I don’t know where or when you’re reading this, but in most of North America, we’re in the middle of another massive lockdown due to COVID-19.

There is a saying of uncertain origin: “May you live in interesting times.”  Sometimes, it is considered a blessing, sometimes a curse … I’m going to agree that these are interesting times, but they’re no blessing.

I like to throw a little gallows humor at the situation and say that after working from home for almost three decades, I was socially distancing before it was the cool thing to do.

With all of that said, being locked down does allow us to catch up on our reading and learn new things!

Business Model You

by Timothy Clark, Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur

Two of the three authors of this book were the authors of Business Model Generation, which I recommended in the previous issue.

While that book was about helping your clients model their businesses, this one is all about you.

Within the coaching company, I’m involved with, I’ve heard a lot of recent talk about discovering your superpower.

Some people even claim you can’t be an effective and successful coach without figuring it out.

This book promises you a One-Page Method for Reinventing Your Career. Like me, if you consider coaching and consulting to be a profession, a career, or even a calling, then the shoe would seem to fit.

The terms reboot and reset are flying all over the place these days, so why not do that for your coaching career too?

The simple answer is to go for it! Maybe you have a skill you haven’t even realized.

Perhaps there’s something you’ve forgotten, and this little book will show it to you. You could be inches away from a vein of gold, and this is your treasure map.

A good friend of mine and his partner have laser-focused on a niche I never would’ve thought of, and they’re killing it!

They’re making good money and getting fantastic results for their clients. That’s a superpower for you!

Testing Business Ideas

by David J. Bland & Alexander Osterwalder

Yes, the same author again, and there will be another one … these books are all part of a series called the Strategyzer Series, and I’m really starting to like them.

If you read a lot, I’m sure you’ve noticed most series are repetitive or formulaic.

You see this in fiction as well as non-fiction books where you’re bored to tears or know the ending before you’ve barely started. These books are different.

This book boasts 44 experiments to help you find your path to scale your company. Let’s face it, most businesses fail, despite the entrepreneur’s best efforts.

Most ideas fall flat. There’s a reason why we A-B test marketing ideas to see what works (if we’re smart about it).

There’s a funny quip that says: “Half my advertising works, and half of it doesn’t, but I don’t know which half is which.” The same could be said about ideas.

If you test and measure, you’ll know the answers, though.

This book will give you a bunch of tests and exercises to put your ideas under the microscope before you spend your money on them.

Learn the testing methods and use them with your clients. If you can save them money and errors, you’ll seem like a magician, and they’ll want to keep you around a long time.

Value Proposition Design

by Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda & Alan Smith

How do you explain what you provide to your clients? Do you have a value proposition, or do you just have a sales pitch?

Can you articulate your offer? Quantify the results you’re going to get them?

If you’ve ever bought an information product online, you know that they made it worth six, eight or ten times the value of your investment this isn’t an accident; it’s a formula.

They stack the content until you have a value proposition that’s hard to refuse if there was any initial interest at all.

You can do the same with your coaching offerings.

Stack the offering until your prospect just can’t say no. (For extra marks, watch the Godfather and learn to make them an offer they can’t refuse!)

The Invincible Company

by Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith & Frederic Etiemble

Yet another fantastic book from the same team! What a superb follow-up to the concept of Value Proposition Design.

What if you offered to make your client’s company INVINCIBLE!

Okay, I must admit that a commitment like that is hard to keep and likely less than unbelievable, but it could make for quite the aspirational promise. Who wouldn’t want to make their business invincible?

A good friend of mine has created three million dollar companies in the past decade. He’s maxed out his coaching time and has a waiting list. It costs $120,000 to $300,000 to work with him for a year.

By his own admission, the most significant thing he sells is an aspirational promise. His clients get massive and shocking results. Can you do that?

While I’d like to see more small business stories, I understand that they can be hard to come across and curate.

The authors take the business models from companies like IKEA, Sears, and Dollar Shave Club, and they can be applied to smaller businesses.

Maybe your client can create a mail-order Hummus Club or figure out an innovative way to package a product like IKEA.

Every business started small and grew … You may never coach a future multinational goliath, but you might coach a regional champion.

Final thoughts …

These books could help you build an entire toolbox of processes to offer your clients.

Read them, learn from them, and apply them.

You can reinvent yourself (find your superpower); test your ideas and those of your clients; create value-driven offers that stop “no” dead in its tracks, and make both you and your clients as unbeatable as possible!

Some people claim there is a great demand for business coaches right now.

There isn’t, but there is a great need for our services.

There’s a big difference between demand and need, but you can bridge the gap with your amazing offer. Now is your time.