Chris Barrow’s Blog

Beannacht

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets in to you,
May a flock of colours
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the curach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

John O’Donohue
Anam Cara

I remember when I was a child – many Christmas holidays would be spent watching my father trying to make things work properly – Presents that I had received but which malfunctioned.

The books, toys and chocolate selections were no problem. Choccies and sweets demolished in 48 hours, books consumed within days – toys engaged.

The problems arose with anything that either needed building or batteries before functioning.

If a gift had to be built, you could bet that the instructions would be in a form of English created in Hong Kong by manufacturers with limited skills in translation.

“Take part A and insert catch hole into park place under part B”

It clearly meant something in Cantonese – but had been very lost in translation.

Fortunately, my dad was a former Royal Navy radio operator and so had a talent for engineering and electricals. He was also a perfectionist and one of the most patient men I knew – so no matter how long or how – Part’s A & B would ultimately meet – even if he had to improvise along the way.

We were quite a poor family when I was a kid – and I remember my ultimate horror. When I was about 8 years old, they bought me a second-hand, three-wheeler bike for Christmas.

I was thrilled, until I rode down the street and the frame broke in half.

I walked back home, crestfallen, with the front wheel in one hand and the saddle in the other. Some emotional scars never heal.

Why my reminiscences?

Because this Christmas I found myself cast in the role of repair-man.

But how times have changed.

This year, I spent three days trying to get a wireless router to function in our Italian apartment, so that three laptops could surf the web simultaneously.

I tried and tried to follow the inappropriately named “easy installation wizard” but every attempt met with failure at the final hurdle – getting the router to connect via the ADSL modem supplied by Telecom Italia.

“Cheers” of praise for the help-desk at Belkin (manufacturers of the router) – they replied to my desperate Christmas Day email within 36 hours and, following the step by step guide they pointed me to on the web (cleverly hidden on their web site) I achieved success first time – at 4.00am in the morning after a sleepless night.

Result – children think I am a hero momentarily and they have all switched to a nocturnal existence so that they can IM their friends in North America.

My dad would have been proud of me.

My wish for you is the realisation that your dreams can come true if……..

you never give up

you never give up

you never give up.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was my last “call-in day” of the year.

That means we open our on-line appointment scheduler (see www.appointmentquest.com) to our clients, so that they can book themselves in for a 15-minute laser coaching telephone call with me. I make the call to them from wherever I am (and whatever time zone I am in!).

Jen Haver opens the book about a week in advance and we accept appointments on a first-come first-served basis. The book is open for three 15-minute sessions in every hour, then a 15-minute break for me. Jen also gives me an hour’s break in the middle of the day.

We operate from 8.00am till 4.00pm EST (which meant 2.00pm till 10.00pm Italian time last night).

On the morning of the day I usually print off the schedule from the web site as a PDF file and have this next to me on my desk so that I can find the telephone numbers quickly and tick off the appointments as they are completed.

These “call-in days” were introduced earlier in the year to cope with the increased demands on my time as a coach and they have been extremely successful. Tied in with our weekly reporting over the web, the clients feel more “connected” to me than they did under the open-house coaching gym model of “call me when you need me”.

Because each call is capped at 15 minutes, the clients mostly arrive well prepared (sometimes they email the agenda beforehand) and quickly became trained to respect when their time is over – because they know they are probably keeping somebody else waiting.

The calls are fun, focused and fast – a style that suits my style very well.

And every one of these days produces “truffles” – moments of real insight where either the client or I say something very powerful – and we capture it.

Its also usual to notice trends in the questions that are asked on call-in days. Yesterday the trend was coaches asking “will it work?” when suggesting various ideas to build their practices.

It can sometimes be frustrating to be asked “will it work?” because the honest answer is “I don’t know – but why don’t you try and find out?”

In my experience, too many coaches want to be assured of success before they take a risk. That, of course, is an oxymoron – a risk is a decision, the outcome of which is unknown. A calculated risk is a decision, the outcome of which is unknown but the downside protected.

You cannot grow your practice unless you take calculated risks.

In the contest of action versus figuring things out – always take calculated action – then figure things out as you go along.

It has worked for me for years – and without calculated risk I would not be a coach, have a practice and have facilitated all of the technology innovation that has allowed myself to leverage my coaching to over 150 clients each year.

A very early start – 3.45am alarm call, 5.00am cab to the airport, 7.15am flight from Manchester to Milan – I am now at 25,000 feet above France and have just finished answering the overnight batch of emails.

My eldest son Jonathan, 18, has been working North of Turin in the ski resorts and called late last night to say that he’d had enough and was coming home. The call was from a pay-phone in Turin station, to say that the train to Milan was 4 hours late – this at 11.00pm local time. So goodness knows where he will have ended up and I’m doing a worried parent trip for once (although the other “voice” says I was 2 years in work at 18 and well able to handle myself).

The reason for his return is slave labor.

The promise was free board and food, a job working at a PC for 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening, plenty of time to snowboard in the afternoons and a low but acceptable wage of 80 euros a week.

The reality was sleeping in a hovel, working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week and taking any work that his unpleasant boss decided, including a “straw-breaking” 12-hour shift washing pots. So for once I can sympathise with his decision.

The story made me recall that, when I was a teenager I had some rough work including shoveling the proverbial on a pig farm all day Saturday and being refused entry to my bus home because I stank (had to walk miles) – that job lasted one day. Also a summer job in the warehouse of a local food store, having boxes thrown at me all day to stack and carry. At the start of the summer I was a weakling with nightly bruised arms. By the end of the summer I had muscles and could throw those boxes back just as hard.

Experience of adversity is a great character builder but I hope my son gave his boss “the finger” as he left!

Yesterday, I enjoyed presenting a second webinar in the last few days to our Chicago Mentees in the Million Dollar Coaching Practice programme. We looked at Strategy 7 – Low Cost Marketing and Strategy 8 – Professional/Personal balance.

This was my first opportunity to share my thoughts and plans to develop “multiple streams of income” into my practice, following another splendid presentation by Andrea Lee in Toronto. I’ve prepared a Powerpoint slide that summarises my three-year plan and, such was the positive response yesterday that I’m considering turning this into an e-lesson in the next few weeks.

I’ll be working in Italy for the next 2 days (just a few yards from the photograph at the top of the blog) and will be dashing next door to the Hotel Barchetta to get on-line once a day. Good old Telecom Italia are now promising our broadband connection in the apartment sometime after the New Year – by which time I will be back in the UK for a month.

Friday I facilitated our third quarter workshop for clients in the San Diego and New York “chapters” of the Million Dollar Coaching Practice programme – and worked for 8 hours with 20+ coaches – all from the comfort of my UK apartment.

How?

By using the Webinar technology (ASAP 2.0) offered at www.convoq.com.

The software sits “on top” of Instant messenger and is relatively easy for my team to offer and for clients to attend – i recommend you take a look.

We researched and found the software after the good old INS refused my entry to the USA last April and it has kept my North American coaching practice alive whilst the INS decide whether or not they want me to return to the States to spend the million dollars a year that our business generates and pay over $100,000 a year in taxes – tough decision eh? Especially when I reflect that my Florida home seemed to be built by people who didn’t have a work permit between them.

Anyway – that’s enough whining from me.

Thank you Convoq for making it possible to connect via web cam, chat box and bridge with my clients and have a fun day (which began for me at 4.00pm and ended at midnight!).

I always listen out for truffles on these days and, as always, there were many.

I’ll be writing about some of them in a future ezine – but for now, here is one:

“Let the client do the work in articulating the benefit in the work that you do.” –Chris Barrow, December 17th, 2004 Q3 Webinar

When a client asks, “what benefit would there be for me in working with you/joining your programme?”

Answer:

“well you have heard my parable, my elevator speech and my presentation – you have read my business card – what benefit DO YOU think you would get?

I really “got it” on today’s call-in day with clients (15-minute laser coaching calls all day) that we deliver three outcomes in the CBS:

1. a template that I have used to create a 6/7 figure practice with 33% profit before tax for myself and 12 weeks vacation – and clients who rave about their outcomes!

2. my personal ability to hold a room of 50 people for three days and to have the time fly by;

3. a community in which the participating coaches adapt, improve and ignore the template and then share their collective experiences, create friendships and make each other accountable for progress.

Oh – and there is a 4th benefit – that as my professional life evolves, every adversity creates a new innovation.

The more I think about this, the more I realise that what we do is unique and priceless.

Enjoyed a fantastic team meeting with Jen and Barbara in Starbucks this morning.

My clarity was around understanding that my practice cannot grow unless I offer them an equity participation in the business, as opposed to just being “on the payroll”.

I love what I love to do – speak, coach and write.

I hate what I have to do – finance, sales, marketing, resources, personnel.

So I want them to do it – as co-owners in the business.

Now that’s a big decision and they have gone away to think about it.

We started our quarterly management meeting in the back of Russ’s limo this morning and chatted about the next 90-days, 12-months and three years as the car made it’s way to Niagara.

Jen had organized this as a bit of a treat for Team CB after our work at the Live Event these last three days.

We called at the Hillebrand Winery and were fascinated to listen to Archie explain how the ice wine is made – then how to taste wine properly.

He also explained how their red wine is a blend of three pure reds and that each is chosen for its strengths and to balance the other two. The wine makers say that in a blended wine, the sum of the parts is greater than the individual components.

This made me realize why we (Team CB, myself Jen and Barbara) work so well together.

We are individually talented in our unique abilities but, when blended together, the sum of our talents is greater than the individual parts.

We are a fine red wine!

Niagara was as spectacular as ever – the ladies literally squealed with pleasure as we arrived.

We lunched overlooking the Canadian Falls – a bottle of champagne, a toast to the future, great food and a fascinating discussion of where we each saw ourselves professionally in 5 years time.

Now that’s what I call a team meeting.

What on earth am I doing writing a blog entry on a Sunday morning?

1. Jet lag – haven’t slept past 4.30am since I’ve been here (5 days now);

2. Still in “work” mode. I finished my 2-day Coaching Business Forum last night with our 50 delegates and, this morning, I get to relax whilst Andrea Lee presents here “Multiple Streams of Income” workshop as a bonus session;

3. Because I am trying to re-create the habit of blogging so the best way for me to do that is to programme my mind to do this first thing as a journaling exercise.

The 2-day intensive has been a joy to deliver, very different from Vancouver in September (same slides, same me but different delegates) and we have shared amazing insights on how to develop our coaching practices.

So many “truffles” (great ideas) that it will take some time to digest them all.

We have an open format Q&A session with our clients this afternoon – I love these sessions – yours truly on a bar stool at the front of the room just asking “how can I help?” – and no inkling of how the conversation will go.

Tomorrow, a day with Team CB – Jen and Barbara, discussing our business plans for the next 90 days.