How to 10X your coaching impact through Marketing With Asiya Othman

Faisal: I'll let you kind of take reigns of where you see the challenge starts and where you see improvements for coaches as they begin. 

Asiya: Yeah. Do you know what's really interesting? People seem to detach when it comes to the content.

I think me and you had this conversation right at the start, as they detach from this like, oh, like marketing is different to like me being in service and coaching, but actually, marketing is service. And if we just really pause and really hone into that, what it means is there's no distinction between the content and the value that you put out there in the world like you would for a paid client.

As, as you would for the general audience or prospective clients. And I think when you look at it like that, then you see that actually marketing or content creation or the outreach piece is just you being a service. It's you taking people and your perspective audience through a journey. And when you really slow down to that, you're like, okay, well that's pretty easy.

Like a lot of resistance. Comes from this idea that people are like, oh, marketing has to be, or content or videos have to be either really salesy and icky and out of alignment or, you know, it's, it can't be impactful. Yeah. And I find that really interesting cuz I learned this concept from Rich where he talks about the fact that he's written for over 10 years, right?

Consistently, every single day. But the articles he posts are specifically written for clients. The work he writes is written for clients. It is with one person in mind. And so there's this distinction between publishing versus posting. Posting on social media is quite easy, right? You can post memes, quotes, photos, you know, witty things that just take seconds to create like there's no barrier to entry, but the competition is infinite.

It's a bit like coaching, right? There's no barrier to entry, but really slowing down, sharing deep thoughts, being really authentic, sharing vulnerability, reflection, and really creating valuable tools, distinction, and intellectual capital is, is challenging. That is the piece that actually, if you slow it down to, as an impact-driven coach listening to this, you can create ripples of not just impact, but you can create ripples of trust with your audience where they're able to see you not just as like, oh, this person knows their stuff, but this person is able to also give me and co-create the solution with me.

Faisal: Yeah. I really love that, and it's such a profound point and, and like I was thinking about like, what was I thinking when I was starting about marketing as you were talking, and what do I think about it now? And over time, that has evolved a lot. And what you're saying is that it's, for me just putting content out there, I'm still not comfortable. 

I'll just be honest. I'm never comfortable putting like when I start a video, Like I'm, I know that I can do it, I can just start a Facebook Live. But I still need to be intentional. I still need to get my own thoughts that are on my way out of the thing. Like I still have all sorts of things that come up, even jumping on the call, like while

what if this conversation is not as valuable? Those thoughts are there. But I need to be aware of them and deal with them. Now, when I go back to when I was thinking of marketing, marketing looked like this giant thing, like this Goliath that I didn't know how to deal with and when I thought of marketing I thought of these amazing people who had studied marketing for so long, I'm like, how can I do this?

Like, I'm just starting out. But when you actually step back and really look at marketing is that you're really sharing what matters to you. You're really sharing the thoughts, the things that made a difference for you, the things that made a difference in your client's lives, the things that, the struggles that you've gone through.

When you start to share that, that's essentially like most of my content has become around that, is like I'm just sharing what I've learned after. It's just, and I love Gary V's Take on this is like, don't teach document. Even though we're teaching, we're also just sharing our journey along the way.

We're talking about an experiential thing versus like, Hey, let me pull out a bunch of stuff from the books and teach. And a lot of coaching is experiential. It's not conceptual. And so we want people to know that we've gone through the journey. We want people to know that we've taken people through that.

And when it became that, it was like, okay, well, yeah, I'm still anxious. I'm still fearful. I still have all this stuff, but then it's not about me. If I really wanna help people, I need to put that out there because if people don't know that h how else would they trust me to work with them? 

Asiya: Yeah, absolutely.

And what's really interesting is like, I love that you mentioned Gary V cause I was actually gonna mention him a little bit later. I had him in mind, but another really great book. For people to really understand this concept of experiential is show your work by Austin Kleon. I think that's how you pronounce it, but it's a really short book, really jam-packed and it goes through the process of exactly what you're talking about there.

It's, it's, it's documenting and sharing like the process of how you grow and you, how you evolve. And that could be through insights that you have that could be through. From conversations with people, that could be through experiences that you've gone through. And what's really interesting is most people are really fearful, especially at the start, right?

They're really fearful and I include myself right at the start of posting content or trying to learn how to do it effectively because they think that they need to have a certain level of confidence and compete. Right, not really realizing that confidence is a result, not a requirement to getting started.

And the more you ship, like the more you ship your content out there, the more you connect with your audience, the more you not only find your like community, your people, your audience but the more you are ease into actually creating your own voice, creating your own certain level of impact. And what's really interesting is that Coaches are like really impact-driven coaches.

some of the coaches, the coaches are listening to us right now in the Coaching Master Street community. In your podcast, there are coaches that are dedicated to this craft and they'll put hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours into getting masterful at coaching. They'll tend to avoid the sales at the start, but to a certain extent, finally, they'll kind of cave and be like, okay, I need to get good.

Faisal: That was me.

Asiya: right? Guilty is charged. Right. Most Don't really slow down to realize that marketing is what creates the community, the connection, and the sales. It's, it's a harmony. Like one feeds the other. And if you're coming from a place of like, okay, my intention is to create deep service and impact in the world, then you begin to ship like content or videos that is of value. And the more you ship a value, the more you create connections. Most people really like your audience and want what you have, but they're over being sold to. So what they really want is for you to sell through marketing that is actually creating a human connection that is relatable, that is giving them the ability to trust you on all fronts.

I've talked to you about this, about the trust, the three trust elements, and I, I have it on a P D F. I'm happy to give it to your audience, but they're always cultivating three elements of trust in your content. It is always like trust in you. Trust in your ability. So like trust in you, trust in your product or methodology, and trust in the person's ability to get the results.

And there are different content archetypes that you can put out there. But if you just keep that in mind, like, hey, like what type of trust in my building, in this piece of content that I'm shipping out, then it makes it so much easier and inflow and fun. 

Faisal: Yeah, I love that and it kind of makes me think back like there's, I think the journey is so beautiful because as we begin when we go into coaching sessions, we're challenging clients to go deeper to kind of challenge their perceptions.

To challenge the way they're thinking about their life that is not serving them. We're challenging their lack of action, we're challenging their lack of consistency in the things that they wanna do according to what their vision is, according to what their values are. Now, I always think back and then it goes back to Rich Litvin.

He is like, you're not gonna coach people. I'll paraphrase him. You're not gonna coach people. Beyond where you have gone yourself, there has certain wisdom in it. That doesn't mean you need to have a certain level of success as your clients or anything. The way I received that is that you need to have battled these things on your own.

Like you, if you are gonna help people build a business, you better be sure that you need to have battled your own idea of not specifically business, but maybe you are doing your best to move that forward. And like if we're really alone in our own time, we're sitting there thinking like, am I doing my best?

More than likely, most people are not including me. Like I'm, I'm like trying to do my best, but that's not my best cuz I know I can do more. And like in our alone time, if we're really honest with ourselves, we can do a lot more. But we hesitate, we step back. And unless we've kind of battled through that, unless we've gone through the battle, it's very hard to coach another person because we feel that incongruency in stuff. 

Mm-hmm. And so one of the first things I realized cause I was so uncomfortable. We were actually, my wife and I were going through some old videos and there was for some reason one of my excerpts from one of my older videos, like from six years ago when I was starting to do video.

I was in full fear mode like there is no way to put it. You could tell clearly in my body language this is what was happening. It just comes on. She was sharing it on, tv, so everybody was watching it. it just comes out of nowhere. This is me talking, so I don't know what the topic was, but I'm talking.

So when you're thinking about confidence, the way you think about it is and  I'm just wiping, I'm like doing all these weird gestures, and I'm wiping my face and I'm like, I'm doing all these twitching things. But I needed to go through that battle for me to be able to be on a podcast light, for me to be able to be on stage.

The confidence, as you said, develops as you do it often, and I needed to challenge myself and push myself to do it. And one of the first things when I realized, I'm like, I have such a hard time with this, and I had run out of excuses of personality.

I'm introverted or I'm this or that. I'm like, I see a lot of introverted people doing this, so why am I using that as an excuse? and then, so what I ended up doing, I did a 30-day challenge where every day posted a video and I created a challenge for people to do that. It's still there on my YouTube channel and on Facebook.

I did it twice. So the second time I put it on YouTube, that helped me more with video day. I'm like, I need to do this, whether I like it or not. Every day I'm gonna sit there on those videos. talking about the videos that came from that was in the challenge. I was struggling with that. I knew the topics, but I was struggling with myself.

I wanted to help people, but I realized that I needed to go through that challenge for myself, not for other people. And so I, I think part of this is really if we are gonna call ourselves impactful coaches or want to create a bigger impact and that business for our family, for our community, want a better quality of life.

And if we're using this as a business, we need to start by challenging ourselves. Part of that is there is no way to avoid marketing. I would think there are ways to contract out coaching.

There are coaches I know who just work for other coaches, which is fine. I did that too for a while. What are your thoughts about that? I'm, I'm curious, like contract coaching versus the business of coaching. 

Asiya: I think there is definitely There's definitely a place for both, either at the same time or individually.

You could, you know, like for the first year or so, I was kind of community managing and then I was coaching a little bit in, in that other coach's community and I loved it. It taught me the ropes, it taught me so much about systems. It taught me so much about building a program and it taught me so much about just different dynamics of, you know, having different people. 

And there were so many things that even though I'd kind of come from like a traditional job and background I just didn't know. That was just there in the online space, and I was like, oh, okay. This is all new to me. And I loved it. It taught me the ropes, and I think there's definitely a space for both.

But here is the thing, like the distinction that has to be made here, is if you are going to be a coach in someone else's community or for another company, There's no there's nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't require you to market. If you are building a business and you are choosing and committing to building a business, then that does require you to be intentional with getting masterful in your marketing, in your delivery, how you connect, and how you build community.

And I think a lot of times what people do is like, they're like, oh, I wanna grow and I wanna be impactful, and I, you know, I wanna become the best. And what they forget is that, in order for you to do that, it actually requires a level of commitment to marketing. It requires a level of commitment to not just marketing.

Cause I think that the bro, quote-unquote, like the bro version of marketing, where it's just sleazy and salesy, is outdated. What people are really craving now is community. They're craving connection. They're craving for you to be real. For them to say, okay, you know what? I wanna take the next steps with you.

I wanna be a part of the impact that you are creating. I want you to guide me to the next level. And, and that's the thing, like, you know, you've gotta make a decision at one point of like, Hey, do I wanna be an impactful coach by being a part of another organizational community? Or do I wanna be an impactful coach by building a business?

And if you are building a business, then unfortunately you can't skip the marketing. 

Faisal: Yeah. And that's a distinction. And so that's a choice you can make early on. And I would say like if you're in a place where you're struggling a lot with the business side of things and even wrapping your head around it for me, like similar to you, like that was a huge opportunity for me to get a contract position with another company while I was building those skillsets.

Cause I always wanted to create my business, but I'm like, ok, I'm having a hard time with this. This will give me an, actually, that came from Rich Litivn as well. It's amazing how much we promote Rich Litvin and Steve Shout, like pretty much every video in training. One day we're gonna have a conversation with them and then tell him that. There's this one line, I think it's from the Prosperous Coach.

And he's like, if you really want to be a, like get good at all around coaching and building fine talent stuff, then coach, coach and coach that stuck with me. I'm like, I'm not in a position where I'm booking a lot of calls. Maybe I would book one call a month or two calls a month. And I didn't know if a lot of systems where I have consistent lead flow in there.

So I'm like, okay, if I'm not doing that, then how else can I get sessions? And then that's where I started exploring more like, what if I did it with another coach who's already bringing in leads. and that gave me a huge opportunity cuz I ended up doing, especially the initial sessions, I ended up doing hundreds of those.

I got the practice, I got the confidence, I got feedback. And I wasn't doing any of the marketing cause I didn't even know how to do it, to be honest. But that gave me a lot of practice. It helped me understand a little bit about what happened to their assistant. I even went to this coach's events. And looking at how they are running the business, what the challenges are, and what was the leadership side of things.

It gave me a huge perspective on what the influencer model looks like in experience, which was invaluable to me, to the point where like I was in one of the events I had gone to was one of the three-day events. this coach's assistant was running a whole event. She got me to like, I was just helping out with other things.

Whatever I could, outside of what I was doing. Meeting clients. And she got me to stand at the front of the stage. It's like 500 or so people. And she's like, we're gonna hand off some of these things. Like I just need you guys to stand there when you get the cue. And she kept coming back and apologizing. She's like, oh, you know, you, you guys have been standing.

You have no idea how amazing this is cuz all I'm doing is visualizing this. Don't worry about it. And it helped me understand business. then I saw business really different than a job. It's so different. There are so many components of it and I didn't realize how different was until I watched a business at play.

And I realized why so many people don't create businesses. So it might be part of the journey or it might be that you work with other coaches in collaboration. 

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