The hardest and easiest parts of growing a one-on-one practice.

Part of the appeal of a one-on-one practice is that its hard parts aren't as hard as other business models (like "scalable" training), and its easier parts are even easier (and more happiness-producing) than other models. 

Announcement: On May 1 I'm holding my first "Office Hours with Mark". Office Hours creates space and time for my fellow coaches to connect with me and get support. Go to https://mrkbtlr.com/office-hours to opt in for details. 

What is A Podcast for Coaches?

A Podcast for Coaches shines a light on one of the most elegant, underrated business models in the world: one-on-one coaching. Mark Butler hosts the show, and he's been a coach and advisor to every kind of online business you can think of, having helped businesses earning everything from $0 to $25,000,000+. Although Mark believes every online business model has merit, he worries one-on-one coaching is viewed as a stepping-stone business for people who aren't ready or able to scale. But it's not true, and A Podcast for Coaches sets out to show people--through clear teaching and rich, current stories of successful coaches who love their business--that one-on-one coaching is one of the most gratifying and lowest "hassle-per-dollar" businesses in the world.

Mark Butler: Hey, this is Mark
Butler and you are listening

to a podcast for coaches.

A couple of stories this week from a
couple of different client sessions

and from my own day to day life.

So first story, I was meeting
with a client who is a

relatively new one on one coach.

We're not coaching about her business.

We're just coaching.

But I did ask her about her
business and it came up.

She's had some good things happening.

She's had some early wins that are
pretty exciting to her and to me.

But then she said something interesting.

She said, because of the stuff that
I have going on in my personal life

right now, and parentheses, I know we
can all relate to this because of the

intense stuff in my personal life right
now, I just don't have the time or the

bandwidth mentally and emotionally to
really put the effort into my practice.

And I thought that's interesting
because if you think that you don't have

the energy, the time, the mental and
emotional bandwidth to build your coaching

practice, you and I might have different
opinions about what energy, what time and

what mental and emotional bandwidth are
required to build your coaching practice.

So let me jump to the other story with
another client that I've known for a

long time and has become a good friend.

She does.

A lot of advertising.

She has what I would call an
advertising driven business.

It's more of a training business
or has been historically more of

a training business that relies on
Facebook ads to generate leads to

convert to program participants.

She's very good at it.

And although she does say it's harder
than it's ever been it's still

viable, so there's no doomsday here.

Some people are still advertising to great
effect and with great success, but she

did say it's harder than it's ever been.

And so I started to interview her in
the middle of our coaching session.

What's it like?

What's it like to be a
person who advertises a lot?

What does it require of you?

And she did confirm some of my suspicions.

She said it requires a
lot of creative output.

A lot of content creation, a
lot of graphic design, a lot

of photography, a lot of video.

There's a lot of raw material that
goes into ad campaigns and into the

funnels that people get into after
they engage with the ad campaign.

So she confirmed that for me.

And she said it is a lot of work.

Now I know her, I know she's
a great system creator.

I'm sure she has created great systems,
but it's a lot of work and it's a

lot of work for an uncertain payoff.

Even if you're confident you can get
it to work, you're not necessarily

confident when it will start working
or to what extent it will work.

So a lot of the difficulty in a training
business that's fueled by advertising

is not just all the output that it
requires content and creative output.

It's also the thinking
about the campaigns.

She told me she's thinking
about the campaigns a lot.

I don't want to dramatize it.

I don't know how much of her mental
energy is going into these campaigns, but

she told me she thinks about it a lot.

It's an everyday thing.

Looking at a bunch of different numbers,
not knowing which numbers contribute

to which outcomes necessarily.

Turning a lot of knobs and pulling a
lot of levers and hoping that you can

dial it in and make it something that
actually plays out the way you want it to.

So there's a lot of mental overhead
there for an uncertain return.

Now it does work sometimes.

It doesn't seem to work quite like it
used to for the people whose businesses

I am inside of, but it does still work.

If I'm thinking about my other
client who says I don't have the

time or the mental energy, the
bandwidth to really throw myself

into my coaching practice right now.

If she's talking about the kind of
business that my other client has,

that's advertising driven, a lot of
creative and content requirements, a lot

of mental overhead, a lot of analysis.

Then I might agree with her.

I might say, yeah, you probably don't
have that bandwidth, but that's not what

a one on one coaching practice requires.

A one on one practice has its own
challenges, which are also mostly mental.

But in a one on one practice, we don't
have also all the technical overhead,

all the content overhead, all the
creative overhead that's required in an

advertising driven training business.

So in a one on one practice, almost
all of the difficulty is just waiting.

It's just waiting for the next.

Yes.

The next yes, could be days away.

It could be weeks away.

It could be months away.

And if we're honest with ourselves,
we want it to be that way.

Now you might disagree with me.

You might say, no, I want more
clients to come more quickly.

And I'll agree with you in the short
term, when you're really looking for

some validation, when you're really
hoping that new clients will send you

the message that yes, you are good at
this and it is working and it's all

going to work out according to plan.

I understand that in those cases
you want the clients to come faster,

but as soon as they do, as soon as
you get something like full and full

might mean five sessions a week, it
might mean eight, it might mean 10.

If you're superhuman, not like me,
maybe it's 15 or 20 sessions a week.

I don't have that many sessions in a week.

In me, as far as I can tell, But at
some point you'll arrive at a level

of fullness in your practice where you
say, okay, I want them to keep coming,

but I'd like there to be a little bit
more space in between their arrivals.

This is the hard part of
a one on one practice.

It's the time between yeses.

It's the time between yeses.

That's a phrase I'm using in a
lot of my client calls lately,

and it seems to be pretty useful.

I believe that the time between yeses
makes and breaks one on one coaches.

If in between yeses, I can continue to
work on my knowledge, my skills, and

my character, and if I can continue
nurturing the relationships I have and

where possible starting up some new
relationships, the yeses are coming.

I don't know exactly when they're
coming, but they are coming.

Here's what I think that
looks like for me and for you.

About 10 days ago, I went to lunch
with a couple of old friends.

I met both of these guys 16, 17 years ago.

We were all pretty newly married.

Our kids were all young.

We were neighbors for a while.

Both of them ended up moving away, but
we've kept in touch over the years.

I've kept in touch better
with one than the other.

The one I haven't kept in touch
with as well is a real estate

guy, a very successful one.

And I had a real estate question.

So I sent him a text and I said,
I need a real estate consultation.

Would you like to do that over the phone
or would you like to do it over lunch?

And he said obviously I'd
like to do it over lunch.

I said, good answer.

And then I texted our other
friend and I said, Hey, I'm

going to lunch with this guy.

You probably want to get in on it.

And he replied and said, of course I do.

A week or so later, the three of us got
together for lunch at one of the guy's

offices, we sat there for a couple of
hours, we chatted about everything.

We chatted about family and
church and we chatted about

business and all kinds of stuff.

It was so fun.

These are such good guys.

As we were winding down, I said to them,
Hey, I'm Nobody's leaving this table

till we have the next one in the books.

So we scheduled the next one.

It's just a few weeks away.

I can't wait.

It's gonna be a great time an Hour
maybe two hours later after we all

left One of my friends texted us in a
group and said hey That was so nice.

It was so great to get together with
you guys Really value you and appreciate

you and let's do that again soon or no.

We already had it scheduled He
said can't wait to do it again soon

it's just so great to care about people
and to have people care about you.

I'm so grateful for the
friends that I have.

A couple of days ago I texted a
friend and said, Hey, let's get lunch.

And he said, okay, yeah, great.

Of course.

And then I said, I'm bringing Kate.

I know how much he values good
people and good conversation.

And Kate's a great person
who makes great conversation.

So I said, I'm bringing Kate.

He said, fantastic.

And the three of us went to lunch.

We had a great talk, really enjoyed it.

He's such a great friend.

He appreciates us.

It's all fantastic.

And you might be asking.

Why are you talking about all
your lunches with your buddies?

What does it have to do with anything?

It feels good.

It's real happiness.

Science has now proven,
Google it, go look it up.

Science has now proven that our
happiness is mostly a function of

the quality of our relationships.

It happens to be an enormous side benefit
of the quality of our relationships.

That they also sometimes
produce pain coaching clients.

Now my two friends from the first
lunch will never hire me for coaching.

I don't think so.

Anyway, I don't need them to, I
need them to be great friends and I

want to be a great friend to them.

And I know that as we stay in touch
with each other, and as we talk about

what we're doing and I share with
them what I'm up to, I know they

will say things like, Oh man, I know
somebody you should talk to right now.

There's somebody I should
probably introduce you to.

That's just what happens.

And it's really easy.

So in a one on one practice, the easy
part is that our best marketing is going

to lunch with old friends, going to lunch
with current friends, maybe going to lunch

with somebody we've never met before.

going for a walk, going to a
new social function, and just

being ourselves in that context.

That's the easy part of
growing a one on one practice.

If we're developing our skill and
our knowledge and our character, the

clients that will come from all of
this positive social interaction, the

clients that will come are inevitable.

I don't know when they're coming.

I don't know if it's next week or next
month or next year, but they're coming.

They will arrive as our skill and our
character catch up to the affinity

that the people in our lives already
feel for us so that they don't

just view us as a trusted person.

That they love to be around, but
they start to view us as a trusted

guide that they could introduce to
people that they know who are in pain.

All of this is natural.

All of this is inevitable.

And to be blunt, it's pretty easy.

Now, I know some of you are saying,
I'm already doing that and I don't

have all the clients that I want.

Okay, fair enough.

We'll talk about it.

But the basic nature of
our effort will not change.

And what I would say is if clients
are not coming to you in the way

that I just described, it's not
that likely that they'll come to you

reliably and easily through some other
massive effort that you might make.

And if they do, you're going to
be bummed anyway, because now

you've got a job that you don't
really want a client hunting job.

In an advertising driven
training business, the hard part.

Is all of the machinery and the
content and the mental overhead

of managing ad campaigns.

And then the easy part, I
guess, is there an easy part?

I mean, the easy part is that when someone
signs up for your thing, the direct

inputs that are required from you to
that person are relatively low because

they're buying something like a course
or a program where the, where your effort

is spread across a lot of participants.

That's probably the easy part.

In a one on one practice, the hard part is
the waiting and the character development.

And the easy part is the actual
relationship building, which

brings so much happiness anyway.

So what I want to say to my client that
I was talking to earlier in the week

and to any of you who feel like she
does about limited time, limited energy.

If you think there's no room for your
coaching practice, please reframe it.

Just move through your
life, work on yourself.

The stuff that's soaking up your mental
energy and emotional bandwidth right now,

it's all part of the character development
process that is preparing you to be a

more effective, more supportive coach.

The hard part is the waiting, but the easy
part is just do your life and be patient.

And the clients are coming.

They are coming.

I'll talk to you next time.