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Building a Product to Solve Your Own Pain Point Featuring David Henzel
Episode 630 • 16th May 2022 • Smashing the Plateau • Smashing the Plateau
00:00:00 00:21:56

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David Henzel is the CEO of upcoach and a veteran entrepreneur who has been building in the saas and e-com space for over 20 years. He had multiple exits, including MaxCDN. We discuss:
  • Applying business principles to your personal life [03:14]
  • A one-stop-shop for your coaching business [06:57]
  • 80% of the problems in the coaching industry [08:03]
  • How to avoid scaling too fast in the initial phase [11:24]
  • What makes upcoach different from other similar platforms [14:11]
  • The liberation of hiring people who are better than you [16:27]
His passion is to help individuals and their organizations reach their full potential. Aside from upcoach (Coaching Delivery System), he has a small portfolio of companies including LTVplus, (Outsourcing for e-commerce & saas), TaskDrive (Sales Development), Shortlist.io (Digital Marketing Agency), and his passion project Managing Happiness (Peak Performance Group Coaching for entrepreneurs). Learn more about David at www.davidhenzel.com/, www.upcoach.com, www.managinghappiness.com, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Transcripts

David Henzel:

I was the CMO often new business that bought us and

David Henzel:

And I was putting together the brand for all these businesses.

David Henzel:

And every time I pulled the CEO into the meetings, show them like, Hey, this

David Henzel:

And he sat through the presentation three presentations, and he didn't

David Henzel:

So that's good and left.

David Henzel:

What the heck, am I messing up or don't you pull them aside?

David Henzel:

So after the third time, I'm like, am I messing up or don't you care?

David Henzel:

what's going on?

David Henzel:

They're like, why don't you say anything?

David Henzel:

He said, I only have three roles.

David Henzel:

As, as the CEO of the company, I have to make sure we have enough money.

David Henzel:

So I have to raise enough money.

David Henzel:

I have to make sure enough money coming in.

David Henzel:

I have to preach the mission and the vision of the company to the

David Henzel:

So customers and market and employees like a parrot, and I have to hire a smart.

David Henzel:

There's a much better than me in certain areas and leave them alone and just match

David Henzel:

And this was like the big aha moment for me that if you hire people and you empower

David Henzel:

That is incredibly liberating and like this much better results.

David Henzel:

If you find people who are like much better than you in certain areas,

David Shriner-Cahn:

welcome to smashing the planet.

David Shriner-Cahn:

We help you get unstuck so you can do it.

David Shriner-Cahn:

You love and get paid.

David Shriner-Cahn:

What you're worth consistently.

David Shriner-Cahn:

I'm your host David Schreiner con today on smashing the plateau.

David Shriner-Cahn:

I'm speaking with the founder of up coach David Hansell, David experienced

David Shriner-Cahn:

Using his experience and relationships in the SAS and e-comm space.

David Shriner-Cahn:

David built a new product to help coaches serve their clients.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Stay with us to hear all the details.

David Shriner-Cahn:

David shares the importance of having the right people to support you.

David Shriner-Cahn:

That's why the comradery of supportive collaborative colleagues is the foundation

David Shriner-Cahn:

You'll also find a range of tools and resources to support your

David Shriner-Cahn:

Check out the smashing the plateau community so that

David Shriner-Cahn:

Doing what you love and getting paid.

David Shriner-Cahn:

What you're worth.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Learn more@smashingtheplateau.com.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Now let's welcome, David.

David Shriner-Cahn:

David is the CEO of up coach and a veteran entrepreneur who has been

David Shriner-Cahn:

His passion is to help individuals and their organizations reach their

David Shriner-Cahn:

David, welcome to the show.

David Henzel:

Thank you for having me there.

David Henzel:

Lots of David's here.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn:

A lot of David's, it's a pretty common name.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Although from what I gather in, the current generation of

David Shriner-Cahn:

We'll see.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Anyway, you have a fascinating entrepreneurial journey.

David Shriner-Cahn:

How did you come up with the idea of.

David Henzel:

So up coach, I have, I sold my last business

David Henzel:

Actually I sold my last business cause my wife went through

David Henzel:

She's doing great today.

David Henzel:

But this was a big wake up moment for me, where I had my early midlife

David Henzel:

On my death bed, looking back at my life, thinking to do with it was supposed to

David Henzel:

And I realized I want to have more impact then picked another understanding,

David Henzel:

I learned to stay there, but back then I thought, okay,

David Henzel:

how I can.

David Henzel:

Have more impact.

David Henzel:

And then I created a system called managing happiness, how to harness it,

David Henzel:

And I created an online course and I did not like that.

David Henzel:

Only 7% of people who bought my course completed the course.

David Henzel:

Okay.

David Henzel:

My 7%.

David Shriner-Cahn:

7%.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn:

I think that's above average actually.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Yes,

David Henzel:

I know.

David Henzel:

I know.

David Henzel:

I know.

David Henzel:

But after looking into this, I found out, but I felt like home,

David Henzel:

Like why don't people complete the CNO and this is what's bugging me the

David Henzel:

So for me it was more of like a passion thing.

David Henzel:

Yeah.

David Henzel:

So this was something I didn't like.

David Henzel:

And the other thing I did not was that it was ending up in the family

David Henzel:

So it was like kind like not really my audience and the

David Henzel:

So chefs for a while.

David Henzel:

And then I started building this portfolio of companies that I'm currently running.

David Henzel:

And then I brought the principals back, applying.

David Henzel:

Business principles to your personal life to help you to be on your A-game.

David Henzel:

And I did this with my leadership teams initially, because if they're good

David Henzel:

So I helped them to figure out their personal mission, vision, and values,

David Henzel:

and that also transfers from having it in a course to a

David Henzel:

I get like between six and 10 as if it gets above 10 it's

David Henzel:

It was like an eight week course.

David Henzel:

And I cobbled it together with.

David Henzel:

Random course, offer chats, offer Google docs, kinda like with a bunch of tools.

David Henzel:

And it was too much too time-consuming for me to run this, even though the

David Henzel:

The reason why I started building this.

David Henzel:

Cause I could not find a group habit tracker because I like positive peer

David Henzel:

so I want to create this positive peer pressure.

David Henzel:

So I asked the CTO from our businesses to build me a group habit to trigger.

David Henzel:

And then we add it to this and the software grew and grew.

David Henzel:

And at some point I reached out to Todd Herman.

David Henzel:

He wrote the alter ego effect is fairly well-known coach.

David Henzel:

And I asked him, I came in, I built this coaching software,

David Henzel:

What do you think about this?

David Henzel:

And he said, this solves 80% of my headaches, my business.

David Henzel:

Can I please invest in, become a business part?

David Henzel:

All right.

David Henzel:

So I took up coach out of managing happiness and managing happiness

David Henzel:

And this is what we do today.

David Henzel:

And I have a 93% completion rate on the cohort based coaching versus

David Shriner-Cahn:

Ding, ding, ding, a little bit of success.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Didn't worked.

David Shriner-Cahn:

What kinds of problems does this?

David Henzel:

The platform itself, it solves a bunch of problems like

David Henzel:

If you have a tracker, you have kind of everything you need for the delivery.

David Henzel:

You have a chat, you don't need, you have your community, your farm,

David Henzel:

If it's one-on-one court based or whatever, it's all in this.

David Henzel:

The place and, P accountability is like another big thing that, that we solve.

David Henzel:

And that's also has a CRM attached to it.

David Henzel:

So all these interactions that people take on the platform

David Henzel:

So you have a very easy way of seeing where people are

David Henzel:

I'm big on the current.

David Henzel:

Yeah.

David Henzel:

Can

David Shriner-Cahn:

you share a little bit of, some stories of people that use it?

David Henzel:

what kind of businesses stair they're doing or what?

David Shriner-Cahn:

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn:

And you talk about it solving 80% of the problems in a coaching business.

David Shriner-Cahn:

So I'd love to hear some stories of how people have used this

David Henzel:

We have a bunch of testimonials on the website.

David Henzel:

For those of you who are into marketing, you may know Ryan Deiss.

David Henzel:

He is the founder of traffic and conversion summit, and he has a new

David Henzel:

And it's a core based coaching.

David Henzel:

And his quote was LMSs are great to warehouse content up, coaches,

David Henzel:

it's like with this countability focus, it really helps to.

David Henzel:

Yeah to get stuff done.

David Henzel:

Another thing is that you need a lot less time to, when usually you jump

David Henzel:

You don't know if they did it or not, but with up coach, we have something called

David Henzel:

These kind of can go like.

David Henzel:

That's what's going on, this what you need to have.

David Shriner-Cahn:

So does that mean if you're a coach that you are

David Shriner-Cahn:

Honestly, the other stuff is administrative part of your

David Henzel:

business?

David Henzel:

Yes.

David Henzel:

Like a lot of the administrative stuff.

David Henzel:

Cause auto, and then we also went one step further.

David Henzel:

We just launched something called up admins, which are up coach trained

David Henzel:

Talking to people and not the admin stuff, copy pasting stuff around.

David Shriner-Cahn:

So their admins who have been trained

David Henzel:

And we have some SLPs, like standard operating procedures

David Henzel:

Or you can also give them other standard operating procedures

David Henzel:

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn:

What kinds of businesses is up coach?

David Shriner-Cahn:

Not for,

David Henzel:

the question actually.

David Henzel:

It's been a bunch of agencies have been using it as well for the client

David Henzel:

can we give a good answer for them?

David Henzel:

So

David Shriner-Cahn:

it works for coaches and businesses that have an

David Henzel:

code, also HR for HR companies.

David Henzel:

So it works really well because you can have, you have for onboarding or

David Henzel:

but mainly group coaches and one-on-one coaches just the, I guess it's not

David Shriner-Cahn:

How long has that platform been up a

David Shriner-Cahn:

And what kinds of traction are you getting from people?

David Shriner-Cahn:

What are you hearing?

David Shriner-Cahn:

So

David Henzel:

initially we got 70 coaches in and then we shut the door and we just

David Henzel:

I've done a mistake before, too scale, too fast, So we just, cut got the

David Henzel:

And we completely changed the platform because everybody wants to do something.

David Henzel:

Somebody wants to call it to do some of the oncology tasks.

David Henzel:

Somebody wants to call it.

David Henzel:

everybody wants to organize this customized their stuff.

David Henzel:

So we built something like elemental and WordPress, which

David Henzel:

How you can put together your program, whatever you want to use, you only use

David Henzel:

So we can completely free to custom build what you're looking for.

David Henzel:

And maybe three or four months ago, we actually started really marketing it.

David Henzel:

And we have 250 or 270 organizations, coaching organizations on the platform.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Wow.

David Shriner-Cahn:

As you're working through this initial cohort of the 70 people, how do you decide

David Shriner-Cahn:

if they're telling you conflicting bits of information of what they want to see.

David Henzel:

that the problem with the platform is you can like people

David Henzel:

So we made this conscious decision initially to only focus on what's needed

David Henzel:

Now we didn't focus on any of the marketing aspects, cost us

David Henzel:

We want to just really look into what can be transformational in

David Henzel:

After this, we focused on the communication.

David Henzel:

We're about to publicly launch our chat integration so we can chat inside

David Henzel:

So initially the delivery, then the communication and the CRM piece.

David Henzel:

And now slowly, we're getting into some of the marketing integrations, like

David Henzel:

Which is aiming for people who have like multiple coaches or coaches and

David Henzel:

That's like the idea.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Okay.

David Shriner-Cahn:

How is up coach differ from platforms that are focused on.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Building community where the community is not necessarily following

David Shriner-Cahn:

It's more about who's in the community as opposed to a particular framework.

David Shriner-Cahn:

It sounds like op coach has some community building aspects to it.

David Henzel:

Yeah.

David Henzel:

So we have a form it's all blocks, with approaching.

David Henzel:

Particularly your coaching offering using all this different blocks.

David Henzel:

We have a forum block in our, which kinda has like some community aspects,

David Henzel:

If you, if community is your one and only thing or the main thing for

David Henzel:

it works, but in all this.

David Henzel:

Or, moving your community from Facebook to coach or it's like always a big thing that

David Henzel:

But it's often hard.

David Henzel:

If you have a very active community, you probably it's not

David Henzel:

But, I'm not comfortable with telling you like, Hey, you're here.

David Henzel:

Your, the Facebook group is your lifeblood.

David Henzel:

move it over in the arm.

David Henzel:

If this can co-exist, but you can keep your community there.

David Shriner-Cahn:

David, how has building up coach different from some

David Henzel:

One cool thing was that it's scratching my own niche, like

David Henzel:

It's I've also built businesses before where I dreamed up.

David Henzel:

The potential problems that people are having, which is always

David Henzel:

it's like much better when you felt the pain yourself and any kind

David Henzel:

And also having Todd on board mate, since it's been the coaching space for 25

David Henzel:

So it's like lots of experience, like how to scale this.

David Henzel:

And like his knowledge, was definitely tremendously helpful.

David Henzel:

So like in all my business going forward, I'll always have an

David Henzel:

So I actually build something that's, really works and not me dreaming

David Shriner-Cahn:

actually, let's talk a little bit about that.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Given the fact that you've worked on a number of different startups.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Tell me a little bit about your process for getting the team

David Shriner-Cahn:

The book part as you're getting started right.

David Shriner-Cahn:

As you're getting started.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Okay.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Okay.

David Henzel:

I can give, given another example, for example, with our coach,

David Henzel:

So I thought, okay, I have our two plus and all these outsourcing businesses.

David Henzel:

So we have lots of recruiters and lots of trainers.

David Henzel:

So we can basically hire and train people to do QA.

David Henzel:

So I hired somebody.

David Henzel:

Over 15 years of experience in the QA space.

David Henzel:

So she's like an absolute rock star in this space.

David Henzel:

So we brought her in to be the lead of new company, which is called Uber QA.

David Henzel:

So we're first eat our own dog food.

David Henzel:

We use it fast and we use it for some, I have, we have a

David Henzel:

We use it there and then getting a few friends and.

David Henzel:

And then we like slowly built this out.

David Henzel:

And then I always do my best because I have a bunch of businesses.

David Henzel:

I always do my best to be in the background and like just more puppet

David Henzel:

I don't want to deal with customers at all.

David Henzel:

So I was like piece by piece.

David Henzel:

I was like managed myself out of it so I can, yeah.

David Henzel:

I have a thing in mind, Alma, not to do this, which is don't be in the org chart.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Do you rather spend your time talking about the business?

David Shriner-Cahn:

For example,

David Henzel:

I like to work on the business, not in the business, which

David Henzel:

Sorry.

David Henzel:

So I was the CMO of the new business that bought us and today bought a few other

David Henzel:

And every time I pulled the CEO into the meeting, show

David Henzel:

And, he sat through the presentation three presentations and he didn't

David Henzel:

So that's good and left.

David Henzel:

I'm like, what the heck am I messing up?

David Henzel:

Or don't you pull them aside?

David Henzel:

So after the third time, I'm like, am I messing up or don't you care?

David Henzel:

Or what's going on?

David Henzel:

They're like, why don't you say anything?

David Henzel:

He said, I only have three.

David Henzel:

Roles as a, as the CEO of the company, you have to make sure we have enough money.

David Henzel:

So I have to raise enough money.

David Henzel:

You have to make sure enough money is coming in.

David Henzel:

I have to preach the mission and the vision of the company to the

David Henzel:

So customers and market and employees like a parrot and have to hire smart

David Henzel:

And this was like the big aha moment for me that if you hire people and you

David Henzel:

And I don't have to run around and stir the pot everywhere.

David Henzel:

That's is incredibly liberating and like this much better results.

David Henzel:

If you find people who are.

David Henzel:

Much better than you in certain areas.

David Henzel:

So

David Shriner-Cahn:

that is well said.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Good piece of advice, David, what do you hope for the future of up coach?

David Shriner-Cahn:

What would you love

David Henzel:

to see?

David Henzel:

my personal mission is to be a change agents.

David Henzel:

That's transforming the lives of individuals and organizations so that

David Henzel:

And with that coach.

David Henzel:

Cause I thought this is even more leverage because I can empower coaches

David Henzel:

So it's like a leverage of my personal mission.

David Henzel:

So does one and these are the most exciting businesses for me right now.

David Henzel:

Sounds great.

David Shriner-Cahn:

David, is there anything else you'd like

David Henzel:

Nope.

David Henzel:

Can't think of anything.

David Shriner-Cahn:

If someone wants to check out up coach or any of the other.

David Shriner-Cahn:

The other businesses or you're in or other resources that you have, where

David Henzel:

So you can go to Hensler com H N Z l.com.

David Henzel:

My last name, you gonna see a bunch of my portfolio businesses there.

David Henzel:

You can go to up coach.com or managing happiness.com and you can

David Henzel:

If you connect with me, please add that you heard me or saw me on David's podcast

David Henzel:

And, but if you say that you came from David and now I'll definitely.

David Henzel:

you requesting the will happy to chat and happy to help in any way, shape or form.

David Henzel:

I can.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Thank you, David.

David Shriner-Cahn:

I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today

David Shriner-Cahn:

sounds fascinating and, could be quite a game changer in the industry.

David Shriner-Cahn:

My guest today has been the founder of coach David Hensel.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Thank you again, David, for joining us,

David Henzel:

telling me.

David Shriner-Cahn:

When you visit the smashing the plateau

David Shriner-Cahn:

On today's episode, David shares the importance of having the

David Shriner-Cahn:

That's why the comradery of supportive collaborative colleagues is the foundation

David Shriner-Cahn:

You'll also find a range of tools and resources to support your.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Access to experts and answers to your burning questions.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Check out the smashing the plateau community so that you

David Shriner-Cahn:

Doing what you love and getting paid.

David Shriner-Cahn:

What you're worth.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Learn more@smashingtheplateau.com.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Thank you for taking the time to listen to our show.

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