If at first you don't succeed....

I've been waiting for a few months for the time when I would be able to write this particular blog. Earlier this week the event I'd been waiting for happened...Andy Murray won his first Grand Slam tournament.

A British educational writer, W E Hickson, was the person who was credited with writing:
'Tis a lesson you should heed, try, try, try again. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.'

And at his fifth attempt at winning a Grand Slam, he was indeed, successful.

But perseverance alone will not turn failure to success. Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That was why, after being the runner-up in three Grand Slam finals since 2008, on New Years Eve 2011 Andy Murray appointed Ivan Lendl, a former world number one and winner of eight Grands Slams as his coach and mentor.

Apart from the fact that I'm an avid follower of tennis (I even prefer it to football!), I'm also delighted that here is a very high profile example of how coaching and mentoring can have a huge impact and achieve outstanding results.

So it is with high hopes and expectations that in a few days time I start my course to gain professional qualifications in coaching and mentoring. Lots of other courses I looked at only cover coaching. Although coaching and mentoring are different, they work very well in tandem, as long as you are clear on when and why you use each of them. From Andy Murray's perspective being mentored by someone who also had been runner-up in his first four Grand Slams, he will have been able to discuss their shared experience and understand how Ivan Lendl was able to progress. A coach's job is to listen, question, challenge and listen again and help the person being coached to come up with the answers themselves.

I'm sure that this is just the start of even greater success.

Finding your personal brand

One of the most important 'must haves' for any business is a website to showcase what you offer. As part of setting up my coaching / training business I've spent hours on-line looking at web designers across the country and have finally selected one to work with.

The first step in creating my site is to think about my logo and brand. If you have a business that is selling something tangible you have a starting point from which to create your brand. But when what is being sold is intangible, in my case my knowledge, skills and experience, it is harder to visualise that as a logo.

To help me give some guidance to the web designer she has asked me to fill in a questionnaire. So I have considered what type of look I want the pages to have; I've discarded 'antique', 'artistic', 'kids' amongst others and gone for 'contemporary', 'professional' and 'approachable'. I've also considered types of font, colours and graphics. But the question that made me think the most was about slogans or tag-lines. Do I want one? And if so, what should it say?

We all have our own individual principles, values and beliefs. It may be hard to sum them up in the few words of a slogan but can you describe who you are and what you want people to know about you in a few sentences? Commonly known as The Elevator Pitch, there are plenty of tips on-line on how to put one together.

The Havard Business School have an 'Elevator Pitch' tool that helps you construct a pitch and then analyses it.  (http://www.alumni.hbs.edu/careers/pitch/)

This was my first attempt:

Recognised as an expert coach, mentor and trainer, I help individuals and businesses to maximise their strengths to enable them to excel in their chosen field. I am interested in discussing how I can help you maximise your strengths and excel.

I was quite happy with my first attempt until I saw that it was only 41 words and would take me 11 seconds to deliver; an average pitch is 231 words and takes 56 seconds. Think what opportunities I've missed with my brief speech. Back to the drawing board then!

But I do hope that even that first attempt highlights what is important to me when I coach and mentor. If I decide to incorporate a slogan under my business name it will be....maximising your strengths.