First meeting of the Business Development SIG

Welcome to the blog and podcast site of the Business Development and Marketing Special Interest Group. Here, you can access recordings of our calls as podcasts using your favorite podcatcher (like iTunes) as well as learn about upcoming calls.

Our first meeting was held on July 2, 2008. We covered meeting times, schedule, CCEU credit. Members shared their backgrounds and business needs. To listen or download the recording, click here. If you want to receive recordings of all our calls automatically, you may subscribe using iTunes. Simply paste this URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ICFBizDevSIG under Advanced: Subscribe to podcast.

This SIG meets on the first Wednesday of each month at 4 pm Eastern (1 pm Pacific). All ICF member coaches are eligible to attend. To see the phone number and PIN for the calls, you must log in on the ICF webpage, then follow the links For Current Members-->Find a Special Interest Group.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, Aug 6 at 4 pm Eastern. Our presenter, marketing consultant and coach Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing, will explore how to manage the marketing conversation so that you increase the chances that a conversation about your business will actually lead somewhere.

In this presentation Robert will:

1. Demonstrate how to get immediate attention with your marketing message.
2. Explain what can be accomplished and what can't be accomplished with a marketing message.
3. Show how to continue the marketing conversation once you have a prospect's attention.
4. Outline the steps needed to keep the marketing conversation on track.
5. Reveal the secrets to making an offer that paves the way for effective follow-up.

Robert Middleton has been working with Independent Professionals on their marketing since 1984. Robert is an expert at developing and teaching non-manipulative strategies for attracting more clients. He is the author of the online bestsellers, the InfoGuru Marketing Manual and the Web Site ToolKit and the publisher of the More Clients eZine which goes out to 50,000 subscribers every week.