The Hidden Truths of Coaching Success

SUMMARY

In this conversation, Angie and John discuss the challenges faced by coaches and speakers in achieving financial success. They explore the importance of marketing, the need for a business mindset, and the significance of building credibility through testimonials. The discussion emphasises that talent alone is not enough; visibility and consistent promotion are crucial for success in the coaching industry.

John's LinkedIn Article: Why Great Speakers Stay Broke (and Great Coaches)

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Many talented coaches struggle financially due to lack of marketing.
• The best coaches are not always the most successful.
• Marketing is essential for visibility in the coaching industry.
• Testimonials and referrals are key to building credibility.
• Coaches must treat their craft as a business.
• Being known is more important than being the best.
• Consistency in promotion is vital for success.
• Don't wait for someone to discover you; take initiative.
• You can start by offering free sessions for testimonials.
• Resentment towards successful peers is counterproductive.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Conversation

01:21 The Reality of Coaching and Speaking

04:43 The Importance of Marketing in Coaching

10:27 Building Credibility and Testimonials

15:53 Treating Coaching as a Business

19:16 Strategies for Getting Known

25:36 Consistency in Promotion

28:59 Did this resonate with you

29:07 Closing thoughts

29:20 Next time

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John's LinkedIn Profile or go to PresentInfluence.com for coaching enquiries with John

Angie's LinkedIn Profile or visit AngieSpeaks.com

2023 Present Influence Productions The Coaching Clinic: Grow Your Coaching Business & Master Coaching Skills 76

Hey, hey, hey, John.

Angie!

to tell you, because you know I'm part stalker, and I was on LinkedIn today and I saw this great post that you made, an article that you published. Yeah, I have to tell you, as soon as I saw it, I thought, we have to talk about it. And for those of you listening, because I'm taking over, John posted today on LinkedIn, why great speakers stay broke and coaches too.

And ⁓ my gosh, so many things came rushing forward. Okay, John, you're up.

Wow, I feel like I've been given an amazing introduction on our own show, which is really nice, Angie. It feels good. But yeah, this article already, I spent days working on it. just felt like such an important conversation to be having. And after having chatted with some really great industry minds for my own podcast, my other podcast that I do without Ms. Angie, I thought that these topics were essential.

Mm-hmm.

thought, well, let's, let's start warming people up for that with an article about this and why so many speakers and coaches are stuck in broke. Because I've been there, you we've been there, we know what that's like. And, and it really doesn't have to be that way. It really doesn't have to be that way. So there were some shifts that need to be made that once we make them,

Mmm.

will make all the difference.

Yeah, yeah. Right out of the gate, one of the things that you said, and you know me, I get very protective, if you will, with regard to coaching as an industry, as a profession, right? I think that everybody has their lead in and what motivates them. And some people do it for the money, strictly. They think it's easy. We've talked about that. And then there's people who are like, I really feel like I have something to contribute. I have something to share. I have expertise, and that's great.

But something that you said right out of the beginning, ⁓ out of the gate, I should say, that you noticed something strange, that the people at the top were

not the best coaches, right? And the truth is, sometimes they are the best marketers. And that, unfortunately, is an undeniable truth in our industry, right? Speaking, yes, but.

in the coaching world, how you present, how you market can and mostly does make all the difference in especially today.

I'll be honest Angie, some of the best coaches I've ever met are broke. Absolutely broke. Hardly making any money from coaching. Some of them have left coaching because they couldn't make it work. But I think there are there are reasons for that, that I hope this article starts to address. I think there's more there's more than what's there. But but some of some of it is about how we're actually approaching this whole thing because

Yeah. Mmm.

Sure. Yeah.

Really what I used to, I was one of those people who felt it was so unfair that people who were at the top, wrong even, that people who were at the top of the industry weren't the best coaches. It's like the best coaches should be at the top of the industry, not the best marketers. The best speakers should be at the top of the industry, but not the best marketers. That's maybe how it should be in all parts of life, but it's not. The world just doesn't work that way. And this is the harsh reality that probably, pretty much we'll always have to accept that if we're going to be in business.

And if we're going to do well, because otherwise we're going to keep finding ourselves either either scraping by or just doing enough or all having to go, go back into the job market because it's just not working out for us. And that's a shame.

Yeah, right.

Listen, it's hard. You and I have talked privately, just in our private conversations about business and saying how it can be cyclical and why is it that way. And the other thing that you talk about, first of all, think that people, and to the point of the article that you wrote, the first thing I think you have to accept when you are either newly embarking on a coaching,

business journey, but even if you're somebody who's been around for us, maybe especially if you've been around for a minute, you have to say to yourself, my skill is not enough to make a business. It's just not, right? Because I think a lot of people go, I have something to say, I have something to share. And I think you and I ⁓ experienced that as speaker coaches where people were like, why do you want to do this? What's the vision of this? And it was like,

because I have something to say and I have something to share. And then in the coaching space, it translates into, I have expertise here and my experiences and that's great, right? And there is some passion. Okay, for the people who are not passionate about coaching, I am not even speaking to you. I'm just saying for those who are truly passionate about being a coach, you said something earlier, you said,

You

I think a lot of coaches think they're going to just show up and do the thing that they're passionate about and that it's going to magically like it's just going to happen and it doesn't happen. And it's a shame because there are a lot of really great coaches that you and I both know that just don't make it because I don't know. Sometimes there's money shame and things like that. Sometimes they just don't even know how to connect with people.

Yeah, more elements. Yeah.

There's more elements. but this is this I think is probably the key one. You know, I haven't spent much time in my life working in offices, it doesn't generally work for me. But I did. You know, I've seen it there. I've got the people who keep their heads down and get on that and probably do a fantastic job. Get passed over, get ignored, because people think they must be quite happy doing that. I never really hear from them. They're just getting on the way. Let's just give

Sure.

If they keep doing that, keep getting better at it, give them more work. And maybe there'll be an obsession where they can ask for a pay raise, but are really, are they getting noticed? they getting people thinking, they've got leadership potential or we should be promoting them? More often than not, no, they're just quite happy to have somebody in the position who's seemingly doing a great job, getting on with it and keeping their head down. And we think that doing a great job should get us recognition and reward.

Hmm?

Yeah.

Sometimes it might, but most of the time it doesn't. Right. Yeah, mostly it doesn't. Yeah. mean, not every business is the same, of course. Some businesses maybe do a better job of that than others. But I think the majority of cases, we probably have all encountered this. I encountered it in the airline. Most people don't know. You're pretty much a number in the airline. Managers hardly know who you are. For most of your career, you just get on a plane and go and fly.

Yeah, 3 % a year. I'm being sarcastic, but yeah, yeah.

No. Yeah.

⁓ but one of my friends is in the article. One of my friends kept winning customer service awards and stuff. And he was nothing special. I mean, I even thought, I'm not even sure. I think he's maybe not even as good as me, but what he would do is he would do something nice for a passenger and then give them, give them a feedback form and ask them, give them his name and say, make sure you put my name on there. And it's like, wow, that was so clever when I saw it. And I'm thinking, I had never thought of doing that.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah?

I don't

care about that now. I'm not in the airline industry, but it's not the people who are just getting on and doing the best job who are getting noticed or identified. It's the people who are maybe being a little more shameless about it and promoting themselves and making the connections and relationships, greasing the wheels as it were, to help them wise up. Yeah.

You have to. Absolutely.

You're right. I think that what that person did is great. know, you know, first of all, if you all know me by now, you know that I love the quick little quick one liners. And the other thing that John ⁓ put wrote into the article is that talent without marketing is invisible. I love that because if it doesn't just get straight to the point and your marketing, which I'm talking about now, I'm tying it to what John just said.

person that other person that was winning these awards was basically marketing in the non-traditional way right we think of marketing as what are my ads gonna look like what are my videos going to look like what is my website even look like but we don't do the thing that can create momentum for us think about it if you ever have like I don't know instacart I don't know if you even have that there I'm sorry but instacart door- uber eats

Every time Amazon delivery, how do you rate this? by the way, if I send you my Google link, can you give me a rating? Can you give me doctors do it? Everybody in every industry is sending me something to rate them because guess what? It now becomes a metric and that becomes part of your marketing. If not even, I'm going to say this, don't come at me. Some of the most important marketing because it's real life things.

People don't buy things anymore, including your services, without looking to see who you are, what your presence is, and hey, by the way, what are people saying about you? So what do you do if you've never had a client?

Yeah, absolutely.

You got to start somewhere, right? Maybe getting started, do need to do, as like most of us doing coaching, start working with a few people for free. And you're not really going to do it for free. You're going to do it for specifics in return. You're going to say, all right, well, I'll work with you. I'll give you a free session or something like that, or a few free sessions. Here's what I want out of that. So it's not really free, but you're not going to pay money for it.

Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Sure. Yeah.

I'm going to need a referral, I'm going to need something I can put on my website, maybe video testimonial or something like that, from you about how much you like working with me, how easy it was, all that kind of stuff. Here's the kind of thing I'd like you to put in there. Sure, you have to do those things. You might do it as a speaker, getting started, you're going to do a free gig or here or there so you can get some referrals, so you can get some testimonials, and even some material for your demo reel.

Yeah?

Sure. Sure.

This is all stuff that's ultimately going to help you. It's never really for free because it has that value for you, but you have to start, you have to start somewhere.

Yeah. Yeah.

I too, and this, I'm getting a little deeper into this a little bit, but to your point, I think be strategic about that. So for example, if you know that you wanna be a coach for busy moms, I'm making this up, okay, or busy professionals, whomever, whomever it is, then the testimonial should align with that a bit.

so that you're actually speaking the language of the person. So for example, you know, one of my assets is my burning, from burning bras to burning out, right? So if I want to talk to that audience, I'm not necessarily gonna have a testimonial that says, and now I'm trying to make this up in the moment, but that isn't relatable to those people, right? To somebody who's like not a parent, right?

⁓ you know, I don't have any children, but you know, Angie was great to listen to. Well, that person, I'm making this up, right? But that person has lost a little bit of value toward my target audience, right? And what the messaging is. So I'm just trying to low level apparently, ⁓ tell you that though, like it can be like if you're talking about speaking, it's a little different because you know, who's hiring you and all of that, but.

Generally, when we start out as coaches, generally we're doing like the individuals that we're seeking, but maybe not. And maybe that's another episode.

Maybe not. mean,

yeah, maybe. I think it's great if you can have nice specific testimonials that are people who are in your target market, but you may not start off with that once again. And you he's like, but a referral a testimonial from wherever is going to be good and helpful. And you should absolutely use them.

Yes, I'm sorry, I did not

mean to minimize that. John is correct and I was not, because I led you in a different direction in addition to getting a testimonial about you being funny now. He's looking at me like, what's your problem? ⁓ But I'm serious. No, you're right. It should be like, you know, yes.

But you know, it's like, you have these.

Yeah, you have testimonials on hopefully on your LinkedIn profile. If you don't, you should start asking for them. And they might be for a range of different things, but that's okay. They're still going to be testimonials for you and the value you bring and how people are working with you. They're still helpful, but definitely more helpful if you have testimonials from people who are in your target audience, who are speaking the language of your target audience and referring to you in that sort of way.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah, that's a huge credibility, huge credibility shift. You know, I'll share this with you. like last week I was interviewing two very well known, very well known speakers and authors and, in the, in the industry of speaking and marketing ostensibly and part of, part of the fact of just having those, those two mentioned and having the credibility kind of borrowed if you like from them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

of

the fact that they are being interviewed by me on my show and we're having ⁓ a conversation as equals. That I feel may be part of what made the article I put out today have a lot more impact, partly, maybe not the only thing, but partly that that is it as well. There is like there is a level of higher credibility that comes from what these people have in some way tacitly endorsed me.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah?

because they've been on interviews with me and it's definitely a bit different to just having your photograph taken with a random celebrity. They're not endorsing you or anything, but an interview with somebody is a little bit different. I think there's a number of ways, any number of ways we can boost our credibility, our trust factor. But the whole point of the article, and I think it's essential that we really hit on this, is that the

Sure.

Right!

Right.

Probably the biggest thing that is just stopping people from being more successful is because they're not treating their craft as a business. don't, they do want, I understand it with coaches. I understand it with speakers. You do just want to show up and do your magic, do the coaching sessions and get your money. And it's like, well, that's soft. That's how we end up working for the coaching companies and stuff where they take care of all that for us. And, and we just sharpened the coaching, but you know,

Mmm, yeah.

that if you were doing all that for yourself, you would be getting five, six, 10 times or more income than you will be from from working for those companies that are never going to really pay never really going to pay coaches what they're worth because they're not set up to do that. And you might end up undervaluing your coaching because of that. So if you once you become willing to do the business that gets the business happening, that's really where

Sure.

things will shift for you that you have, I'm not a coach, I'm a business owner who delivers coaching. I'm not a coach, I'm a business owner who delivers speaking. It's a small but critical identity shift.

Right. Absolutely. Yeah.

I think it's important. We've talked about, we've brushed upon that a bit, that you have to treat anything that you do as an entrepreneur especially, right? You have to treat it like it's a business, even if there's not a brick and mortar and your name in light, so to speak. think about this. Think about, right, if we didn't have like television ads or remember soap operas, there were specific plug-ins

right to you know that's why they called soap operas haha right because they knew the target audience was watching tv during that time you wouldn't know anything about anything if there were if it weren't for advertising and marketing if everything on the shelf let's just say it this way at the supermarket was labeled exactly the same except for the name you'd be like my gosh what dish detergent do i buy what milk product do i buy like

Do you know? it's really about, and this is something you speak to, ⁓ somebody made this comment, made this as a direct quote from the article that John wrote, being known is more important than being the best. That doesn't sit well with coaches. That's the challenge because we tend to feel like then we're being a little impostery because we're turning something that is human and personal into a business. Get over it.

That's what I'm gonna say. Get out of the gate, get out of your own way first and get over it and say, I need to make this a business. And what was the comment I made to you earlier that you liked and I was like really uncomfortable with it? Do you remember about I'm going to ⁓ stop it? ⁓ You said, I really love that. We were just having a conversation and I said something about money, right? Getting paid. I can't remember what the

gosh, no, because we spoke so much.

quote was.

you said,

yeah, I can you said I'm gonna follow the passions. You said I'm gonna follow the passions that get me paid.

And I was like, my gosh, when he said that back to me, when John said that back to me, because he's like, I love that you said that. I'm like, ooh, I literally even just now my stomach did like this roller coaster flip thing. And I'm like, did I say that? And then I was like, yeah, I did. Yeah. I can donate my time wherever I so choose. Not in my business.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But if you want to run a charity, that's fine. That's up to you. If you don't care about making money as a coach, that's up to you. If you think that this is cheapening coaching or whatever, fine. You don't have to agree with us. Let us know where you stand with that. But if you want to know why you're broke as a coach, this is probably the biggest reason for most people, for most coaches.

Sure.

Yeah.

So how do you get known, right? If you actually, so if you actually shift this, mindset, if you actually say, you know what, I was listening to John and Angie show, and I think there's something to that. The question then becomes, how do I get myself known? How do I do that?

I think that those are, you know, we could have multiple episodes just on that one topic. But just just as a brief overview, I do think it is the things like having a book out there, maybe not always the place to start, but having a book out there definitely very helpful for you establish you as an expert, so long as it's relevant to what you're actually doing. But getting on stage is speaking that is one way you're establishing credibility and having a strong social media presence not on all the platforms, but on the one where

Sure.

Hmm?

Mm-hmm.

you're getting the most responsiveness, the ones where your prospects are hanging out as well. You only really need one of those to be working well for you and then you can maybe worry about the others. But you know, it's the things like build up your email list because most people are ignoring that and it's still one of the best ways to build and grow a business. There's so many elements to this that we could easily have episodes on each one of them. And who knows, maybe we will.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yes.

but going on podcasts as a guest or even starting your own podcast, although it's a lot of work, but, but, these, these are ways that you can start to become known for what you do. But if you're not out there, if people don't know you exist, if you, that you exist, you can be the best kept secret in coaching, but what's it doing for you? And what's it doing for the people who you could be helping if you were more well known?

Mm-hmm.

So funny, gonna, I have to make you laugh. was thinking about what you were saying as you were saying it. And there's a woman that, close to my home, that sits outside in a folding lawn chair with an umbrella every single day with a little sign and it says Tamales and she's got a cooler. And yes, by the way, she's licensed to do what she's doing here, you know, because, you know, even though it's Arizona, it is not completely the Wild West, but.

Yeah, don't call ICE.

Anyhow,

yeah, so it's so funny though and everybody, I don't even know what her actual name is. She's the Tamale lady. Hey, has anybody seen the Tamale lady? I didn't see her in the last day or two. If she's not there, they're looking for her. So here's my little correlation to that. Number one, she branded herself as the Tamale lady by showing up consistently.

people.

Initially when she started it, the community was kind of like, what's this? Is that legal? And that's how I know she's licensed and all the things. But then she just did it every single day. And I see one car, then I see five cars lined up to buy her tamales. And heaven forbid, guess what happened? She didn't show up for a day or two, and it's a big post. Hey, has anybody seen the tamale lady?

Be consistent in talking about your business in whatever way you do it. Because when you're gone, people may not notice. They may. And if they are following you, they're going to notice. So you can't take these. And I don't know, John, I think you and I have both done this, for one reason or another, we've stopped being consistent in promoting ourselves in whatever way we've been consistently doing it.

You need to stay consistent. The tamale lady is living proof of that and she's selling tamales, right? That's her service.

Yeah, well, we were we were having that

chat. We were having that chat as well before before recording today about whether about the fact that we kept going probably far beyond what we ever thought we would like the title. We've gone through all the so many points of like, want to give up want to do something else. This is too tough. It's not working. It's not happening. We've been through all that. We know that that's a big part of this as well that very often things take longer than you think they will. But you know, there is a point to which

Sometimes this sometimes it happens that somebody is spotted as being very talented in a particular area, whether it's coaching, speaking, whatever, and get some somebody decides to become their patron, as it were, I'm going to promote you, I'm going to help you get to where you want to get to and, and takes takes that business side of things off of them. And they suddenly explode and become this big thing. Or they will end up getting married to somebody who is able to do all that. And they partner up with someone who's able to

Ahem.

to manage all that business side of them. so they're doing the excellent work and the person, someone else is taking care of the business. And again, they take off, they explode. That is rare. Most people are not going to have that. Most people are never going to have that. And I feel like a lot of people are kind of waiting, waiting for that waiting to be discovered as the next big secret in coaching, whatever, waiting, hoping, praying that they'll get found and that someone else will take care of all this stuff for them.

Yes.

Like, what are you sitting around waiting for? If it happens, great. But in the meantime, what if it doesn't? Are you just going to stay stay where you are? Is that how you keep your fingers crossed? You know, that's not going to work.

Yeah, I think it's interesting what

you just said. I think that's a really good point. And it's maybe a little bit redundant, but I used to work for a company. It was in real estate sales. And I was I did productivity coaching and growth coaching and things for them. And one of the say and I can't read. Yeah, I it was them. But it was don't be a secret agent. Nobody's going to find you. If you're a secret agent. Stop liking look, this is not the place to

you know hide with twigs in your hair and go okay I don't want to be seen if you don't want to be seen you will probably unless you get lucky let's just let's say that right there are people who have some connections out of the gate and there is a little bit of luck but lacking longevity but you cannot be a secret you cannot be you have to gossip basically about yourself right you have to be able to get it out there can't wait to tell the next person

about what who you are what you do outcomes things like that you have to keep yourself and your business top of mind or else you're not gonna have a business you're gonna have a hobby or a failure you know we've talked about a couple of sessions ago that we talked about how the failure rates of coaches a high number don't be one of those statistics do it differently treat it like a business

Yeah.

promote, promote, and let people know who you are and what you do.

Yeah, absolutely that. I think there's always the potential that you can look at the people who are higher up the ladder in the business in the industry than you are, who you know, aren't aren't so talented or gifted. And you could look at them and resent them. And I say, don't don't do that. They've done something right. They've understood something that you haven't, that this has to be treated as a business. So it's time to take that lesson. ⁓ But if you know that you could be out there doing even better than they do.

Mmm.

you just need to handle the business side of it, then that's the bit that you need to look at. And it's probably, in most cases, not as difficult as you think it is. You don't have to throw everything at the wall here and hope that something sticks. You really just need to have a simple strategy to start doing the stuff that will get you more noticed and known and pick the thing that you think has the most likelihood of working and focus in on that. And as you say, show up and do it consistently.

Yeah.

But there's no point resenting those people who are who are higher up than you, you bless that they're good, good for them. Good for them. I want to be up there too. And I think I can do an even I think I could do an even better job or do it. Show show yourself that you can do it because you're probably only missing a few simple ingredients. And you might not want to do the business stuff. And you may not even have to do it all for all that long, you might be able to start delegating that stuff out. But if you're not getting off the ground with your business,

Yeah.

Yeah?

You're going to be stuck in the one person, one man band, one woman band, whatever. You're going to be stuck in your one person band trying to play all the instruments in the orchestra all at once.

Listen, I would say this, anybody listening today, you should definitely go onto LinkedIn, go to John's ⁓ post from today in his present, you know, present influence newsletter. I would absolutely, I say to you that, you know, you know, we don't really promote each other or ourselves much on the show. We should. And what we do, and I think maybe in our next episode, we should talk about some personal failures and successes, but.

If you do nothing else today or tomorrow, definitely read this article if you're serious about your coaching business. I wouldn't say there's anything super earth shattering that you don't already know that we didn't talk about today, but there are some intriguing, you know, details in here that I think are very worth reading and listening, you know, mean reading and because he does put, you know, a link in there for the podcast episode that he had, but ⁓ it's a great.

reminder a great place to come back to as an iteration reiteration of how do I how do I really not stay broke as a coach just just do it go back and read through it

Yeah, the link will be there in the show notes for a YouTube in the description. It's not that long a read. But I hope you will go and check it out. But you'll see like, I don't think anyone who even commented on it has been like, this is ⁓ earth shattering. Never heard this before. So no, we know it, we know it, but we need to we need to hear it. And some people really needed to hear it in that particular way that it's actually hit home. So if it does that for you, then great, let us know.

No.

But Angie, this has been fun. I look forward to sharing some more personal experiences and stories about our coaching businesses as well.

Yeah.

Sounds good. Talk to you soon.