Do you tweet to Facebook and Linked In?

I think it’s nice that you can tweet to Facebook and to Linked In, but I have two questions  for those who are doing this:

• What made you decide to do it?…. and
• How is it working for you?

I’ve never been one to do something just because I can.

I guess for me, Facebook is a bit different audience than Twitter, which is a bit different than Linked In, and I want to add value, you know what I mean?  I know you can specify your Linked In tweets with #li, but still….I’m just saying, I’m not sure I’m sold.

One thing I dislike is wading through people’s tweets on Facebook. The tweets are out of context and (imho) cause alot of visual clutter. I fear the same to happen now with Linked In.

Is it just me?

What do you think?

Nebraska Coach Training February 2010

The Center for Coaching Excellence (formerly known as the Center for the Advancement of Christian Coaching) is coming to Nebraska next February to kickoff a 12 week coach training session and you’re invited!

Coach training is perfect for those in people helping careers such as consultants, counselors, managers or social workers.

Essential Coach Training will improve your personal and business relationships by giving you advanced skills in listening, creating awareness and direct communication.

I completed the first level of ECT two years ago and it was one of the best trainings I have ever received. In addition to the first in-person meeting, you will meet with your training class once per week for twelve weeks by phone. You will also have time to practice your new coaching skills with a partner coach and be mentored by an experienced coach.

The Nebraska ECT will begin Feb 19 and meets Tuesdays at 1:30 central via phone through May 4th. The kickoff session will be in Broken Bow  at the E Free Church.

For more details and information about the training, contact Mary Verstraete with CCE,  or visit the training page on the  caccoaching.com website.

You can check out the schedule for all CCE trainings in 2010 here.

Say “Yes” to the Best

Join us on Thursday, December 10th at 1pm eastern for “Say, Yes to the Best” – a teleclass given by coach Kara Burian and sponsored by the WebServant Community.

If your life is cluttered with too many demands and not enough time, this workshop is for you. You will learn how to be more decisive, how to simplify the decision making process, and (best of all), when to say ‘no’ and when to say ‘YES’.

Kara Burian is the owner of KaraBu Coaching where she helps her clients build leadership, confidence and strength within their current life situations.

A new year is unfolding before us — what a great time for good decisions — please join us!

Here is a link to the handout.

A high tech approach to an everyday service

Have you heard of Trunk Club? It is a men’s clothing service that combines high tech with high touch in a brilliant membership style business model.

When you join the Trunk Club (you have to apply to become a member) you are assigned a personal clothing expert who meets with you either in person or via webcam (you need a computer, internet connection and webcam).

Your Trunk Club clothing expert takes the pain out of shopping for you. The expert will shop, recommend, purchase and send your clothing to you so you never have to shop again. What a great idea….and a huge market. Just think of all the men you know who don’t like to shop or feel inadequate when it comes to choosing clothing.

There is a women’s version in BETA now. Hmmmmm. I might never have to lug 10 pairs of jeans into a dressing room again. Cherish the thought.

Don’t you love this very personal, high tech approach to delivering an everyday service?

So here’s the question. What is the everyday service you deliver? Is there any way to put a new spin on it using a personal, high tech approach?

What do you think?

Google Local Search Recap

We had a marvelous webinar in the WebServant Community last week on Google Local Search by Susan Fleming of Electronic Marketing Success (listen to the audio here).

Here are a few high points.

Did you know 80% of offline purchases are preceded by an online search? So if someone is looking to hire a coach or enroll in coach training,  8 out of 10 will spend time searching online before making a decision. A Google Local Search listing will help searchers in your area find you more easily.

What if your market is not local?

Susan still recommends you “claim” your business listing by completing your Google Local Search profile. You will need basic information about your business such as contact info and areas of specialty, but you can also offer coupons and links to your listings in professional directories.

Take advantage of free listings for your coaching services in professional directories such as those offered by ICF or your coach training school. Other directories to consider might be the Google Directory (linked with DMOZ.org), Peer, or Twellow (Twitter Yellow pages).

The information in your Google Local Business Profile will need to be consistent with that on your website for the best results.

Feel free to contact Susan for more information or help with completing your Google Local Business Listing.

Are you using Google Local Business Listing? How’s it going for you?

[Image: RT]

How to use an RSS feed to stay current

One of my clients asked me recently what is an RSS reader exactly and how to use RSS to stay current. I thought there might be others wondering the same thing, so I will give the basics here.

RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. To make the RSS magic happen you need two things:

1. A blog, news site, event or twitter conversation you want to “follow” or read;
2. An RSS service (aggregator or tool) which compiles all your reading in one place (Google Reader, Yahoo, Outlook, many others).

To subscribe to an RSS feed, click the orange icon you will see on most news and blog sites (or in your browser toolbar). When you click the icon you will see a page with choices of which RSS reader you want to use. Choose your reader and you are all set. When I asked on Twitter what reader people like to use for RSS most said Google Reader or Thunderbird (an open source email tool by Mozilla).

Personally I like to browse my RSS feeds on my phone. That way I can read whenever and wherever.

Hope this helps. Here is a more detailed article on RSS if you want to read further.

What have you found to work with RSS?

Tim Challies and 10 Million Words

I love books so when I read about Tim Challies’ new blog project, 10 Million Words, I signed up for the RSS, joined the Facebook group, and followed on Twitter.

10 Million Words is Tim’s commitment to read and recap (beginning Jan 1, 2010) all of America’s bestsellers in an effort to shed light on modern culture.

I admire Tim Challies because he has been blogging every day for seven years over at challies.com. [Did you catch that, every day for seven years.] Holy moly, that is a lot of blog writing. Add to that the new commitment to read and recap all the bestsellers. Now (in my eyes) he’s superhuman.

I look forward to these book reviews and good discussion, what a great idea.

6 Tips for Naming Your Company

What do I call my company? Should I use my name? Or something catchy? I like this name [insert favorite name here], but it is already taken online. Sigh. Now what?

If you are just starting a new coaching practice or a new company, naming it can be tricky. While we don’t consider ourselves naming experts, we have helped many new companies navigate the naming waters. Here is some of what we have learned along the way.

Website Makeover: Loup Basin Public Health Department

We specialize in coaching websites here at the WebServant, but we also enjoy working with communities and civic organizations.

I wanted to share with you the results of a recent web makeover project we did for Loup Basin Public Health Department (LBPHD). The goals were to improve navigation and usability for readers, and to give LBPHD an easy way to manage and update their content.

Congrats to Susan Whitcomb

We want to give a hearty congratulations to Susan Whitcomb, owner of Career Coach Academy, for the launch of her new website, susanwhitcomb.com.

We worked with Susan to give her a platform to offer career advice through her blog as well as books, resources and speaking engagements.

What a fun project it was! Thanks, Susan (and Lyndsey)!