Imagine a scenario, you're just about ready
to get on your coaching call
and you're about to start talking
to your coaching client,
and as you start speaking,
your client says, "I can't hear you.
Are you like in a submarine
or are you in a plane or something?"
That's the worst case scenario, right?
Your entire work depends on your presence and your words.
And in today's mobile world, tech savvy world,
we are doing most of our coaching online,
what are some of the tools that you could
really use to be able to create that experience
that even being virtual feels very personal?
So let me give you five tech gadgets
that you absolutely need to be able to create
a beautiful experience online
between you and your clients.
The first gadget has to do
with something that is so important
in a online coaching world.
When you're coaching your client, it's very important
that you can hear the words they are saying
and they can hear the words you are saying.
If they cannot hear what you're saying
and they don't clear it super clean,
they may misunderstand the question itself
that may lead to not have that wonderful a response
and that wonderful experience for the client.
So my first gadget for you is Shure MV7 Mic.
It's a little bit heavy as a mic,
and you need to get the right stand
to make sure it fits really well
with your desk setup.
But Shure MV7 is such a great mic.
Firstly, it'll make you sound
like you're talking from a radio station,
which means your voice is gonna be clear,
it'll sound a little deep.
It reduces the echo that you may have in your room.
It makes it sound like radio like,
which means it's really, really crisp and clear
to the person that's listening.
This mic is so good that it's great
if you actually do podcasts
or create content on your computer,
because you could just plug in this mic.
It's a USB port mic, or XLR mic,
so if you are getting very techy,
you can do that too.
But if you just use it simply
for connecting to your computer, beautiful mic.
Absolutely beautiful, great audio quality,
great for podcasting,
great for coaching calls, great overall.
It is slightly more expensive than a regular mic
that you can buy for 100 bucks,
but it's totally worth the investment.
I absolutely love this mic, and every single time
I'm in a coaching environment
and somebody asks me here what mic.
For the matter, I think I have three of those,
because me and my wife both coach.
So I have one for me, one for her,
and then we have one extra
because we record podcasts sometimes
and we use the same mic.
It's a wonderful mic.
Please consider getting
this mic for your coaching practice.
The second key element is how do you look?
It's very important, the look that you have
and the clarity of look that you have
when you're working with a client in an online setting.
See, a lot of coaches get by
by either blurring their background,
or just using their native computer camera,
and some of those are good.
If you have the new MacBook,
your camera is as good quality
as the camera that I'm going to suggest.
But if you are somebody that does not need
to upgrade their computer just yet,
here is a $60 solution that I have for you,
maybe $70, and that is a Logitech C90x.
It's a simple webcam
that sits right on top of your computer.
It is a 1080p camera.
You do not need a 4K camera for your computer.
See, when we stream online on Zoom
or any other softwares, after a point,
the definition of the video is about the same.
There's virtually no difference
if you use a 4K webcam or a C90x webcam.
The only big difference that you would see significantly,
so if you come to a live call with me,
you'll see a significant difference in how I look,
but that's because I have a $3,500 camera
that actually records that video
and about a $1,500 lens.
You only want to invest that kind of money
if your coaching business is that large.
I use a camera called Sony FX3.
It's a movie quality, almost movie quality camera.
And so the view that you get
if you're a live call with me is that good.
But honestly, most of us don't need that.
You don't need to invest that kind
of money in your camera just yet.
And honestly, until very recently,
I wasn't using anything else
but the Logitech C90x and it does amazing.
So get that camera, but it's an important thing to note,
and it's not a tech thing to note,
but it's an important thing to note,
it's what's behind you.
Again, you can always blur the background
and that looks all right.
But I really invite you to pick a spot
in your house or your office,
wherever you do most of your coaching calls,
and make the background look inviting.
See, the experience that we have online
sometimes is not only about what we are saying
and what we are doing,
but how the person is feeling.
Do they feel invited?
Do they feel like they're part of us?
How can we make a virtual experience
feel like a personal experience?
And that only happens by making sure
our background looks interesting,
that we move with the camera,
that I'm going close and far,
which makes you feel more intimate or less intimate.
Like my expressions are more pronounced
than I would be if I were talking to you personally,
because you can feel my energy personally,
but on video, you can't.
So getting a good camera is also about
making sure your expressions are transmuted
through that lens, go through the internet,
and reach the other person in the most beautiful way.
So invest a little bit in finding
a spot in your house or your office,
make it static, make it beautiful,
so a person can feel inspired
when they're speaking with you.
The third gadget, and you may be using
some version of it, but if you're not,
you may wanna start considering doing this,
and that is using a Calendly
or any calendar scheduling software
that you like online.
ScheduleOnce is one of them.
I just happen to like Calendly,
so I'm offering you to look at Calendly.
Why is this gadget so important?
See, after a point, your coaching practice gets chaotic.
You are constantly wasting time
in going back and forth on scheduling times,
being able to move times easily, rescheduling calls,
and sometimes you just don't have time enough
to look at your email and look for that email
that might have requested a reschedule,
or a cancel, or whatever that might be.
So once you've engaged a client,
what you want to do is give them
the power to set up calls
at an appropriate time that works for them,
be able to reschedule
if they're not gonna make it,
be able to cancel if they need to cancel right away.
Having a simple software that allows
to do all of that allows for you
and your client to do this dance a lot more easily.
It also makes sure that you don't have unnecessary things
on unnecessary times booked on your calendar.
See, the power of softwares like Calendly
is you could say, on Fridays,
I don't wanna do coaching calls
and you could just block it.
You could say, well, when I'm doing a podcast call,
I wanna only do 30 minute podcast,
and that could be a part of your, say,
Wednesdays 30 minute calls on a podcast, right?
If you want Mondays or Tuesdays
to just only be booking sales call,
you can block that day for a sales call.
So it really optimizes your mind,
it optimizes your space to be able
to do your work and focus on the work,
versus focus on management of the work.
And as a coach, as a one-on-one coach,
more specifically as an online one-on-one coach,
it's wildly important for you
to have a tight schedule so you can make
the most out of the time that
you're investing and putting into work,
and so Calendly becomes a really, really useful software.
Then comes the next technology that,
again, you may or may not have considered just yet,
and it's unfortunate that most of the coaches
just use the ring light.
The ring light are cheap standup lights
that you put anywhere and they light you up a little bit,
but usually it makes you look not very good,
let's say on camera.
You look like you're overly bright,
or less bright, and the lighting is kind of off,
and it always has a little bit of shadow.
So if you are ready to upgrade and look good on camera,
look good on that very important online calls
that you're doing again and again and again,
literally your business runs on it,
then I want you to start considering looking
at the Neewer 90 watt desk light.
The beauty of these lights are they can mount on the desk,
so they have like little screws
that you can mount it up on the desk,
and then these lights have a great variance,
so it doesn't have to always be white or yellow.
And whatever skin tone you have,
you can turn it up or turn it down,
and once you've set it up to look
how you want it to look,
you never have to touch it again.
So you'll find that corner in your house
or your office, you set up those lights,
you turn them on.
Your camera is defaulted to the Logitech C90x.
Your mic is Shure MV7.
This allows you to have a fantastic experience
when you're talking to your client.
It just looks beautiful, it looks amazing.
It's consistent all the time.
You have to absolutely never think about it
and you'll always look good on the camera.
And that is very, very, very, very, very, very,
very important when you are an online coach,
because as an online coach, that is the only appearance
that your client sees is this much, right?
They never get to really experience
energy between you and them,
because you physically may or may never meet, right?
So as an online coach,
it's so important that your presence is good,
which is why these tools are so very important.
And that brings me to the final tool,
and this is one that uses AI,
and you need this tool going forward.
You may have gotten by without this tool in the past,
but I've almost found to be more valuable
to have it versus to not have it.
See, I'm somebody who says I don't take client notes,
and I don't even till date.
But what I found increasingly useful
is a lot of times while in the presence
of a coaching conversation,
instead of me taking notes for myself,
so I don't take client notes to send to clients,
but I do take notes for myself.
But instead of me taking those notes,
now I can do it with the click of a button.
See, it's very likely that you use Zoom
for your online coaching calls,
and if you use Zoom, there's a plugin called Fathom.
Fathom is an AI tool which helps you
mark certain things and creates
an automatic summary of the call you just had.
Now, it is a little bit, you know, tricky,
because it does kind of violate
the privacy and everything.
So you must take permission
from your client to use the software.
But at the same point in time, if it is okay,
which I would assume 95% of your clients
would be okay because they are okay with mine,
is that your note taking becomes incredibly easy,
very productive, and you don't have to be present
to if I should write this note or not.
You just have to click.
So it's very fast to do, and because of that,
it's also really fast to send those notes to your client.
So now nobody really has to take notes.
AI can take notes for you,
and you can review those notes very, very quickly
simply by going to those notes
right before the call again.
So your work is reduced by maybe 40, 50% here
on note taking, and remembering,
and reminding yourself
of where you were in the last learning.
All of that is taken care of by a AI software,
and in matter of seconds, in matter of minutes.
So I'd really encourage you to consider
some kind of AI tool that allows you
to take notes while you are on the call with your client,
to make your work more productive,
and the outcome more succinct
and powerful for your clients as well.
There are other alternate AI
and non-AI tools that one may consider,
and that is why I would be curious to hear
what you have been using until now.
What are some of the tools that
your geekery has given to you
that you've been like, oh, how did you miss that one?
That one's so good.
Let's share that in the comments section below
so we can all learn from each other.
Thank you so much for watching this video.
Thank you so much for leaving your comments.
I love chatting with you every single week,
so I will see you next week.