The importance of tracking true "utilization" in a coaching practice.

Along with a few other ideas about what numbers a one-on-one coach might want to track in order to keep the practice healthy.

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: Hi, this is Mark
Butler and you are listening

to a podcast for coaches.

I seem to be a person who, instead
of having a business or a career

in the more traditional sense.

I seem to be a person who occasionally
spins up a new side hustle, and then

the accumulated or the total income
from these side hustles provides our

family with a life and a lifestyle.

I'm not sure what I think of that on the
one hand, I'm pretty happy life is good.

I have the things I value most, which
are autonomy and creative freedom.

On the other hand, I don't have
what I perceive to be some of the

compounding benefits that accrue.

To peers of mine, friends of mine
whom I've watched build businesses,

careers in the more traditional sense.

And so nothing's ever simple, right?

I want to be careful not to be
too reductive in my observations

of my own life or of theirs.

But I do sit here and look over there
and see what looks like green grass.

And I think it probably is green grass.

Of course we know the way life works.

And if I went over to that green
grass, I'd look back and find that

where I was has green grass too.

So.

These realizations, these
explorations, they don't mean that

anything is going particularly wrong.

What they mean is I have an opportunity
to explore and analyze and consider

whether my way of being would benefit
from some tweaks that would allow me to

keep being me and maybe accrue some of
the rewards, the compounding rewards.

That I see other people experiencing.

Could I go on the way I am forever?

I've told you before in this podcast that
I can imagine myself being 80 years old,

and on a Tuesday morning waking up and
saying, yep, I've got six calls today with

clients looking forward to catching up
with them and seeing how I can help today.

I look at my bookkeeping business and most
of my job in my bookkeeping business is

programming software, building tools that.

Make my bookkeeping more automated.

That seems to be an itch I continue.

Enjoy scratching.

, I've opened the office hours membership
now, and that's where I get to

be a teacher and a facilitator.

And that's a job I love.

I said to Kate the other day, I
think part of the reason I'm opening

office hours is because I do have
a deep down desire to be a school

teacher, like a high school teacher.

But being a high school teacher
doesn't really fit in our life.

And so instead I open up a membership
called office hours and it lets me be a

teacher and I've loved teaching for ever.

And I think I will continue to love it.

So none of these things need to go away.

It may be true that none of them
even need to significantly change.

I would probably benefit.

This is most likely the
understatement of the century.

I would probably benefit from
looking farther out into the future

and figuring out how today's activities
relate to that future reality,

because I tend to be a person who
just says, what are we doing today?

And maybe what are we doing tomorrow?

And maybe what are we doing next week?

But for the most part, it's just
sort of, what are we doing today?

What problem is there to be solved today?

What thing is there to be made today that
could be kind of fun and interesting.

But I don't tend to think in terms of
where am I headed and how am I headed

there and why am I headed there?

And so I'm trying to figure out,
all right, what do I tweak here?

I think I need a better
system for tracking.

I think I want a system that helps
me understand how my recent activity

relates to my long term goals.

Now this is one on one level stuff
that your favorite business coach would

have talked about on her podcast and
webinars and courses and whatever else.

And of course I will
fully ignore all of it.

Um, but I'm thinking about how having
a longer term goal or set of goals and

understanding exactly how they relate
to my personal mission and priorities,

and then measuring my performance and my
results against those longterm priorities

would have a positive effect on me.

It's so funny to say all that out
loud, because again, this feels

like one of those things that
everybody else knows, but I don't.

And I'm sure not everybody else
knows it, but I can name a few

people who clearly know it.

And so they probably loom large in
my mind as having figured it all out.

And then I'm making them a proxy
for all of the rest of humanity.

And so it, it can have this effect where
you put yourself on an Island all alone

and say, well, everyone else has it.

And I don't, Oh, well, I guess
it'll all work out or not.

And of course that's not, I mean,
it will all work out or not, but I

think It's not practical to say that
I'm the only one who hasn't figured

out how to relate today's activity
to a long term vision for my life.

So today I've got myself thinking,
well, what would I measure?

What would I measure as a way of
checking in with today's activities,

specifically my coaching practice?

We'll just limit it to that one sort
of Mark side hustle called coaching.

Cause that's what this podcast is about.

What would I measure in my coaching
practice that would have a clear relevance

and importance to my vision for my life?

Here's what I got.

I'll share it with you.

, those of you who know me best know
that this whole set of ideas may barely

survive the completion of this episode,

which then leads me to a thought of, uh,
it's really probably time to hire some

sort of an assistant, someone who Plug
these holes in my skills and my thinking.

Okay.

Quick tangent.

I don't want you to email me an offer
to be my assistant, not because I think

that you're deficient in some way.

It's because I have no confidence in
myself at this point to productively

engage any assistant, no matter how
qualified, capable and brilliant.

And also if you email me, that's just
one more email I'm not responding to.

So let's just let it settle.

Let's just let it breathe.

If an assistant happens, it happens.

And if not, whatever.

I have actually reached out to a
friend though, and I've asked that

friend to coach me in becoming
a person who could hire a person.

I think that would be, boy,
that would be a big win.

Anyway.

So even acknowledging that maybe
these ideas won't survive past the

end of this episode, I think it's a
worthwhile thought experiment and I

think I'm better off for having done it.

And then I think it's execution,
will bubble into my life in some way.

So here's what I'm thinking
about tracking in my coaching

practice as a way of improving it.

And as a way of more fully living the
values that I have that caused me to

be in coaching in the first place.

Okay.

Here we go.

I think I could be tracking.

The actual revenue collected in my
coaching practice and The revenue owed

to me in my coaching practice now You're
laughing because I own a bookkeeping

business and what I do is I track
people's revenue for them And yes, I

do actually have my revenue tracked.

Of course I do.

I don't let that fall behind What
I'm talking about here is not just

tracking it, but making it available
to myself in a way that's so quick and

so easy that there's really no friction
between me and knowing my number.

Now, I may still only look at it
every three, four, six weeks, but

any amount of friction between me and
that number will make it less likely

for me to look at it and less likely,
therefore, for me to benefit from it.

So just a number that says, This
is how many dollars I've collected

in 2024 from my coaching practice.

And here's how many dollars my existing
coaching relationships will be paying

me by agreement in the months to come.

So that looks like, Oh yeah.

And in November, this
client's going to pay.

And in December that client's
going to pay and et cetera.

Just so I have a little bit of a dashboard
about, how much money is already here

and how much money is on its way.

This is the easiest, simplest, and I
think very useful thing for me to be

tracking,, and looking at regularly.

I, of course, would also want
to look at how my time is being

occupied by the coaching practice.

You've heard me talk about inventory,
and some of you have thanked me

for this idea, this concept of
inventory, and I like it too.

I think it would be even more
powerful if I tracked it in any way.

Um, if I looked at like my friend,
Melissa, who, who you've heard on this

podcast before, Melissa has this tool that
she uses to track capacity in her practice

and in her clients practice where she can
look at, this is how many hours are in the

calendar that could be used for coaching.

And this is how many hours that are
actually being used for coaching , we

could call this a utilization.

So in Mark Butler's coaching
practice, what is his utilization?

Meaning of all the hours that
are available for coaching, how

many are being used for coaching?

That would be a useful number for me
to track over time because if that

number is trending downward, however,
slowly, that's important information.

Also, if that number is trending
upward, however, slowly, that's

important information to the business.

As one on one coaches, we are in
a session based hourly business.

Which is why I don't usually call it
a business because it's a practice.

, it's a technician's practice.

And if I don't have any idea what
my utilization is or what the

trend in my utilization is, then
I could be caught off guard when

suddenly money starts to feel tight.

And I'm not sure why, because
maybe my emotional sense, my vague

sense of how things are going is
generally positive, which it is.

But maybe the indicators
aren't there to support my good

expectations, my positive outlook.

Maybe my utilization is trending downward,
which means I've got a problem to solve

in my coaching practice if I want my
coaching practice to contribute in a

meaningful way, to my family's finances.

So I'm calling that utilization.

How much coaching capacity do I have and
how much of it is actually being occupied.

By paying clients.

Now there's another piece here to
utilization that sometimes I acknowledge

and oftentimes I don't want to acknowledge
because there can be some discomfort

for me in what I'm about to tell you.

And it is this

in any given month, I can look
at the amount of money that I

collect from paying clients.

And I can use that money as a
buffer or as a boon to my mental

state and my emotional state.

It's a hack.

It's a crutch to be able to say,
Oh, look, some people paid me.

So I guess all is well in the world.

And that's not totally untrue.

Collecting money is a
positive thing in my practice.

I can also look at my calendar
and I can say, Oh, look at all

these appointments on my calendar.

Look how well things are going.

I can say that I'm full
or I'm close to full.

That's also a boon to my psyche.,
but there's a number that represents

where the rubber really meets
the road in a coaching practice.

And this tends to be one
that I want to ignore.

And it is the number of sessions
that actually happen, which sounds

really funny when you say it out loud.

It's one thing to look at
your calendar and see 12 or 14

sessions scheduled for the week.

But then at the end of the week,
maybe only nine, 10 or 11 of those

12, 13 or 14 sessions actually
delivered, they actually happened.

Now, why does that matter?

The reason it matters is that in
a session based coaching practice

like mine, I don't really earn the
money until I deliver the session.

So it doesn't matter if someone pays me,
let's say it's some crazy number, 50,

000 for coaching until I deliver all of
the sessions that 50, 000 commits me to.

I haven't really earned the money.

And we know that's true because if I
were to accumulate a whole bunch of

undelivered sessions and then For some
reason, it's just a thought experiment.

All those clients came at
the same time and said, we're

ready for all of our sessions.

And if I then couldn't deliver the
sessions I'd committed myself to

because I don't have the capacity in
my week, well, now I've got a problem.

So in a session based practice, it's not
enough to just get yeses and celebrate

the yeses and celebrate the deposits
of the money into the bank account.

And it's not enough to
just look at the calendar.

And in my case, see a bunch of
green spots because I highlight

my coaching clients, hours green.

It's not enough to see a
green wall in my calendar.

What really matters is what percentage
of my capacity, not just was

spoken for, but was actually used.

Because one of the most painful
things to me about a coaching

practice, which I've just had to
accept as a cost of doing business,

is that if a client cancels, 24, 48
hours, 72 hours, maybe even two weeks.

It's not like I have some line of
people that I'm aware of who are

banging down the door to try to get
that extra session if one opens up.

But if a client cancels, it's
more than likely that I lose the

opportunity to translate that
hour into its corresponding rate.

And I probably won't get that hour
back, nor will I get that money back.

So it's not enough to sell an
hour and collect the money.

The hour has to be
delivered to the client.

No, all of our friends on the
course creation and mastermind

selling and whatever world,
they're all saying, yeah, exactly.

This is why you shouldn't be in
a one on one coaching practice.

Well, they can take the rest
of the episodes on my podcast

and that those are my, my
counterpoint to what they're saying.

This is not a deal breaker to me.

It's simply a reality of
a session based practice.

And I have to build it into the model.

I have to acknowledge that even when
people have purchased, let's say 80

or 90 percent of my inventory,, they
will use in any given week, some

percentage lower than that, which
then flows all the way through.

To my personal income, which then flows
through to my ability to live my values

and desires in my personal life and
pretending it's not that way is, not wise.

It's not practical.

So in my business, yes, I want
to track revenue collected.

I want to track revenue still owed to me.

I want to track My Availability
as a percentage of capacity.

And then I have to have a true
utilization number that acknowledges

that in any given week for the number
of hours that I intended to coach a

certain amount of dollars, a certain
amount of value was actually delivered.

So just using round numbers, It
doesn't matter if I've sold 3,

000 worth of sessions in a week.

What matters is how many dollars
worth of sessions did I deliver?

That is my actual income for lack of
a better word, or my actual revenue in

a pure accounting sense, by the way,
welcome to the world of nerdy accountants.

What I'm talking about is the more
precise way of tracking revenue.

You don't get to call it revenue
until you've delivered the services.

So these are numbers that I would track.

And if I had a little dashboard that
allowed me to look at the last three

weeks or three months or nine months
and to see trends in all of these

numbers, revenue collected, revenue
owed to me, Sessions committed sessions,

completed some utilization number.

Then I would have an easier time
saying what's actually going on with

the health of my coaching practice.

And is it actually carrying its weight
along with my other side hustles?

Is it actually pulling its weight in terms
of my households consumption desires?

We can look at all of those numbers as
the ones that come after the transaction,

after the person says yes, and they pay
an invoice, depending on what we see in

the trends in the post transaction data,
like, you know, collected revenue and

all of that, that I just talked about.

Then we got to look at the
pre transaction numbers.

We have to look at the numbers that
we believe contribute to transactions.

Now this for me is, it's one of
those old novels where it says like,

here be dragons, because in the
pre transaction space, there are at

least dozens of numbers you could
track, and it might be hundreds.

I've worked on some reports for
clients of mine who tend to be more

advertising driven, more funnel
style businesses, and the variety

and the quantity of numbers that they
can track can be kind of staggering

and it can be kind of overwhelming.

And I'm a nerd.

I'm, I'm a numbers guy.

I not afraid of math.

I'm not afraid of statistics, but the
numbers you can track in a marketing

game are potentially overwhelming.

Well, if you've listened to the podcast,
you know, my strategy, my strategy is

talking to a microphone, wait for an email
to land in my inbox requesting coaching.

That's my strategy.

So when I'm looking at what I track
in the pre transaction space, I look

at how often am I hitting publish
after talking into a microphone?

And in fact, I just signed
into my podcast host.

Before recording this episode, because
I wanted to make sure that I haven't

spoken directly about this topic.

And I realized that my trend is downward
in terms of frequency of publishing.

I had a vague awareness of that, but
it's a little bit worse than I thought.

, maybe I don't want to put a value
judgment on that and say it's worse, but

it's definitely becoming less frequent.

Well, if my strategy is to talk into
a microphone and then wait for an

email, the part of that I can control
is talking into the microphone.

And it's all fair and well and great for
me to say today, all things are good.

The practice is full.

The practice is healthy.

But if I'm talking into the microphone
less and less often, and if I

believe talking into the microphone
matters, then I have to believe.

That whatever comes from talking into a
microphone will decrease and that that

will decrease the health of the practice.

The only way I can pretend that's
not the case is if I say, Oh, I was

probably talking into the microphone
way more than I needed to before.

And now I'm just seeking some
sort of steady state where, Oh,

maybe I publish every other week.

Maybe I publish every three weeks,
but the emails still land in the inbox

and the practice still stays healthy.

That might be true.

And then the question becomes, how much
am I willing to risk on that being true?

Am I willing to risk incurring debt
while I find out whether I can get

away with publishing only once every
three weeks, once every four weeks,

I mean, I could take that risk.

I reopened this podcast at the beginning
of this year saying that I hadn't

really published in the whole previous
year and things had worked out fine.

But is that the game I want to play?

Or do I want to acknowledge that
the cost of producing a podcast

episode is for me very low.

And so there's no significant
benefit to not Publishing a

podcast in terms of costs saved.

It doesn't take me a whole day.

It doesn't cost me a thousand dollars.

So why actually would I not do it?

Got to ask the question.

And the answer to that question will
inform how frequently I hit publish

and reflect how confident I am that
pushing publish will positively

correlate with more emails in my inbox,

more happy clients, more renewals, more
referrals, and everything down the line.

So for me, really the only pre
transaction number that I'm

tracking is podcast episodes It's
pretty easy to keep track of that.

Now I do have this membership
now and I'm excited about it.

I love being a teacher and that's
primarily what the membership offers

me, teaching and facilitation.

I don't think you can pretend you're going
to grow a membership, publishing a podcast

every week or every three or four weeks.

I think if I want to really commit
to the membership, what comes with

that as a commitment to be in more
places, more often extending people, an

invitation to come into that membership.

There will need to be
more things to track.

I'm not sure what those are yet.

More content, more content in more places.

Ugh, but not so much that
it takes over my life.

These are the things to be
explored, things to be balanced.

But where that all leads me
is, I want there to be just a

small handful of numbers that
I'm tracking post transaction.

Meaning after people say yes and
pay me, okay, what comes after that?

I want to keep track of those things.

So I know that the practice
is staying healthy.

And then there are going to be a small
handful of things pre transaction that

I track frequency of content production,
maybe new types of content production.

I really shouldn't rule out advertising,
even though it's kind of my brand.

It's mostly that I'm anti Facebook ads.

I'm anti social media advertising.

I'm kind of psychotic about it,
but I'm open to sponsorships.

I'm open to affiliate arrangements where
I pay my members to get me members.

So , there's places to explore there,

and I think some amount of this
tracking could influence me to become

a person who actually starts to
reap longterm compounding rewards

from all these little gigs I start.

That I love

I'll try to be back again soon
because yeah, pushing publish on

this podcast is my main strategy,
so I will talk to you next week.

See ya.