Problems with coaching in this market, or lack of solid coaching is well known too. I’ve been in two coaching programs (not yours Terry!) in the internet business market; so far both were very disappointing. The first was a couple of years ago and I paid for it monthly and finally stopped after being insulted over and over with no instruction or valid guidance given. The other I paid for a year up front because the name was well known and I trusted him… I have not had any communication from him in 3 months… and it was spotty before that. Very discouraging to say the least. These types of problems make it hard for people to get the help they need.

The fact is Terry, I’m not even IN your coaching program and you’ve answered more emails from me (and faster too) than the person who is supposed to be my coach!

I’m a little perplexed by the video preference number. I’ve posted some free videos on my blog that have really good content. Not the hyped up guru videos I get emails about everyday, but good content on building and growing a business – I’m seeing very low numbers for viewings. Maybe it’s because they’re not the “how I made $50,000 in one hour with my first product launch”, but real world stuff…

Thanks again for all your help!
Fred

Good point, make a “what they want” and “what they don’t want” sandwich. I’ve seen you do that, and that’s perhaps why I posted here, a sense that you would understand.

Teacher training is not related to internet business, unless…

…one’s internet business involves communicating, leading, teaching, and building trust.

Most of us are coaches and teachers to our audiences in some sense, even if we don’t call it that, or charge for that service specifically.

I think it’s interesting to observe that there is an established centuries old profession whose sole focus has long been that teaching process, independent of the subject matter. Generations of smart people have spent their entire careers studying it in detail.

It’s further interesting that in every net business discussion I’ve read, this ancient discipline is almost always dismissed as irrelevant, by a baby faced communication/teaching/selling industry only a dozen years old.

I sense an opportunity there for somebody…

Ryan: No point in doing surveys if “we know it all.” Probably the biggest one here is how important the online videos are and the fact that my audience overall is not as interested in the “affiliate side” as many others are.

Phil: I often say we need to sell what people want…and then also include what they need. You’ll never get people to buy what they need. But you can sneak it in with what they wanted to purchase. On teacher credentials, I have none. My own experiences with professional teachers in my past was never very good – remember I am a college dropout. I do have a couple of clients who were trained teachers in their past jobs, but that fact doesn’t really help in their internet business (except when they’re selling something related to the teaching profession).

D.J. Frost: I’ve heard from many people that conferences and workshops have had lower attendance over the past year. Many of them are turning more to online training to make up for this.

Peter: I agree. That’s why you should always go deeper than just a survey. It should be backed up with live interviews so you can dig to underlying emotions (I get that from direct contact with current clients) and real sales experience. It isn’t true until it is proven with people’s wallets. Surveys are just one element of the overall whole.

More years ago than I care to admit, I read of a customer survey concerning washing machine design. Those responding said they preferred simple dashboard controls. The manufacturer obliged. What customers bought, however, were washing machines with fancy, complicated dashboard controls — ones with bells and whistles. The manufacturer lost big time.

This is not to say that your responders were unwilling to admit the truth, nor that the results are inaccurate. Only that sometimes perception is at variance with reality.

The proof will be in the pudding.

I’ve been watching with great interest your “Blogging for Fun and Profit” dvd. I am curious how many people participated in this survey. It is very revealing about the online video training being on top. We’ve seen this in low turnouts at our live workshops lately. This has inspired us to turn to video training for our clients more now.

At the top you said, “surveys are vital to making sure you provide exactly what your audience is looking for”. This premise is an excellent one for the sales person of course.

Here’s another premise for teachers. “If the things we want to hear would get us where we want to go, we’d already be there.”

One theory is that what holds most of us back from reaching the next level is not lack of information, but an unwillingness to encounter those things that we personally don’t want to hear.

We might observe that “exactly what our audience is looking for” and “the things we don’t want to hear” are actually quite different things.

A good salesman brings us what we DO want to hear, while a good teacher brings us what we DON’T want to hear.

Here’s a question that most net business teachers don’t want to hear.

Do you have any teacher training or credentials? Have you spent years studying the mountain of experience and wisdom that has been accumulated over centuries by the teaching profession?

Few do, or will, so it’s not a question that makes a student popular. To ask that question is to be a really lousy salesperson….

… but perhaps a good teacher.

Pretty hard to do both at once, imho.

Ryan