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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.
Hi, this is Mark Butler and you are
listening to a podcast for coaches.
This is one of those podcast episodes,
which is really for one person, but you
assume and you can trust that if you
make a podcast that is for one person,
it will benefit many other people,
which is a good reminder for all of us who
attempt to publish content in the world.
If we find ourselves struggling with
ideas, or direction for our content.
Sometimes it's because we're trying
to create something for everyone.
And creating something for everyone
is really hard, but creating something
for one person is much easier.
And it's very reliable that if you
create something that is compelling
to one person, it will be compelling
to many other people because.
So much of our experience is shared
experience, similar experience.
So anyway, this is an
episode for one person.
She will maybe listen to this and
if she does, then she will know that
it's for her because we just spoke
yesterday in my office hours thing
that I do a couple of times per month.
The scenario is she told me that she's
been publishing her podcast for over
three years or around three years.
And after having published 150
plus episodes, she currently
has one paid coaching client.
I don't know if that's the only paid
coaching client you've ever had,
but you told me that at this point
you have one paid coaching client.
And you told me that that coaching client
is actually not so much the fruit of the
podcast, it is the fruit of a long term
friendship where she saw your evolution
as a person and wanted what you have.
And so hired you as a coach,
which is a beautiful story, a great
example of how coaching practices so
often work and something that you can
rely on and can repeat, but that's not
so much what we're talking about today.
What we're talking about today is.
Your podcast, we did talk about
this briefly yesterday, but now
I've had 24 hours to think about it.
And I think there are so many
important lessons for so many other
coaches who are in a similar boat
because in case you don't already
know this, you are not alone.
In fact, I know personally.
a handful of coaches who
are in a similar situation.
And if I know a handful of those
personally, That tells me there are
many, many, many others that I don't
know personally who are in the same boat.
It's an impossibility that I would
happen to know the small handful of
coaches in the world who are trying hard
and not getting the results they want.
Meanwhile, everybody else is crushing.
Math does not allow for that.
So you're not alone., I have so
much admiration for you and people.
Like you, who in a very gritty and
determined way, continue to invest
time and energy and emotion above all
into their business long after other
people would have quit because the
results aren't coming with the speed
or in the quantity that you would hope.
I have more confidence that a person
who has that grit and determination
will figure it out and succeed.
Than I do in a person who has a
lot of apparent natural ability.
Or a built in network and doesn't
have a lot of grit and determination.
So everything I'm saying to you today,
I'm saying, because I believe you are
going to figure it out and you are
going to get the result that you want.
If I didn't believe that I
actually would be very avoidant
of this whole topic because.
To be honest, it's upsetting to me
if I observe a person and I think, I
don't think they can figure it out.
I don't think they're going to make it.
, I tend to hide from that
possibility because I don't like it.
But in your case, and in the case
of people who are working in the way
that you're working, but not getting
the result that they want, I do still
find it easy to be optimistic about
their possibilities because they
are gritty and determined like you.
But we, we do need to talk
about 150 plus episodes and
very few or no paying clients.
As a foundation for this whole
conversation, I want to remind you,
me and everyone else in business,
there's no correct or incorrect.
There's just results and no results.
So business isn't about
knowing the answer.
Business is about knowing how to
continue running experiments until
we arrive at the result that we want.
Businesses about better questions.
It's not about discovering secret answers.
The issue with me saying there's just
results and no results is that too many
business owners and especially people
who don't have a background in a low
certainty environment like sales or
entrepreneurship or self employment.
They tend to want high certainty
in a low certainty environment.
So high certainty in entrepreneurship, in
business, in a coaching practice is money.
It's the validation that we seek.
It's the result that we want.
So we work inside this paradigm.
I'm going to put effort in and money
and time and energy, et cetera.
And I want money out.
So effort in money out.
And of course I want that too.
The problem is the money is
usually the last result to arrive.
There are results along the way that
indicate that we're on the path to money.
It's those signs of life along the way
that tell us that we're headed in a
direction that probably leads to Money
probably leads to the result that we want.
There are two big dangers To making money
the only result that we pay attention to
the two big dangers are
number one That we will quit
and number two that we won't quit
Let's talk about each
if I have not tuned myself to the
signs of life that come before money
Then when the money is not arriving my
discouragement May start to grow and
get to a level where I'm not able to
work past the discouragement anymore.
And so I give up and I quit.
This is the more common scenario where
the obsessive focus on money as a result
causes people who would have otherwise
succeeded to quit because they're not
recognizing the strong valid signs
of life that are already present.
That would indicate to them that they
should keep going, that they're on
the right path, that they're headed
in the direction they need to head.
And because they don't recognize
those signs of life, they quit.
This is tragic.
The second one is sneakier, less
common, harder to recognize.
But I think still very painful and it
is this, the person who views money
as the only result, who is not attuned
to signs of life, continues to work
in the absence of those signs of life.
Because they're saying, if I just
keep putting in this effort, the
money will come, but there are
no signs of life indicating that
they're going in the right direction.
And the truth is they should stop.
And I'll talk about what I
mean by stop in a second,
but because of their grit and
their determination, and because
probably the activity itself soothes
them in some way, gives them some
sense of safety and security.
That disconnects them from the
potential discouragement that other
people feel that causes them to quit.
They keep going without the signs
of life that need to be there.
And the years can go
by without any result.
And at some point that person is
going to finally have to acknowledge
I'm putting an effort and I've
been putting an effort for years,
but no money is resulting from it.
So either I have to decide that my
compensation came in other ways, Intrinsic
compensation like my own personal
development and the joy of creation
and these things are valid but if a
person was relying heavily on money as
a result It's going to be much harder
for them Years into this effort to
persuade themselves that the intrinsic
benefits were worthwhile on their own.
It sets them up for this moment
of reckoning where they have to
say, well, what happened here?
And tragically they very often make that
about them and make themselves a failure.
I'm not as good as other people.
I must not be good at this.
I must not be very smart or whatever.
It can take a crushing
toll on their self image.
And I don't want that.
I don't want any of that for this person.
So what I want for everyone, and
including you, the person for whom I'm
making this podcast, is the ability to
recognize signs of life or their absence
and adjust your approach accordingly.
For the people who are prone to quitting.
I want them to recognize signs of life.
So they keep going for the
people who are prone not to quit.
I want them to recognize the
absence of signs of life.
So they course correct,
adjust, take a new approach.
Now, in your case, we've got
150 plus podcast episodes and.
Unless I'm missing something.
No paying clients as a
result of all that effort.
So now what?
Well, first things first, we don't make
this a comment on you or your smartness
or your coolness or your Ability or
your capacity or any of that because
none of those things are true we know
that off the bat because human beings
are inherently good and brilliant and
Capable and smart and so are you and so
are the rest of us We all have it in us.
Okay.
So an effort that's not producing
results is not in any way a comment
on our value or our character.
It's just an effort that's
not producing results.
So instead what I want to direct you to
is if you want to keep doing a podcast
and it's optional, you don't have to,
if you want to keep doing a podcast,
the question becomes, how
do I create a podcast?
Whose episodes are more resonant
with the people that I hope to serve.
And that is a skill and a practice issue.
And everyone can increase
skill through practice.
It turns out though, it's not
just the reps that matter.
It's the quality of the reps
that matter in practice.
So you have all these amazing reps,
they are not yet teaching you what
you need to know about having those
individual podcast episodes resonate
with an audience such that that
audience reaches out to you and says,
do you have availability for coaching
with podcasts and with
other types of content?
It is too easy to go into our caves
to produce our work, to publish
it in the world, and then to tell
ourselves, I did it, I'm done, I don't
have to think about that anymore.
It's too easy to deceive ourselves
and say, well, coach XYZ told me that
if I just show up and do the work.
That I'll get the results.
It's a true, but incomplete principle.
The more complete principle is if
I show up and do the work and then
iterate the way I'm doing that work
based on feedback or lack of feedback
based on results or lack of results,
then I eventually will succeed.
So what I would encourage you to do as
a person who wants to podcast is I've
got to get that podcast out of the cave
and I've got to get it into the world.
I think you'd be wise to continue
podcasting, but I would encourage you
instead of just talking to that microphone
and pushing publish, I would figure out
what you want to say on that podcast,
and then I would get it into the.
hands of people in real life.
I would invite five people to
your house and I would teach the
principles that I was going to
share on that podcast episode.
And I would watch their
faces and their shoulders.
And I would watch, listen to their
tone of voice when they respond to me.
And I would listen to the questions
that they asked me about that content,
or don't ask me about that content.
And I would refine the content
so that it became more resonant
because If I've got
those people in the room,
and none of them ever laugh, and none
of them ever cry, and none of them ever
argue with me, and none of them ever ask
questions that challenge me, and none of
them ever sort of gush about what's Oh,
this is really transformational for me.
I had never thought of
this this way before.
If none of those things are happening,
then it means there's no resonance.
The good news and bad
news about resonance.
Is that resonance always produces action,
not just the action of the
consumer of my content asks if
they can hire me as a coach, but
resonance always produces action.
Even if that action is introspection,
if it's conversation with the spouse,
if it's them sending an email to say,
I agree with you or disagree with you.
Resonance always produces action.
The bad news is Where there is no
resonance, there will be no action.
So, however much work it is to become
the person who can say things and
do things that produce resonance
in the people they're interacting
with, however much work and time
that requires, that is the job.
There is actually no other job.
I don't claim it's easy.
I don't have a course about how to do it.
I probably never will
because I'm not sure I know.
But where there is resonance,
there will be action.
And where there is no resonance,
there will be no action taken.
So for a person like you, who has
been so persistent in doing the thing,
publishing the podcast episodes, you
now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that
the act of only publishing the podcast
episode does not guarantee a particular
result, but you can build on that habit.
And you can say, I know that I can trust
myself to produce a podcast episode.
So the next question I'm going to ask
, in my journey is, can I trust myself to
do the hard work of creating resonance,
Which will require more work
per episode for you for a while.
It will probably mean getting
into the offline world.
It will mean inviting a friend to lunch.
And saying, I gotta run
through these ideas with you.
And then again, watching their
face, watching their shoulders,
listening to their tone of voice
and hunting for resonance.
And then when they start to laugh
or they start to cry or they start
to argue or they start to,, agree,
or they start to thank you profusely.
Then you tell yourself, this
is now a podcast episode.
Will every single podcast
episode be like that?
No, nor does it need to be, but
the average needs to increase.
The very, very good news
about this is this is a skill.
You can develop it.
It will be like any other skill where
it's slow going and hard in the beginning.
And it becomes easier with time,
this will feel like stumbling forward
in the dark for a while, because if
I'm in your head at all, you may find
yourself saying, well, I don't know
what that guy's even talking about.
So, okay, now I've got
this podcast episode.
Is it resonant?
I don't know.
What am I supposed to do?
Do I have permission to publish it?
Should I not publish it?
Do I need to go rework it again?
And I don't have a perfect
answer to those questions.
This is the stumbling
forward in the dark part,
The strong signals you're
looking for are emotions in
others and emotions in yourself.
There is a scenario where
if I'm writing something.
or I'm saying something into this
microphone and it makes me laugh or
me cry or me angry or me ecstatic.
That's resonance too.
We can't be as assured that that
will resonate with other people,
but if it resonates with us,
that's a good starting point.
When in doubt, I would encourage
you to go ahead and publish.
Do not let me complicate your process
to the point where you stop being the
consistent person you've always been.
That would be a tragedy.
If this is of use to you, continue to be
the consistent person you've always been
and now work harder on each episode to get
some belief that the thing you're saying
will move people in some emotional way.
As a final thought, I will tell you
this is harder to do in content.
Then it is to do in conversation,
which is why if a person comes to me
and says, I'd like to have a full and
thriving one on one coaching practice,
I do not tell them the first thing
you need to do is create a compelling,
emotionally resonant podcast
because they don't need to do that.
They never need to do that.
If that's what they want, I tell
them to go get into conversation
and in those conversations, become
a person who asks questions and
shares ideas in a way that over
time, more and more reliably moves
the other person emotionally.
It does not take tons and
tons of emotionally resonant
interactions with other human
beings to fill a coaching practice.
So you don't have to podcast.
None of us has to podcast,
but we might want to,
it probably needs to be something
like a hundred or two hundred people
who are really resonating with us.
Then that can also contribute to
keeping our practice full and thriving.
But it's not necessary.
The principle is, as coaches,
whatever we do, it needs to be in
pursuit of emotional connection.
And when it succeeds at emotional
connection, then it builds the practice.
And when it doesn't, it doesn't.
So I hope you'll keep going.
I think you're doing great work.
I think you've transformed yourself.
You indicated that when we talked
yesterday, I think there are
plenty of clients out there who
are ready for you to serve them.
They need to have an emotionally
resonant experience with you so that
the like and the trust and the desire
is there, and then they will hire
you and then you will serve them.
And then they will give you referrals and
then they will renew coaching with you.
And you're going to have a great time.
And with that, I'll talk to you next time.