Mathias MaulMarketing at the Interface

Hi again, just published a new article on knol: 6 Ways to Thrive During Recession. Go read it!

Phew.

My last post was concerned with our new, small and sometimes smelly project. This was more than eight months ago, and I am ever so slowly leaving my sleepless hibernation mode.

Before we got our son, I thought that having kids would change my life. Now I know that it doesn’t change a life, it takes away the old life and replaces it with a whole new one. (For the geeks among you: It’s not like upgrading from Mac OS 8 to Mac OS X or from CP/M to Ubuntu, it’s rather like being Catweazle.)

To summarize: Phew.

Unfortunately, some projects were affected by my eight-month sleepless hibernation, and didn’t move much, or at all. Beginning January 1st, I started resurrecting them, one by one, and adding new projects.

• My dearest project, HeadProCoaching® mental golf coaching, is in dire need of a re-launch and more international expansion. This is scheduled for Feb/Mar 2009. Follow @headprocoaching on Twitter to stay up-to-date.
• The main website for my marketing consulting business, maulco.de will also be relaunched Real Soon Now.
• There is a new sideline project which gained much momentum days after going live: Give the Recession the Finger! is (we believe) the perfect compact personal coaching programme [sic] for all those who have been hit by the recession and need to get back into business.
• Our new marketing association is scheduled for pre-launch next week. Follow @IMACT on Twitter to stay up-to-date.
• I narrowed the focus of my psychotherapeutic practise in Hamburg to three common ailments and repackaged the …

YEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW! Sorry to interrupt this blog post … Just received an email from my wife that our small (and, nowadays, much less smelly) project just learned to crawl. Phew, again.

• … session format. Only four-hour power sessions, this seems to be the most effective format for the majority of clients.

Gotta go now and do some more re-launching. Much to do to get back into shape, but this time I’m quite optimistic that the next post on this blog won’t take another eight months.

I always thought that I was a good, if not great, project person. I have been quite proud that I always delivered customer projects in time, budget and quality. At the same time, I am quite good at slacking off from time to time and to get the rest and relaxation I need. And what can be better than having the freedom to lay a project aside for a couple of hours, or days, knowing that it will be ready on schedule?

Last night however, I got to know my limitations. I learned that there are projects that cannot be laid aside and I was first shocked, then amazed, that sometimes procrastination is not only undesirable but simply impossible.

Last night at about 3 am, my 13-day old son prompted me, with a cunning combination of scream and smell, to pick him up and change his diapers. Seconds later, I found myself standing at the dressing table, barely awake, barely asleep, with an adorable and rewarding, yet utterly smelly and screaming child an arm’s length away.

Can you remember a time during a project when you just wanted to slack off? To have a latte in your favorite coffee shop? To drive to the beach? Just leave the thing alone, sit back and relax? Procrastination can be sooo sweet sometimes, eh?

“Slacking off is for the mind and soul. It may not be a lot of people’s cup of tea, but it’s mine.” everything2.com

So as I stood there at 3 am, doing my best to console this beautiful thing with his flailing arms, I realized that this was a kind of, uhm, project that just cannot be laid aside. I couldn’t just say “Oh well, let’s finish this design spec tomorrow and have a coffee now. It needs some incubation anyway.” I could not just slack off and have a coffee. This task had to be dealt with now, and it had to be completely finished on schedule.

(Carrying the project management metaphor further, I could have escalated the issue to my wife, but the project was at a stage where adding more resources wouldn’t have helped.)

To be honest, this was a shock and awe situation for me: For the first time in my life, I was faced with something that had to be done, now. There was no back door, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and I was staggered. So I took a deep breath of fresh, warm air through the half-open window, looked at my little project and decided to hang on.

To my surprise, it was easier than I had thought. I knew what I was doing (having learnt the tools of the diaper-changing trade years before with my cousins), and the inevitable decision to hang on actually made the process – pun intended - much smoother.

The bottom line: Whenever you are faced with a – maybe already smelly – project that’s bugging you and flailing its arms, holding on to it may not be the most pleasant thing to do (especially when the coffee shop is just around the corner). But if it helps to get the job done, and if delegation is not possible, and if all other options would lead, predictably, to a failed project, an unhappy customer and a low paycheck, just hang in there and do it.

(And don’t you say this is a commonplace until you’ve been standing with me and my small, smelly, beautiful and adorable “project” at the dressing table at 3 am!)

Last week, our wonderful son was born, and we are full of joy. (Thanks to all of you for your congratulations, good wishes and presents!)

Talking of which—Is there a better motivation to implement Tim Ferriss’ “Four Hour Workweek” than knowing that each hour spending with your beloved ones matters so much more than spending it in the daily rat race?

Two months ago, one of my customers invited me to a very upscale steakhouse in Frankfurt, Germany, to celebrate the completion of a project. The menu contained numerous errors and was more like an insult to my eyes. The so–called mousse au chocolat tasted like pure butter with a minute hint of artificial cocoa aroma. Waiters excelled in waiting for us to order while standing impatiently behind us. Flashy bloat everywhere, with very little relevant content.

Yesterday, a couple of friends and I visited a simple, small café in the Portuguese district of Hamburg, Germany. Old chairs, a glaringly loud TV in one corner of the small guest room, all slightly filthy. We ordered some galaos and drank them. When we got ready to leave and said “Thank you” to the young waiter, he smiled, replying “Oh, that’s okay. It’s my job here to make you happy.”

I could’ve had more than 160 galaos at this wonderful place with my customer for the money he had spent at the luxuriously disappointing steakhouse. If you ever come to Hamburg, be sure to visit the Café Praia de Vagueira in No. 10, Ditmar-Koel-Straße, Hamburg.

I am a big fan of short, sweet company “mantras” as suggested by Guy Kawasaki and frequently work with my clients in such a way that they know their mantra before they set out on any marketing mission.

This being said, whenever I stumble upon an old-school “mission statement”, I usually recoil in mild disgust, being reminded of the dotcom bloat in the nineties and the suits filled with no more than evenly bloated mission statements.

Recently, however, I found a company with a most charming mission statement (and a most charming owner) …

ConnectingDotz develops products that link people with ideas with people with ideas … We do this by highlighting words, images and values that unite us across boundaries of all kinds.

I know that if I hadn’t known the owner of the company before I had found the web site, I’d have clicked away quickly, and I know a great deal of people who’d have done exactly the same. It does sound cheesy, doesn’t it?

Yes. And no. Yes, because its form corresponds to many other filled-with-hot-air mission statements. No because its content is true to what they really do. Just because a mission statement sounds cheesy, by no means is it cheesy. And even though it could be replaced by a shorter, Kawasaki-style mantra, I’d rather leave it as it is.

Oh, here’s the site: www.connectingdotz.com (Nice christmas gifts, by the way!)

What makes a truly great customer? No, not that he pays your bills in time, or that he recommends your services to prospects.

If you are a web developer, you know what it’s like to spend hours on hours cursing and battling the dreaded MSIE to make it display your customer’s website correctly. A truly great customer doesn’t just e-mail you a thank you note if you succeed.

No, the mark of a Truly Great Customer is that she mails you a custom-printed t-shirt.

Thanks, Petra!

It’s done! After weeks of painstaking research and many writing sessions (not to mention all those grande cappuccinos) at my local Starbucks, the first episode of the first ever mental golf coaching podcast went live today. It is available for subscription at the iTunes Music Store.

Read the press release here: Bridging the Mental Barrier to Success in Golf. Free audiobook reveals the secrets to the perfect game.

This project is just one example of what is possible when a cleanly defined niche market is addressed with targeted online marketing. What is online now is just the beginning of a funnel marketing approach, so stay tuned and watch out for what’s to come!

Recently, Jennifer Kahn of Wired Magazine posted a great article on mental sports coaching: Wayne Gretzky-Style ‘Field Sense’ May Be Teachable

“In any sport, you come across these players,” Vint says. “They’re not always the most physically talented, but they’re by far the best. The way they see things that nobody else sees — it can seem almost supernatural. But I’m a scientist, so I want to know how the magic works.”

While much of the article is not much news to seasoned mental sport coaches, it is an interesting read for those new to the field and for potential clients as a showcase of possibilities.

With so many people talking about Timothy Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Workweek (aff), I discovered that this book was exactly the right thing to enter my life at the exactly right time. I’ve been thinking about leading a more mobile life for about half a year, but with this book I gained massive momentum and increased my actions to actually do most of what Tim is writing about.

As I’m doing marketing consulting for coaches, I’ve been asking myself: How can someone who does life coaching (or personal coaching or whatever you might call it) combine his profession with an ultra-mobile lifestyle? So here’s my 0.02 euros on the Top Five Market Niches for Vagabonding Life Coaches

No. 5: Specialize in internationally universal issues

This is not as easy as it might sound. Unbelievable as it is for my stereotypically angst-ridden fellow German countrymen, there are countries or cultures where issues such as depression are nearly unheard of. But how about, for example, the catch-all of life coaches, “work-life balance”? In any given country that suffers from a 9-to-5-culture there are thousands of potential clients just waiting for an “expert from Germany” (or the U.S., or Japan, etc.) to arrive and assist them in escaping the rat race, especially when this expert (you!) has already collected experience about this universal issue in other countries.

No. 4: Specialize in issues specific to countries or cultures

If you’re planning to spend a couple of months in another country find out about culture specific issues that you can address with personal coaching or seminars. If you’re into crisis intervention, read the news about current events that might make people scared or frightened, and offer coaching specific to these events.

Keep in mind that while it is beneficial to speak the language of your destination country, it is not as important as you might think. Instead, invest your time learning the manners of your destination country. I once coached a gentleman from Saudi Arabia using only very basic English, and it worked out great. You can also hire a professional translator for your sessions or let your client bring one of his multilingual friends. This works even in intimate personal coaching and therapeutic contexts. Don’t underestimate the increased expert status you’ll have as “foreign expert!”

No. 3: Specialize in Sports Coaching

Mental sports coaching is a huge field. I’ve been doing Mental Golf coaching for a couple of years now, but there are dozens of other sports that benefit greatly from mental coaching. Just imagine: How much does the mental state of, say, a baseball pitcher, influence the quality of his throws? How about complementing Indian cricketers’ indigenous meditation methods with some left-hemispheric mental strategy coaching á la NLP? Or working with the coach of a soccer team and introducing modern hypnosis in the pre-game process? The possibilities are endless.

No. 2: Specialize in Coaching for Musicians

Often called an “international language,” music is very closely tied to a country and its culture(s). However, the issues musicians and vocalists are faced with are universal: Stage fright before performances is omnipresent, even with well-known (and well-paid) professionals. This is true especially in the field of classical performances, but I’ve also worked with jazz pianists who wanted to “get into the flow” faster. If you successfully specialize in mental coaching for musicians, you’ll never run out of clients and all-access backstage passes.

No. 1: The Power of Self-Referential Coaching and Training

Probably the easiest and most rewarding issue to specialize if you’re inclined to be a vagabonding coach or trainer: Teach others to do what you’re doing right now. Coach them to escape 9-to-5, coach them to build their own businesses, hold seminars on lifestyle design, and so on. If you’re travelling the world and want to coach or train people, teach others how to travel the world and coach and train people. Heck, you might even want to teach others how to teach others how to train. (Which is, incidentally, what I do most of the time.) Whatever self-referential topic you choose: You can be sure that it automatically comes with the added bonus of authenticity.

Go on and choose your preferred niche, or e-mail me with more suggestions. Now please excuse me, I’m off to Fiji finding new business opportunities …