Hello. Hi. Hi. Welcome to the Coaching Mixer podcast where Erin and I gab about coaching and drink things.
I'm a little scared today. I'm a little scared, too. Wait. Okay. I'm scared on like multiple levels today, actually. But the first one, which I'm assuming is why you're scared, is what we're drinking. Yes. Okay. Yes. Tell us what Tell everyone what we're drinking. So, we are stretching ourselves and we are drinking espresso martinis. Yes. And I actually have to shout out one of my clients, Emily. Um, she was here for a retreat a couple months ago and she had heard our podcast where we were drinking coffee and so she brought me what she did not have to do. She was coming here for a retreat, but she brought me this lovely like gift pack from a store I love that actually a good friend of mine from high school owns um called Pretty Grit in Hamilton. It was all coffee themed things. There was a puzzle. There was uh this really beautiful candle and uh one of the things there was like a scrub like soapy thing and one of the last little things was this coffee lure but an artisal handmade one from Prince Edward County. Um really really beautiful. I have not had a chance to make it because I'm so scared to drink coffee after like Yep. That's so beautiful. I love that it comes from a client and that she did it after she like Yeah, she listened to the podcast as well. Wow, that's so sweet. And I last last time we recorded when we were trying to figure out what to drink the next time, I was like, "Oh, my brother visited and he left espresso martinis." And like they're like little I actually have it here cuz I was afraid to as I was telling Aaron before I was afraid to like carry this up the stairs. I was like I will pour it at my desk. Okay, I'll show you. So he he left this. Oo, this is everything. Yeah, I like that. That's that's good. Sturdy. Sturdy. Okay. Have you ever had an espresso martini before? I have. Like in I have not. Okay. Okay. Cheers. Cheers. I may make a face. We'll see.
Your face is great. What do you think? Not my favorite flavor, but it's not terrible. Okay. I just I think as someone who I I like coffee when it tastes like ice cream and I too do not drink it past like noon and I rarely drink it. Um so it's a little bit like the raw flavor of coffee and the raw flavor of I think is it vodka? I think it might be vod Yeah vodka. Um is is a bit much but it's interesting. It has some like layers to it. We'll see how you feel about it by the end. We'll see. Yeah, this is I feel like um the listeners are going to be in for a ride this episode. I don't know how the caffeine and the liquor will combine. We'll see. We might be asleep by the end. Um really delicious. This is actually Yeah. And you know, I think first of all, I don't drink vodka, so we made this with gin. And when I say we, I mean Steve made this and put it on the desk. I love that. It's like, "Oh, your your martini is waiting for you at your desk." I was like, "Thank you. You're you're a good person." Um, that's amazing. Is great. And this is like sweetened, too. So, this is like cane sugar in the mix. So, it's like a little dessert. It does taste like a dessert coffee. Yeah. Delicious. Um, this also is sweetened. It's the third ingredient. So, I think I'm just a little bit wimpy. Yeah. Well, we'll see. We'll see how we feel. It does look really That looks so much darker, like a richer than Yeah, it's a pretty pretty thick beverage. The recipe that we had called for um a shot of espresso in this and I was like, not going to do that. Yeah, I love tailoring it to your needs. I think if I try this again, I will probably make my own. We text each other at 3 in the morning when we're not sleeping. I know. Oh, we could do a boozy milkshake sometime. Oh, that would be good. That could be fun. That would be Oh my gosh. Okay. All right. Okay. Why are you scared the second part? I don't know that I'm scared. It's a very different It feels like a little bit of a different topic than we've tackled before. And I think part of Yeah, I don't know if it's scared. It's just like a different vibe. And I know that like personally and I think you too we like going deep and finding nuance and with this topic I don't know if we'll serve the topic by it if it will serve the topic for us to find nuance because I think it's like actually kind of a straightforward question but we'll see maybe we will find something or maybe we'll veer into new territory. Yeah, I don't know. Sounds good. We'll see where the takes us. Yeah. Yeah. For real. Maybe we'll answer it in like three minutes and then be like, "Okay, goodbye." Worst episode ever. Yeah. Um should I should I read it? Yeah. Okay. So, it's a listener I don't even remember if I said this. The martini is doing something. Um so, it's a listener question. Um a listener request and it's from a business coach um who says, "Since I work with a lot of these peeps, I know something you could talk about. there's no right way coming to grow your business. They really they being like new newer I think coaches um really believe there's a book or formula coming and it's just not. There are things to learn of course, but they get stuck trying too hard to make their marketing and sales fit a mold. They forget they just need to [ __ ] talk to people. It's the core basic of getting clients and yet they work on anything but talking to people. Yeah, I feel like we should shout this person out because it's such a good topic. Yes. Okay. Yeah, go for it. So, this is from uh Karen Crabtree who is like an incredible coach, an incredible business owner. Um she does coach now on business um for a while like over yeah like for a while but she started her business um as like a really kind of niche weight loss coach and was really successful you know I I don't know like too too much about her business but I have like been in communities so have you with her where you know she really deeply cares about her clients she thinks about her clients. She's been a huge inspiration to me with the depth of like her client care and her authenticity. Like she is not somebody who's, you know, she's she's saying things that are um very real and authentic and I really appreciate that about her. So, thank you Karen for this. Yes. And I will just add to that um that she's I think you said this but she's a phenomenal businesswoman and she's a phenomenal business coach. So she has both a perspective of having created a hugely successful business and pivoted. I mean she still has the weight loss Yeah. part of her coaching but she's like expanded. Um and she also helps new coaches like every single day. Yeah. And I like, again, I don't know too much about her business, but like I can imagine just because I think every client who hires a business coach probably at some point is like, I'm going to hire this person. They're going to have the answer. They're going to tell me exactly what to do. Um, they're going to give me their magic formula that they don't tell anybody about. I'm going to get it and then I'm going to do that and be a A+ student. totally be successful following their exact instructions. Mhm. And there are business coaches out there that make those claims that they'll say, "I'll teach you my like seven figure success formula and um they will just give you a wrote plan that maybe worked for them. Maybe they made it up. Who knows?" But I think you know her her question and her point is like we are all kind of in love with the idea that there's a curriculum for how to have a successful business. And the hardest part of being an entrepreneur is like really coming to terms with the fact that there is not and the curriculum that you build yourself to create success has to come from I think it has to come from like your vision, your values, the way that you um interact and care about people and nobody wants to hear that and very few people really want to do that work. Yeah. And they especially don't want to hear it when you do acknowledge like, okay, if there were a curriculum, the curriculum would be, as Karen says, like go out and talk to people or like sit in your house and talk to people. Talk to people. Like I think that however you want that to manifest, like there are different ways to talk to people and to connect to people, but like that's the core of every single business program at least like worth its salt I think is that you like fundamentally if you're wanting to go from like not having clients to having clients you have to interact with people and I think people spend a lot of time trying to over complicate it maybe I mean for maybe some reasons a lot of reasons but I think one of the reasons is that it's kind of scary to go out and talk to people and it's kind of scary to like I don't know uh become visible for some people in that way. Um so they're like oh I I need like a a complicated path to follow. I need a guarantee. I need a formula rather than just like okay just go like talk to people or like go help I think more than talk to people. like go help people, go find ways to help people. Yeah. Um because honestly, I think at this point, if there were an actual formula that worked for every single person across the board, someone would be capitalizing on that. If I had that, I would sell that. I would be selling that from I would be screaming from the rooftops and making really audacious claims. And unfortunately, I think there are a lot of people making very audacious claims about what they have. Um, I just the the thing that's going to work for you, even if there were a formula, I would say this as well, and this might be kind of touchy for people, even some people will give you a formula, but very few ve very often that's not going to resonate with you as a business owner. And you're not going to want like there's a formula out there that I am exposed to every day that says get AI to write you a very spammy intro for this podcast. I have to tell you I get about three emails a day. The same exact AI written email. Oh my god. I really loved your topic last week on da da da da da like topic. I think this person would be a great guest for your show. da da da da da reach out and let's book a time to talk like it is AI writing that and people just do the spray and pray cold email thing. That is a tactic that does work for some businesses. But when you're talking about coaching,
the only way that somebody I think gets on a discovery call or a consultation is willing to like invest their time, their energy, their money with someone comes from everything we have talked about on every single episode thus far. Like trust they they do that based on really believing that the person in front of them is going to help them in some M yeah and that trust I think can only be built or successfully built in a scalable way or repeatable way um and sustainable way if you're being honest with yourself about like and creating your own path to whatever growth you want. Let's talk to the introverts here too because like I don't know I am I think I am kind of like an introverted extrovert. Is that the way of saying it? It's like Mhm. I really do get energy from being alone in my house with client. Although I have sold on myself already. This is bad news. This is so mystified. I'm sorry. I deeply relate. Yeah. And I filled on myself already. Okay. But like this introverted extrovert way of talking to people, right? Like you and I can have a conversation and then whoever decides to listen is part of that conversation. Maybe they reach out sometimes. Um writing books is like an introverted extrovert way of talking to people and helping them. Doesn't have to be like networking events. Um, I remember going to networking events when I started my coaching business and it was like so painful. Oh, I can imagine just like mingling and hearing everybody's elevator pitches and just Yeah, totally with you. I'm a I don't know. I think I'm more like just straight up introvert, but like I Yeah, it depends on the situation. But yeah, I think also to like underscore that if you try to force yourself to grow your business in a way that doesn't feel good or attuned or kind to you. You're like like that's kind of it's not a way of lying to people, but it's like you're kind of misrepresenting yourself. You're like putting on a mask and I think people can kind of smell that. Like that's not really appealing to people. So the best I think the best way that you can grow sustainably is to listen to yourself and find a way that feels it it's not necessarily going to feel easy, but it should be like kind to you. It could be it should be in collaboration with you and how you want to connect to people. Oh my gosh, 100%. And I mean, sure, there's people teaching a formula, but the like to the whole spirit of this question, like there's no one right way to do it. And I think so many people really underestimate the value of people you already know. It isn't like you have to talk to a billion strangers or, you know, be dancing on TikTok if that's not your energy. And like if that is your energy, that's amazing because that will get views and that will get likes. But if it feels like it's not your thing, you don't want to do like I could never my whole body like contracted when you I know you can dance and I know I can dance, but like I just don't think that would I I would feel too weird about that. I'll dance at a party. Yeah. To the disco. You have to really get to know me before we do that. How about a few espresso martinis? Yes. Maybe. Maybe this is maybe I'm going out tonight. Who knows? Maybe. But like I mean I'm thinking right now I've had some really interesting um because this is like a lighter week. It is. Well, we're recording this. It's um Thanksgiving week. Happy Thanksgiving to the US folks. Um, I know that's tomorrow for you all, but as a Canadian business owner, I'm like, it's just a regular work week, but I don't have many sessions because everybody's traveling. So, I've been spending a lot of time with friends who are on the cusp of starting their businesses. It's like, I have time. These are businesses I care about. I want to help these people. And really brilliant people. I spent some time with one of my friends who's starting a consulting business a couple days ago. I spent time today with a friend who's starting like a crafting business and both of them have like incredible networks of people who love what they do, who want to support them. And at some point there was like a moment of like mindset where it was like why are we worrying about the website? Like why are we making weird decisions about the minutiae when you literally have people you can help? Like turn on the turn on your video and start recording your message. Start sharing that. Set up a class. Pick a time. I will bring f I could fill this the craft thing. I made a pillow today. I've not used a sewing machine in 30 years. Wow. And I made a freaking pillow. amazing sewing machine. But like this is the like the value that sometimes people don't see is like your next client is in your network. It may not be your best friend, but it's probably a friend of your best friend. Yes. And you'll find them the most like easily and the fastest, I think, by just leaning into what sounds exciting to you or interesting to you. Yeah, cuz like I like a if if an introvert who was like wanting to grow a crafting business went on TikTok and like danced awkwardly and uncomfortably and you could tell I would be like scroll past I would not that would not even register. But if someone that I I was like in my community would like, "Hey, I'm getting a group of people together to make pillows." I'd be like, "Oo, sign me up." And like, yes, even if they were like, "Yeah, this is going to be a low-key way to meet people. Like, no pressure. You could make some new friends." That sounds amazing to me. So that's that's a beautiful example of like it sounds like someone who was like trying to fit in a certain box or do things quote unquote the right way and then with your help it sounds like was kind of like oh maybe I don't need to. No, they don't need my help at all. It's more just like a reminder from a business. I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna help this person because I'm like, I love this work. We made last year um I had I hosted a craft party with this person as the per as the like teacher and we made disco fruit. Wait, I need more information. What is that? Like, think of a banana bedazzled in like disco what? Like square glass like disco ball material. That's on my jewel tree. We have disco pickles. Oh my god. Do you make them? Yes. It was so much fun. I'm going to need some pictures. I'm going to send you a picture of the disco bedazzling our tree. Like there's just so many amazing creative people out there. And I think that what stops folks is like thinking, "Oh, I need a marketing budget." When you don't. You're already connected person. You just need five of your friends to get together and bring somebody to your next event. Yeah. And what I love about that specific example as well is it there's so much personality in that offer. I'm sure they weren't even thinking about it necessarily as an offer. They were just like, "It would be fun if we got together and bedazzled some pickles and then like put it out into the world." And people were like, "Yes, please." Oh, I I begged them. They brought over these things and I was like, "Can we do a party where you come to my house and I bring people and you just charge us what you charge us and like it's like a Tupperware party, but we get to do something like fun." Amazing. It's so fun and so cool. And I feel like this is the stuff I'm like, I wish I were I wish I were younger and the internet had been a different scene. Like I could have been an influencer. I could have been selling so many people's stuff because I get so excited about like the potential of someone's business and they get and most people do especially at the beginning but like they get so wrapped up in the I have to XYZ I have to like have a $10,000 marketing budget to do Facebook ads. No, you don't. Can we talk about some of those things that people think are necessary and that are kind of a waste of time for like 90% of people or money. Yeah. And and or Yeah. So I think Facebook ads 100%. I think if if you haven't nailed your organic marketing especially like you might not ever need Facebook ads depending on what your business structure is. But if you are wanting to do Facebook ads, take this all with a gra grain of salt. Like I want to back up and be like, take it all with a grain of salt. But if you if you haven't nailed your like voice, you're going to just be like throwing money down the drain if you try to start out with Facebook ads. I think that's a waste of time and money. People, I think, vastly underestimate what can be accomplished with organic marketing. I think by which I mean just like going on your profile page and being like, "Hey, I have this." Cuz it's more personal, too. Like to your point earlier, you have probably the first people you're going to be working with are people who know you at least on some level. They're in your orbit. And so, you don't need to be expanding out to people you don't know yet. You can practice on the people who know you and develop your voice and nurture your voice on those people. And then if you want to, you can expand from there. Oh my gosh, like so well said. And you know, I I mean I have had clients who are coaches in the past, but like most of my business clients are in other industries. And there are some industries where ads on social media work very beautifully. Sure. like product based businesses, retargeting strategies, like they can just, you know, turn them on and it's amazing for them. Overall, the kind of trend that I've seen in the last few years is the ads are getting more expensive. The consumers are kind of sick of it and they're not even seeing the ads. Like I mean when when I did my coach training, I remember the school that we did that with really was like you need to run Facebook ads. And at that time I was running, this is a long time ago. I was running Facebook ads to my consult page. Like wow, you have never heard of me. Book a free 30 minute session. I didn't know anything. So I did that. Um, mostly I got people filling that out at like 2:00 in the morning when they were maybe drinking too many espresso martinis, lots of no-shows, lots of like people who needed therapy, not coaching, like who are not functional. Um, I did one time like this was like winning the lottery. I had a beautiful client come from an ad, convert to my consult, do the consult, and sign up. and I worked with her for a year. Wow. That was the one and only time that the ad turned into something. But that's when Facebook ads for like lead conversion were like five bucks, two bucks. Like I was like, "Oh, that was a five." Like $5. Oh, that's so expensive. Now we're talking hundreds and hundreds of dollars for a lead. Yeah. Um it's just a very different game. And I think for service-based business, there's so many other things you can do marketing wise that are much more meaningful for people. Like I would rather send somebody a copy of my book, maybe for free if they're super aligned. That is a better investment than running ads to like whomever on social media. Yeah, totally agree. So, what are some I don't know if I even have an answer to this, but like you've already mentioned some alternatives to to Facebook ads. If you're thinking actually I don't know if this is a good direction to go in. Well, let's try it. Let's see. Okay, we can we can shut it down if we hate it. Okay, we'll shut it down. Okay. I've had more of my martini than you. I'll be honest. I don't love it. I feel like I'm working really hard to hide my face after every sip. Is it Wait, is it getting more gross as you get a little bit? Okay. Can you water it down with something? Yes, I have water here. I'll try watering. Or should I water it with like something milky? Is that going to be gross? Do you have any Bailey's or like I don't like like like creamy lure. Did they leave anything like that? No, they didn't. Milk could be like it could be a thing. It's like a white Russian. Yeah. Okay. This sounds This is going to be really gross. I need you to talk me out of this idea. I have almond eggnog. Do it. Almond milk eggnog. Is that going to be disgusting? What? No, it's I think it's better that it's an almond milk. Like I think because like it won't like curdle curdle. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to try it. I'll like bring a little glass. Okay. Sorry. So good. Amazing. Okay. Be right back. I'll just be here. Okay.
