[Transcript starts at 1:19]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people. And thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. Today we're talking about how to decide when it's time to invest in a business coach or business coaching program. Yes, my lip is still busted. It's still not fully healed. If you don't know what's going on, listen to Monday's episode where I talked all about it and also shared a business lesson from it.
How come it's not healed and I talked about it on Monday's episode? Because I recorded Monday's episode literally five minutes before this episode. I know they come out four days apart, but y'all know I'm about that batching life. So go check that episode out if you haven't already. But if you're listening to this, when it drops, it is Thursday, November, what?
November 16th, which means that my pre Black Friday sales are still going on and they will end, close tomorrow. 30 percent off of my on demand webinars. Ancore is offering 10 percent off your entire order. Smart tools is offering 10 percent off and free shipping. You got to be part of my email list to get the deals.
I am not doing anything next week. I'm trying to enjoy my holiday. Am I trying? I mean, I'm going to enjoy my holiday and I'm not trying to play customer service or anything like that. So the deals end tomorrow, got to be on the email list. If you're not already, you can use the link in the show notes, sign up for the email list and you'll get access to those discounts and save the monies.
Okay. All right. Onto the main topic today, which is like I said, how to decide when it's time to invest in a business coaching program. This is a dope question from my dopest homies, Kristen. I'm just going to read the exact question she shared with me. She dropped it in the DMs and I was like, yes.
She said: also was recently thinking about a possible podcast topic for you, something about how to decide when it's time to invest in a coaching program slash course, particularly for DIY folks who have invested in coaches slash programs before and continue to apply what they've learned, but maybe because they've lost a sense of accountability or even a sense of clarity around their why and are considering investing again.
And honestly, your take on investing in coaches slash mentors in general. You hear a lot of, if you want to level up investing in mentorship as a non negotiable. Would love to hear your take on this, though, I suspect I know a part of your stance already.
She does. But here we go with the full episode. You probably do too if you've been in the ecosystem for a minute.
But here we go. I outlined this episode and I was like, I got a lot more to say than I thought. So I want to start with the end, which is where she said, uh, I know that, what did she say? You hear a lot of, if you want to level up, investing in mentorship is a non negotiable. I would just like to amend that and say it's a non negotiable if it's a non negotiable for you.
That's it. AKA if it's what you need and what you want. I personally have never specifically invested in a business coach and I'm not sure if I ever will. I have no desire to join a mastermind. Like literally zero, zero. I run them. Yes, but. I'm, I also don't use that in my marketing.
I'm not like, Hey, I have, I'm in this amazing mastermind and like, here's what I learned and you could be in one too. That's not the truth. I don't like being in, I have no desire to be in one. But I have, I have invested in Ramit's courses, two of them actually. Um, I have invested in James, James Olivia's, y'all know I love me some James Olivia.
I invested in James Olivia's, uh, skills program called Relate. Um, I've crashed Danny Matta's mastermind event. His live event twice, um, and honestly, Profit First was really the big thing that I took away from that was huge, which I've talked about many times. Uh, I'm in a Peer Mastermind with Sean and Annie, Sean Pastuch, Annie Miller, Christy Mae Campbell.
Um, we meet up when I remember, uh, I go to those, those hangouts. Um, and also the fucking online business goat, Jill Coleman, is my bestie, right? So I haven't felt the need. I haven't felt the desire. I haven't wanted to do it. So I haven't. So I don't want to say that it's a non negotiable. It's a non negotiable if it's a non negotiable.
I hate the phrase, coaches need coaches. Like, I typically have only ever heard that from a coach who's trying to sell a coaching program. And I'm like, but do they? Coaches can benefit from coaching. Coaches can benefit from coaches. But to be, be the blanket statement of coaches need coaches. Like, if they need them, for sure.
Alright, and if they want them, for sure. Yes, I pay Steven a lot of money. Every month he's my volleyball coach. Do it. I'm not gonna say that blanket statement coaches need coaches. I needed a volleyball coach I wanted a volleyball coach. And so I'm paying a volleyball coach period. Do you need one? I don't fucking know. That's what we're gonna talk about this episode.
Alright, so this takes us to the bigger question and the bigger answer, which is what outcome do you want and what do you need in order to achieve it? One of the hardest things for me as a business coach is that I know some people need, or I've learned that some people need to pay me to have me hold up a mirror and simply show them what I see and what I believe and know to already be there. And it's really tough for me to do that.
I just want to be like, just go do it. You're fucking great. Just go. It's gonna take a long fucking time, but like, just go. And I intentionally say that they need this, that they need to pay, because they don't seem to believe it when I just say it. And then they pay me, and then they're like, I believe it now, and I'm like, but I could do this for free, like, just go do it.
If that's you, and you need to pay for confidence, I'm not saying this in a pejorative way, like, I'm saying it as just an objective fact that if that's you… Then it's a non negotiable, then go do it, go pay for it. At the end of the day, my whole shtick, do the thing.
So circling back on this, what outcome do you want and what do you need in order to get it? I think we start by asking yourself that question and then you go in, go all in on it, right? Go deep. So the first part of this would then be, what is the outcome? That you're looking for, AKA, what do you want? I think this is super important because it allows us to reverse engineer what the actual problem is and therefore what you actually need.
All right. So I have a phenomenal, I have recently had a phenomenal coaching call. I just, I love digging and being like, what is it? What is the actual problem? I've spoken about this before. Uh, when Jill and I talk about legacy, this is kind of how we pair. I love to figure out what's the actual problem that needs to be solved.
And then I can be like, all right, cool. Now go to Jill, solve it. Because Jill's phenomenal at solving. Any business problems, she'll solve it in fucking two seconds. But the question is like, is that the problem? Is that going to move the needle? Is that what we're actually dealing with? So recently had a coaching call, one of my one on one clients, and ultimately she wants more time flexibility, aka she wants to do, be able to do things a bit more Remotely, she likes to travel, likes to be outside.
Her initial thought of what she needed was to change her niche, her online niche. And we did some digging, mind you, she's an, she's a primarily an in person provider, so she thought she needs to change her online niche for this. And we did some digging and what she actually needed was to work on her ability to handle confrontation.
She has a tendency to run from confrontation, which causes her to not enjoy working in person, right? That's where she gets the majority of her money, um, basically all of it. She has clients that she doesn't love because she avoids these confrontational situations, like they don't want to do the things that she's asking, they would like late cancellations, things like that.
And because she avoids those confrontational situations, she just has these people that are on her schedule. It's an energy drain. It makes her want to sleep in because you know, if you're like, don't want to do something, you're like, Oh, I'm just gonna like put it off. And so like I don't want to wake up in the morning cause then I got to go to this thing I don't want to do. It makes her want to use less mental energy outside of the office, right? Mental energy that she could be using to create content. She doesn't want to do it because she's just like, fuck, I'm drained from the day. No creative energy to lean into. To make that online content that's also already very good.
She doesn't need to change it. And I was like, when you change, you're starting all over again. So no, we don't want to do that. Content creation is what is ultimately going to give her that time flexibility that she wants down the road. She knows it's going to take a long time. It's going to take even longer if she's switching the niche.
So what does she want? Time flexibility, time freedom. What does she actually need? The ability to handle confrontation. Different. So just going in like us, just working in the whole entire time, working on a new niche, not going to help her, not going to help her get the outcome that she wants. So the first question, what is the outcome that you're looking for?
AKA, what do you want from there? It's what we just looked at. What do you need in order to achieve that? Dig my friends dig. If you don't know what you need in order to achieve that, and you're not willing to learn as you go, or you've been trying, you're like, I don't know. Then yeah, hire someone do you believe can help you for sure.
Next question, why do you think you need that? Is it clever marketing? Is it because you've, you know, does it align with the things that you've listed out from before? What does receiving that thing, that kind of support, whatever it is, what does that look like? And then lastly, will that thing, receiving that thing, that thing you need, whether it's signing up for the program, whatever, will it guarantee you the outcome that you're looking for?
Of note with business coaching, there can be kind of a latent effect, like the latency period where, you know, I just had actually a call and the person was like, they want, they currently have two people enrolled in a program, they want 45 people in a program, they're wondering if my services could help them get there.
I explained to them, I can give you the strategy to do that but I don't think that this is going to happen during the time frame that you want, I'm going to be completely honest, alright? What the goal is, for me, is understanding that the outcome, 45 people, is dependent on multiple variables. And some of those variables are outside of you.
The goal with working with the goal of coaching someone is to help them learn, understand, master the skills that affect the things that are within their control. And then they do it for a million hours..a million hours. A million years, rinse and repeat, and eventually ultimately get to that outcome that they want, but not necessarily in that immediate moment.
So I think it is worth noting that with online business, with things that, uh, have, with things that are affected and impacted by other outside circumstances. Like, if I was just like, I want to go and win a bunch of tournaments. Does coaching guarantee that? No. Does coaching give me the skills that could prepare me to win tournaments?
Or allow me to win tournaments? Yes. Right, so you have to understand, what is this, what is the goal I want? Can this thing guarantee it? And then the next question I should answer would be, can anything guarantee it? No, well then can it guarantee me the skills or the thing that I need in order to get that outcome?
Right? The skills and the things that I can actually control if I want to get that outcome. Right? So if that's you, you're thinking about it, then when you're looking at a program, you want to think about learning the strategy, keep implementing, you see the outcome later and get the, get you a coach that's going to say that and be completely honest with you about that, right? So I think that as it relates to like the first question or second question of like what do you need in order to achieve that outcome, I think that that can be grouped into three major categories. Strategy slash skills, accountability, and support slash mindset slash camaraderie.
I said that weird because it's spelled weird but we all know what I'm trying to say. Camaraderie, right? It's spelled very weird, right? But three different groups. Strategy skills, that's one. Accountability, that's the second group. And support, mindset, camaraderie, that's the third. So, with strategy and skills, if you need to learn the steps for things, the order of operations, expectation management, the actual how of doing this thing, especially as things like tech or just in general, the, the strategy of launching something. If you want to expedite that learning, then yeah, get a coach, get going, hire, do these programs. Yes, I could learn volleyball on my own, but I could also, and I have chosen to, hire a coach who's going to customize it for me, who's been there, who's done that, who can teach me these skills.
Online business does have a ton of predictability to it. And again, I'm saying this coming off of the LextroMind launch and legacy launch, where I knew roughly how many people would apply. I knew how many people roughly within a range would actually buy. Number of people that would apply and number of people that would buy. I can do that with my Intensive.
I'm working on this with a one on one client right now, and it's just so fucking fun to see people that like, haven't utilized this in their business, to see them lean into it, and it's just so fucking fun. You can use it for webinars, you can use it for masterminds, you can use it for online group coaching programs, like I use it for the intensive, like this predictability, this approach, this strategy, right?
I'm saying this because if the outcome that you want is more money or more clients or more predictability, yes, there are definitely skills that can be learned to help with this. All right, especially the predictability. Wanting more clients, wanting more money, yes, there are skills that can be learned, but there are other factors that ultimately influence whether or not they buy, but you can learn all the things that are within your control to help get that outcome.
So that would be the first subset of needs.
Second subset, accountability. If you know you need someone to check in on you, you need someone to make sure that you need someone to push you more and continue to push you. Go ahead. Yes. Get a coach. Sign up for the program. It doesn't make you a bad person if you need it.
I know you know that, but I'm going to say it anyway. I see this especially needed with folks who are ideators and they love to jump around. So they need someone to like rein them in because they're just like, but that thing, I make that thing, I make that thing. And they're like, you know what? I need to like, just focus on this one.
Oftentimes folks are ready and they decide to get a coach or enroll in a program when they just get sick of their own shit, right? They're like, I just had a call yesterday and signed a client. And he was like, I've been saying I'm going to do this for months. Actually for two years, and I'm still in the same place, right?
There's actual psychology here, folks, right? If you look at the motivational spectrum, moving from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation, there's a part that's called extrinsic, excuse me, external regulation. And that's where basically you're doing it for somebody else. You're right, you're doing that thing because of somebody else.
It makes everyone else proud because they ask you to do it, because they're forcing you to do it. Ideally, they're not forcing you, but you know what I mean. Totally fine, nothing wrong with it. And then we move from there through, and ultimately can move into intrinsic, intrinsic motivation. But… Suffice to say, there is psychology behind it, and if you need someone to hold you accountable, by all means.
The last part here, this support camaraderie mindset. Some folks just like to be in a group. I am not some folks. I don't want to be in a group. I like doing stuff on my own. Some folks really like to have a mentor or, you know, a team or people to bounce ideas off of. I am also not that person, but if it's what you, how you are, then yeah, suddenly this having that around you, that environment is a non negotiable.
Of note, You can oftentimes build these environments yourself after you've gone through a program, right? You may find out that, and I see that happen with Legacy. I see it happen with Intensive, things like that. I guess it'll probably happened, you know, with LextroMind. This is our first time running it, but people go through this, they meet friends, they meet people that like them, and they're like, yeah, I want to stay in touch with you and I want to build my, you can build your own peer led mastermind by all means.
If the members themselves need accountability in order to like, you know, stay motivated and stay doing the thing or to keep pushing themselves, then you may need to stay in a program or a group or rejoin a program or a group where the coach, where there is a coach who's continuing to push things forward.
So again, it depends on what you need and what you want. I think this kind of camaraderie and being around other people that are like you and doing what you're doing is especially true for women, especially true for moms, um, in, in the online business space. Talking to somebody the other day about this, just, there's a good chance if you're a mom, and you're in online business, that it's not the norm for the moms around you. It might not be the norm for people around you. And you're just like, man, they don't get it. They don't get me. And so, being in one of these groups, to have that, to be around the people that understand you, by all means, that may be, that is a perfectly fine reason to join something.
Alright, so, going back to Kristen's question, I want to go to a specific spot here because what I'm saying really applies to people that are kind of like, Beginning and they haven't gone through programs yet. She was really asking for, particularly for DIY folks who have invested in coaches slash programs before and continue to apply what they've learned, but maybe because they've lost a sense of accountability or even a sense of clarity around their why.
If it's accountability, then yeah. Go ahead and pay for it, but make sure that you're going to something that has one on one support. For some people, just having like a meeting, a group meeting on their calendar can be enough accountability, not enough accountability, but this is again, what do you personally need?
As for the why, I got a few suggestions here, right? You're losing clarity around your sense of why. The initial action item here to me is go and do it in person and or go and do it for free. Go, I'm thinking about DSpear now going into the community, right? It's just easier to get in front of people when you're literally face to face and you can pound the pavement there. I say go do it for free because I want to remove any barriers that people may have to you, uh, helping them. That's what we're looking to do here. Go and help and do this thing and see if it lights you up and if you really love it. Right?
Especially as, as Kristen was saying, she has the skills to go and to know how to get clients. She's been in programs before. So use those skills and… remove any barriers and maybe you need to go in person to get these clients or get these people and see, do you enjoy this? Your why will be there. A little tangent, but not really.
Like, do you have to love what you do? If you're building this business, you should fucking enjoy it, right? And having this why. Yes, if you're building a business, if you're working for somebody else, if you just need money rather, just go make money. But if you're like, Hey, I want to build this thing. I'm taking the time to build this business.
Then yeah, you should have passion around it. You should enjoy it. At least, you know, there should be a why there. And if you're like, I'm struggling with that. I think that one of the reasons I, one of the most times that I most often see this is when folks just aren't able to help people that don't have any new clients come in or anything like that.
And so they're like, what's my why? Cause they're not going to do the thing that I love. Right? I get it. I really do think that at the end of the day, people want to be helpful. So the tough part about this, you know, is, the tough part here is that, is if we match, right, online business and living in this current day and age.
Yes, there's tons of possibility because it's the age, but also shit is expensive as fuck. Right? Shit is expensive as fuck because of this day and age. Right? And until all the possibility it's out there turns into reality. It can be sucky. Cause you're like, yeah, there's possibility, but I'm not getting any money, so this is like, not fun.
This gets tough just from an online business perspective because you're actually running a business. And so for folks that have a why that's rooted in service, it means that you don't get to just focus on fulfillment. You don't get to just focus on service delivery. You have to focus on client acquisition.
A. K. A. lead generation. You gotta run a business. Client acquisition is really fuckin tough. And I think it's even tougher in the online space. Yes, there are more people, but you have to get in front of them. You have to build trust. You don't have as many touchpoints. It takes longer. There's a lot of other people that are also doing the same thing.
So, that, in and of itself, yes, I understand, like, kind of losing that why. Because you haven't been able to help people. Combine the fact that it's tough to get clients on, you know, online with the fact that it's expensive to be alive. And it means that suddenly this thing needs to, the thing that you're supposed to love is supposed to support you financially.
And when it doesn't, you start hating it and suddenly you've lost your why. I get it. So the action item here, I think is figure out how you can provide that service. You can help people in the way that, you know, It's tied into your why, whether it's in person or doing it for free and decide if you actually want to do this as a biz.
I, I'm not sure if you saw that coming there and I'm not telling you like, Oh, quit online business. But these are the questions to ask yourself. And I did an episode, I think last week. How to know when to quit the online business dream. So I would say, figure out how you can help people for free, right? Or in person.
How can you actually go and do the thing you want to do, right? You don't have to launch anything major. How can you go, what is at the heart of what you like doing? You like helping people answer problems. You solve problems, like helping people lose weight. Whatever the fuck it is, how can you do that? Go and do it immediately.
Reduce all the friction. Sometimes the friction is that there's payment there. How can you do this thing? Decide if you want to do this as a business. And then from there, decide if you want to do this as a business that you own. Because maybe you want to work for somebody else and just deliver the service.
You don't actually want to go into the client acquisition part, right? Because that's really fucking tough. Lots of things to think about.
So how to decide when it's time to invest in a business coach or a business coaching program. Ask yourself, what outcome do you want and what do you need in order to achieve it?
From there, fucking do the thing, right? Go through that list. Dig. Tease everything out. Do the things that are on the list. Scratch the itch. Hire the coach or fucking don't. Do it on your own and, and, you know, learn, learn trial by fire, trial and error. Cross the things off your list, get more information as you've crossed these things off your list, and then move forward.
That's it. Gonna wrap it up here. Where do we at? Close to 22 minutes. Love it. Shout out to Kristen for a bomb ass question. It got deeper, it got deeper than I thought it would when she just first sent it. I was like, okay, cool. Yeah. Uh, and then I was writing it outlining and I was like, damn, I like this and it's a little deeper than I thought, but hope you enjoyed it.
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All right. All right. All right. That's all I got for you. As always, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time friends, Maestro out.
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