  And if you pitch your offering appropriately, they may well be moved to buy your services.

Did you notice that last sentence?  They may be moved to buy your services.  Ah, perhaps I didn’t mention in our definitions above that motivation comes from the Middle French noun Motif “a move” and Middle/Late Latin motivus – serving to move.  So when you motivate people, you move them. 

And if you’re moving people enough to buy your offerings, then you’re a motivational speaker.

Alun Richards helps coaches find and reach their coaching niche.  Discover yours with Alun’s free mini-course, “Discover Your Coaching Niche”, available from
http://www.brandingyou.org/ecoursesales.html

© Copyright Alun Richards 2007. All Rights Reserved.  You may freely distribute this article providing you do so in its entirety; ensuring the copyright and contact details above are included.

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