In February, I attended the ICF 2015 Business Development Series. This excellent online event included 12 sessions with leading experts on hot topics in business development such as branding, identifying a niche, social media, writing a book, passive income streams and more. Full details of this excellent online event are at this link.

Here are some of my takeaways with links to where you can find further info:

William Arruda, “The Personal Branding Guru,” did a great job hosting the 12 sessions. He packed a lot into his session about LinkedIn and how to make the most of your profile. To access his LinkedIn expertise, he suggested following his posts here: forbes.com/sites/williamarruda

 

William hosted a session with Karen Cappello of www.receiveyourniche.com . She talked about how your niche can find you. One takeaway I especially appreciated was that these two experts pronounced “niche” differently. You know – “Neesh” vs “Nitsh.” I have now been freed from thinking there must be one right way to say this word!

 

Michael Port (author, Book Yourself Solid) wants to kill the elevator speech. He’s said this for years, but reiterated it in his presentation. He says: “The elevator speech was, and still is, primarily intended to pitch venture capital or non-profits for funding, not really for the service business owner.” Instead he advises simply stating who you serve (target market) and what you help them do (or get). No canned speech. Learn more in Chapter 3 of Book Yourself Solid.

 

Carolyn Herfurth (www.thebiztruth.com) presented on passive income streams. I appreciated that even though this is her passion, she did not challenge new coaches to dive in to creating passive income streams immediately. Instead, she wisely encouraged assessing and identifying the best timing and strategy for creating your passive revenue streams.

 

For coaches who wanted to improve their speaking and presenting skills and for coaches who wanted to improve their communication with their clients (wouldn’t that be everyone?), there was a very interesting presentation on vocal intelligence with Dr. Louise Mahler. She combines her business expertise with her experience as an acclaimed opera singer. She considers vocal intelligence a key ingredient to effective leadership. Her topic was well received, although participants said they didn’t understand what she was going to talk about before attending the presentation (me included). It was very intriguing, with practical applications. The ICF shared this YouTube video of Dr. Mahler giving a similar presentation.

ICF sponsored an excellent event! If there is a 2016 Business Development Series, I recommend checking it out!