Welcome to The Abundant Coach! Today, Lauren is joined by marketing expert Kevin Weis, who has helped coaches across 23 niches grow their businesses to generate over $15 million in revenue. Known for his contrarian, values-driven approach, Kevin dives into the challenges and triumphs of growing a coaching business that aligns with who you are at your core. He introduces his “Seven W’s” framework, offering coaches a roadmap to grow sustainably and authentically. Whether you’re just starting out or are ready to take your existing business to new heights, this episode is packed with valuable insights and real-world advice.

Key Takeaways

• Embrace Authenticity: Growth doesn’t require you to conform. The most sustainable way to grow your coaching business is by staying true to yourself and letting your unique personality and values lead the way.
• Use the “Seven W’s” to Clarify Your Path: Kevin’s framework helps coaches define their mission, audience, and goals, providing a clear structure to grow your business intentionally.
• Create Scalable Services to Expand Your Reach: From digital products to group coaching, explore offerings that allow you to grow your business without taking on extra hours.
• Relationship-Building as a Growth Strategy: True, long-term growth comes from building connections, not just from attracting large numbers. Focus on attracting clients who truly resonate with you.
• Set a Vision for the Future: Ask yourself “what if” questions to envision the life and business you want to create. This can serve as a guiding light as you make decisions on how to grow your coaching business.

To find out more about Kevin, visit www.thecontrarianstrategy.com

To connect with Lauren and the Brave Thinking Institute, visit BTI.com/CoachCertification

Are you ready to grow a coaching business and fulfill your true purpose in the world? 

Join Lauren’s Life Coach Accelerator, a free, five-day challenge designed to help coaches catapult their careers. This hands-on challenge is perfect for aspiring coaches and those ready to step up their game. Learn how to attract ideal clients, set rates confidently, and overcome common money blocks that keep coaches stuck. You’ll walk away with the tools and clarity to build a successful, sustainable coaching business that’s fully aligned with your values. 

Sign up today and start growing the coaching business of your dreams!

00;00;03;23 - 00;00;32;25

Lauren Brollier Newton

Welcome to the abundant coach. I'm your host, Lauren Brollier Newton. This is a weekly podcast about creating full spectrum success with a thriving coaching business, while making a profound difference in the world. Each week, you'll discover insights, strategies, and inspiration to help you attract your ideal clients. Facilitate real transformation in their lives, and grow your coaching business while living your purpose with true freedom and fulfillment.

00;00;32;28 - 00;00;58;00

Lauren Brollier Newton

00;00;58;03 - 00;01;08;19

Lauren Brollier Newton

And something that he wants you to know about him is he's a self-professed contrarian, so we can talk more about that, too. So please welcome to the podcast. Kevin Weiss. Kevin, thank you for being here.

00;01;08;21 - 00;01;13;04

Kevin Weis

Thanks for having me, Lauren. Super excited to chat with you today.

00;01;13;06 - 00;01;20;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

Okay, so more interesting than any marketing or anything else. Tell me about what being a self-professed contrary it means to you.

00;01;20;07 - 00;01;41;06

Kevin Weis

Yeah. So that's that's interesting. You know, I've been doing a lot of study, like self-study over the course of the last few years, and one of the things that has really stood out to me, especially from my faith point of view and, you know, I'm a Christian, that's kind of so you have an idea of where I'm coming from.

00;01;41;09 - 00;02;06;03

Kevin Weis

Reading the Bible and just looking at different mentors that I have in my life and, and looking at, at Jesus and the way that he lived, he was a complete contrarian, like the what he did, what he said. It was completely countercultural to the day. And so when I'm when I'm looking at him and the way that he lives and what he teaches and like, how do you apply those things?

00;02;06;09 - 00;02;29;06

Kevin Weis

It truly is being a contrarian because so many of the things that people are looking for today in our world with, you know, AI and all these crazy things happening, like people are looking for authenticity, they're looking for something different. And so, that word to me just stands like a contrarian, somebody who does things differently. Like when you look at them, you're like, wow, there's something different about this person.

00;02;29;06 - 00;02;37;18

Kevin Weis

And so whether it's, you know, marketing or life in general or, you know, being a husband or a dad, that's what I want to aspire to, being different than the norm.

00;02;37;20 - 00;03;02;28

Lauren Brollier Newton

I love that, Kevin. That's such a good point. I, and, you know, for any of you who are listening to this podcast and are not necessarily, Christianity as your persuasion, if you just look at, like, all the great religions and the and the teachings and the teachers, you know, I often think of the life of Jesus and think he literally came into his culture, to this culture that he was living in and said, you guys are crazy for what you're doing.

00;03;03;00 - 00;03;28;28

Lauren Brollier Newton

All these rules, all these things you're doing, all these ways that you're living and comes in and just like, so radically like turns it all on its head. And I think what I love about that particular study is, We know that Jesus, whether again for you, he's a savior, a mystic, a teacher, a sort of story that you've heard.

00;03;29;00 - 00;03;50;11

Lauren Brollier Newton

One of the things I love is this idea that, yes, he was 100% love, but he was rigorous with every single person that he talked to. Absolutely super rigorous. So a lot of times our coaches, whether it's, you know, that briefing institute, we train certified coaches and many of them are very heart centered people, very spiritual people.

00;03;50;17 - 00;04;09;24

Lauren Brollier Newton

It doesn't mean they're all Christian people, but all very spiritual, connected, heart centered, wanting to make a difference in other people's lives. And somehow their pattern in life up until now has been like a doormat. Like, because I'm carrying, I kind of am a doormat to whatever happens or I don't know how to speak up for myself. And sometimes will.

00;04;09;24 - 00;04;35;14

Lauren Brollier Newton

I will personally use the analogy of the rigor of someone like Jesus. Like he wasn't sitting there going, oh, I feel so sorry for you and do whatever you want to me, and I'll never have an objection. Quite the opposite. There was like this level of rigor of like asking people to think about things differently. And so, if I'm understanding you correctly, Kevin, that's the interest is like thinking differently, doing things differently, getting curious, being rigorous.

00;04;35;17 - 00;04;41;19

Kevin Weis

Yeah, absolutely. It's not being passive at all. Like you're actively engaged and present in whatever you're doing.

00;04;41;22 - 00;04;58;20

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah, I love that. Actively engaged in whatever you're doing. Okay. So now that we've gotten the most important thing contrarian, thought, professor, out of the way. I have a million questions I'd love to ask you about high level marketing strategy for coaches and all the coaches that are going to be listening at whatever stage of the game they're at.

00;04;58;23 - 00;05;09;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

But before I do that, I want to know about your background in marketing. Like how did you get interested in it? How did you did? Do you define yourself as a marketer? Like just tell me all about that.

00;05;09;07 - 00;05;47;01

Kevin Weis

Yeah, it's an interesting story. I would say, before I, before I get into that, I want to give you like a little, little bit more background about my background. So I, I used to think that the route that I've taken, the journey that I've taken in my career, like, is somehow wrong or or it's just like, like I feel guilty about it or like I'm not going to measure up because I, I took this different route where if you're, you know, I used to always look at, you know, the gurus out there and stuff that people doing things really, really big and being like, well, I didn't start off my first business and it

00;05;47;01 - 00;06;09;18

Kevin Weis

just blew up and turned into this huge success. Like, I did a whole bunch of things that, looking back and I, I know value because I've kind of changed my, my perspective and looked at things differently. But in the moment I was like, man, this is this is not me. This is not where I want to be. And I just I think I was a little bit more frustrated because I wanted to control that.

00;06;09;18 - 00;06;29;29

Kevin Weis

I wanted to control kind of what it looked like and what that journey looked like. But now, looking back on it, I can see all the different valuable pieces along the way. So it really started when I was young. I grew up, with this entrepreneurial mindset. Like some of the friends that I was around, we would come up with ideas to just start weird businesses.

00;06;29;29 - 00;06;55;14

Kevin Weis

00;06;55;17 - 00;07;20;02

Kevin Weis

I started my my second business, and that was as a financial advisor. So I was a financial coach. And I went into that industry primarily because I thought it was going to be really lucrative, like a great way to provide for my family. I was going to make a lot of money. It's going to be awesome. And I learned a ton about, marketing and especially about sales and like how to talk with people, how to have conversations about stuff that's not always the easiest to talk about, right?

00;07;20;02 - 00;07;44;03

Kevin Weis

Like money is something that can be extremely personal for some people. So that was really good. But what hit me, a few years into doing it was like, this is not what I'm passionate about. I'm not loving the conversations I'm having to have. I almost felt like I was being inauthentic because I was talking with people who went the traditional route.

00;07;44;03 - 00;08;02;12

Kevin Weis

Right? Like they had a they had a normal job. They were contributing to a 401 K they, you know, they weren't entrepreneurs. And that's the mindset that I was thinking. And like, I'm I'm not investing in a 401 K, I'm not putting money into an IRA yet. I'm telling you to do it because I think there's a better route.

00;08;02;14 - 00;08;31;17

Kevin Weis

00;08;31;20 - 00;08;52;13

Kevin Weis

But I love the business side, the entrepreneurial stuff. And so we kind of, like, locked arms and went into this thing, and we started our own kettlebell gym. And at first, like, it was awful. We did a really bad job marketing, our ideal client, we thought we were going to work with college students because our gym was like ten steps from campus.

00;08;52;13 - 00;09;10;00

Kevin Weis

We thought we were going to have people coming in day one, and it was just going to be awesome. And it was crickets like we were inside an apartment building. That's where our location was, and there was probably 60 or 80 residents in the building. We thought we had like a built in crowd. Nobody.

00;09;10;04 - 00;09;22;02

Lauren Brollier Newton

Wow. Nobody came. So let me ask. Let me pause you there and ask, so what was your marketing strategy? Did you just think, like, if we build it, they will come? Or were you actively advertising to that apartment building in that college?

00;09;22;04 - 00;09;42;29

Kevin Weis

Yeah, we were doing all the traditional stuff, like building up fliers, going door to door. We partnered with some local businesses to try and, you know, work with their employees. That kind of stuff. And it just was not working. And we had talked with a couple different, couple different people in the same industry, in the fitness industry.

00;09;43;02 - 00;10;03;03

Kevin Weis

And what we ended up realizing was we're trying to work with the wrong people, like college students aren't super worried about their health in a lot of cases. They're not in a place where they're, you know, maybe disgusted enough with where they are that they want to make a change. And we weren't trying to work with, you know, super high level athletes.

00;10;03;03 - 00;10;26;20

Kevin Weis

We were trying to work more with the everyday person. Yeah. And so after some exploration, we did some research. We ended up shifting our ideal client from a college student to like, a middle aged woman who wanted to lose weight and have better mobility and, all that stuff. And it was like a night and day difference with our business.

00;10;26;25 - 00;10;27;23

Lauren Brollier Newton

Oh.

00;10;27;26 - 00;10;31;14

Kevin Weis

Yeah, it it it just blew up. Things change.

00;10;31;17 - 00;10;35;12

Lauren Brollier Newton

How did you market to them? How did you market to the middle aged woman.

00;10;35;14 - 00;10;51;00

Kevin Weis

Yeah. So that's really interesting. That's where a lot of the marketing comes from. So one day I got a call. This was early on in business. I got a call. It was a cold call. Somebody trying to sell me something. There's a first time that I'd ever really experienced something like that. Like picking up the phone and being like, hi.

00;10;51;00 - 00;11;08;11

Kevin Weis

And they're like, hey, is this Kevin? And then going to their sales pitch kind of thing. And at the end of it, I was like, we're a startup. We do not have the money to invest in this, but I'm just curious, what software do you use to do this, like do this thing that they were telling me about?

00;11;08;13 - 00;11;21;25

Kevin Weis

And so they told me, and that started me down this path of learning everything that I could about, a building, a website or a funnel, email marketing, advertising, copywriting, like all this stuff.

00;11;21;29 - 00;11;22;29

Lauren Brollier Newton

00;11;23;01 - 00;11;40;18

Kevin Weis

So, yeah, that was really like one of the sparks that kind of started me down, more formal marketing path was doing it for our gym and having to teach myself all this stuff, and it took a long time when I didn't have somebody there, like a coach or a mentor, to walk me through this step by step.

00;11;40;21 - 00;11;59;09

Kevin Weis

And that's why it's so valuable, because I wasted so much time, so much money to run on that, trying to figure it all out myself and not to mention all the stress, right, to. So yeah, that's where we were at with, with our gym. And then Covid happened.

00;11;59;11 - 00;12;04;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

So just this little thing called Covid as a gym owner. Yeah.

00;12;04;07 - 00;12;24;17

Kevin Weis

And at first, you know, it didn't hit us hard like our, our clients were in the right. We're in this mindset of like, we're not worried about it. We're healthy. We're doing all the right things. But then some stuff started to happen economy wise, and people started getting furloughed or laid off or, you know, yeah, that kind of thing.

00;12;24;19 - 00;12;31;29

Kevin Weis

And so we had this probably 6 or 8 month delay before it actually started hitting our business. But when it hit, it hit really.

00;12;31;29 - 00;12;33;28

Lauren Brollier Newton

Fast. Yeah.

00;12;34;00 - 00;12;53;01

Kevin Weis

Yeah. And so we tried to pivot. We tried to pivot from this in-person brick and mortar thing where we built these really close relationships with people to doing it online and having people have to buy all their own equipment, find a space in their home to work out, and then try and somehow foster that same type of relationship.

00;12;53;01 - 00;13;26;11

Kevin Weis

And it just it didn't go well. And so eventually that led us to another huge turning point in my life where, There were a lot of big things that happened at once. My mom had a stroke, my mother in law had a stroke. We were going to have a baby, like within two weeks, and we were trying to finish our basement and do a home birth and, like, all these really big things that were causing a ton of stress.

00;13;26;11 - 00;13;30;23

Kevin Weis

It was almost like, because everything was big, none of it was big.

00;13;30;25 - 00;13;32;18

Lauren Brollier Newton

I guess. Yeah.

00;13;32;20 - 00;13;55;28

Kevin Weis

Yeah. So the Covid thing forced me to move into more of like a formal job role. And that was one of the, one of the times where I really felt like, man, I almost feeling shame for the route that my entrepreneurial journey took me because I didn't want to be an employee. I knew what that felt like, and just having to humble myself and be like, I gotta provide for my family right now.

00;13;56;01 - 00;14;15;26

Kevin Weis

So I got to get a job. So I got a job. I'd been working, with an ad agency for some time. And then, you know, this period hit where, the strokes and all the health stuff with family. And then we were going to have our baby, and then we had all this financial stuff moving into our new house and trying to build a basement, like everything was huge.

00;14;15;29 - 00;14;47;07

Kevin Weis

And then I got laid off from that job. And that's a whole separate story. Really, really interesting story, behind that. But it led me to this point where I'm like, okay, I got to do things a little bit differently if I want to get to where I want to be. And that's kind of what started this whole, like, dive down this contrarian mindset, trying to figure out, what do I want to do with my life, what's going to fulfill me and provide the financial lifestyle that I want and the time, freedom and all that sort of thing.

00;14;47;07 - 00;15;03;14

Kevin Weis

So, yeah, so I would say just kind of sum that all up. It's been about a decade that I've been in marketing, doing a variety of different kinds of things, coaching everything from finances to nutritional supplements to fitness coaching and business coaching to.

00;15;03;17 - 00;15;25;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

I love this, Kevin, because I think personally that the most valuable way to become something in business is in the school of hard knocks. It's literally I'm trying it out and I'm testing it and I'm throwing spaghetti on the wall. And, you know, neither of us have like a, MBA from Harvard in business or something like that.

00;15;25;07 - 00;15;39;23

Lauren Brollier Newton

And yet you look at the results that you produce and it's really, truly because of like, that willingness to do trial and error, try different things, take risks, put yourself out there and, you learn by getting it wrong and getting it right.

00;15;39;25 - 00;16;02;02

Kevin Weis

Yeah, yeah. And that takes a special mindset. I was just talking earlier this week with this group of marketers about about how you look at failure and whether you take it as like a personal failure, whatever that is. Like you put this definition on what failure is, just like you put a definition of what success is, right? So it's like, how are you looking at that?

00;16;02;02 - 00;16;23;25

Kevin Weis

Are you looking at it as like, man, I had to take a regular job. I feel like a failure versus looking at it as feedback and actually trying to learn from that and get curious and ask some questions. So that's been a huge mindset shift for me as I've gone along this journey and just trying to view things more as feedback and learn from them.

00;16;23;27 - 00;16;47;28

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah, because here's the thing. The failure. I'll tell you a funny story about this. It's a marketing story too. So I decided this is like, I don't know, Kevin. I'm probably like three years into my business. I built my business, basically, I took what I call the community pathway. So I didn't do an online marketing. I got out my community boots on the ground, spoke, gave workshops, networked, and I got my business, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars a year.

00;16;48;06 - 00;17;10;08

Lauren Brollier Newton

And then I wanted to expand my reach. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to start doing more online marketing. And, I had someone running Facebook ads for me. And actually that worked pretty well. But then I was like, I'm gonna make this funnel. Well, I didn't really know anything about funnels. And it was funny. Two Kevins is so funny how like, you'll have a limiting belief, but it'll be so far in the background, like you won't even notice it's there.

00;17;10;10 - 00;17;28;15

Lauren Brollier Newton

And the funny thing about this is I had mentors at the time, like I was in the highest level Mastermind and Brave Thinking Institute, and I didn't freakin ask if this was a good idea. Like, it's just so funny. Like, I'm just going to do this on my own. So I create this funnel. It cost $15,000 and it failed immediately.

00;17;28;21 - 00;17;44;17

Lauren Brollier Newton

And then I finally did ask my mentor and he was like, yeah, there's there's not a lot that's salvageable there. And there was a part of me that was so distraught, Kevin I was like $15,000. And I was like, again, kind of like you said, like shaming myself and blaming yourself like, oh, you're just someone who waste money.

00;17;44;17 - 00;18;08;08

Lauren Brollier Newton

And this is what you always do. And, you know, just harping on myself. And then I came back to this failure is feedback thing. And I'm like, okay, if $15,000 feels like a really big failure to me, if failure really is feedback and as Napoleon, Napoleon Hill has a great quote where he says, every failure, every adversity, every heartache carries within it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

00;18;08;10 - 00;18;28;13

Lauren Brollier Newton

So I just started to tell myself over and over again, there's a $15,000 seed waiting for me if I can find this feedback. This is a $15,000 seed. I'm growing a money tree, and I just got in this mindset and what it actually brought me to realize is the funnel that I had made for the program. I had made.

00;18;28;15 - 00;18;50;13

Lauren Brollier Newton

I was not passionate about. And what I realized is this was pushing me to a place I didn't feel ready to go, but it was pushing me to write a new curriculum, to write a new program, to market in a different way. And so it was like so painful at the time for so many different reasons. The time, the money, like the feeling of shame.

00;18;50;15 - 00;19;03;20

Lauren Brollier Newton

But where it brought me was actually, when I look back, millions of dollars because it was I created my brand, my signature product, my, only because I was willing to be like, there's a $15,000 seed in here.

00;19;03;22 - 00;19;27;00

Kevin Weis

Yeah. Wow, that that's an awesome story. Like, just I can't imagine that, like, you probably felt like you just you threw your money out the window and being able to take that and learn from it, like, it takes a lot of, you know, poise and maturity to be able to really like, look at that and figure out where where's the good in this, because it's somewhere I had to dig for it.

00;19;27;00 - 00;19;48;02

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's the benefit of having mentors is when I realized my mentor told me this is not salvageable. And I was so distraught, he got on the phone with me and he was like, we are going to harvest something out of this. And like, that's so the benefit of it is like having someone stand by you and say, like, this doesn't have to mean anything bad.

00;19;48;03 - 00;20;08;28

Lauren Brollier Newton

But of course, the other side of you is like, what could I have invested in with $15,000? Who could I have helped with $15,000? I can get all these thoughts about, you know, what a failure you are. And so it's like having the having the rigor to overcome that thought and think the different thought. Like that's really where the the resilience comes from.

00;20;09;00 - 00;20;29;18

Kevin Weis

Yeah. Let me ask you a question about that. So the mentor that you had at that time, we kind of had to, you know, give you the, the what you might, might have thought was bad news. How would you see that mentor aligned with you, like, like personality wise, business wise and like coaching you on to where you want to go?

00;20;29;21 - 00;20;54;13

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah. Meaning when you say how that person aligned with me, like how we resonate. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because that person to this day I, we think so similar. But it's like I didn't know any of the marketing strategy. I learned it all from him. But the the heart of the matter and what we what what my mission is, what his mission is, is what resonated.

00;20;54;15 - 00;21;14;21

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah. So I think it's like that level of, you know, that you're going to the same place, you know, that the person understands your mission. And, I had to learn all the marketing parts of it, but, but I always knew, like, our mission was so aligned that, like, he's never going to steer me in the wrong direction.

00;21;14;24 - 00;21;31;24

Lauren Brollier Newton

So it was easy to take feedback, you know, and I think I think back to the day I call I like he calls me because I'm so distraught and I'm totally just like wailing crying like there's nothing good about this, you know. And it was him holding state with me. Yeah.

00;21;31;26 - 00;21;59;11

Kevin Weis

There. That's that's great. And the reason it just says you were telling me that story, it made me think of a similar story that I went through, but it was kind of completely the opposite of your experience. So when we had our gym, we paid $10,000 to hire this coach. And kind of his promise was, I'm going to give you all the systems and everything that you need for your business and it's going to, you know, help you make, make this money.

00;21;59;14 - 00;22;13;29

Kevin Weis

And I was like, yes, that's what I want. That's what I need. I just like, I need, you know, something that's going to work. Right. And so we hired that coach and within the very first month, we made our $10,000 back plus.

00;22;13;29 - 00;22;15;27

Lauren Brollier Newton

So wow.

00;22;15;29 - 00;22;41;05

Kevin Weis

And then I fired that coach okay. So the reason why is because the way that we made that $10,000 was out of alignment. So we had the processes and systems to make make money and to get the result. But the way that he did it was it was like it was not in alignment with us. We were kind of butting heads.

00;22;41;07 - 00;23;04;12

Kevin Weis

And that's when I really realized, like, not only do you need somebody who's been where you want to go when you're choosing a culture mentor, but you need to know that they're going to do it in a way that will align with you if you want to do it long term. Because, like, the best way that I can say it is the end does not justify.

00;23;04;14 - 00;23;27;24

Lauren Brollier Newton

Exactly, exactly. No. This is I'm so glad you're bringing this up, Kevin. And what a great question that you ask, because I never really thought about that in the context of that story before. But it's like you quickly, I'm sure, realized $10,000 when I feel this ickiness inside of me, or I feel this out of alignment, or I feel like I can't do another day of this, not worth it.

00;23;27;26 - 00;23;37;08

Lauren Brollier Newton

Like even you start to realize that if you're feeling this way all the time, $1 million wouldn't even be worth it, because you can live with that feeling of like, this is not who I am.

00;23;37;10 - 00;23;38;20

Kevin Weis

Yeah, absolutely.

00;23;38;23 - 00;23;57;14

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah. This is so important for every coach listening because I think and this is, this is this is the flag I wave. Kevin, you can you can see if you agree or not. But I feel like there's so much noise in the coaching space. It's like build it, build your business through a funnel funnel. DM a million people do it this way, do it that way, do it this way.

00;23;57;16 - 00;24;18;06

Lauren Brollier Newton

And I think sometimes a coach who has not yet particularly developed their core values or an understanding of what it is, feels like there's something wrong with them if they don't go after the way other coaches are doing it. And I feel like that when I think back to the things that really grew my business. Was their strategy involved?

00;24;18;07 - 00;24;34;08

Lauren Brollier Newton

Of course, there was, but it was actually more of an internal decision of like, I'm passionate about this and I'm going after it and I'm only going to go after it in a way that feels good to me. Me personally, I'm not ever DMing anybody. That's just me personally. No criticism of like anybody that builds that way and is talented at it.

00;24;34;11 - 00;24;48;10

Lauren Brollier Newton

It's just not who I am. And so it's like, that was never going to be something that was going to work for me, because I would feel so constricted every time I did it. Whereas for me, if I have an opportunity to speak, I'll do that all day long. I feel good about it aligns with who I am.

00;24;48;12 - 00;25;00;10

Lauren Brollier Newton

So I'd love to hear you speak to what kind of what I'm saying about that. Like, there's so much noise about how to build your business. How do you just quiet that down and find what aligns with your values?

00;25;00;12 - 00;25;20;29

Kevin Weis

Yeah, well, there's also so many ways that you can actually make money as a coach. There's so many models that you can use. You can make a make a really good video sales video online and put it out there and that can bring in clients. You can join a BNI networking group or something locally and get clients through that.

00;25;21;02 - 00;25;41;16

Kevin Weis

You can send out fliers or do billboards or do ads online. Right? There's there are there literally are so many ways that you can make money that sometimes that can be paralyzing is like, yeah, I have to figure out what way resonates with me. And sometimes it does take some some testing, right? When I was a financial advisor, it was door to door stuff and it was phone call stuff.

00;25;41;18 - 00;26;00;16

Kevin Weis

When we did our gym, it was like in and out fliers and joining networking groups. When it was transitioning to online, we were doing ads and funnels and videos, right. So sometimes it does take a little bit of that, just like try things like it's almost like you're a, I don't know, going to Costco and like sampling different.

00;26;00;19 - 00;26;14;17

Kevin Weis

What makes you feel good? What what gives you energy because you want to make this fun too, right? Like like it's not just you make money to provide for your family. Like if you can do it in a way that gives you energy and that you really enjoy, like spend some time trying to figure out what that is.

00;26;14;17 - 00;26;15;25

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah, do that.

00;26;15;27 - 00;26;43;26

Kevin Weis

Yeah. So I think that maybe just take some trial and error. At least it did in my experience. But then the other piece is finding the right coach. And I think most people, if they slow down enough to listen to their heart when they hear someone else speak or teach or do something, you can kind of tell when somebody is being authentic in their being true.

00;26;43;28 - 00;27;05;24

Kevin Weis

Especially if you listen to enough of their content. So when I'm looking at potentially hiring somebody for a coach, whether it's someone who can teach me how to be a better speaker or teach me online advertising, or teach me how to move my body better, right? Whatever it is, I will usually spend a little bit of time vetting them.

00;27;05;24 - 00;27;33;08

Kevin Weis

I want to spend some time with them or with their content. So maybe I'll, maybe I'll, like, read a book that they wrote, or maybe I'll attend a challenge or a webinar that they're putting out there. Or maybe like this, I'll listen to their podcast and see, like, am I resonating with these messages? Because sometimes, so I've got a four year old daughter and a two year old son and one of the, one of the rules in our house is we've got a, three no thank you bites.

00;27;33;08 - 00;27;47;11

Kevin Weis

So if they say, like I don't want, I don't want to eat that. Well, you got to try it three times, right? Yeah. The first time. You're not going to know. The second time you're kind of going to get a feel for it. And then by the by the third bite, you're probably going to have a pretty sure.

00;27;47;13 - 00;28;07;20

Kevin Weis

Yeah. Whether you like it. So it's kind of the same thing when you're choosing your coach. Like you can't just listen to the short one minute video somebody puts out there, like, you got to take a few bites and and try out, you know, a couple things, spend some time with them to really tell if you resonate with them as a person, and if the message that they're putting out there really connects with you.

00;28;07;20 - 00;28;17;16

Kevin Weis

So those would probably be the two biggest things would be spend some time when you're choosing a person and then test a few different things out when you're choosing a model that you want to use.

00;28;17;23 - 00;28;35;28

Lauren Brollier Newton

I love this so much, Kevin. I think this is brilliant, brilliant advice because you do like if you if you listen to yourself, you know, resonance or what's not resonant. And I just love the idea of your Costco samples because I'm literally I don't have a Costco membership. I live in Wyoming. We don't have a Costco here. So, but I remember the little white cups with the sample.

00;28;35;29 - 00;28;55;14

Lauren Brollier Newton

Like, sometimes I'll have a fork in it or whatever. And, I am a self-professed kid's menu eater, so if I had my choice, I would just eat, like, mac and cheese or quesadillas or, like, hot dogs every day, like, I'm not. And I don't have a sophisticated palate. So I imagined myself in Costco tasting something and being like, oh, like like a little kid.

00;28;55;14 - 00;29;16;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

Like, oh, this is gross. I'm spitting it out. And then I imagine myself tasting something would be like, this is delightful. And it's such a simple analogy, but it's so true about when we resonate with people or not. And I know in my past I have looked at someone who I know has made money, who I know is really good at what they do, who has whatever it is, a funnel or speaking training or this.

00;29;16;06 - 00;29;39;01

Lauren Brollier Newton

And I can think of the ones that didn't work for me, like I signed up for the program, I gave it my all, but it didn't work for me. And if I trace back to that very beginning when I watched their first three three things, if I'm honest with myself, I felt the lack of resonance. But I said to myself, you should do this because they sound like they know what they're talking about.

00;29;39;04 - 00;29;46;20

Lauren Brollier Newton

So like, I very much value what you said, Kevin. It's just such a good, like, realization of, like, fine tuning ourselves inside to, like, be aware of that.

00;29;46;22 - 00;30;06;06

Kevin Weis

Yeah. You know, one other thing. Maybe we'll talk about this again in a little bit, but it just came to mind, like everything that we've talked about up until this point is kind of about like like the coach, the coach being on their journey, figuring out, what do I want to do, how do I want to do it, that kind of thing.

00;30;06;08 - 00;30;40;01

Kevin Weis

But one thing that's really important is if you're going to be a coach, your potential clients are going to be doing the same thing to you, right? They're going to be taste testing your content. And so you got to be putting some stuff out there pretty consistently so people get to know you so they can decide, do I really connect with this person and is the the way the, the model, the curriculum, the process, like whatever that mechanism is that they're going to take me through to help me experience this change.

00;30;40;03 - 00;31;05;19

Kevin Weis

Am I in alignment with that too? Right. So that's why it's like it's so important to not only share yourself authentically. If you're if you're a coach of some sort or you're considering being a coach putting yourself out there. Yeah. But but also having, a system and being able to talk through that, and share, like what that looks like so people can see, oh, like this.

00;31;05;21 - 00;31;13;20

Kevin Weis

I connect with that. I could see myself going through that process and coming out on the other side, being a completely different person.

00;31;13;22 - 00;31;35;12

Lauren Brollier Newton

This is so important. And this takes me actually to a strategic point, which I was thinking about recently. So you just said if you're doing that, you can expect that your clients will be doing a similar thing. So you want to have content out there for them to look at. So I would advise for for those of you coaches who maybe especially are online, as opposed to like at your DNI meeting or whatever it is where you're even at your being.

00;31;35;12 - 00;32;00;06

Lauren Brollier Newton

I'm meeting, if they wanted to look for things that you've done, how easy is it for that client to find it? So recently this year we did, at Rethinking Institute, we have something called the Transformational Coach of the year award. And people submit client stories and we pick. We all get together a whole faculty. There's like ten of us, and we watch every single video and we vote on, you know, transformational coach.

00;32;00;08 - 00;32;28;09

Lauren Brollier Newton

Now, some of the coaches I was wanting to get a little more info on as I was doing this voting process. So I literally googled their name, can't find anything, googled their name. Coach can't find anything, go on Facebook this, that. So I'm not saying everybody has to have a super strong online presence, but it's like it made me think, oh, if I'm doing this and it's challenging me for for me to find who they are, what they do, their prospective clients are doing this and not finding them in any sort of a a good way.

00;32;28;09 - 00;32;45;18

Lauren Brollier Newton

So that takes me to a question, I guess, Kevin, which is if you're a brand new coach, I'm a big fan of, you're not going to do every single thing under the sun. But for you, Kevin, what do you think is essential for a brand new new coach to have in order to be able to have people find them?

00;32;45;20 - 00;33;12;19

Kevin Weis

That's a really good question. And I think it depends on the the model that you take. But regardless of the model you need to have some sort of content. So kind of like you shared, you didn't do the online route right away. Right? But you had content. You had a business card maybe. Yeah. That you hand it out, maybe you had a presentation that you you gave to people.

00;33;12;22 - 00;33;37;12

Kevin Weis

Maybe you had fliers that you're putting up at local businesses to advertise, maybe an event or something. Right. That's all content, right? It's it's a message that you're delivering to people. So you absolutely have to have that because chances are. But you you may do this, but chances are you're probably not going to go door to door and have a conversation with every person and be fully active, fully on all the time.

00;33;37;17 - 00;33;56;01

Kevin Weis

Right? You want something that's going to work for you when you're not there. And that's what content if it's the online version, maybe you're making posts on social media, maybe you're making YouTube videos, maybe you have a website, even if it's just something really simple that says like, hey, my name is Lauren. Here's what I believe. Here's what I do.

00;33;56;01 - 00;34;15;21

Kevin Weis

If you want to learn more, click here. Right. Like it doesn't have to be anything fancy. But you got to have some sort of content so people can make that decision of who is this person? Do I align with them in the way that they do things? And am I willing to reach out to them to ask for for help or at bare minimum, more information?

00;34;15;23 - 00;34;34;11

Lauren Brollier Newton

Okay, so then that leads me to another question. So I love that you gotta have some kind of content somewhere. Whether it's community online, whatever. How do you get a coach to not make that a paralysis thing where it's like, oh, I have to have all this setup before I can serve people?

00;34;34;13 - 00;34;59;15

Kevin Weis

That's a good question. So I've heard this, phrase and maybe I'm saying it wrong, but essentially do what you can with what you have. Yeah, right. So you don't. I used to be a perfectionist, so I grew up as, valedictorian of my high school class, 4.0 all star athlete, tons of awards. But I was all performance based.

00;34;59;15 - 00;35;17;29

Kevin Weis

And so when I got into the real world and I started trying to make my own business, it took me way too long to get anything done because I was worried about having it perfect. And I, I didn't either. I don't think I had the wisdom to know that one is never going to be perfect in the first place, right?

00;35;17;29 - 00;35;39;07

Kevin Weis

And if somehow you're able to make it perfect in a year from now, it's not going to be perfect anymore because things change so, so fast. So really, it's it's, when we had our gym, our slogan was, you're just one step away. So we just focused on that one. Next step. What's the one next best step you have that you don't have any content.

00;35;39;12 - 00;35;55;13

Kevin Weis

You don't have to wait a year until you have your website and have paid somebody thousands of dollars to put together this giant campaign for you and like, put a big sticker on your get your whole car wrapped. Like, you don't need to wait for all that stuff. All you need to do is, is do what you can with what you have.

00;35;55;20 - 00;36;02;20

Kevin Weis

And that might be as simple as starting a conversation and saying hi to somebody right?

00;36;02;23 - 00;36;17;06

Lauren Brollier Newton

So true. It's like when I started. So I will tell the audience one of the things I did have. So I went in my community. Like I said, I networked, I did speaking engagements, I hosted workshops. That was my whole strategy and I did it consistently. It wasn't like, oh, maybe next week I'll go to a networking meeting.

00;36;17;06 - 00;36;35;25

Lauren Brollier Newton

It's like it was my strategy. I was doing it all the time, but the two pieces online that I did have, which made a huge difference, is I had a very simple website. So like, you know, Wix, Squarespace, something you can just drag and drop. I made it myself within like a day. So again, we're not waiting for the professional design.

00;36;35;28 - 00;36;56;00

Lauren Brollier Newton

It wasn't the best looking thing, but it was presence. The other thing I had was an email list and I just started it. It was the free MailChimp, and every time I would give someone my business card, I would say, if you give me yours, is it okay if I add it to my list? I just once a week send out something that's going to help build your business or, you know, whatever it is that I'm offering.

00;36;56;02 - 00;37;24;20

Lauren Brollier Newton

And so I could email them every week. And so they I was present in their life after we met. And so even though I was primarily focused on the networking, I did have a place that they could go to find me once they left that meeting. And they're going, who was that girl that had the coaching business? So I do think it's very important that there is a space for that client to Google you, so to speak, and be able to find you.

00;37;24;20 - 00;37;31;13

Lauren Brollier Newton

So at least if they're interested, they can. It's like you didn't just leave them hanging, you know, there's something they can go to to contact you.

00;37;31;15 - 00;37;53;11

Kevin Weis

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that the easiest way to figure out what what to do for like a place to start is just what we had talked about a little bit ago with the your potential clients are going to be doing the same things that you're doing, right. So if you are going to look for a coach, a life coach, what are what where the first place you're going to go, right?

00;37;53;11 - 00;38;17;16

Kevin Weis

It's probably on Google. It's probably not. I'm going to walk down to the local public library and look at the fliers that are up on the board. Yes. Right. So in today's day and age, having a website is it's almost absolutely necessary. Yeah. Even if it's just something really simple. And I like what you said about having an email list because it's truly an asset.

00;38;17;16 - 00;38;36;00

Kevin Weis

Regardless of what happens with the internet and different social media, things like an email list is just like, you know, old school, maybe there are probably people who still do this, but you've got your address book, right? You've got person's name, you've got their address, and you've got their phone number and you keep it. That's all an email list is.

00;38;36;03 - 00;38;38;24

Kevin Weis

It's like digital address book.

00;38;38;26 - 00;39;03;24

Lauren Brollier Newton

Love that. I've never thought of it that way. Kevin. That's so awesome. That is what it is. Yeah. And we overcome complicate it so much. Okay. So let's talk about this. So when you think about a coach, let's say there's a coach listening and they've done some pretty good stuff. Maybe they're, they've generated $50,000 or even $100,000 a year in their coaching business.

00;39;03;26 - 00;39;23;11

Lauren Brollier Newton

More so like from a pounding the pavement perspective, you know, like working hard, you know, hustling, whatever. What would be your advice? Because you're a very talented digital marketer as well. So what would be your advice to that coach who's wanting to scale, who's gotten themselves to 50 or 100? But it's hard and it's a lot of hassle.

00;39;23;14 - 00;39;30;28

Lauren Brollier Newton

From a digital marketing perspective, what would be a step that they could take to then start to scale to a greater level?

00;39;31;00 - 00;39;54;07

Kevin Weis

So that's a good question. It's also a dangerous question. Because like we had talked about, there's so many different things that you can do and routes that you could take. The first thing you need to do is, I like to ask three questions. What do I want my business to do for me? That's more of your lifestyle financial type question.

00;39;54;10 - 00;40;09;22

Kevin Weis

The second one is what does my client want my business to do for them? Right. That's more of the fulfillment on your service, fulfilling your profit, your promise, that kind of thing. And then the third question is, how do I build a business that does.

00;40;09;22 - 00;40;13;05

Lauren Brollier Newton

Both net income that.

00;40;13;08 - 00;40;41;13

Kevin Weis

So when you're looking at I actually just had a conversation with a guy last week. He's just a friend and he's he was wanting to start a business and wanted some advice on it. And the first thing I did was I sent him this list of what I call the seven W's. It's, it's it's it's your what your why, your, your who your which, your where when and your what if.

00;40;41;13 - 00;40;43;09

Kevin Weis

And I'll just walk through each of those. Okay.

00;40;43;09 - 00;40;45;08

Lauren Brollier Newton

I love it. I'm taking a start.

00;40;45;10 - 00;41;04;22

Kevin Weis

Good. I kind of start with why. So your why is your mission. Like why are you doing the thing that you are doing y why are you being a coach right? Maybe you want to change people's lives, have an impact and leave generational ripple of change and positivity or something like that. Right. So that's your Y then?

00;41;04;25 - 00;41;33;01

Kevin Weis

Your what? That's your that's your vision. So, like, what do you foresee happening. Right. I've, I think I've seen some of your content and you had talked about this transition of like I saw myself making an even bigger impact. Right. You you used to have a coaching business and, you grew it like, amazingly. But then you had this, this next level vision of, I want to make an even bigger impact in the world.

00;41;33;06 - 00;41;57;06

Kevin Weis

So that's that's your what? Like, what do you see? What's the outcome that you see? Next is your is which and and which is the strategy. Like that's the approach that you want to take. It's it's almost the, the how. Right. Like how do I want to build a business. So if you're kind of to get to your question a little bit, if you're wanting to scale your business, how do you want to scale it?

00;41;57;13 - 00;42;19;19

Kevin Weis

Do you want to scale it and have 1 to 1 clients and just book your whole calendar 40 hours a week? You know, a 30 minute client, each one. Yeah. Or do you want to do, like, scale your business by speaking on more stages? Right. Maybe you want to speak on one stage and, every week, and you want to travel around the US doing that for the whole year, right?

00;42;19;26 - 00;42;37;23

Kevin Weis

Or maybe you want to do group coaching. You want to get a bunch of clients and coach them all at once via via zoom or something like that and provide some support. So you got to get really clear on what what strategy would you like to take? What do you feel like can really give you energy? And then the next one is, is who.

00;42;37;26 - 00;42;57;13

Kevin Weis

Right. That's your that's your segmentation. It's like, who's your ideal client? Who are you not only best fitted to work with from like a skills and experience standpoint, but also like who do you like to be around? And also who's willing and able to pay you whatever amount that is that you're trying to earn, right? That's that's you.

00;42;57;13 - 00;43;17;27

Kevin Weis

Who then you've got your where you're where is more of your you're positioning. It's like, where do you want to advertise yourself? Do you want to be in the BNI meetings? Do you want to have ads on social media or across the internet? Do you want to be somewhere else? Like where are people going to find you? Essentially?

00;43;18;00 - 00;43;49;13

Kevin Weis

Then from there you've got your win. So that's your roadmap. This is more of like your better business growth plan. So maybe if you're a coach that's just starting out right now, where do you want to be a year from now? Right. Maybe you want to make six figures. You want to hit $100,000 within 12 months. Well, let's work that backwards step by step by step and figure out, okay, in order to hit $100,000, here's here's how much, how much I need to work, how many clients that I need to get and how much those clients are going to pay me.

00;43;49;20 - 00;44;10;12

Kevin Weis

And then you, you kind of, put that on a calendar and work towards those goals month after month, week after week, that kind of thing. So that's your roadmap. And then the last one, this is my favorite. I think this is literally the most powerful question that any business owner, life coach or otherwise can ask. And it's what if?

00;44;10;14 - 00;44;22;01

Kevin Weis

And that's your scenario. So if you're if you're thinking about like your dream life or your dream business and you ask that question of what if, what if I could do.

00;44;22;03 - 00;44;23;16

Lauren Brollier Newton

X.

00;44;23;19 - 00;44;47;24

Kevin Weis

And Y, like, what if I could run a six figure business and travel the world? What would it look like to do that? How could I make that happen so that that what if is more of like, it's it's the scenario. It's a thing that that turns on the your imagination and your visualization to figure out, like, what would I love, right?

00;44;47;24 - 00;45;07;23

Kevin Weis

What would I really love to do or what I love this business to look like. What result would I love to have happen for my clients? And then you work backwards from that vision. How what's the next step that I could take to get there? So I call that the seven W's. And I think that's that's probably where I start with in scaling my AI business.

00;45;07;23 - 00;45;31;17

Kevin Weis

If I wanted to do it online, I'd get really clear about each of those things, and then that'll provide you some really good direction as you take that next step forward, whether it's it's looking for a coach or maybe like for a life coach, if you're going to get certified right, you're going to get certified, and maybe you want to find somebody who's got the resources to help you grow a business, not just be a great coach, but like, actually be a great business owner.

00;45;31;17 - 00;45;37;17

Kevin Weis

Yeah. So I think that's probably like really getting centered before you make a decision.

00;45;37;20 - 00;46;07;16

Lauren Brollier Newton

This is so helpful, Kevin, because I know there will be coaches listening and they're like, no, I just want the Facebook ad strategy. But you're listening to a professional marketer who's helped clients generate more than $15 million. And you'll notice that as I'm asking him questions, everything is coming back to alignment. And one of the things that I've learned, Kevin, over and over and over again in this business and helping other coaches and growing my own business, is that strategy is about this much of it.

00;46;07;18 - 00;46;27;21

Lauren Brollier Newton

And the other part is who you are and who you're becoming and what you want to do, and the mindset that you're in and what's in alignment. Because one, if I'm not in the mindset to grow, I could give a coach a strategy all day long. They're not going to implement it because we're not in the mindset to even be able to take the step that causes the strategy to work.

00;46;27;23 - 00;46;43;18

Lauren Brollier Newton

I can give a coach my strategy, but if it doesn't resonate with them, even if they go to implement it, I don't think God infinite Universe reciprocate something that's not in alignment for a person. And you could do that thing and not be successful with it.

00;46;43;21 - 00;47;06;05

Kevin Weis

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the flip side, you could do the opposite and be really successful. I don't remember who it was. And I know I'm going to botch the, the quote, but it's something like burnout does not come from working too much. It comes from putting your energy towards things that are out of alignment with who you are under.

00;47;06;07 - 00;47;25;02

Kevin Weis

Like, I could work 40 hour you. I would guarantee you've heard somebody say this here's what I do for my job, but I don't feel like I've worked a day in my life. Yeah, right. They think you could work 40 hours a week. You can work 60 hours a week. But if you're really enjoying the thing that you're doing, it's not going to feel like work.

00;47;25;02 - 00;47;30;29

Kevin Weis

Exactly what you could be working ten hours a week and hate it.

00;47;31;02 - 00;47;33;00

Lauren Brollier Newton

And feel like 40 hours.

00;47;33;03 - 00;47;35;17

Kevin Weis

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely hundred percent.

00;47;35;19 - 00;47;54;05

Lauren Brollier Newton

You know, that's interesting that you brought that up. I once went to, do you know who Grant Cardone is? Yeah. Okay. So I went once, went to, Miami, for, whole workshop thing at Grant Cardone office. It was actually around speaking, but Grant was there part of the time and, you know, came and like gave us some feedback.

00;47;54;07 - 00;48;16;17

Lauren Brollier Newton

And this lady raised her hand and she said, like, I'm burnout, I'm whatever. And Grant was like, you're not burnout. She was like, no, I am. He's like, you're bored. You're doing something. You're not in alignment. What? You just don't like what you do. You are not burnout. Burnout. You're bored. And I thought that was I was like, oh, that's I want to remember that forever because it's so true.

00;48;16;17 - 00;48;34;15

Lauren Brollier Newton

It's like like right now I'm technically working. There's no there's not an ounce of this. It feels like work. I'm like, pinch me. I get to interview cool people for a living. Like, yeah, this is good. But if I was sitting here doing something I didn't love, but one minute I would be burnout.

00;48;34;17 - 00;48;35;06

Kevin Weis

Yeah.

00;48;35;09 - 00;48;38;28

Lauren Brollier Newton

For sure. So I think that's such a great point. Thank you for bringing that, Kevin. So good.

00;48;39;00 - 00;48;39;22

Kevin Weis

Yeah.

00;48;39;24 - 00;49;03;24

Lauren Brollier Newton

I want to go back to a contrarian thing. Because I think that there's certainly a, a thread I see in successful coaches that their their willingness to be a risk taker is high. You know, so in the beginning you mentioned something and I resonate with this personally. So this is probably why it stuck in out of my mind.

00;49;03;24 - 00;49;20;03

Lauren Brollier Newton

But you talked about being a financial advisor and you said I didn't have A41K. And I'm asking other people to do this, which makes me think. And we can go as deep as this as you feel comfortable going, which makes me think you have some different ways of investing. Or maybe you're interested in real estate or you're interested in something completely different.

00;49;20;06 - 00;49;39;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

But I know from being someone who doesn't have a firm, okay, doesn't have an IRA, doesn't believe in those kind of, ventures. Controversially, that I know you have to be willing to be a contrarian like you and swim against the crowd, and there's a lot of noise that says, but what if this happens? But what if that happens?

00;49;39;04 - 00;49;56;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

But what if this, you know, and the reason I'm bringing this up is because even if a coach does or does not resonate with a financial investment strategy or not, a coach is going to have to get rid of some noise of what other people think they should do in order to be a great coach. So I would just love to hear.

00;49;56;04 - 00;50;05;24

Lauren Brollier Newton

Kevin, how have you gotten yourself to a place where you can swim against the crowd and say, I don't do these kind of things that are 85% of people do?

00;50;05;27 - 00;50;09;04

Kevin Weis

Yeah, it's it's interesting. Give me one second.

00;50;09;07 - 00;50;11;07

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah.

00;50;11;09 - 00;50;22;19

Kevin Weis

So there's this birthday card. I don't keep birthday cards. Okay. This is the only birthday card that I've ever kept. And I got it for my wife, and it says 30 is. And I'm just going to read it to you.

00;50;22;26 - 00;50;24;14

Lauren Brollier Newton

You got it for her, or she got it for you.

00;50;24;14 - 00;50;25;28

Kevin Weis

I got it from her.

00;50;26;00 - 00;50;27;05

Lauren Brollier Newton

Oh. From her. Okay. Got it.

00;50;27;05 - 00;50;42;28

Kevin Weis

Got it from her. Okay. So it says 30 is feeling comfortable in your own skin, realizing you can do whatever you put your mind to, being surrounded by loving family and friends and knowing you deserve to be happy.

00;50;43;01 - 00;50;44;08

Lauren Brollier Newton

00;50;44;10 - 00;51;14;18

Kevin Weis

And so it's one of those cheesy cards, right? It's like one of those things you find off the shelf. But this one hit me, like, right in the gut. Especially that first part, feeling comfortable in your own skin. And I think the reason for that is for the longest time, kind of like I shared earlier, I felt like I was less than because my journey didn't look like everybody else's, who was successful in my eyes at the time.

00;51;14;20 - 00;51;46;26

Kevin Weis

And so one of the the people that I read all of his books is Richard Branson. He started the Virgin Company, right? Yeah, at Virgin Airlines and all that stuff. And she is extremely contrarian. Like if you've ever read any stories about his business, he has dyslexia and just he's got insane stories, but he would always do these really like weird promotional stunts, like he did a party on a boat in I think he was in England.

00;51;46;29 - 00;52;09;29

Kevin Weis

He a balloon, like hot air balloon all the way around the world. And just like, did all these things that were super like, you would never think of those for advertising and business, right? But he just went with his crazy ideas because that's who he is. And he was willing to risk it, and he was okay with whatever the result was.

00;52;10;01 - 00;52;34;22

Kevin Weis

Right. Because he knew he knew he was not defined by whatever that result was. And so feeling comfortable in my own skin, that that really to me is, is being a contrarian because there's a lot of people who aren't comfortable in their own skin. I was one of them. Like, they're just they're not happy with who they are constantly looking at people on their feed, comparing themselves to people on social media.

00;52;34;22 - 00;53;03;00

Kevin Weis

And it just like, not only does it take away your joy, but it demolishes your self-confidence. Always comparing yourself to other people. And so that was probably one of the biggest things that has helped me, is not comparing myself to other people. And just like being okay if people think I'm a little bit weird or a little bit different because and this is actually one of the things I talk about from time to time is in, in business, they talk about like, what's your unique value proposition?

00;53;03;00 - 00;53;22;03

Kevin Weis

What's your differentiator? Right. The thing that's going to set you apart and help you stand out from the crowd. And you probably have some idea like you probably have some ideas that are coming to mind. Like maybe the way I do things is different. Maybe the way I teach it is different. Maybe my curriculum or my product or my offer is different.

00;53;22;03 - 00;53;32;02

Kevin Weis

I've got this like fancy little thing that I included in my offer that that somebody else doesn't have. But if you look at all of those things, every single one of them can be copied.

00;53;32;04 - 00;53;32;28

Lauren Brollier Newton

00;53;33;00 - 00;54;13;24

Kevin Weis

You hit go live online, somebody can grab it and make it their own. Right. All of that can be copied. But the one thing that can't be copied is you. And so as a coach, your most powerful differentiator, the thing that's going to make you the most unique is yourself. It's your experience. It's your stories. It's everything that you've been through, the level of vulnerability that you show, all of those things that those things not only prepare you for whatever the next step is in your life, but they're actually going to be the reason why you're successful if you lean into them.

00;54;13;24 - 00;54;44;14

Kevin Weis

And if you believe that, like I said, especially as a coach, where you're building a personal brand, people aren't buying it into the thing you do or the way that you do it. They're buying into you because they trust you. I don't remember who who shared this story with me, but it was like there was this there's this teacher on stage, and they had shared something with the audience, and one of the people took it and they just like, oh, okay, that makes a whole lot of sense.

00;54;44;14 - 00;55;00;13

Kevin Weis

But then they ask their friend right next to them, and their friend was like, how did you get that out of what you said? Like, I just did not click with that person at all. Yeah. And then the person who did click with you were like, well, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, and they explained it using their words.

00;55;00;19 - 00;55;20;15

Kevin Weis

And then they were like, oh my gosh, that makes so much sense now. So it's like the message that you put out there, if anybody else said it, it might not resonate, but because you said it, it might just click and be the thing that somebody needs to hear. And the only reason for that is because it's you and your personality, your character, your experiences.

00;55;20;21 - 00;55;35;24

Kevin Weis

The way you say things is unique and that it clicks with the right type of person. You're not trying to attract everybody and be everything to everyone. You're trying to attract that one person you make most difference with.

00;55;35;26 - 00;55;57;22

Lauren Brollier Newton

This is so important because first of all, let's just notice in the whole history of this universe and in the whole future, there's never going to be another Kevin. No. That's it. Like there's no double, there's no triplicate. It's like that is it? There's only one of each of us. And, I think about a lot of times for our coaches because at Brave Thinking Institute, we give them a lot of done for you stuff.

00;55;57;22 - 00;56;15;19

Lauren Brollier Newton

So we'll give them like scripts and workshop scripts and things like that, which are great because it gets the coach started. But when the coaches start to say, well, I wouldn't say it quite this way or I wouldn't, you know, put it out this way. I'm like, great, this is exactly what we want. Because how so take this concept now.

00;56;15;19 - 00;56;37;05

Lauren Brollier Newton

So how our coaching is, I'll say take this concept of, let's say thoughts become things. You explain it to me in the way you would explain it. Forget the script. Just explain to me the way you would explain it. Now. The script helps them learn it. Learn the concept, teach the concept, whatever. But now you just tell it to me your way and like there are going to be dozens of people who would never have heard of the way that we wrote it.

00;56;37;07 - 00;56;37;28

Kevin Weis

Absolutely.

00;56;37;28 - 00;56;57;14

Lauren Brollier Newton

Now they're going to hear it because you learned it, took it, internalized it, connected it to whole your life experience, your soul, your spirit, and then put it out in the way that only you can. And that's ultimately for us. What we want for all of our coaches is we're empowering with you to know how to teach the stuff, how to help people.

00;56;57;16 - 00;57;02;09

Lauren Brollier Newton

But we want you to be 100% you all. We do it because that's the only way you're going to attract people.

00;57;02;11 - 00;57;29;04

Kevin Weis

Yeah. So it's really interesting that that you say that because the as I've been going through some of my studies, I, you know, we started off this conversation where I shared a little bit about, like, me being on this, this, this learning journey and kind of doing some research and stuff like that. And as, as I looked at, you know, you had brought up some of the stories of Jesus and like the way that he interacted with people.

00;57;29;07 - 00;57;43;13

Kevin Weis

I actually looked at I, I'm sure I didn't look at all of them, but I looked at many of the interactions that he had with people and the stories that you read. And I was actually able to put together like a framework around them.

00;57;43;13 - 00;57;44;16

Lauren Brollier Newton

That's and.

00;57;44;19 - 00;58;08;17

Kevin Weis

It's, I'm sure it wasn't meant to be like this, but when you apply it to business or you apply it to coaching or marketing, it works so, so well. And the first piece of it has to do exactly with what you said. It's belonging. How do you make people feel like they belong in your world? Like they're part of your tribe?

00;58;08;17 - 00;58;37;20

Kevin Weis

Like, oh, Lauren's my person. Like, it's like she speaks my language. She knows me. Right? And so, like all of the content we were, we started talking a little bit about content and how important that is. Your content should make people feel like they belong. Like they belong in your crowd. Like, man, I saw this person's ad, or I saw their flier, and immediately I was just, like, attracted and pulled in like, oh my gosh, you're you're speaking right to me.

00;58;37;20 - 00;58;56;20

Kevin Weis

I know a million people are seeing this right now, but you're speaking right to me. Yeah. And so that's really that first step is how do you make people feel like they belong, like they're they're seen, they're heard, they're valued. They're understood. Like you're using the same words that they would use if they're trying to say like how they're feeling.

00;58;56;20 - 00;59;22;14

Kevin Weis

But you can see it even better. Like, oh, man, I've never been able to, you know, put my finger on what that thing was. But you said it right. That's what your content is supposed to do. And that's kind of like that. That's that first phase. So anyways, I just reminded me of that, because helping people feel like they belong is only accomplished if you are your vulnerable, true whole self.

00;59;22;15 - 00;59;25;19

Lauren Brollier Newton

I was going to say it's not something that you can manufacture.

00;59;25;21 - 00;59;27;18

Kevin Weis

Right, exactly. And people will see it.

00;59;27;24 - 01;00;01;18

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah. There's going to be people who listen to me and are like, what a weirdo. Like some of the stuff she says or whatever the things are, you know, like they're just going to be like, I don't resonate with that at all. And that's okay, because that means, like, naturally there's not resonance. If I came on to this podcast and like, faked who I was, I mean, maybe some people would feel attracted to that, but ultimately it's like, I can't make one of the things I often say to clients, especially when they're having struggles in relationships and they're like not being vulnerable, but they want to be loved.

01;00;01;18 - 01;00;22;23

Lauren Brollier Newton

I'll say to them, how can they love what they can't even see? Because you've masked yourself so much with trying to be something like, they can't love you because you're not even you. Of course they can't, you know? And so I think it's the same with this thing of belonging. Like, you can't manufacture it. They can't feel belonging to something that they're like, not fully exposed to, I guess, is the thing.

01;00;22;26 - 01;00;34;23

Kevin Weis

Yeah. And to take that one step further, a lot of people don't get this. Like they don't realize it because their sight is is it's very short.

01;00;34;27 - 01;00;38;13

Lauren Brollier Newton

It's like, yeah, short term focus.

01;00;38;15 - 01;01;00;19

Kevin Weis

But here's why. You don't want to ever manufacture your stuff. And I learned this the hard way. When you are presenting yourself as someone that you're not, chances are you could still attract people like you said, like you could put this face on all this makeup and you get people coming to you. But what ends up happening is even though you may get clients, you're getting the wrong clients.

01;01;00;24 - 01;01;10;26

Kevin Weis

And what ends up happening is they come into your world. But then on the back end, when you're actually serving them, they're the people who are complaining. They're the ones who are asking for refunds.

01;01;10;26 - 01;01;11;13

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yes.

01;01;11;14 - 01;01;28;24

Kevin Weis

Like, you know, speaking bad about you online. And they just have the, you know, they're they're the clients that when you look back on it, you're like, that person like, was not a good fit for me, right? But you brought that on yourself because you were fake and you were not your actual self.

01;01;28;27 - 01;01;29;16

Lauren Brollier Newton

That's right.

01;01;29;18 - 01;01;48;18

Kevin Weis

When you presented it. So that's why it's so important. Like, you don't have to be worried about people not liking you because the right people are not going to like you, and the right people are going to like you. Exactly. That's in a that's going to make you love your business versus having a business that you hate, because you're working with all these people who are not like you.

01;01;48;20 - 01;02;07;19

Lauren Brollier Newton

Yeah, like there's plenty of people that you don't have to worry about, the one or handful that doesn't get you. Like there's just there's so many people in the world and, and it's it's really a powerful learning. Okay. So Kevin, I ask this question to every guest's last question I ask and so let me set up the parameters of this question.

01;02;07;26 - 01;02;29;06

Lauren Brollier Newton

Okay. You have to start a coaching business from scratch. Here's what I mean. From scratch, you get to take all the wisdom and awareness that you have inside of you, but you can't take your email list or your Facebook following or can't take any of that stuff. But you can take all the wisdom that you have. What if you're starting a coaching business from scratch?

01;02;29;06 - 01;02;32;06

Lauren Brollier Newton

What's your first step?

01;02;32;08 - 01;03;00;25

Kevin Weis

Working through those seven W's that I mentioned? Yeah, I want to have the vision for where I'm going to go from here. I want to know how I'm going to do it, who I'm going to serve, why I'm going to do it, where I'm going to get my name out there, what, you know, have a plan for the future that that you know, when that roadmap and then run some scenarios, ask myself what if a couple times and get really clear on where I want to go?

01;03;01;03 - 01;03;34;22

Kevin Weis

Because if you if you jump in your car, turn it on, hit the gas pedal, but you don't have any idea where you're going, it could be running forever. Run out of gas and end up nowhere. Yeah, but if you take the time on the front end to really ask yourself some of the maybe hard or weird or uncomfortable questions that are actually going to guide you where you want to go, that's going to give you the best start, and it's going to save you the time, the energy, the money, the resources that you would have spent wasting if you hadn't spent the time figuring out where you want to go.

01;03;34;24 - 01;03;39;25

Lauren Brollier Newton

So true Kevin, why is such a delight? How does the audience find you?

01;03;39;28 - 01;03;45;25

Kevin Weis

So find me on Facebook, I'm on Facebook, I'm on YouTube. Just search my name and say hi.

01;03;45;28 - 01;03;57;09

Lauren Brollier Newton

All right, I love it. Thank you Kevin. Awesome conversation. I could have talked to you all day. We'll have to have you back for more, contrarian thoughts. And so thanks for being here, everyone. I will see you next time.

01;03;57;11 - 01;04;27;15

Lauren Brollier Newton

Thanks for joining me this week on The Abundant Coach. Visit our website at Brave Thinking institute.com/coach Certification, where you can dive even deeper with additional resources and exciting opportunities. Be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast so you'll never miss an episode. And while you're at it, if you loved the show, please rate and review to find out how to jump start your abundant coaching career and more about my journey to seven Figure Coach.

01;04;27;16 - 01;04;35;04

Lauren Brollier Newton

Check out our free. Meant to Be a Life Coach quiz available at BTI. Com slash coach quiz. I'll see you.

01;04;35;06 - 01;04;36;05

Lauren Brollier Newton

In the next episode.