Hey, this is Mark Butler, and you are listening to a podcast for coaches.
Today is a travel day for me.
I don't travel much for work anymore, but I am traveling today.
So, I need a little thing, a little piece of, you know, like a little plastic
container, because very often when I travel, I use this pomade stuff for
my hair, and the container is just big enough that sometimes they confiscate
it, and it's kind of expensive.
So I wanted to get a little plastic tub thing that I could put it in.
So, I grabbed my digital recorder off my desk, said goodbye to my wife.
Noted the look she gave me as she saw me walk out with this recorder.
. And I came to Target looking for that and they didn't really have one, but
on my way out, I passed this little 1 rack that had, hold on, don't worry.
I'm being safe.
Silly sense dough for children.
It's like Play Doh.
The little tubs are the perfect size.
So I'm going to take one of these little tubs, throw away the Play Doh.
And then use it for hair product.
Now, yeah, that's dumb.
It's ridiculous.
Par for the course for me.
And if I really wanted to do this episode right, I would go home and I would record
Kate's reaction to what I've just done.
The thing is, I would have to narrate it because you can't hear an eye roll.
You can only see it and feel it deep down in your soul, which is what I'm about to
experience when I tell her this story.
And so, mission accomplished.
Uh, my hair product may smell like green apple, peach, or pineapple when all is
said and done, but we got the job done.
. Now, this episode's gonna be short because it needs to be done
before I get back to my house.
Last week we talked about gritty, determined people who show up and
publish and engage and they do this over the course of years and how
sometimes that doesn't pay off in the way that they hope it will.
And I talked about a specific person on that episode and I said, and I have
every confidence that she's going to succeed and to thrive in her practice.
This week it's about , the people who are more like me, frankly.
Who get excited, and show up for a while, and then disappear for a while.
Maybe for a long time, maybe forever.
What brought this to my mind is that I'm in the process of reengaging
with the marketing of my bookkeeping business over at Let's Do The Books.
A few months ago, I closed it for new signups for a while because my
systems were not strong enough to handle the support of existing clients
and the welcoming of new clients.
And then I had to send an embarrassing email and say, I'm
sorry I can't onboard you right now and I'll be back in a few months.
Now I feel quite ready actually.
My systems are much better.
My confidence is high and I'm ready to sign people up for the service.
Let's And so I'm looking for people to sign up for the service.
So, to get my mind thinking about how do I find coaches to support with
bookkeeping, I went to the life coach school coach directory, because although
I haven't been on that website in years, I knew that that directory existed.
And I imagined that there'd be a couple of thousand coaches there.
So I went there, and using some nerd magic, I got all the listings from the
directory and put them in a spreadsheet.
Now don't worry, I'm not going to spam , I'm not going to send
all those people a bulk email.
Not only because that's gross, but also because it wouldn't work anyway.
What it gave me an opportunity to do is to go through lots and lots of coaches,
websites, and social media profiles.
Now don't worry, there's not going to be any criticism or judgment from me
because these are my kind of people.
What I found was lots and lots of stuff that clearly
had not been updated in years.
I completely relate.
Between about 2020 and 2024, for my website at markbutler.
com did not really reflect what I was doing.
And a person who landed on that website would have every reason to believe that
I was no longer doing anything online.
And for all they knew, I might not even be alive anymore.
Same with my social media profile.
Now I'm very accustomed to being on this side of that equation.
I can sit over here and say, well, it doesn't matter
that my website is outdated.
It doesn't matter that my social media profiles haven't been updated.
My practice is thriving.
Things are going great.
I've got happy clients, etc, etc.
But yesterday I had the chance to get on the viewer's side of the equation.
And I had to admit to myself that when you find stuff that is
completely outdated, it hurts trust.
And when I say it hurts trust, I don't mean, oh, I think
this person's untrustworthy.
What it means is I now have to do heavier lifting to decide that you're trustworthy
and that I should reach out to you.
I have to say to myself, Oh, well, they're probably like me.
They don't update their stuff, but I'm sure their practice is thriving.
Etc.
That hurts trust.
What helps trust is landing on a website or on a social media profile.
And whatever it looks like, it can signal that the person is alive
and well and still in business and happily serving clients.
So having looked at all these profiles and realizing, yeah, these people and me,
we're all the same, it gave me resolve.
To adjust my approach to my online presences such that I'm not asking people
to do so much work to know that I am Still in the game now There is a little
caveat on this because I have weirdly over the years had a few clients hire me
And admit to me later That my outdated web presences contributed to a sort of
intrigue and appeal almost made me seem aloof and interesting and compelling.
And, and at that, I just had to laugh.
I, I don't know that I would recommend that as a strategy.
And I, I can't pretend that it's worked in any measurable way for my benefit.
It's just something that clients acknowledge occasionally when
they have come to work with me.
How does that happen?
Well, it probably happens because they heard me speak somewhere.
So the speaking that they heard proved that I'm still in business.
And then when they go to the web presences.
They're able to weave a story that sounds like, Oh no, he's in business.
He's just so successful and busy that he doesn't update his Instagram.
I just don't want people to have to play that game.
I would rather have them land on my website, land on my social media profiles.
And pretty quickly realize, oh yeah, he's still doing this,
or he's not still doing this.
I just don't want it to look so dead.
So, what am I going to do specifically?
Well, I've already updated markbutler.
com to, I think, give the reasonable appearance of aliveness.
These days, I get between 8 and 10 email signups per week
through my website, markbutler.
com.
So my assumption is that that's coming from this podcast and from other places
that I hang out and that I speak, but the website is doing its job.
It's making it relatively easy for people to engage with me.
Now solving the actual sending of the newsletter.
You all know me, you know that that's an ongoing battle.
But, they can also find this podcast through the website, and if they go to
the podcast feed, they will very quickly see, oh, clearly he's doing stuff.
At least recently, he's doing stuff.
But for all of you, my kindred spirits who abandon your websites and your social
media profiles for years at a time, like I said, no judgment, no judgment
for me, what a hypocrite I would be.
I think we can be of better service to the people who might want to engage
with us by just keeping things current.
That doesn't mean we have to go spend thousands of dollars on photography
or websites, although we can.
, I can recommend great people if you want to do that.
But at this point, I'm probably more likely to go low tech, low cost, and
just make sure that if you happen to bump into me on the internet, there's
some reasonable signal that I exist, that I'm happy to be engaging with
my work and with my clients, and here's how to get in touch with me.
Perfect timing.
I'm pulling into the garage.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go throw away some children's Play Doh and
replace it with men's hair products.
And with that, have an amazing week, I'll talk to you next time.