Forbes Magazine Finds Christian Mickelson – but how?

I recently had the opportunity to ask Christian Mickelson about how he got interviewed by none-other-than Forbes Magazine. What I discovered was the answers are simpler and more accessible to EVERYONE including you, than you might think.

That said, Christian tells how he almost missed this opportunity, and also extends an invitation to an Open House TeleSeminar where he goes deeper into how he’s become successful. Click here to go directly to the TeleSeminar registration page – it’s no fee.

Andrea: So Christian, congratulations on your Forbes exposure! That’s a wonderful win. Will you share how it all happened?

Christian: Sure. I was having a bad day and the phone rang, so I let it go to voice mail. I immediately checked the message and it was Forbes. At first I thought they were going to try to sell me advertising on their website. They had attempted to do so about 9 months earlier. But I kept listening and he explained that he was writing an article on “surprising 6 figure careers” and was wondering if coaching would qualify. He actually left me all of the things he was wanting to know and his contact number.

Like I said, I was having a bad day and I considered waiting until I was in a better mood to call him back. But after I thought about it for a few minutes, I realized he might start calling other people and I might miss my chance. So I gathered all of the information he wanted to know and then I called him back.

AL: Do you know how he came to call you in particular?

CM: I asked him that question and he just said he found my website on the internet. I asked a little more, but he didn’t have a lot of answers for me. I’m guessing he may have looked up a number of sites and wasn’t too sure how he got there.

AL: Interesting. So, what impact did being in Forbes have on your business?

CM: It was astonishing. The article was linked from the home page of their website and it mentioned my website in the article so a directed a lot of trafic to my site.

In fact, I didn’t know for sure that the article was a go until I received an email late at night from someone who said she saw the article and she was asking for my help getting started as a coach.

Then the next morning the number of new subscribers went through the roof. After a few days the new sign-ups died down. Then a few days later it picked back up and one of my former clients from years ago emailed be and said he saw the article on yahoo. So I searched yahoo and there it was in their finance section. It died down again, and then a over the weekend there was another surge and I noticed that many of the email addresses ended in .CA which usually means Canada, so I searched for Yahoo Canada and the article was on their home page.

After it died down I thought for sure it was over and then all of sudden the biggest surge of all… it was on the home page of MSN with a BIG fat image. It stayed on their home page for 24 hours. That was the biggest spike in subscribers. Partly because by then I had changed my home page to reflect “getting started” in coaching instead of “how to get more clients” since that’s what people were most interested in.

AL: Did the article have any negative impact on your business?

CM: Yes, actually it did. I had to put a lot of projects on hold because I was getting phone calls and emails like crazy with people wanting to know how to get started in coaching.

I was trying to recommend a book or a resource that I trusted and believed in. I used to recommend a certain resource, but now that they are under new ownership, I honestly didn’t have someone to send them to, so I created “The Professional Coaching Quick Start Kit” and wrote the book “How to Quickly Get Started In Professional Coaching: The Hidden Truth About What It Really Takes”.

AL: Gotcha.

CM: I wasn’t actually planning on focusing on any of the start up stuff. I already had products to help coaches that were struggling to quickly turn it around and I was planning another product and a live event, but I had to push the live event out 6 months and the new product is finally being released 10 months later.

AL: Sometimes you have to seize the moment though, right? Cool. So overall, what were some of the highlights about the whole experience? Did you jump up and down with delight? Did you frame the article? Send it to your mom?

CM: My girlfriend and I were both very excited. And everytime a new wave of subscribers came in it was so fun. My inbox was jammed full of “new subscriber” notifications. I announced the article to my email list and told everyone I knew that “I was interviewed by Forbes”. My email list tripled in size! My overall income has doubled partly do to the exposure.

AL: That is truly awesome Christian. Congratulations again. So as a last question, what advice would you give to other coaches that want to experience the same success?

CM: There were a few important keys to the success of the interview. First, I set an intention to “become the foremost authority on coaching” a few weeks before I got the call. Bold, I know, but I figured someone has to be, why not me?

Second, I asked Tom (the interviewer) to include the name of my website in the article… 3 times! First I asked him during the interview. Then I asked him for his email address so that I could forward him some supporting information. Then I emailed him 2 times over the next few days and each time asked him to mention the name of my site in the article… Then, lo and behold, he did! If he hadn’t the interview wouldn’t have had half the impact. He misspelled my last name, and misquoted me in the article, but he did spell www.CoachingBusinessRocketLauncher.com correctly!

AL: That is hilarious. Talk about the benefits of repeating your message, only in this case it was to a journalist. Bravo. Now, I understand you’d like to invite folks who read this to an Open TeleSeminar…where can they go to register?

CM: Yes, I’d love to do that – it’ll give us a full hour to openly discuss success in coaching, and I’d like to give away a ticket to one of my upcoming live events. Here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/34zr2m

AL: Fantastic Christian, thank you. And I wish you luck with your live events – I’m glad to see someone is doing the 2-day intensive model again. Until next time…

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