"Introduction To Relationship Coaching"; 3 one-hour teleclasses,
Mondays, April 29, May 6, 13; 9:00am pacific/Noon eastern. Learn how to
coach singles, couples, and develop a successful Relationship Coaching
practice. Please pass this on to your colleagues! To register, visit
here.
NINE CEU's are available for eligible mental health professionals participating
in this training. To qualify you must contact us PRIOR to the start of
the training- Jana@RelationshipCoachingInstitute.com
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2. "ALL ABOUT RCI" CONFERENCE CALL
This is a one-hour conference call for helping professionals interested
in RCI trainings, programs, and membership benefits. We detail our programs
and membership benefits and answer your questions.
=> Wednesday, May 15, 9am pacific/Noon eastern
To register, e-mail
Curious about RCI/RCI? Join us! Please pass the word!
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3. NEW 5 DAY E-PROGRAM FOR SINGLES
Single and seeking your life partner? Know any singles?
Register for our FREE 5 Day e-Program For Singles: HOW TO FIND THE LOVE
OF YOUR LIFE by sending a blank e-mail to RCI5dayprogram@getresponse.com
Excerpts from "Conscious Dating®: Finding The Love Of Your Life
In Today's World" are now available by sending a blank e-mail to
ConsciousDating@getresponse.com
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4. PRACTICE BUILDING CALLS NOW ON-LINE
For the first time, by popular request, the weekly Practice Building
Intensive conference calls are now available by audio podium and web audio.
If you are not registered for the current PBI, you can join by sending
a blank e-mail to PBI-April02-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
and you will receive the information needed to join the calls or listen
to them, as well as the PBI assignments.
Many thanks to Brigitte Nadeau of www.audiostrategies.com
for making our conference calls available by Real Audio. You can listen
to a great conference call on a wide variety of practice
building topics here.
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5. RCI COACH CONFERENCE CALLS
~May 7; Singles Coaching with Laurie Cameron
~May 14; Practice Development with Laurie Cameron
~May 21; Couples Coaching with Linda Marshall
Our conference calls are FREE to RCI Coaches, and fall on the 1st, 2nd,
and 3rd Tuesday of each month, 9:00am pacific/Noon eastern
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6. THERAPIST AS LIFE COACH: TRANFORMING YOUR PRACTICE
Pat William's new book is now available! For a 15% discount, order by
calling 800-233-4830 and refer to source code 0TL - 622.
To subscribe to ILCT's new newsletter "Today's Life Coach, go to
www.lifecoachtraining.com
and click on "Free Newsletter".
Welcome New RCI Coaches!
The following coaches joined our ranks this past month:
Curtis Arnold, Jupiter, FL
Deborah DePorter, Potomac Falls, VA
Brooks Newton, Ashland, OR
Rod Newton, D.C., Ashland OR
Terry Rosander, Ph.D., Grand Rapids, MI
THANK YOU for telling your colleagues about RCI!
Congrats!
CONGRATS TO Roz Van Meter (TX) for completing her new e-book "Sizzling
Sex In 30 Days." I confess that I peeked, and it is excellent! Check
out Roz's new web site at http://SizzlingSexIn30Days.com
CONGRATS TO Laurie Cameron (CO) who writes:
"I am pleased to announce that I have been invited to be a relationship
advisor on a wonderful Internet singles' website, www.SpiritualSingles.com.
I have a number of articles posted, along with a weekly relationship tip,
and will be planning live chat sessions and online classes."
Check out Laurie's new teleclass for people struggling after their divorce-
"Beyond "I Don't" - Effective Divorce Adjustment,"
May 2nd, 5pm eastern. To sign up, send an e-mail to free@teleclass.com
and put 5847-1 on the subject line.
CONGRATS TO Susan Chapman (KY), who has launched "Coach Tech
Tools" to provide web site solutions to coaches. Check out her web
site at www.coachtechtools.com
and subscribe to her informative newsletter by sending a blank e-mail
to CoachTechTools-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
CONGRATS TO Paula Iland (Australia) who writes:
"A few weeks ago I had an info night for my weekend workshop and
only 3 out of 15 people signed up. This made me think about what I was
doing. I decided to have another info night and focus on them and what
they wanted. It seems to have worked as 6 out of the 12 signed up!"
CONGRATS TO Yvonne Chase (NY) who writes:
"This week I accomplished getting my own column (Intimate Relating)
in a local Brooklyn newspaper - Brooklyn Woman/Brooklyn Journal. My first
article - "Stop Looking, Start Attracting" is in this weeks
issue. I am very excited about this opportunity!"
CONGRATS TO Barry North (WA) who received the following testimonial
from his first pre-committed couple using our "Partners In Life"
program:
"Working with Barry is a fun, enlightening experience! He is a gifted
coach and mentor. We felt safe and comfortable sharing our relationship
issues with him.
Although we had done some work previously, Barry was able to facilitate
us in a way that allowed us to go much deeper than we ever had on our
own. We are now secure and confident in our future together."
CONGRATS TO Salila Shen (CO) who also received a great testimonial
from using the "Partners In Life" program with a pre-committed
couple:
"I've learned a great deal about how some of my issues play out
in my relationships, and more importantly, have concrete action plans
and tools for dealing with myself when they come up, rather than reacting
and dumping on my partner.
We've learned a lot of great processes to communicate when things get
rough. They're structured and very effective. I feel that we've identified
the challenges that come up and may come up in the future in our relationship
and have the tools and action plans to deal with them."
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Our coaches are certainly committed, talented, and making things happen!
It is my honor to be part of this community that is making such a difference
in the lives and relationships of others.
Have a win you would like to share? Any graduates from your RCI coaching
"find the love of their life and the life that they love?" Please
pass it on and we'll celebrate it!
Relationship Coaching Technology:
OPERATIONALIZING REQUIREMENTS
By David Steele
It is very important that we help our single clients OPERATIONALIZE requirements.
Otherwise, they have will have nothing more useful than the "list"
that most singles make of what they want in a partner.
What does "Operationalize" mean? It means that requirements
must be REAL EVENTS in a relationship, not intangibles such as feelings,
judgments, or traits.
Now, there is overlap, because "What's inside shows up on the outside,"
and a trait gets expressed into action.
For example, "honesty" can be a value, a concept, just a vague
item on a list. To be a REQUIREMENT honesty must be operationalized. Coaching
questions for doing this might be:
1. "What does honesty mean to you?"
2. "What must happen for your relationship to be honest?"
I want to get the client away from intellectualizing honesty or focusing
on how honest their partner must be, to what honesty means to them and
how it MUST SHOW UP in their life and relationship related to possible
EVENTS, which are measurable and real.
For example, let's say our client operationalizes honesty to mean "we
tell the whole truth to each other and don't hold anything back,"
and let's say it passes the requirements test- our client couldn't live
with a relationship in which the whole truth wasn't being told regularly
and would have to leave the relationship no matter how much they loved
each other and wanted to be together. You now have an operationalized
requirement for honesty-- "we tell the whole truth to each other
and don't hold anything back." This qualifies as a measurable relationship
event, not a trait, feeling, or judgment.
Next month, in what is turning out to be a series on Requirements, I
will address "HOW TO KNOW IF A REQUIREMENT IS MET."
Practice Tips:
USING AUTO-RESPONDERS TO MARKET YOUR PRACTICE
By David Steele
Auto-responders provide immediate responses by e-mail to your clients
and potential clients 24/7, and are valuable marketing and practice management
tools.
An auto-responder is a system that automatically sends your message once
someone sends an e-mail to a certain address. Over time, I have come to
increasingly appreciate auto-responders and the possibilities for using
them in my business.
Here is how I currently use auto-responders. Hopefully, you will be inspired
to increase their use in your practice as well.
1. 5 DAY E-PROGRAMS
I recently launched my first 5 Day E-program for singles: "HOW TO
FIND THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE." I plan other 5 Day E-programs for singles,
couples, and professionals.
An "e-program" is a program in which you participate by e-mail.
In my 5 Day E-Programs an e-mail is sent once a day for five days. Each
e-mail consists of useful information, suggestions, actions to take, marketing-related
invitations, links for more information, etc.
For ideas, and to see how this works, check out "How To Find The
Love Of Your Life," by sending a blank e-mail to RCI5dayprogram@getresponse.com
To develop your own 5 Day Program:
Step 1: Choose one of your niches
Step 2: List your top 5 tips addressing a compelling problem, solution,
or goal for people in that niche
Step 3: Explain each tip, give some context
Step 4: Include some suggestions and actions to take
Step 5: Include links to your web site for more info
Step 6: Include a variety of invitations to engage you
Step 7: Paste above on an auto-responder (see "Where To Get Auto-Responders"
below)
2. NEWSLETTERS
I currently have 3 newsletters, all of which are set up on auto-responders.
This only works with an auto-responder that has a broadcasting feature
independent of the programmed messages. There are several advantages to
using an auto-responder for newsletters:
Low cost, without advertising (Free to $6.00 per month, rather than
$10-$30.00 per month for some broadcast services)
Automated subscribe, unsubscribe, and management of bad addresses-
included at no extra cost
My favorite- you can easily set it up so that new subscribers immediately
receive your current month's newsletter.
To check out my newsletters and see how this works, you can send a
blank e-mail to any of the addresses below:
If you do, you will receive two e-mails immediately- a "Welcome"
e-mail and the current month's newsletter. The "unsubscribe"
link is at the bottom of every e-mail, which you can see by scrolling
to the bottom of this newsletter.
3. "OUT OF OFFICE" AUTO REPLIES
This is probably the most common use of auto-responders, and most ISP's
provide this feature.
If you are off-line for more than a couple of days (vacation, business
trip, hospitalization, etc) it is good service to your clients and prospects
to set up an auto-responder to let them know, AND you can include marketing
related invitations.
For example:
-------------------------------------------
"Thank you for contacting me. I am currently on vacation and will
respond to your message when I return on May 15th. If you need assistance
before then, please contact _______.
For cutting edge information about relationships and my programs for singles
and couples, please subscribe to my FREE monthly newsletter by visiting
http://RelationshipCoachingInstitute.com/subscribe.htm"
--------------------------------------------
Some folks set up an auto-reply that responds immediately to every e-mail,
such as "Thank you for contacting me, I will be in touch shortly."
While well intentioned, I wouldn't recommend this, unless you set up a
special e-mail address for prospects in which a prompt response is important,
such as Inquiry@YourDomain.com.
4. FOR MORE INFORMATION…
To increase the interactivity of your web site, you can use auto-responders
to send specialized information by e-mail instead of providing all the
content on your web site. Examples would be your coaching rates/policies,
your e-book, detailed recommendations, results of an on-line assessment,
etc. This makes your web site more interactive and engaging to your prospective
clients, which is more effective in building your relationship with them.
One major advantage of doing this is to capture the respondent's e-mail
address for future follow up. Most visitors to your web site will not
e-mail or call you without a compelling reason, and this is a way to increase
the effectiveness of your web site for generating new leads/prospects.
This is permission marketing; each respondent is "opting in"
as interested in what you offer, giving you permission to contact them,
and if they don't wish to be contacted further, they can always "opt-out"
by clicking the link at the bottom of each e-mail.
Then, you can program follow-up e-mails in your auto-responder to keep
in touch with your prospects. These e-mails can have more information
and invitations that may interest them. While you can do this with a newsletter,
this method results in more targeted leads, and you can reach prospects
that may not subscribe to your newsletter. Believe it or not, some folks
are reluctant to commit to subscribing to a newsletter, but are more open
to requesting specific information.
For example, visitors to my web site for singles are invited to take
my RELATIONSHIP READINESS QUIZ at http://ConsciousDating.org/members/quiz/
which asks for their e-mail address before taking it, and their results
and follow up are e-mailed by auto-responder.
5. E-PUBLISHING
It is a common marketing practice to publish e-books and provide them
as complementary downloads, usually in PDF format. I have discovered that
many tech-challenged folks have trouble with PDF, and many people don't
wish to read a book on their computer.
As long as you are providing free information (presumably to help market
yourself), you might as well make it as widely accessible and as easily
readable as possible. By setting up your chapters on an auto-responder,
you can send them out daily or weekly (you set the schedule), you can
revise them at any time, and you can include timely marketing invitations.
As an example, I put excerpts of my upcoming book for singles, "Conscious
Dating: Finding The Love Of Your Life In Today's World" on an auto-responder.
To receive 18 daily excerpts, one from each chapter, send a blank e-mail
to ConsciousDating@getresponse.com
WHERE TO GET AUTO-RESPONDERS
First, check your current ISP, web host, or shopping cart provider.
You may already have this feature available to you.
GETRESPONSE.COM is very reliable, easy to use, full of features,
cost effective, and allows for independent broadcasting. I decided to
use them for my 5 Day Programs and Conscious Dating® book excerpts.
The free version includes ads, which I would not recommend. I pay under
$6.00 per month for each of these two auto-responders by paying for
3 years in advance. A very important feature is that I can program the
sending address with my e-mail address, so each e-mail appears to be
coming from me. Check
them out here
FREEAUTOBOT.COM has the advantage of being free, supposedly without
advertisements, however each e-mail does have an advertisement- for
FreeAutobot.com! There is no upgrade available to remove this advertisement.
They don't have the features of GetResponse.com, such as broadcasting,
and I would rather not have the word "Free" in the sending
address, as it is not as professional. However, if you want a free auto-responder,
their ads are less obvious than the free version of Getresponse.com.
Check them out at http://freeautobot.com
SHOPPING CART: My newsletters and auto-responders related to purchases
on my web site are on a system included with my shopping cart account.
While not costing me extra and being full of features, I have found
their system unreliable for sending out scheduled broadcasts of a series,
such as my book excerpts and 5 Day Programs. However, I highly recommend
them as being a cost effective, easy-to-use, full-featured shopping
cart provider with good customer service, and they work well for my
newsletters and other non-serial auto-responders. To check them out
visit
here.
EASY WAYS TO MARKET YOUR AUTO-RESPONDERS
YOUR NEWSLETTER: I have a regular "Invitations" section
at the bottom of each newsletter inviting readers to get more information
from my web site and auto-responders.
YOUR WEB SITE: I have an invitation to sign up for my free 5 Day
Program Singles on every page related to singles at www.RelationshipCoachingInstitute.com
YOUR E-MAIL SIGNATURE: If you are interested in marketing your practice,
having a free and compelling invitation in your e-mail signature is
very effective and costs nothing. I know many practitioners who are
not yet doing this, mostly because they haven't figured out how. If
this is you, DO THIS NOW!
For MS Outlook Express, click Tools, Options, Signatures. You can design
your signature in another document, and paste it in. As an example,
here is my current e-mail signature (longer and larger than I would
recommend!): ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Steele, MA, LMFT, CLC * Relationship and Mentor Coach
David@Steele.name * http://www.David.Steele.name
=>FREE 5 Day E-Program For Singles, send e-mail to RCI5DayProgram@getresponse.com
*For singles- www.RelationshipCoachingInstitute.com/
*For couples- http://www.Partners-In-Life.com
*For helping professionals- http://www.RelationshipCoachingInstitute.com =>Free
training starts July 1
*Check out my upcoming book! http://www.ConsciousDating.com
"PLEASE SHARE WITH INTERESTED FRIENDS AND FAMILY": People
forward cool stuff they discover on the internet because it is an easy
way to keep in touch with, and help, people they care about. You can
help this process along by suggesting it directly whenever and wherever
you can.
CONCLUSION
We know that 80% of sales are made with 5 or more contacts. Auto-responders
are a great way to easily provide value, increase your # of contacts,
and build your relationship with your prospective clients. Auto-responders
are easy to use, inexpensive (even free!), and very effective marketing
and practice management tools. They work for you 24 hours a day, and are
well worth the time to set them up. I hope this article will even help
technologically challenged readers
Invitations:
I invite you to share your announcements, wins, coaching or practice
tips with the rest of us. Be visible! Let's connect! Send them to me at
I invite you to share this newsletter with a colleague. There is a tremendous
need for our services, and we need to work together. Relationship Coaching
is in its infancy, and we must collaborate to build our market niche and
position as a resource of wide appeal for anyone who wants a successful
relationship.
I invite you to listen to the following introductory recordings 24 hours
a day at your convenience online
here, or by calling 918-222-7201 and entering the extension #:
347: Introduction to Relationship Coaching for Singles
346: Finding The Love Of Your Life AND The Life That You Love
345: Conscious Dating For Relationship Success
I invite you to get the support you need to be successful in your practice.
We are available for information, training, ideas, mentor coaching, etc.
If you are a coach or therapist who received this from a colleague, I
invite you to visit our web site and contact
us for information on joining us and becoming a RelationshipCoachingInstitute Relationship
Coach. Ask about getting a free copy of our introductory audiotape, and
about our free teleclasses.
To subscribe to this newsletter, our newsletter for SINGLES, or our newsletter
for COUPLES, see this page.
For a description of RCI relationship coaching trainings, schedule,
and enrollment info, visit http://www.relationshipcoachinginstitute.com
How do you like our newsletter?
Your feedback is welcome! Until next time....
Best regards,
David Steele, MA, LMFT
Relationship Coach
CEO and Founder of RelationshipCoachingInstitute/Relationship Coaching Institute
The purpose of this newsletter is to connect, support each other, inform,
and build a strong community of coaches dedicated to helping people find
fulfillment in their lives and relationships.
This monthly newsletter is written for the benefit of RCI Relationship
Coaches, and is available to interested others. Feel free to share this
with a colleague. Your submissions and feedback are welcome!
Our Mission: To provide the tools, information and support to help singles
find the love of their life and the life that they love, and to help couples
co-create fulfilling and lasting Life Partnerships.
Copyright notice: This newsletter is copyrighted and all rights are reserved.
Feel free to share with others as long as our contact information and
authorship is included. U.S. Library of Congress ISSN#:1530-3055
