Coaching or Consulting: Which is More Sustainable?

Your prospects want to choose services from a coach who understands them and has extensive knowledge in the area in which they need help. So if you are succinct in who you serve and what you do for them, you will both find success.

When you pick something to specialize in, your target audience will seek you out because you are addressing what is important to them. Your message will resonate far more than with someone who claims to serve everyone.

In this episode, Mark and Jaimie helped Alana and Deborah decide how to choose when feeling inclined to pursue multiple niches or areas of expertise.

Listen to discover:

• Key things to consider when forming a partnership, collective, or collaboration;
• The importance of identifying your mission and non-negotiables with your team; and
• Why choosing your specialization is so important—and does not have to be limiting.

Recorded 8/19/20.

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Transcript

0 (0s):
Hi, this is Mark Kanty with Release dynamics. And this is Jaimie Skultety with Upscale Your Business. Thanks for joining us on this podcast today. We want to let you know that this podcast is actually part of a recording, where we had a video-based meeting. So some of our podcasts, you're going to notice that, Hey, it's just fine listening to what's going on. And you'll, you'll get lots of information that way, but occasionally you might find that we refer to a handout or a visual because we are doing this as a video-driven platform.

0 (32s):
So if you get a little frustrated, if you're challenged or you're just curious, and you're wondering what the heck is that visual? You can't quite understand it. Then there are a couple of things that you can do, and I'm going to turn it over to Jamie now, and she'll explain to you how you can get that information, get your questions answered. Thanks Mark.

1 (46s):
If you're looking for strategies to increase your impact and your income, whether it's attracting clients, working with clients or running your business, we offer a ton of valuable training and resources designed to help you release the full potential of your business. And to that end, we invite you to do a few things. One, if you haven't done so already be sure to subscribe to our podcast that way you'll be notified of our new episodes to become an upscale your business insider by joining our program at upscale success, strategies.com.

1 (1m 19s):
We do a live implementation call every month and you'll have access to all of our best strategies. You also might want to watch some of our webinars on YouTube, and for that, you can visit upscale your business.com/webinars that will redirect you right to our place.

0 (1m 34s):
We're really excited to have you on this podcast, and we're looking forward to getting to know you better and to help you and answer questions that you have. We've got lots of free resources available to you. Jamie just gave you a couple of ways to get in touch with us a couple of ways to find the content that we have be sure to give us feedback, let us know what's going on in your business and join us on our implementation calls. We've run those live once a month and they're broadcast through Facebook and you, if you get on our list and we'll notify you, we'll let you know when they're taking place so that you can jump in and get on one of our live implantation calls.

0 (2m 9s):
And just to let you know, but the implementation call is all about you. You can bring any question or frustration that you've got, and we're going to address that and help you get that taken care of right away on that call. We also run a monthly webinar, so watch too and get on our list for that. And we will let you know when those webinars are coming. And again, you can watch replace those webinars on the YouTube channel. Thanks again for listening to this podcast and we'll look forward to hopefully having a chance to chat with you soon. I'm Mark Canty and my partner, my strategic partner is Jamie skull, Teddy, and a little, a little bit of background.

0 (2m 44s):
There is we, although we work together collectively as strategic partners, we do have our own individual businesses. So that's something that I always like to let people know, because sometimes they're thinking about how they're forming their own and whether that, Oh, do I need to go get a partner or whatever will on the one hand I would say, and Jamie, you could certainly give a testimony to this. I'll invite you to, but I'll say that, that I can't believe how, for me, it's always been important. I've had numerous strategic partners through my 30 year career and been online since 2005, exclusively online in the virtual space.

0 (3m 26s):
So that's 15 years in business and I'll tell you, I could not live without one. I would be in complete without a partner because there's just too many things to, to know and to do together. So that's why we partner up Jamie.

1 (3m 41s):
Yeah. You know, I've had my, well, first of all, I'm Jamie school, Teddy with upscale your business. That's my company Mark's company. I don't think you said it is released dynamics dynamics. And yeah, I've had my business since 2009 and Mark and I were clients of each other's for a little brief time. And then we kind of found a way to come together and partner, as he said, and I agree with you. I mean, I have a team that work with me and for me, but having a partner at the strategic level is super important because it, first of all, it kind of takes some work off my plate, but also the thinking you kind of have two brains are better than one.

1 (4m 18s):
So that's kind of how we've we've come together.

0 (4m 21s):
Yes. And our growth is exponential because of that. So really, really powerful. Yeah. So we come together with upscale success. Strategies is kind of our collective thing. Jamie's businesses, upscale your business mind is released dynamics. And together we work on upscale success strategies, which is what you're part of. And you're involved in right now, each month we hold an implementation call and that's what you're on right now. So really the purpose of this call is for us to answer specific questions and to really get practical and to give practical advice.

0 (4m 58s):
Now, we always come with some information to bring to the table just in case anybody's shy or doesn't have a question. We have a variety of different numbers. Sometimes we'll have one person show up and sometimes we will have 10 people show up or more. So it all depends on, you know, everybody's space and the, the beauty of the internet these days and the way we all do business is that, and I'm the same. And I know Jamie is the same as we don't always attend live meetings because we know that we can watch a recording and a, the implementation call is being recorded.

0 (5m 28s):
So you'll be able to follow up and do that at any time

1 (5m 35s):
That's to come live because you get, you done, get your question answered or your issue handled or something like that. So when you're watching the recording, you're not really getting your, your question answered, although you can learn from others learning,

0 (5m 47s):
Right? So we encourage everybody to listen to every call because you'll always learn from somebody else. But we also say beyond the live call, because that's where you're going to get your questions answered. So as you're going through the success strategies material, and you're going through the platform, you're going to have some questions. You're going to wonder how to implement or how to do things, or maybe you're even, you know how to do all that, but you're stuck. You just need a little motivation. You need a little push, a little nudge, a little validation for taking action. All of those things can be accomplished by showing up on the implementation call and letting us work together to collectively to support each other, to, to move the ball forward, if you will.

0 (6m 25s):
So with that in mind, what I'd like to do is, is quite often we start out with a discussion point. Sometimes it's Jamie and I rapping out about a particular thing that we're excited about a new thing that we've discovered or a new way of implementing something. So we'll talk about that for a few minutes. Sometimes one or the other of us will present an idea or a topic or a question, and we'll spend, you know, maybe 10 or 15 minutes doing that. And then we kind of jump into the whole Q and a implementation side of things. So depending on the Q and a, it may go long.

0 (6m 58s):
Sometimes it may go very short. It's all up to who's on the call and what kind of questions are surfaced. So with that in mind today, I have some things on my mind that I wanted to introduce. So I'm going to kind of take the lead. And sometimes Jamie will take the lead to introduce an initial concept. So I want to just spend the next 10 minutes just sharing a concept that is near and dear to me. And I think many, many people, in fact, pretty much every client that we've ever worked with this concept really resonates with.

0 (7m 29s):
So let me, I'm just going to share screen. So those of you who are online and can see visuals as well, then you'll be able to see this. If you're just on auditory, you're just listening on a cell phone or something, then obviously you'll be able to go back and review the recording and you'll be able to see the visuals. So I'll try and do a little bit of a descriptive here on, on what we're looking at. So what I'm, what I'm showing right now is I'm showing an organizational chart.

0 (8m 2s):
And for those of you can see it, you can see that it's got a whole bunch of boxes like any organization would, however, inside of every box is the word you and this typically resonates with a lot of people. And pretty much everybody that's starting out in their coaching practice, or also people who have been in practice for quite a while. This can really resonate with them because they get this, Oh my God, you mean I'm not the only one that feels like I'm trying to do everything myself and that I'm getting totally overwhelmed.

0 (8m 34s):
So this is a beginning point is recognizing first that you're in business. So this is not a job. Somebody didn't hire you to do this. This is not a hobby your in this to build a coaching practice, you're in this to build a coaching business. And every business needs to be organized. And every business has a multitude of roles that need to be fulfilled. The reality is if you try and fulfill every role yourself, we call that the DIY trap, you will remain stuck forever.

0 (9m 7s):
And I always challenge on the calls and by all means, I'll throw that challenge out. Name me one, successful entrepreneur, one successful business owner that does 100% of the work themselves and it's relaxed and totally fulfilled and achieving all their goals. And of course, nobody can, can answer that question because they don't exist. It's impossible to do everything yourself. So you need to start begin. We talk about beginning by laying out the organization, what are the different components? What are the things that need to be done in order to make your business successful?

0 (9m 41s):
So the other thing I want to share with you, and again, this is just kind of a brief overview is this concept. If we look at our business from what gets us in this trap, well, many times we start out and we kind of think like, you know, that lovely vegetable garden that you might have in your backyard, or maybe even a container. If you live in a condo like me, I've got a container garden out on my patio. So yeah, I just harvested some beats. I got six beats from the season. So when you think about, and this is a beautiful garden, I've got a picture by the way.

0 (10m 11s):
But when you think about, you know, just a small garden in your backyard for vegetables, whatever, you can pretty much manage that entirely yourself. And that's fantastic when we're able to do that. But when we're out there trying to build a coaching practice, we're not growing a little garden, we're building a farm. Okay. And think about your business that way is that no one could DIY an entire farm. Nobody could run the tractor, do the picking process, the vegetables, clean them, ship them, do all of those things that need to be done by themselves.

0 (10m 47s):
You need people to help you. Now, the beauty of the business that we're all in and how business has changed now, and it's changing even rapidly. As a matter of fact, this is growing in leaps and bounds. So you're in the right place at the right time because the idea of a virtual or online businesses has been around for a while, but it's exploding at an exponential rate right now, thanks to the situation that we're in. So you want to think about your virtual farm and because it's virtual means you don't necessarily have to hire employees, or like we opened up talking about how to form strategic partnerships, as opposed to full fledged, say legal entity partnerships.

0 (11m 26s):
You can form strategic partnerships. So like Jamie and I are in the situation you can bring in virtual employees. So you could, you might have a virtual assistant. You might have a key role, would be an appointment setter. Somebody that helps you by setting up appointments. So that then you're, you're using your leveraging your times that you can talk to people who are really keen and interested in knowing more about your services. And you're not spending a lot of time being your own secretary. If you will, you also can outsource other talents like marketing.

0 (11m 58s):
For example, most coaches are not great marketers. They, they wanted coach. That's what they do best. So you can outsource your marketing. You might outsource your finance. So for example, your bookkeeping services and things like that, and a multitude of other things to build your organization in such a way that it works so that your, the CEO, and maybe he as a coach, you were also that the chief fulfillment officer too. So you're the one they're doing all the fulfilling, but all the other work around your business gets done by other people.

0 (12m 31s):
So this is a principle that I wanted to share. That's really foundational to having a successful coaching business, successful coach coaching practice as a business, that's going to help you earn a full time career to not be a job, but actually to be your business and asset something you own and you develop. So that's kind of my opening topic here. And I just wanted to throw that volley out again. I'm just going to do a quick recap for those who have joined us in that this is our implementation call for our upscale success strategies members, where we get together every month.

0 (13m 6s):
And we have a practical discussion. We open with a principle or a point or an idea, and then we'd go to Q and a, and we want to talk specifically about any questions you have around the program, any questions or struggles you were having, whether they're in or outside the program that you're having trouble implementing, you have a tactic or an idea or something that you're just trying to get attraction on. And you want to brainstorm that you want to get some guidance and some assistance from the group. So that's what this meeting is all about. This is our implementation call.

0 (13m 36s):
And at that, I'm just going to turn this over to Jamie for any additional comments that she might add to our initial kind of guiding principle or idea here. And also we'll, we'll ask for anybody who has a specific challenge, issue, idea, concept something that they want to implement, and they want to brainstorm and come up with some ideas and get some guidance from both Jamie and I, as well as others in the group. Jamie,

1 (14m 1s):
Thank you, Mark. Yeah. So just piggybacking on what Mark was saying and looking at this chart, I, you know, my story is that I started as a virtual assistant in 2009 and I transitioned more into the marketing space, but this organizational chart, every time Mark shows it on the screen, I get, I break out in hives because I could relate to this completely. And it took me many years and a lot of money to figure out how to untangle myself from this big mess.

1 (14m 31s):
And now, as I mentioned earlier in the call, you know, I have a team that worked for me. I'm no longer a virtual assistant, but I, I staff virtual assistants for my company and, and for our clients. And it definitely is a better space when you're not doing every single little thing yourself. And as Mark and I were saying at the very beginning of the call, for those of you who are not here, two heads are than one five heads, even better than that. And so on and so forth. So that's my comments on that and kind of staying muted a little bit today because I'm actually traveling on with my husband on a business trip.

1 (15m 3s):
So I'm in a hotel and I have, we have our dog with us. And so every time the doorbell rings for somebody to come in the room, I don't want her to park. So if you're barking or you see me muted, that's why, but I will certainly react and respond Mark, as you, as you toss it to me. Right? So it, wasn't the other things that we'll do to a quick check in, cause we've had a few other people join us and people will be popping in and out. I'm sure through the implementation call cause they always do. Jamie. I've been doing this for a few years now, so we know what the pattern is, but if you could just give us a quick one in the chat, if you can find the chat, give us a one, if you can hear us properly and you can see the visuals, but if you can hear us and you can find the chat, please put a quick one in there.

1 (15m 48s):
Just the number one. Great. That's fantastic. Thank you for letting us know. That means that we at least know that we're coming through and that you know, where the chat is. So any questions let's dive right in to what, what is facing you? What are, do you have any challenges or issues or is there something you're thinking about you're wanting to implement and you just want some ideas on that or you want to know if we've done something like that, anything at all, go ahead and open your mic. If that works for you and ask a question or put it in the chat and we'll talk about it there, we'll present your question and we can talk about it there too.

1 (16m 25s):
So do we have any takers on where to go from here or maybe tell us a little bit about you and your business and what you are. What if you are a coach, what kind of, what kind of coach are you, what, who are your ideal clients, anything that you want to share about your business, specifically, questions, comments, you know, just a little get to know your kinda chit chat if you want. And I'll ask a question when you see this organizational chart, does it resonate with you?

1 (16m 60s):
Does it give you a moment to pause and think, give me a warning if you can identify with it. Yeah. Or also, you know, if you are a member of ours, well, I'm sure you are a member of our group or when you probably wouldn't be on this call. So, you know, if you are going through some of the materials in our program, if, if you have any questions or ahas that are coming through or anything like that, hi everyone.

1 (17m 31s):
This is Ilana. Thanks so much. I just arrived. So I'm able to actually interact for a minute. I have one question. Oh, you muted. Okay. Actually, it's interesting that you started off explaining. You're a collective,

2 (17m 51s):
I'm a few months new into some coaching coming from corporate space and I'm still working on refining my specific market, doing some different palliative, but one thing that's come up due to COVID is that I, I joined a group of people, just electively, who came together from different backgrounds to co-create a product.

2 (18m 20s):
And we're not all coaches by any stretch because as actually I'm using my former background in the sustainability world. So we have, in fact, it's tied to food. So I appreciate the food pictures, the farm pictures. But I'm wondering if you could share some advice on forming a collective because I've been looking into that because the group wants to continue potentially as a collective. And it's a global group of people with diverse skillsets, diverse backgrounds, diverse tenure.

2 (18m 53s):
And I have some, you know, positives about it, some concerns about it. And I just wondered if you have any thoughts on, you know, I know the benefits of, or some of them about why people do build collectives. And I have other streams where I'm looking at doing that from sort of a strategic level, but this happened a bit without plan and there's opportunity with it. But I have some question marks and I wondered if I could learn from yours or other of your colleagues who formed collectives, what you recommend, what she questions to kind of ask as you're looking at that and, and other advice.

0 (19m 32s):
Okay, great. Jamie, do you want me to go ahead and start? Yeah, go right ahead. Okay. So let, let me, let me ask you first your background and your you're saying you're moving into the coaching space. Give me a little bit more, what do you, what's your, your, your niche? What do you coach on? Who are you coaching for?

2 (19m 53s):
Well, sure. I'm actually kind of in the midst of refining that because COVID has turned, you know, many of our pages a little bit differently, but this to be, and I'm happy to answer as much as I can about it right now, but I'll just tell you one thing that the collective is for me to use both my consulting and coaching backgrounds. So it wouldn't be purely for that. It's a collective of people who work in, let's say lack of a better term sustainability and food, but the concepts are, you know, you could be an enabler which would be in line or like a coach, right?

2 (20m 26s):
If you're, if you're giving kind of advising or coaching, you know, a group or trying to get people through a tough challenge, you know, food businesses today, we just created a guide for food businesses on how do you restart, you know, that kind of thing. But you could also be more of a consultant where you're actually trying to develop a project tied to a right, but to answer your question, the coaching angle initially has been about providing individuals and organizations tools through a signature program that I created around unlocking from a stock or uncertainty, and like basically transforming fear into action and actually being able to proceed forward to release really bold, innovative ideas to really reshape our world.

2 (21m 18s):
So it's definitely needed and timely now. And I'm going to just, you know, do some refinement about the types of who I, who I am to work with. But like I said, from that level, I may go forward on other collectives like you are, but this was a collective that kind of got put into the backpack of my prior cap. And I'm just very curious because I see some pros and cons and I'd love to learn of any, either flags or pieces you should really consider when forming any kind of collective.

0 (21m 50s):
Great. Okay. So, so the reason I was, I asked that question and thank you for being very specific in your answer because when we look at forming a group or a collective we, anything we do, and even if we're looking at building a, you know, a collective as calling it a business, like we're looking at hiring people and building a structure and an organization, people to work as a team, it always, always, always begins with you. So the challenge is making sure that you don't fill all those boxes.

0 (22m 21s):
So how do you move forward into this concept of organization? Let's call it an organization and that can be a collective as well. So it begins by understanding and being very clear on what your strengths are, what you bring to the table and then what your motivators are. So why, why are you motivated to participate? In other words, what do you want out of this collective or this group? And I'm going to kind of parallel this to your, your coaching practice as well, because there's some really good meaty stuff in here to talk about.

0 (22m 51s):
So when you look at the collective, you can take your expertise and I would really encourage you to do this. If you look at yourself as the coach, the consultant, the facilitator, then you can coach and consult and facilitate the group. Now that means you're going to take on that role within the collective. And I would suggest that in order to form an effective group, you need to get very clear on what everybody brings to the table. So what are each individual's strengths that everybody has, and then what are their motivators and to look for congruency.

0 (23m 27s):
So you you're, you're going to want to make sure that the group and the collective itself are all on the same page. In other words, because if there's conflicting goals, if there's conflicting motivators, even if there's role overlap, it would be better to know that upfront. And if there's role overlap, then you can negotiate that from the very beginning. So you might say, Hey, you know what? I am a facilitator, a coach. I like to facilitate change, to explore unknowns, to explore potential that we don't know yet exists.

0 (24m 1s):
So that's what I want to do. I want to be that person that helps to flesh that out in the group to brainstorm, to bring creativity and somebody else might say, well, that's cool. I'm also a coach and a facilitator. But what I like to do is I like to identify specific tactical strengths within an individual and help to make sure that each people fits the appropriate role. So now all of a sudden you can both be facilitators in the group. You can both play a role, but you're playing it in a different way and you're not conflicting with each other. So it's really important to identify that upfront.

0 (24m 32s):
And, and you've had a little, it sounds like you've had a little bit of background in this. So, you know, to begin with that common goal that people come together on, what is it that we're wanting to achieve and see if you can gain agreement on that. And also being very blunt direct. Sometimes you need to be blunt and direct and you need to really force people to opt in or opt out. So there's going to be negotiables and non-negotiables, and we really want to boil that down to the non negotiables is saying, this is what we're all about. So let me, let me see if I can just pull an example out of the air that you might identify with.

0 (25m 7s):
So there might be, let's say, let's talk about food for a minute. So let's say that this collective is about vegetarianism and there's a core in the group that says, well, to be a true vegetarian, you have to be a vegan. And therefore that's one of our guiding principles is to be a vegan. And then there's other people that are going to be in the group that says, well, you know, I'm not a full fledged vegan, you know, I eat fish or I eat eggs or a dairy or whatever. So you're going to have to then decide, well, how are we going to define this to, and can we coexist within that space?

0 (25m 38s):
In other words, what's negotiable and non negotiable. And you might come to a situation there where you say, you know what, we've come to an agreement. Those that, that form the core of the group, that veganism is the core of this group. So therefore, if you're not a vegan, you can't buy into that. Then you gotta leave. You know, then, then don't participate. And that sometimes those hard decisions need to be made. Cause the challenge with, and when we use the word collective or a group of people is the more relationships you add, the more complex the situation begins.

0 (26m 9s):
So small beginning small is often, you know, the preferred way to go. So beginning with a partner, a strategic partner, maybe a triad and try and start small. And then, and then flesh it out often too. If you're very specific, somebody needs to take the lead. Maybe it's you Ilana, you take the lead role. You start to define, you know, the overall mission and objectives of the collective people will naturally opt out. They'll they'll, they won't show up to meetings. They'll just choose not to participate because Hey, they're not buying it.

0 (26m 40s):
They're not part of it. Is that helpful?

2 (26m 45s):
Very, yes. Sorry. I was on mute. Definitely. So it's right in line with what I was thinking about. And we had a meeting this morning and I conveyed various points here, but it's good to just get it checked. And yeah, I think that main concern, and I don't want to take up all the time here is I find that there's different skill levels. And I don't mean different skills because the different skills are great, but different levels and that may be able to work.

2 (27m 16s):
But long story short, the group came together for a different purpose. And there is this possibility that we could go on with a broader mission and kind of still be useful in the world. But I have a little radar going on because I think some of us are at the right kind of peer level to have the right tenure to collaborate. And I think others are not. And what could happen is that organizational chart that you showed, it could be like in a bit of a ironic, you, you, you everywhere in the sense of like those of us who are the initiators and more tenured may end up with more boxes and that feels concerning, especially if it's not my primary business.

0 (28m 4s):
Yes. And that's also where the personal motivators come in, because you know, when we get an organization together, somebody might be doing it because they're retired and they they're passionate about a particular topic, but they have no pressure's on time. They have no pressures on money and yet somebody else in the group might go, you know what? I got to work 10 hours a day in order to feed my family and in order to, you know, to survive. So I can do this part time. I'm still just as passionate about it. But you know, my, my motivators are a little different.

0 (28m 37s):
Somebody else might have a motivator saying, I want to monetize this. I want to make money from this. I want this to be part of my career. So those could all be conflicting roles and goals if they're not clearly identified in the beginning and that there's agreement on where everybody fits. And I think what you said too, but your organizational chart is really, really important. You know, when you start to get into something called the collective, you do get, I'm going to be harsh here, but you do tend to get attract freeloaders right then to attract people that all they want to, they want to come to the party, but they don't want to help clean up.

0 (29m 8s):
They want to help set up. They, you know, if it's a potluck, they don't want to bring anything. They want to just nibble off of everybody else's stuff. And you got to identify that early on and being formal sometimes in the early stages is a good way to do that because you can say, okay, here are the roles, pick one, you know, where do you have skills that you can fit into that role and take on that role? And, you know, for lack of a better word, freeloaders will kind of back away from the table.

2 (29m 34s):
Yes, no, that, that makes a lot of sense

0 (29m 39s):
Apparent that they don't have any skills that they can bring to the table. Exactly.

1 (29m 42s):
So my one question, and then I'll pass it on to the next person is thank you for all that market. Basically. I'm curious, when you talk about identifying your motivators, I have a worksheet. Is there any, you went through many of them, so I wrote those down, but is there some reference sheet or anything you suggest to look at to really get the team to walk through those? Or we just kind of put up the categories, like you said, you know, about time and money and roles and goal. Is there any kind of directed resource we might look at?

1 (30m 14s):
Yeah, I think

0 (30m 16s):
They would try and go really simple to begin with instead of complex and just start with something like, what do you really, really want? What do you want from being here and start there and have a good discussion around that and, and let everybody just kind of give everybody the space to, to come up with that on their own and see what they come up with and then maybe even pause, you know, and then come back and maybe then drill down and get a little more specific because something will pop from that. So let it be organic to degrees.

0 (30m 48s):
So, you know, particularly depending on what stages the organization is at, I mean, if it's very specific, Hey, you know, we've got this plot of land in the city, that's been abandoned, we're going to take it over and we're going to grow organic produce. There. That's a very specific mission that can allow you to really drill into some roles and some goals and things very quickly. But if it's more, Hey, we want to, you know, we want to do something that is sustainable. We want to have a contribution to, you know, our community, but we don't want, we don't really know what that is yet. We know that it relates to food. Well, that's very broad and you need to tie that down.

0 (31m 20s):
So it could, you know, it really would depend on where you're at and where everybody else is at. But I think a good place to start is, Hey, why, why are you here? Why are you, why are we coming together? And what do you want to get out of this? Right. Thank you so much right there.

1 (31m 36s):
And I was going to just add in there that, you know, some like Mark was already touching on it, but I think, you know, if you ask people to write up kind of their own job description, you know, like Mark said, what is it that you really want, but what are they willing to do to contribute to that? So they can maybe, you know, like submit almost, almost like an application, if you will, you wouldn't say that it's an application, but more like, what are you bringing to the table? How do you see this role? Like you can either go one way, which is that you define the role and you try to fit someone in that.

1 (32m 5s):
Or you find somebody who has their own kind of skillset that they can describe and mold and shape to fit what your mission is. So have them participate in that so that you're filling up your organizational chart with people who fit, either fit your mold or their mold will fit your mission. Got it. Yeah.

0 (32m 32s):
You know, like the buffet, you know, if it's a big potluck or whatever it can be. We, what we're looking for is variety often because we want to have as many complimentary skills sets and things to the table as possible. So you could have some fun with this and for the brainstorming, like you can bring up a screen, share screen and a scratch pad and just say, okay, you know, I would go around the table. What do you bring to the table? What do you have? What are your strengths? What do you want? And just start to jot those down. You know, even in little buckets, you could do a mind map on this and then look for similarities, you know, where people compliment each other and then look for areas where people actually have different strengths so that now you can look at it, you can appreciate them and acknowledge the fact that we're better when we're different, as opposed to everyone being alike.

0 (33m 21s):
Because that's one of the, one of the other challenges with organizations and bringing people together in an organization or a collective is that you, you often end up with like attracting, like, and then you end up with everybody with the same strengths and everybody with the same weaknesses and the organization can implode because of that. So we want to look for complimenting things like this person is more reserved and quiet and thoughtful. So their processing time is slower. This person is very spontaneous, very boisterous, very out there.

0 (33m 53s):
What a great compliment, because as a team that, that, that person out, it could be very easy to judge that, that strong boisterous, you know, person could say, Oh, I don't have time for those people. You know, why are you so quiet, speed up, talk faster. But in fact, they compliment each other because it means that maybe mistakes don't get made. And that, that thoughtful person says, well, have you considered this? Or let's slow down a little and you know, you jump from a two to AF what about BCD E you know, maybe we need to look at those.

0 (34m 23s):
So those people can compliment each other and start to appreciate what each other brings to the table.

1 (34m 29s):
I just talked about that the other day, Mark and I, we were talking, I think it was yesterday. We were talking about how you're more a, you think one on like a Gantt chart and I'm more of a list person. And yet, you know, we, we just compliment each other in, in that we have different work styles and how we best work, but it actually brings compliment to the whole table into the big picture. So, yeah.

0 (34m 53s):
Yeah. And, and that's, that's very true. We just did talk about how, yeah. I tend to be holistic and jump around a lot and I'll leave huge gaps. And Jamie will reel that in. Go wait a minute. What about BCD? A good example. We're running, we're starting a program coming up soon and we're, we're putting all the pieces together and I'm the one that's just, let's just launch it and Jamie's going, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. We got this platform to build. We've got to put this module together and everything. So we really compliment each other. And at the same time, sometimes I push Jamie to say, okay, you know what?

0 (35m 26s):
We don't have to have it all figured out. We can start part of this. We can develop organically. So we compliment each other that way.

1 (35m 35s):
Great. Thank you both. You're welcome lot. You're

0 (35m 38s):
In now, did you come to us through info stack? How did you come to be in the group?

2 (35m 44s):
That is a great question. I, I have to recall, to be honest, I think I was looking up something on coaching, like just about 10 days ago. And I'm trying to, I'm literally looking for what my link was and it popped into whatever I was reviewing. Cause I remember I wasn't looking for it as the, as the world says, when you're not looking the things come your way, you know? So that's all I can say is that I was on something. I'm not sure where your marketing or where you're linked to, but I saw it.

2 (36m 15s):
And I'm kind of, like I said, in this reassessment moment. So I figured, although I've tuned into a variety of things over the past few months that are about building your coaching business. I just thought it was a good time to just listen in again and never can hurt to put something on your calendar. Like you said, you can always not do it or listen later, are you

0 (36m 37s):
Now, when I talk about the upscale success strategies group, we've got a specific platform where we've got a number of different modules. Are you, have you been in there?

2 (36m 46s):
I think so. Cause I got an email that says like listed all the modules coming up for the next, you know, however many.

0 (36m 53s):
So that's how okay. And that's how you would have found out about this probably is through that reminder.

2 (36m 58s):
Yeah. But I just don't know why I can not remember just

0 (37m 1s):
You originally ended up in, in the group.

2 (37m 4s):
Yeah. It wasn't so long ago. It wasn't so long ago, but I've just actually been doing quite a lot. So I'm trying to trace it right now, but it was clearly I typed in, I mean, I'm just guessing that I probably, because recently I've been looking at different kinds of coaches to like speak to or like, you know, just like you said, you learned from different things. So I probably Googled or LinkedIn something and somehow it connected me to this. That's all I can reverse engineer and figure out how you got here, but anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

0 (37m 32s):
Well that, and, and if you, when you go back into the modules too, if you start to come through questions, there obviously there's opportunities to reach out and ask questions in that. And also the implementation. We do this every month and it's very, very open mic sort of thing. And we, we, we go, it's amazing actually, every month we, we have so much fun, big Jamie and I really do it have fun and we laugh afterwards because it's so serendipitous, the topics that come up and how we just, or they organically come up and we have a great conversation, we come up with some great ideas around them.

0 (38m 7s):
So thank you for, thank you for asking and for stepping up and, and for doing that. And you know, we want to help you in any way we can. We are, I, I was talking with that program coming up. So watch for that. We'll send you a link. As a matter of fact, if you I'm going to put it in the chat for you, so you can learn a little more about this. This is kind of a short, intensive upscale. Your coaching business is the URL that we set up for this one and that's this.

0 (38m 45s):
So we're doing a five day kind of, what would you call it? Jamie, a, a fast track, any of the buzzwords that are out there. So we're going to be doing that coming up soon. So that's gonna be a lot of fun. A lot of people are struggling right now. And particularly with making the transition with, you know, with the worldwide environment that we're in a lot of people making this virtual space and saying, Hey, I need to have a, a virtual business, a virtual career.

0 (39m 18s):
So we're, we're putting this quick little intensive together, fast track thing. So we're working on, we haven't, we haven't quite picked the launch date yet for that, but it will be coming up to the next few weeks. So

2 (39m 32s):
That's great. Yeah. I have another question, but I can wait if others are with questions.

0 (39m 39s):
No, you go ahead and we're, we're, we've still have time here.

2 (39m 43s):
Okay. Okay, great. And I'm going to just, so I'm not rude in about 10 or 15 minutes. I'll, I'll step to some point that I have, but thank you for this time. Basically. The next question is, and Mark, I was just rechecking your background. So it looks, it looks like there's some, some parallel here. So it's good to hear those. I have been wondering about how one successfully launches coaching and consulting. And I know for some, and I've seen many people doing this, so I know that it's done, but I think what my main concern or question is, is how does it work when you may have two different target markets for right.

2 (40m 32s):
Like one for consulting and I can be specific. Cause we were basically almost talking about it just now, one for consulting and one for coaching. And how do you do that within one brand? And I know, and I'll just say one other thing. I know some people who literally have two different websites, I know some people who have one, but the, the, the brief background, if it's helpful is pretty much what you heard is that I have this long career in sustainable development. I could, I could literally just run a consulting business on that.

2 (41m 2s):
Cause it's a very long and, and, you know, basically well-networked and private sector to other sectors work, et cetera. So the coaching part is newer, but it's also kind of intuitively been a part of me for a long round, without me, maybe always knowing that. So what I'm thinking about is a lot of what you heard, which is one is the wheels to get to maybe get everything going, is that the consulting side seems like it might more immediately generate dollars because I like have that somewhat going the coaching side though, as you know, takes a lot of work and all the different pieces to that.

2 (41m 45s):
So on one level, you also might want to dedicate yourself, you know, more to that, but the coaching side, if it's the element I just described about this kind of unlocking and you know, some of that will work for some of the consulting clients, but some of it is not intended, you know, maybe for them, it might be intended for others. So I'm just very curious if, for example, I was consulting to a big company about food or a design group about a food system, but then I'm interested to say target a social innovator entrepreneur, or like a, an organization that is bold and transformative for coaching.

2 (42m 29s):
How do you get your voice out there clearly? So you're not mixed in your messages, but you're able to accurately show that you have these two skillsets.

0 (42m 41s):
Jamie, do you want me to go first? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Cause I see you get excited and, and I know you, you have some thoughts on this too. So I'll begin though, is it's very important. In my opinion, particularly the stage that you're in right now is to anchor your feet firmly in one space or the other. Otherwise you end up being overwhelmed and you'll find that you'll stall and both they'll go from each other.

0 (43m 12s):
And it happens at both an emotional level as well as at a tactical level, find yourself, you know, Oh, I need to do this for consulting. And it's all, but it's all very left brain. It's all very, it's kind of boring and everything. So I think I'll go with my coaching business for awhile and then go get your coaching and you won't get any traction there and you'll get a little frustrated to get a little emotional. And you say, well, I better go back to the consulting, see if I can generate some revenue. And you'll really struggle. Yeah. So what I would, what I would suggest you do is go with your strength, go with, what's going to work first because that's going to build your energy and it's going to build your resources and it's going to help you be more confident over it.

0 (43m 54s):
So let's say, for example, you're really passionate about this idea of coaching and you really want to develop your coaching practice, but you've got, as you just said, you've got this consulting thing, great potential there. Do that, get your, get your ducks in a row, get your, and that'll take care of a lot of your financial needs too, so that then you can feel more secure that way and then let the coaching kind of come organically. So what often happens is many, many people end up growing their business this way is they start kind of consulting they're in a space.

0 (44m 27s):
And then as they build relationships, they might be working with a pitch. You know, particularly when you get up to C level, you know, suite and stuff, dealing with executives, they'll go, you know, a lot of, I love you. You're great, but I want you all to myself. You know, like there are things that I want to say. There are things that I'm struggling with personally, and I don't want to disclose this to the group. Is there a chance that we could work together? One-on-one so your, your coaching business can actually come out of your consulting practice. The other aspect of it is you can blend in your coaching skills into your consulting interventions, so you can use your coaching facilitation voice.

0 (45m 7s):
So your, your ability to ask questions to probe, to gain, understanding that we think of as coaching skills, we can use those in the consulting setting. So that would be my advice is don't. And what you'll find will happen is it'll become a hybrid over time. You'll become a coach consultant. You won't have one or the other you'll become the two combined because that's what I, I don't, I don't take this passive kind of coaching role where I'm just constantly probing and being more of a counselor. I bring my expertise and my life experience to bear and advise as well.

0 (45m 41s):
So I do both and that's, that's where I think my strength lies there and that's where I'm most comfortable. And I don't think I could see myself doing one or the other now, but I started in the consulting space by the way. So that's that's would be my, you know, my gut reaction in my, off the top response to your question

1 (46m 3s):
And what I would say on that too, is like what Mark was saying, you know, pick one, that's exactly what I was thinking. Pick one to start. It doesn't mean you're married to it forever. And I love where you went with that because yes, one will inform the other, I do. I have two target markets and two separate things that I do. I coach virtual assistants, but over the years I've learned that they just don't have the funds to invest in themselves. So it's kind of, you know, kind of something I do when they come my way, you know, and I, and I help coaches to market their businesses.

1 (46m 34s):
And that's what I was going to say is from a marketing perspective, having one target market to perfect, get your marketing, get your website, if you will. And by the way, at some point that website, the question of one or two websites have one that, you know, you'll find you'll attract the types of people that will need your services in support in whatever it is that you do to kind of blend in all of that, but is to call out your market, call out your target market, perfect. Your marketing there.

1 (47m 6s):
And through that, you'll, you'll start to notice if it's, if there's even a space for the other thing that you do, or maybe you just want to stay here, but if you're really succinct in who you serve and what you do for them, right on the front page of your website and through your marketing and all of that, then it would be like Mark said, it'll kind of fund where you want to go. And

0 (47m 27s):
You were thorough in your voice so much faster. And think of two, like I sometimes get really hard with people on this when they talk about like a website or something specific. And I, and I always look at it this way. You have to think of your marketing holistically. It's a process, not a singularity. So think of it as a process. It's an entire way of attracting people to do business with you. So therefore a website is just one component of a marketing plan, right?

0 (47m 57s):
And when you think about it that way, then you'd kind of go, okay, well, wait a minute. So that means I'd have to create an entire marketing process for consulting and an entire marketing process. And that's a lot of work. So that in itself can be motivation to just take, pick one and, and you'll be aligned, definitely your market faster. You'll be able to build your voice faster, your authority, faster, everything will come faster for you when you pick that one space. And you've already got, for some reason, I don't know if we, we, we find this with our clients a lot is people tend to deny their strengths and their experience and all their personal history and think I need to go in a different direction instead, embrace all of what you've got, because those are assets and, you know, leverage those to the max.

0 (48m 43s):
So everything that you've just shared about working in the sustainability space and food and everything else is that's all part of your story that you can really leverage and, and utilize.

2 (48m 54s):
And then once you've got all that down in the marketing is going well, then, you know, if you feel like you need to dip your toe somewhere else, at least you'll have that experience to kind of bring to bear to the next thing that you want to expand on. It's not a matter of choosing it's. I've got this and I love this. And now I see a space where I can kind of move into, into this location here. So, yeah. It's interesting. Thank you both. It's you muted? You're muted again. Sorry. I'm on the phone here, basically.

2 (49m 28s):
I understand exactly what you're saying. I'm having, I'll have to let it digest. Cause I would say very transparently what's happening in my brain is that I, well, we'll actually, there's one observation and then there's my brain. I see peers who came from whatever background. It doesn't really you muted. Oh gee. It must to do that when I, when I turn the phone. Okay. So I have these piers to let's say, came from X industry.

2 (49m 60s):
Like one of them legislation's come from the arts, she's moving into consulting. I'm sorry, coaching, because that became her, her light. But her background gives her the strength to write grants. So she's basically writing grants to make some money, obviously. Cause she knows how to do that. But yes, I guess she's probably leaning into some of those organizations where she writes grants to then coach them. But I also know that she is building coaching elsewhere. So my point of the story is to say, I completely agree with you from a strengths and network and tenure.

2 (50m 33s):
Like, it's like, wow, you have so much traction. But my concern is kind of like

3 (50m 40s):
I see

2 (50m 41s):
I came out of the gate just to be transparent, right? The four COVID, let's say two, three months before it having a lot of clarity on the coaching. And I decided that I was going to put all of my tenure into roles that were like advisory roles, ideally paid. But you know, these days, many groups are working on sustainability or food or whatever. And I was deciding, I'm not going to put the energy, all that stuff that you said, I'm just going to use the fact that I have a very big network. People know me and the right people are going to ask me and it has happened, you know, to serve on this board or to do this or that.

2 (51m 16s):
So the dream would be that like I just secure like the two or three opportunities that ideally again are paid where you have, okay, a nice little cushion coming in, coming in and that my energy and creativity and this natural, you said go with your strengths, but this is nowhere to toot my horn, but I just happened to be a person divided with two different distinct strengths. So I just have the intuitive and like teacher, coach, like part of me and a lot of personal development and, and like elements tied to kind of the coaching realm with especially tied to the path that I'm interested in because I took myself on my own journey over the past year or two, like rediscover, you know, an unlock, you know, stock and fears and things.

2 (52m 9s):
So it's like I built this whole pathway, but the other side of me has, like you said, like the left brain has all this trained strategy, analytics, actual content background, et cetera. So the, the challenge is more

3 (52m 27s):
When I

2 (52m 28s):
Look internally just as a coach would have someone else, do I see that the rising light is more on the coaching side and there for the energy would maybe naturally want to go there, but it seems like initially getting the wings spread that I, I need to look to some of my background, right. Because, well, unless you just have money around, right. So I just want to, I don't want to sound repetitive, but I just want to note that, like, I feel like some of the market shows me that people are kind of using one umbrella to then spread the wings, you know, elsewhere.

2 (53m 8s):
And I'm just curious to get your further feedback, if anything else comes to mind, because I don't want to end up going consulting because it's works and missing the opportunity to birth the thing I was actually trying to give space to birth. Yeah. Can't I wouldn't think

0 (53m 26s):
Of them as mutually exclusive, I would get together. So, I mean, you brought up use some language there, which was very, very appropriate, as you said, you know, there's the left brain kind of a tactical strategic part of the consulting. And then there's this longing in the coaching side of things. And so they were two separate things. And, and what I would encourage you to do is to remember that we're the most effective we can possibly be is when we're experiencing a whole brain. Right.

0 (53m 56s):
And we're using our whole brain experientially. So you can bring that to bear in those environments. The other thing is that even as a coach, you know, how many coaches you think, you know, are out there that say, Hey, I'm all about helping people release their full potential or I'm helping people get unstuck. You're you're, you know, you're, you're a grain of sand and in a, in a desert when you say that, so you have to be very specific in terms of what your coaching is even going to be about.

0 (54m 28s):
So you have to, if you aren't, then you will, you will not be able to one, you won't have a voice because then nobody will hear it because it's just, it's just Hom. It's just noise out there. So you haven't been able to identify that. And that's where, when you start with what, you know, then your voice will emerge from that into the coaching realm, right? So you will inevitably become most likely your coaching will evolve out of the whole sustainability movement. The whole ability to help people live a healthy, more balanced, more sustainable lifestyle, MLB your coaching niche.

0 (55m 7s):
But if you don't have a coaching, that's just as specific as you're consulting, you're going to struggle.

2 (55m 13s):
Okay. No, that's, that's helpful. I'm going to let it all sit. I think what happened and then I'll close. Cause I unfortunately have to run to something. This is very helpful, but I think that my mind sees other targets for coaching, besides those who I already know are in my consulting bucket. And that's where, that's where the brain goes a little bit like, Oh, like what do I do? You know? And obviously if the person comes to me, that's an easy problem. You just do it. But it's a matter of, you can clearly tell it's a matter of where does the marketing effort go to because yes, it naturally you're right.

2 (55m 45s):
I showed up in a circle of people before COVID and normally they know me as this chief sustainability person and it's instead of introducing myself that night, that way I added on, I mean, they already knew my background. I added that. I'm doing like transformational coaching, which as you said, Mark, like a million people can say, but in that group, somebody perked up and I got my first client because she resonated with my kind of background and she has ambition toward, you know, these bowls, blah blah, blah opportunities.

2 (56m 18s):
Yes. Yeah.

0 (56m 19s):
And she was in a group. So like you were all already been identified with the group. So you're already in that niche, if you will, which was a given, it was an assumption by her and that's what then attracted you to her because you were already identified a group. So think about that because that's exciting. I mean, that's great feedback because now, you know, well, if that particular group, what is it about that group? What was the title of it? Who hangs out in that group that's then where you can start to identify and focus a coaching needs.

2 (56m 49s):
Right. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. And it just happened though, not to make things complicated, but that there's like also a person way different from that group. Although probably personality wise and accomplished wise is similar, but her background has nothing to do with that space. But she too was like, Oh, I could probably work with you, but it's because they share traits. So it's not that they share sustainability. It's that they're these progressive women looking to make a unique Mark, you know, in the world. Right?

2 (57m 19s):
Yeah. Yeah.

0 (57m 21s):
So we go through, one of the things that we go through is, and you may have heard of this before is the avatar exercise where we develop, you know, a really highly refined avatar. And then that then becomes, then you've got something you can really visualize and focus on and say, that's the person I want to talk to him. So now when I'm looking at a sea of people, then that picture will, will pop out. Right? Yeah. Avatar piece will come out in the crowd. Oh, that's who I need to, I need to be an attract. Yeah,

2 (57m 51s):
Absolutely. Mark is a pro at that. I was gonna, I was going to toot your horn for you, but I'm glad you mentioned that that's, that's something that you certainly are. That's that's great. You know, I have, I have another question, but I have to go to this thing, which I can't be late for. So is there a way to follow up or is there just another moment that your next month is that what it is?

0 (58m 12s):
And we'll follow up with you, Ilana. What we'll do is you will, we'll make sure

2 (58m 18s):
We'll send you an email.

0 (58m 20s):
Can we can continue this conversation and we'll, we'll make sure you get your questions answered.

2 (58m 26s):
That would be so great. And I'll just, I'll just, I'll put it in your hat, which is just that, even if I got specific, the question is how do I go from individual to organizations? Because I think that some of them hold similar traits, but I know sometimes people say, well, you get to be executive and then you get into it. But I also know that I have like certain ambition to work with organizations who are going to be like, you know, moving the needle. And like you said, there might be many within those terms, but I would love to talk about that because it seems very easier to me when I think of it as an individual, like who am I targeting?

2 (59m 0s):
Right. But when I think of the organization, how does your message reach both equally? And I've looked up many coaches and I see, like I see a woman who's famous for like bravery. So she's doing that in organizations and with people, you know? So I know that it's doable, but I'm just curious to get your feedback maybe because we do a whole week, we, you know, we won't get into it cause I know you have to run, we'll be

1 (59m 22s):
Meeting with you because what Mark and I both bring to the table would really help you to, to get that question answered. And so we'll talk about that. That would be great. Thank you both. I feel really fortunate. I just got this like one-on-one time. Thanks. You're welcome my lucky day. Thank you guys. Bye bye. Bye bye. Hi, Debra. You're muted. I always do that. Hello. Hello. Nice to meet you.

1 (59m 52s):
Hey, it's good to meet you too. Also. I am sorry that well, life happens, you know, and yeah. So we'll just let you know, you know, we're, we're here to answer any questions that you have Mark and I, you missed the beginning of the call, but he and I are strategic partners. We have our own businesses. We also have a program together and we have, we work together. So, and we do these calls every month and we're really here to, you know, we, we present a concept typically, but we're always here to answer questions, you know, like what we were just doing with a lotta.

1 (1h 0m 25s):
So is there something

0 (1h 0m 26s):
You'll get a, you'll get a recording of this. So I would encourage you. It was a great, it was a great call because we talked about some initial ideas and then we Allana asked a question that just, you know, we've sprung into a whole bunch of different areas from there that it's very powerful. So it was a really good call. So you'll get a recording of that.

1 (1h 0m 45s):
Good. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah. I'm sure. Working with one person, you can, I'll be able to see that whole process and see you coaching her, which will help me with, you know, so yeah, so that's great. I'm a brand new health coach and I'm just trying to soak up as much knowledge as I, as I can. So I, Rachel, congratulations. Thank you.

0 (1h 1m 8s):
Yeah. Well, welcome to the wonderful world of, of coaching. So glad you could be here with us. Was there anything in specific specific that you, you know, was kind of burning on your mind? What the purpose of this call by the way we do this every month is for people to come and go and be, you know, Hey, I've got this idea or I've got this goal or I've got this problem, or I want to try this. What are your thoughts? So it's a real open mic kind of situation that we do. So is there anything in particular that you were hoping to get out of today?

1 (1h 1m 39s):
Oh my gosh. I wish I could say yes, this is my question. And we could go, but I'm really, it was, I really didn't. I didn't know how large of a group you would have. I thought it would be more of a, I get to sit in the corner and just listen to it. And so some people don't want to get on the hot seat. I I'm trying to, I'm still working on trying to narrow down my niche, a deacon in the United Methodist church, clergy relationships. And one of the areas I really would like to focus in on is helping clergy, people avoid burnout.

1 (1h 2m 13s):
And so they can continue to serve the people that they are called to serve. Great. And then I have my have way too much familiarity with auto-immunity issues. And so, so I'm kind of going in a couple different directions there, but my ministry is actually to older adults. So my mind goes there as well. And I feel like I'm spreading yeah. One niche to three. Is that two minutes?

1 (1h 2m 43s):
Is that too much? Is it so that my mind has just killed?

0 (1h 2m 49s):
Well, that's a great question. So why don't we, why don't we just touch on that briefly?

1 (1h 2m 54s):
It'd be great. I appreciate it. I know you've already been doing this for an hour, so I, I feel, I don't want to keep you, but I appreciate that. I have a little question,

0 (1h 3m 2s):
You know, that's a great question. And it's a common question and it, and it's a pretty quick answer. Is, is it too much? Yes.

1 (1h 3m 10s):
Okay. There you go.

0 (1h 3m 12s):
The, what you want to do and it, you know, it, it doesn't matter whether you call it prayer or meditation or thoughtfulness, but you want to do one of those or all of them, and really look for what calls you and you know, in ministry, this is what we talk about, right? What you do. So what is that one that pops the most and then focus on one. Okay. Begin with one, because it doesn't mean often when we, when we do that, we think, Oh, if I pick one that I'm denying the others or I'm, or I'm, or even worse, and at a subconscious level, I fear I'll lose the others and it's not true.

0 (1h 3m 54s):
You're just simply making a choice to focus your energy on one particular area for now to see what happens, right. And those other ones will still be there for you. So when you, when you pause and just allow yourself to relax and allow that to surface, and like I said, you can call that whatever you want, you can call it a moment of clarity. You can call it an epiphany. You can call it the Holy spirit or whatever you desire. It will come to you and you'll go, this is what's really calling to me right now. And then, and then commit to that and go with that and give that a good solid college.

0 (1h 4m 31s):
Try if you will, and, and work with that exclusively. And don't be distracted by other things and you will be tested, you know, you'll be going, Oh, well, this is, maybe this is getting hard. Maybe I'll maybe I'll shift gears and I'll go over here. Cause it seems like this one might've been easier. So you will be tested. But if you commit to that and stick with that for a reasonable period of time, then you'll know, you know, that that's the path.

1 (1h 4m 55s):
Oh, that really does. That makes so much sense. But to hear it from someone else's yeah. And from a marketing standpoint to kind of piggybacking on what we were just talking about with Alana, you know, when it, and it doesn't mean that you have to turn away business, you know, if somebody comes your way and they're not in that little niche that you're working on, that you turn them away, you don't have to do that. But when you do specialize in something, which is, I think what Mark was trying to say, pick something to specialize in. You know, you're, you're a lot more desired than just being, as he described it, a grain of sand and a desert, you know, you're, there's so many people who are in the health coaching space and all of that.

1 (1h 5m 33s):
So what makes you unique would probably be your, your niche, your target market, whatever you want to call it. And therefore you have a specialty and people seek that out. So if you specialize in helping a specific type of person, whether it's, you know, industry job title, or, or lifestyle or whatever, they're going to resonate with your messaging and they're going to choose you because you know, like Mark and I, we've specialized in working with coaches. So coaches, they find their way to us as you have here today and you're here because that's what we do.

1 (1h 6m 6s):
So I think about it from your perspective and how you can call people in that you say, I do that specifically. I help you. You're the person I help. So, and again, it doesn't, I don't want you to think of it as a limiting thing. And I end up even Mark, wasn't describing it as limited, but just pick one, perfect. That love on that. And then you can always expand out later. But I, you know, we always talk to them cause we had people come to us all the time with, you know, we say, who do you help? And they say, you know, anybody with a pulse or a credit card as our little joke.

1 (1h 6m 39s):
And, and it's true. We all want to help anybody with a pulse and a credit card, but you know, it's a lot easier to make a business and a life, a lifestyle business. When you have people who are coming your way because they, they got on your bandwagon and they know that you're the one that can help them.

0 (1h 6m 54s):
They could identify with, because otherwise we end up our messaging is confusing. And also from a business standpoint, from a marketing standpoint, from a messaging standpoint, it becomes very inefficient because all of a sudden, we're trying to communicate with this person and this person and this person, and we're kind of all over the place. So we end up, you know, that, that saying by trying to be everything to everyone, we ended up being nothing to anyone we're just trying to do to do. And nobody can identify with that. Our messages don't resonate.

0 (1h 7m 25s):
They go, I don't, I'm not really clear on who this person is helping. Do. They do this person, do they do this? Did they do that? So that, that real focus is what will really help. And it also helps you as a coach internally, too, because then you start to refine your voice and you start to develop that voice and you become stronger and more confident and more knowledgeable and more learned in that particular area. So you're not kind of jumping around. So it's powerful way of looking at it.

1 (1h 7m 53s):
You talk about your marketing, you know, and I'll just talk about a website. I know Mark, doesn't love when I go down the website path, because it's not a necessity, but let's just say that we're landing on your website, which, you know, back in the days, it was a yellow pages, you know, and if you say, you know, I help these 30 different types of people. Again, like Mark said, you're really not helping anybody specific. So if you just, if somebody lands on your yellow page ad or your website, or even your Facebook page or whatever it is that you're using, and you say, I specialize in helping this type of person.

1 (1h 8m 24s):
Okay.

0 (1h 8m 25s):
Tell your, tell your, your story. I love that story.

1 (1h 8m 30s):
You have a minute Deborah. Sure. Okay. So I was when I started my virtual assistant business, which is how I started back in 2009. And the only reason I became a marketer was because I had to market my VA business. But I had coaches who were telling me, you need a niche. You need to target market. And I was like, Nope, can't hear you, Lola. You want anybody with a credit card? If they come my way, I don't want to turn them down. Right. And I stayed stuck for about two and a half years. I literally was like this for two and a half years. Couldn't hear it. All kinds of people were telling me that.

1 (1h 9m 1s):
And I just was like, why would you limit yourself? You're so stupid. And that's really what my feeling about it. And I had an epiphany one day. I can't remember where it came from, but it, they talked about the yellow pages. And like, if you go, like, let's say you break a crown in your mouth. Right. You know, you, your crown falls out, so you, okay. So I need to get a crown fixed. I need crown repair. So you open up your yellow pages to date all of us. Right. And you're scrolling through, and there's like this many pages on dentists and any dentist can fix a broken crown.

1 (1h 9m 34s):
But if you open the top left corner, there's little tiny ad that says we specialize in fixing broken crowns. Most likely I'm going to go to that dentist, even though anyone on those other pages would have helped. And so that was kind of the light bulb moment for me. And it really did change everything. And you know, now Mark and I are to the point where we have sort of an application on our website. We don't just consult with anybody and everybody, we actually turned people down. So we asked them, are you a coach or consultant? And if they say, no, they're sent like a, you know, we're really sorry, but that's not who we help.

1 (1h 10m 7s):
We help coaches and consultants. So yeah, like Mark said, once you get more confidence in that, then you have that like ability to just say, I'm sorry, you would be better served by somebody else. We really serve the best that we can give is to coaches. So

0 (1h 10m 23s):
I love that, you know, that story of the dentist and the crown, because also on again, on the other side of it, the dentist himself, if he's a dentist and he's doing everything, he's doing crowns, he's doing cleaning whitening, he's doing checkups and he's doing all this general dentistry. Yeah, sure. He can do a crown, but the guy who says I specialize in crowns, if he's doing crowns every day, that's all he does is repair crowns. Who's going to be the best. You know, he's going to get really good at what he does. And so he's going to feel pride.

0 (1h 10m 55s):
He's going to feel accomplished. He's going to be better and be really skilled at what he does. So he's going to attract even more people that are going to come to him because they're going to go, that's the guy, right.

1 (1h 11m 5s):
And they're going to pay a premium for that. They're going to pay a premium when you specialize people, like you can have the best pepperoni pizza in town and people are gonna pay more. They could have gotten, you know, Domino's for $5 there, they're going to go to the, you know, the specialty pepperoni pizza people, Debra. How did you come

0 (1h 11m 23s):
To be in our group? Did you, are you recent to the upscale success strategies group? Are you, have you gotten in the platform there? How did you come to be here?

1 (1h 11m 33s):
Well, I was, I, the health coaching, one of my mentors, she shared the info stack. Okay. You all are right on that top row of the yay click there and just join your group on your Facebook group and excellent working on that. So that's how I can be you. Right.

0 (1h 11m 56s):
And working through the materials that are in the platform.

1 (1h 12m 0s):
I have info stack as a whole or yours or particular I started to, but I am like my trying to decide a niche niche. I'm like here and here I have diminished my nonprofit that I run. So it's, I'm taking those

0 (1h 12m 18s):
Module in there on, I can't remember what we call it now, whether we call it the avatar or the ideal audience,

1 (1h 12m 25s):
I think it's ideal clients. Why

0 (1h 12m 27s):
Ideal clients or ideal audience or avatar. And there's some, there's an avatar workbook and everything in there. So that would really be an asset for you to like, don't feel you have to do it in a linear fashion in order jump to that section. Cause it sounds like that's what you're trying to work on right now and work on that material. And that will really, I think help you clarify.

1 (1h 12m 50s):
Okay. That will be super. I will, I will go right now after we finished after this thing, go look into, go back there. Right? Right. Thank you. We're going to do with Alana. If you'd like, we'll send you an email. You're not obligated, but if you want to just speak with us, you know, on a, on a consulting basis, we are more than happy to do that. No charge of course, but we'll send you the info and if you want to book a call with us, then we'll talk. Okay. That would be great. Thank you all so much. You're welcome. Thank you next month. And I'll do better at being on time.

1 (1h 13m 20s):
No worries. No worries will get this recording to you as soon as we have it rendered, so, okay. Terrific. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Thanks for coming, Deborah. Bye.

0 (1h 13m 29s):
Thanks so much for listening. We'll look forward to hearing you or speaking to you on the next podcast.

1 (1h 13m 36s):
More information about how we can help you to upscale and release the full potential of your business. Visit us at upscale, your business.com. You'll find all of our information over there.