Learning from Coaching Business Mistakes : Solutions for Success

Top 3 Mistakes in Year 1 of Coaching

Faisal: Is it important to have some credibility out there and you're putting out stuff, but you can quickly do that by putting yourself out on social media as you can quickly shoot a bunch of videos.

But a lot of coaches will spend a lot of their time just doing all these little things, website, logo, and stuff and it doesn't work. And the reason why I know this doesn't work is cuz I did the same thing and I made a crappy website. I spent a couple of weeks on it and I know coaches spent months on it.

And then I realized that first of all, I never used that website cuz it wasn't fully functional. I had a bunch of texts, and the buttons didn't work very well. I had already hit my first six figures before I actually paid somebody to build my website properly. The, and, and that's when I literally went to a person, I'm like, can you make this functional?

Cause it doesn't actually, and, and he was laughing. He's like, well, at least you make money. 

Sheri: Well, and if you have this big fancy website, you actually need people to go to your website and really, and, and I would say even in my own experience, like I, I have built courses, I have built a bunch of stuff. And then like, okay, now I can market it.

Now I can try to get people in there, and then I find out maybe that I, or realize that I didn't build it quite. In a way that made sense or it, it just, it's, I, I have spent and wasted a lot of time on things that ended up not going anywhere because I built it first and then tried to get people into it.

And entrepreneurship and coaching as an entrepreneur is still a process of trying and refining, trying. And refining. And if you try too much and do too much without an opportunity to pause and refine, you are gonna spend a lot of time and waste a lot of time. And all you really need, in my opinion, is like update your Facebook to make sure you know, and maybe your LinkedIn or whatever social media platforms you want, have a few posts that say that.

Talk about coaching, a video that talks about coaching. You know, in your little description under your name, make sure that you put something about being a coach there. Because people are probably going to look you up in these mediums before they really care about some big fancy website. So that's just a simple way, you know, five, 10 minutes, and boom, you can kind of be done with some of that social proof stuff.

Faisal: Yeah. And then what I would encourage people to do is just Google their name. Like even if you Google it, one of the first things that will show up in your social media presence. My website shows up. And because it's been there for, for a little bit but most of the dominant posts are from my social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, all the videos, quotes, everything shows up there.

And so even if people go to Google, they will find you somewhere. And, and it's, it's, I, I like what Sherry said is just make sure people know that you're a coach. Like I, I talk. I'm talking to a lot of coaches, just because I'm in charge of the outreach at CMC, so I'm reaching out to a lot of coaches.

Whenever I go to their profile, I have no idea what they do. Yes. Like you, I can't tell if they're a coach. Sometimes I'll see some codes or videos on their profile, but it's somebody else's shared thing. I have no idea what they do. So it's this, like, if a potential client is coming to your page, they don't know what you're doing either.

And so if you're offering something, they have no idea. If you take this sincerely, if you take this as a part of what you're doing, even if you're doing it part-time, you need to have something around it. And I, so yesterday I had a conversation, and this is very important. I had a conversation with them, with a coach, and also somebody who's starting a business as well.

And when I am, and the coach was doing a lot of online stuff, like he was actually putting out videos and doing an outreach, outreach messaging, but he wasn't getting a lot of responses. Like he had messaged 10, 15 or so people in the past month. And had started a conversation, which is one step up because most coaches would, wouldn't even do that.

And so that was really cool. But then I, I asked them, I was like, okay, so you're not getting the response right now because you're working through how you're connecting with people online and you're building credibility. And normally with marketing, you need to establish a little bit of trust before people will even have a conversation with you or wanna jump on a call with you.

Some people might, but most people will need to see what they need to have a lot of exposure to. So ask them like, what else? What're one or two things you've been avoiding that you know will get you in front of people? Like will get you in front of people and you will connect with 'em right away.

It'll give you an opportunity to connect and coach and move forward. And as soon as I asked a question, he hesitated. I could tell his body language changed. He knew, he know that I knew he knew what to do, and he's like, you know, I feel like it's easy for me to reach out to people. I don't know. So he was trying to go out in the dark, and find cold people, and, this is very natural.

Cold traffic takes a little bit of time to warm up to you. Yes. I'm like, okay, so who, what are you involved in? And he's like, well, I'm involved in my community. He acts actually had a nonprofit organization. He was helping people for the past 10 years. Oh, what could you do in those areas? He's like, I could actually do a group session for people.

I could do a talk and like, could you go to your community and do the same? He's like, he was hesitating. What's the hesitation around? He's like, well, the people know me. I'm like, that's the point. They need, they need to know you for this thing. And, and it was funny by the end of the conversation, he, as he kind of went through the emotions of hesitation, fear, and all that stuff, he was actually excited about it.

He was nervous. He was still nervous about it. He is like, it's a big leap. And, he's part of our community members. I made him a promise. I'm like, you find where you're gonna speak. I'll help you build the plan. Cuz he kept saying, well, I don't know what exactly to put in my, I can help you do that.

Can you find somewhere where you can book on the calendar and do it? So here's what ends up having. The reason why I pushed him there is. Challenging to go there. For most of my clients that have come up, I've spoken somewhere. Like interacting with people. Yeah. So it's either like in a meetup where I've gone and done, actually done a coaching session, with a group of people.

I, I did that last week. It was a hundred-plus investors Nand I did a live coaching session for them now that gave me quite a few leads. Now they're warmer leads because they've already gotten value. So that becomes much easier for me to take them toward a high-ticket program. But if I were to just put content out on the internet, they'd never interacted with me.

That takes a little bit of time to move forward. So yeah, like scary things that coaches don't do, these are the things that actually moving forward, they're actually pretty straightforward. They're not complicated. Yeah. So what do you think? 

Sheri: Absolutely. So, the top, well, one of the top three mistakes is feeling like you have to get everything perfected in the way the business looks and might run before you actually start reaching out to people.

And Faisal, I think you said so really or brought out a really important perspective. And that is, and as you were talking about this, I'm like, oh my gosh. Yeah, I've totally, totally felt that way. Where. I don't reach out to the people I'm closest to or have the best relationship with, which is really asinine right, because we know that the more that people trust us.

The more that they will use us, you know, in business and will wanna work with us. But there's this fear that we can get that because we know them. What if we aren't as good as we want to be? Or all of these fears and insecurities we have bubbled up to the surface. And then keep us from actually reaching out to the people, then make the most sense to reach out to.

So there's this really weird thing with that. And so I am I'm glad you brought that out. I can identify with that as you were talking about that. 

Faisal: Yeah. And, so I actually talked to another coach. I'm talking to a lot of coaches, so and, and she has been making a lot of, creating, creating a lot of movements since she's been pretty much reading every coaching book.

There was like, really good like she's the kind of person who will move around and stuff. And we were talking about this. I'm like, you know what? She's like, I don't know why, what. She forgot like her own journey because she, because I've seen her from the beginning how she's grown and, and it's like, I don't know what prevents some of these coaches to not do, do that.

I'm like, well, it's fear. And, but I'm more specific, I said, well, it takes courage to actually show up in front of people. And she kinda stepped back. She's like, I don't think it takes courage. And Okay it's like it doesn't take courage to ask people a few questions and that I'm like, no, no, no.

That part doesn't take courage. Getting over ourselves. That takes courage. It's all about ourselves. As you said, it's like we don't wanna appear a certain way too, because our, like our people forget that our, whether we like it or not, our reputation matters. Like not just in terms of business and other things.

We're a social species. We work by reputation. Like we have a, whether you like it or not, you are known for something. It could be positive or negative. Yeah. You're known for certain patterns. Right. And we know that in business, once you develop a reputation, you're known for that. And, and people kind of perceive you ahead of time, your reputation precedes you.

So we are subconsciously aware of this stuff but now when we're kind of doing it, do you think we don't feel confident? This leads to this second part of what we were gonna talk about is that when you don't feel confident in what you were saying, first of all, fear doesn't mean you don't take action.

Fear just means that, okay, this is the thing that you're nervous about and this is the thing that's likely gonna take you out of your comfort zone. But then there's the background of how confident you feel about your competency as a coach. Can you go and stand in front of a crowd, whether there are five people, 10 people or 20 people, or one person can you deliver with value?

Can you be confident in what you're doing? Now I want to give a caveat cuz no matter how good you get as a coach, at least at this point, even when I was doing this talk not talk, like a coaching session this past. I know my mind went through these thoughts of holy shit, what if this doesn't work?

Like I've done this so many times. What if it's the same people that show up? What if like, okay, stop this? I've done this before. It works. Let me go through it. Every time I go through I'm like, oh, that's why I do it. Impact. Yes. So remember that you will always have thoughts around, oh you that this might not go as well, and that actually means that you care that you want it to go well.

But then underneath that, do you, do you have the competency to do this? And initially, as coaches are starting, there's not a lot of confidence because there's not actually a lot of competencies and you can't actually get competency by reading things and learning things, you have to actually jump into the work.

Yes. 

Sheri: Yeah. And that's, that is the antidote for the first mistake. Instead of spending all this time building what you think is this amazing, solid foundation for your business, if you're spending all the time and money on a website as an example, that foundation, you're, you don't have any materials then to build on top of that foundation.

It's, it's just a foundation. And so the foundation really needs to be having those conversations, doing those. Coaching opportunities, creating coaching opportunities. Even if you don't feel like you know what the crap you're doing, even if you're like super nervous and you're like, oh my God, I've never done this before.

You know, as, as Brene Brown would say, lean into it. Lean into the vulnerability, because that's where the growth happens, and that's where you are going to build your actual foundation. That then all the marketing stuff goes on top of. Because you have, you know, if you know that what you're doing is working and you have confidence in some level of competence, then your marketing will work.

If you're marketing something that you have no idea is going actually to impact people. I experienced this as we built, my husband and I built a mastermind around real estate investing and we spent like a year marketing it, but I was so unsure of the Mastermind itself because I didn't feel like the content kind of rhythm that we had created and all, like, there was still some confusion and I wasn't really confident in it.

I was like, ah, and so because I had that internal turmoil, I didn't market it well. I couldn't speak very confidently to it. But once I start, we started doing it and then we got clarity. I got clarity. I'm like, oh yeah, this is what I love doing in that, and this is what I'm not liking in that. This is getting received better than this.

Like we, we didn't have this huge big mastermind, but we had enough people to just get a little bit of feedback as we're going. And now things are very different and I feel very different. So it's, you've just got to do the work, even if it. Super tiny and feels super small and insignificant. It's not insignificant in your growth.

Faisal: Yeah, it definitely is. And I love what you said and, and I wanna kind of touch on something because a lot of coaches, they kind of come from the personal development work. So they read a lot of books on personal development and a lot of times when I'm asking coaches like, what do you love? And one of the objections I was brought up in, which was my objection as well as I was starting out, is why should somebody look at my marketing versus let's say, Brendan Burchard or Rich Litvin. Surely their content is much better because they have done it for so long. Yeah. And I that because I listen to their content.

It's really good. And, like that, that question actually stumped me for a while. I'm like, what? Because one of my friends asked me like, well, why should somebody watch you or listen to you versus something else? I think he was just trying to get me to think about it, but it just completely blocked me for about a year.

They should be listening to them. I should be sending them their stuff. But then what kind of hit me is, We're not, if you look at it from a, like a market value standpoint, they definitely bring a lot more value as you come into the marketplace versus they've already talked about most of the topics, here're on topic.

They've already trained people on that. They already have seminars and events and all sorts of success. So you cannot compete with that. But there's one area you can, this is what gives you an edge as a coach. It's not the personal development teaching. So that will be part of it. Like you're gonna teach people some things about productivity or their relationship stuff, and it'll have sort of your take on it.

That's fine. That's just for people to understand your thought process and gain some value and stuff like that. But you're not gonna have a large following in the beginning, anything like that. But what ends up happening is that the thing that they will get value from you. That they will not get value from Rich Litvin or.

Or Vision Lake County or Brendan Burchard, Tony Robbins, any of these guys, cuz they cannot get on a call with Brendan Burchard. Mm-hmm. Cannot walk them through that process. They can't even do that in a small group. The only place they could potentially do that is in a big event with Yeah. Three, 2000 people.

So you have an advantage that they don't have. You have the advantage of focus presence and experience. And that's what gives you, that's why I like one-on-one and small groups so much better than bigger pieces of training because you can really serve people at a close quarter. The only time people can get access to them there is if they end up paying about $50,000, a hundred thousand dollars, and maybe a million dollars for some of their programs to be part of.

And if you're starting out, a lot of people would want to come to you. Especially if you are confident as that, you're gonna be able to serve them. And over time as you kind of do this, you find your own niche and then that separates you more and more from them because you, your coaching will not be like, yeah, that's why coaching is really different from the personal development training.

I don't, I don't really think of training as a thing that we do. That's just a small part of it, but a huge part of it is us taking clients through the experience of coaching. 

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