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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.
Speaker: Hey, this is Mark Butler and
you are listening to a podcast for
coaches I try to do a few calls a week
with coaches who use my bookkeeping
service over at getplucky.io,
formerly Let's Do the Books.
And we talk shop, we talk about where
our coaching practices are, we talk about
what plans we have, what hopes we have.
And as I've thought about some of these
calls, I've distilled three questions
that I think tell me a lot about
where a coach is in their practice.
In answering these questions, the coach
will uncover where they are confident and
clear and where they are not so confident
and not so clear, and the confidence
and clarity matter a lot more than the
content in the answers to these questions.
Here they are.
Number one, how will I meet and
enroll my next coaching client?
, I love this question because it
has marketing baked into it,
and it has sales baked into it.
So when I say, "How will
I meet my next client?"
That's essentially a marketing
question, and when I say, "How
will I enroll my next client?"
That's essentially a sales question.
So for example, in my own coaching
practice, if I were to ask myself
the question, "How will I meet and
enroll my next coaching client?"
My answer would be very boring to me.
There would be no hope, no aspiration,
no hypothesis in my answer.
My answer comes from the fact that
for me, this is an answered question.
I'm not in an exploratory or
experimental phase with this question.
My answer would sound something like
my next client will probably come to
me as a referral from another client.
If I've been on a streak where I'm
consistently publishing on my podcast or
podcasts, then there's a chance that my
next client comes from a podcast episode,
where they reach out to me after listening
to an episode, and they say, 'Hey,
Mark, do you have any availability?'"
I'm as confident in that answer
as I am in any other answer.
Meaning, I feel very confident that
if I publish on this podcast, someone
will listen to it, and they will have a
desire to work with me as their coach.
Will it be dozens of people?
Probably not.
Will it be hundreds of people?
Definitely not.
Will it be a couple?
Almost certainly it will.
I can draw a strong line between
publishing episodes of this podcast
and enrolling coaching clients.
So when I publish an episode of
this podcast, I don't really have
to wonder whether it will support
enrollment of new coaching clients.
It probably will.
So there's not a lot of drama
or hope for me in that answer.
Nor is there a lot of drama or hope
for me in the idea that my next client
could come through a referral, because
that's how my clients have come in the
past If a coach has a very confident
answer to this question, how will
I meet and enroll my next client?
I have a strong sense of where
they are in their practice.
Don't misunderstand.
I'm not saying whether they're
a good coach or a bad coach.
I'm not saying whether they
can succeed or can't succeed.
I'm not saying I have any sense of their
timelines on when things will improve
or get much worse in their practice.
I'm not saying any of that.
But if I ask the question, how will
you meet and enroll your next client?
If a coach's answer is boring to
them, that's probably a mature and
well-established coaching practice.
But if the answer has a lot of hope
and hypothesis in it, then I know
that I'm probably talking to a, less
established coach whose practice hasn't
matured yet and where they're still in
an exploratory and hypothetical season.
There's nothing wrong with that.
The content of their answer will
inform conversations we have about
different strategies they might employ,
different tactics they might reach for.
Great.
But the confidence with which they
answer will tell me whether or not
their next moves are likely to pay off
So if someone were to come to me and
say, "Mark How do you think you'll
meet and enroll your next member
for your Office Hours program?
My answer will probably be,
some people who listen to this
podcast will like what they hear.
They'll like the sound of my voice.
They'll like my attitude and
my philosophy, and they'll go
over to officehourswithmark.com,
and they'll sign up, and
they'll give it a look."
where I would have relatively little
confidence would be if that same person
said to me, " could you enroll twenty-five
people in the next month into your
Office Hours program, or could you enroll
two hundred people in the next year?"
At that point, my answers would become
very hypothetical, very exploratory,
and you'd hear me say, "I wonder,"
and, "I'm not so sure," ,which would
indicate where my growth edge or where
the coaching that I'm gonna receive
or the information that I'm going to
acquire, what it would need to address.
Now, the truth is we
could stop right here.
If I were looking for one heuristic,
one shortcut question that I could ask
any coach and develop not just a quick
but a pretty accurate view of where they
are in their practice and where they
are likely to go in their practice, it
would be question number one: How will
you meet and enroll your next client?
In questions two and three,
coaches can really lose themselves.
They can really lose the plot or lose the
thread of a very successful and healthy
coaching practice, and I know this in part
because I think I've done it many times.
So I ask these questions partly because
the answers indicate the mental and
emotional state of the coach, but also
because it will reveal where a coach
may be at risk in their practice.
So question number two is, What
structure and deliverables will I
follow to support my next client?
You've met and enrolled the client,
now you're gonna tell me how you're
going to fulfill the promises made
in the sales process, essentially.
As an example, in my case
generally, when they enroll, they
purchase a block of sessions.
We understand that those sessions will be
used probably over the course of between
three and five or three and six months.
Those sessions will be about fifty minutes
long, I won't have much homework for
my clients between sessions, although
I will make suggestions for experiments
they can run between session and
come back and report if they want to.
But I'm not really a homework guy,
so I'm not really an accountability
guy, so my clients generally come
back to the next session and talk
about whatever they wanna talk about.
And if that includes one of the
experiments we talked about them
running the last time, great.
I don't do Voxer access.
I don't do email coaching access.
I don't do Marco Polo access.
So the work we do will be done in the Zoom
call we have somewhere between two and
three times a month for somewhere between
three and five months, maybe six months.
That's going to be the structure.
I won't be giving my clients
access to a coaching portal.
I don't have videos for them to watch.
I don't have books for them to read.
I don't have assignments
for them to complete.
I don't see anything wrong
with any of those things.
They're just not the approach that I
use to deliver on the promises I make
in the marketing and sales processes."
The end.
That's it.
That's my answer.
Where I would reveal myself as
experimental, exploratory, and
sometimes very messy would be..
I'm thinking about adding X, Y, and Z.
I'm thinking about taking away A, B,
and C," . What does this indicate?
It could indicate that a coach is feeling
very confident and that they've seen
ways to enhance the value they give their
clients, and they want to add something or
take away something as a way of building
on the strength of the relationship
they already have and the strength
of the experience they already have,
great.
But if a question gets very hypothetical
or exploratory when I ask them about
how they deliver the coaching experience
I might start to look for signs of
burnout or frustration in the practice.
they might be getting bored
with or tired of the topic or
topics they tend to coach around.
And what they're trying to do
is create a structural solution
to a mental-emotional problem.
The structural solution being,
"Let me add this portal, let me add
these videos, let me add a book."
And let me see if by adding those things,
I solve my mental emotional problem.
As coaches, we know that you could even
dig in on some of these things, and you
could find out, oh, they have a kid who's
really struggling, and they're feeling
tired, and they're feeling worn out.
And you'd be amazed at the mental
gymnastics that we can all do to
ourselves, such that worrying about
our kid for example can lead to us
saying, "I need to create a coaching
portal with videos in it for my
clients to watch between sessions."
I have done that exact thing in my own
practice, So, if I ask a coach , "How
are you gonna deliver that experience?"
If they get very exploratory or
hypothetical, and if I'm hearing a
certain tone of voice as they give their
answer, they're probably indicating
something mental and emotional, either
about their life circumstances or the
circumstances of their practice, more
than they are about the specific value
delivery in their coaching practice.
Now, that won't always be the case.
They might say, I've noticed that my
clients ask me the same questions a
lot, and they're really good questions.
And, The best way for me to support
my clients would be to answer those
questions in videos so that when we're
in session together, we can talk about
what they learned in the videos and
see how it applies to them personally."
Can you hear what a difference there
is between I'm sick of answering
the same questions over and over,
and I'm excited about adding this
new dimension to the practice?
A good coach will be able to parse
those two and figure out whether the
client you're talking to is , coming
from a more anxious, fatigued, or
burned out, worried place or from a
confident, optimistic growth place.
Because the same idea could come from
either place and have very different
implications for the practice.
So that's why I'm asking How will you
deliver on the promises you made in
the marketing and sales processes?"
And again, the more bored and
matter-of-fact or excited, confident,
and energized they are, the more I
trust their answer The more they're
coming from a place of a deep sigh, a
fatigue or a discouragement or a hope
then I know to dig a little deeper.
This question can reveal creeping issues
in the practice that could sabotage
the coach and take a successful
practice, start to erode it over time.
The last question tells me a lot
about where I think this coaching
practice is going, and the question
is: What will happen when your
next client is finished with the
engagement you just enrolled them in?
This sounds a lot like the first
question, which is how will I
meet and enroll my next client?
But you already know the client, so it's
really about what will I invite the client
to do at the end of this engagement?
If you were to ask me the question,
the answer would be very mundane.
The answer would be, "I will
invite the client to continue in
almost an identical engagement."
Probably about the same price,
probably about the same number
of sessions, probably about
the same interactions overall.
If I ask a fellow coach that question
and their answer is, again, if they go
to a very exploratory or hypothetical
place, then I might be dealing with some
of the same mental, emotional burdens
or burnouts that, that a person brought
up in the answer to question two.
Because if I say, "What will we
do at the end of that engagement?"
They'll say what I really wish I could
do is step them up into this high
ticket something or other, invite
them to a retreat, or invite them to
an individual intensive or have them
join my mastermind or something."
There'd be nothing wrong with
that unless they gave that
answer in a very uncertain way.
If it it's a lot of wishing and
hoping and wondering, then, there's
something for me to dig there.
But if it's a lot of, "Oh yeah, they
finish a one-on-one engagement, I always
invite them to join this other kind
of thing, and about half of them do."
"Okay.
How do you feel about that?"
"Yeah, it's great.
It's a great model.
It's been working really well."
"Oh, okay.
Great."
it's a way of sniffing out also
where the coach might lack confidence
or where they may just not know
that you could invite them to
repeat the same kind of engagement.
So if I say what happens
when the engagement is over?
And they say I try to leave
them with a really good feeling.
I send them sort of a completion gift.
I have a favorite book that I send them,
something like that, but then that's it."
is there a reason you don't
invite them to continue working
with you in the same way?"
And then some useful truth or some
useful thought is gonna come out.
The promise I make in the marketing
and sales process is that they
won't need to work with me forever."
I always find it interesting when coaches
tell me I don't wanna create dependence."
I'm like you're struggling with a little
bit of grandiosity there, the idea
that you could, quote-unquote, 'create
dependence' and that you're that powerful,
that somehow you have the ability to get
your clients addicted to you or something.
Okay.
I don't have such a high opinion of
myself, but if you do, fair enough.
I hope you never wield
that power for evil.
What's more likely is that you're feeling
insecure about asking them to renew
or that you have a certain idea about
coaches who do renew people, that you
view maybe renewals as, predatory or
manipulative or something like that.
But , if a client finishes an
engagement with you and you don't
have a normal, natural, comfortable,
confident invitation to extend them,
you're making your practice much
harder to keep healthy because the
hardest thing to do in any business,
including a coaching practice, is to,
create the first yes with that client.
The person who has created the first
yes has overcome the biggest hurdle
And subsequent hurdles in the form
of renewals are much easier to clear.
So if you don't have that built
in, I'm gonna ask why not?
By the way, businesses that have
the hardest time with renewals are
businesses that make the biggest
promises in the initial sales process
And it's often the big promises
made in the sales process which
promises are designed, to make that
first yes easier, make the second
yes harder or even impossible
Because if you say, "I'll help you,
get out of debt, or, get three or five
coaching clients, or lose 20 pounds",
and if you index really hard on that
one result, there can be an anchoring
effect on the client where they think,
"And then I will be finished, and we
will shake hands, we will high-five, we
will hug, and we will never speak again."
Is that the worst thing in the world?
No, of course it's not the
worst thing in the world.
What it does, though, is make it much
harder for that coach to stabilize their
income, because it becomes a pure eat
what you kill business I don't wanna
be in an eat what I kill business, I
wanna be in a reap what I sow business.
And in a reap what I sow business, I
have to do a lot of initial cultivation
and soil preparation in the form of
relationship building and in the form
of a patient mindset and a confident
attitude about the fact that I don't
enroll a bunch of clients each year.
But the clients that I enroll, a
high percentage of them are going to
stay with me for a long time because
instead of viewing me as the solution
to a specific problem, they view
me as an advisor on all, or many of
their problems and opportunities in
their life, something it's normal and
natural to continue with as opposed to
normal and natural to be finished with.
So that's why I wanna ask question three.
I wanna ask what happens when the
engagement completes, because I wanna
know, are you setting yourself up to have
an eat what you kill business, which I
view as inherently more work and higher
energy and more at risk of burnout, or
are you building a reap what you sow
business, where you continue to develop
relationships and be of high service,
your practice becomes easier over time?
I don't believe there are wrong
answers to any of these questions.
I want my fellow coaches to be confident
and clear in whatever they choose to
do, because the confidence and clarity
will keep all of us in productive action
Whereas being perpetually exploratory and
hypothetical might reveal a level of fear
and insecurity that's gotta be addressed
no matter what path you're choosing.
So those are my questions.
How will you meet and
enroll your next client?
What structure and deliverables will
you use to fulfill the promises made
in the marketing and sales process?
And what will you do at the
completion of the current engagement?
And by answering those three questions,
you can give yourself a strong sense of
your clarity and confidence in whatever
path you're pursuing in your practice.
If I can be of help, shoot me
an email, mark@markbutler.com.
I may not be quick to reply, but if
you'd like some support in answering
these questions and in understanding your
answers to these questions, I'm available
to do that as your coach and advisor.
And with that, I'll talk to you next time.