Can life changing ideas be measured?

Over the years and decades, my author/coach clients have measured their impact through book sales, review, media write-ups, reader messages, social media comments, speaking invitations and media appearances. These methods are a mix of subjective, products of paid marketing efforts, and sales numbers, more so than a measurement of the impact of the author’s ideas and stories. 

Beyond the book, how else can an author’s ideas be made measurable? How can leaders of thought take the conversation beyond testimonials and really uncover the true human impact of their ideas? How can the qualitative be brought into the realm of the quantitative?

Case Story: From Jets to Coaching Journeys

Brent M. is a luxury jet broker of 23 years. He enjoys the financial security of working in the luxury goods and services space, but in recent years he has felt called to make more of a personal difference in individual lives. 

As a result, Brent has been training with some of the top teachers in the world as a high performance business coach. He also wrote a groundbreaking book about a proprietary sales model he created based on his life and career lessons. Brent’s book spun off a library of programs and content to allow individuals in business to apply his model and see real results. 

Now, Brent finds himself at the edge of the proverbial cliff, ready to take the leap, leaving the comfort and financial security of selling luxury jets to CEOs and launching his high performance coaching business for individuals who aim to become those jet setting chief executives. Excited for this next chapter, he wants to fast track his career transition as much as possible, without sacrificing quality. Following are some quantitative-based strategies Brent could consider to accomplish this goal.

Scale and Track Content Metrics

Brent was already in good shape with a popular business book, media content around the book, and an active social media presence in multiple platforms, including a steady flow of video content, all reflective of his thought leadership content around his high performance coaching programs. 

But there was still room for Brent to elevate his content game by:

• Adhering to a consistent content schedule
• Deep researching his target audiences and creating personalized content for each group
• Rigorously tracking his data analytics to find out which messages and types of content resonated most with which audiences. 
• Beyond clicks, impressions, and other traditional surface social media metrics, Brent could create a system of qualitative coding that could be applied to comments, fan messages, and other normally non-measurable feedback. He could then utilize that system to look for themes, measure frequency, and find trends and data stories to further fine tune his messaging. 

Thought leaders are good at creating a lot of content - sometimes, at the level of saturation. Therefore, if Brent wants to fast track his high performance coaching success and stand out from his peers, there is an opportunity for him to do that by measuring qualitative AND quantitative data so that his content creation is targeted and strategic - never simply a high volume internet saturation scattershot. 

Quantifying the Qualitative

If Brent truly wants to embrace a quantitative approach to measuring his high performance coaching results, he can go full-on quantitative psychologist! 

Most coaches and other transformation service providers measure their results by number of clients, repeat clients, referrals, and they collect testimonials as evidence of their efficacy. Sales metrics are fine but what about results metrics? How can high performance coaches measure real transformation in their clients?

Measuring Coaching Impact:

• Create a before and after survey assessing where clients are before beginning their coaching journey and where they are at program completion. 
• Design survey items to be measurable, not simply another version of client testimonials.
• Measure data and statistically analyze survey results
• Generate data visualizations & dashboards based on your results - social media, sales & referral graphics!

Once Brent saw the possibilities of quantifying his high performance coaching content and client transformations, he was finally able to visualize the leap from selling jets to creating transformative coaching journeys!

How are you measuring results in YOUR coaching business? What potentially measurable data is currently hidden in your coaching results? Check out my launch special and let’s chat!