Sneak Peek Series - Business Development Accelerator Lesson 1

Welcome to the business of executive coaching. I'm Ellie Scarfe, an ex lawyer turned executive coach. Over the last 17 years I've coached in house, I've been an associate coach and I've run executive coaching businesses with teams of coaches around the world. My clients have ranged from global brand names to boutiques, startups and organizations doing good in the world. I now run the Impact Coach Collective, a community of executive coaches who want to level up their business skills and take action in a community of like minded peers. I'm a traveller, a reader, a mum, wife and dog parent and I know firsthand that our stories have a huge impact on our businesses. The executive coaching business is tough and I've learnt all the lessons through plenty of mistakes and also with some great mentors. This podcast is all about growing a thriving executive coaching business. You can build a coaching business that is profitable, sustainable and that supports your personal goals, whatever they are. I'll be sharing tips and ideas translated for your context as well as stories from the field with brilliant coaches and mentors. If you want to level up your executive coaching business skills, then this is the place for you. Hello and welcome back to the four week series that I'm running on the podcast with some sneak peeks into the curriculum of the Corporate to Coach accelerator. So we have a number of courses that exist within the accelerator for members and this month I've released two new courses just for our accelerator members. One is the 90 day quick start Challenge. This course is a group challenge where our members get a chance to develop or review all of their key assets and key foundations over the course of 90 days. It's about 12 weeks and the course includes three key things. There are weekly videos guiding them through the writing and updating of their core assets and those, those big foundational principles. So it includes defining ideal clients, building their office suite, rewriting a coaching bio or setting coaching bio up, LinkedIn profile, website copy, website build. So it's perfect for people who are starting out, but it's also really good for people who are going through a bit of a review process where they, they feel like something's not quite working, they might not have done everything as intentionally as they'd liked, or they're heading into a new iteration of their business and they want all of their assets to reflect that. So they have weekly videos for all of that. They also submit all of their assets to me along the way and I send video feedback on, on anything that they submit to me. And we have a lot of really hands on personal support so they're getting feedback and questions answered on their own questions. And that is through our weekly coaching calls in our Facebook group and also in a WhatsApp channel that will be established just for this challenge. It is very exciting. I, I'm, I really can't wait to launch it. And it' coming out as this podcast comes out, that's when the courses are being released to accelerator members. So the other course being released this week to my accelerator members is the Business Development Accelerator Framework. And so this is a guide to the marketing activities that you need to do to be able to grow your business to build a sustainable business in less than five hours a week. So in this course we do all the setup that is required. So we go step by step through what, what is involved in establishing your sales pipeline. We build the quarterly content plan. You get the tools and the processes to follow the metrics to report on so that you can get traction with your business development now and you can maintain growth over time. And that includes building the foundations and the implementation strategy for five hours of business development activity per week. That works around your preferences, personality and your flexibility needs as well. So it's very, it's both, you know, here's best practice and we apply it to you and your needs. So I am really proud of these courses. I really love them and mostly I think that's because my thinking has really evolved and these courses are built based on the reality of running an executive coaching business. So the courses factor in the most common challenges, both practical and mindset and implementation challenges that I see in coaches. Right. That I see you face. And the courses are extremely practical around that. So this is not about, you know, some theory in isolation. This is about how do we take the theory and how do we get results. So I'm, I'm super excited about the courses. So over the next four weeks on the podcast, I'm going to do something a little bit different. I'm going to share a series of snippets from within both of these courses. And by snippets I mean I'm going to take whole lessons out and I'm going to share them with you and it's going to be sharing really practical advice and it's also going to give you an insider's view of what we do inside the accelerator. So if you are wanting to build or grow your executive coaching business, and particularly if you want to get your next 10 high paying corporate clients, you want to do less than five hours marketing a week, you want to do it in community. Then do book a strategy call with me so we can discuss whether the accelerator would be a good call, a good fit for you and you know your next steps in business. And there are two ways that you can do this. You can head to the Show Notes where you'll find a link to book a call with me. The link is elliscarf.com, or you can send me a DM on LinkedIn with the word call and I will just send you my booking link so that you can book in at a time that works for you. I do also have a sneaky bonus. If you decide to join the accelerator and you let me know that you joined after listening to this podcast series, you'll receive an extra month on your membership for free. Meaning that if you join for 12 months, which is part of which is what our standard membership is, you'll receive access access to the accelerator for 13 months. So one extra month for free. Okay, without further delay, let me talk about this week's episode. In the episode today I'm sharing the introductory lesson from my Business Development Accelerator Framework course. This lesson covers a range of things including what the BD Accelerator strategy is, some key principles to keep in mind as you ramp up your BD strategy, common challenges that you might face, and some tips to support you if you are transforming your BD practices. I really hope that what I share is helpful and again I'd love to have a chat if you want to talk about how and whether the corporate to Coach Accelerator might be useful as you grow or start your business. Now onto the lesson. Hello everyone and welcome to your Business Development Accelerator Framework. So in this course we are going to do a few key things. So firstly I'm going to be giving you really clear instructions on what you need to be doing as a baseline to ensure consistent and effective marketing for the long term. So that's our big picture. This is going to include doing some key tasks like setting up your pipeline, building a pipeline, setting up your content strategy for what you're going to post and put out there in all of your different thought leadership channels. It'll also be putting in place a 5 hours per week strategy that is going to help you to grow your business. Now this strategy is aimed at long term sustainable growth, right? That is what we're talking about. It's not intended to go hard, burn out and then give up. We want something that is going to be something you can consistently do for the duration of your business. It's also intended to be very ethical in its approach to be authentic and to, to be real and true to who you are. So while I want you to push yourself because I think that a bit of discomfort is about how you should feel when you're, when you're putting yourself, you know, out there in the world as, as a, as an expert, but I don't want you to do anything that feels disconnected with your values or who you are. So, so those are sort of the, the big goals here. Some of our principles include sustainability, obviously. And that means sometimes you might need to build up to this, right? I don'. Swamp yourself and burn out. I want you to think of it like training a muscle that needs to get stronger and stronger. And there's a couple of muscles actually involved. There's the muscle of comfort with visibility and then there's also the muscle of just activity and volume of activity. So yeah, sustainability and, and training, I guess, are the, the principles. And also the 8020 rule, I think there's a bit of an 8020 rule at play with your business development. And I want you to focus on the 20% that works. So the things that we are going to include in your five hours a week marketing strategy, those are the things that are going to move the dial rather than having you get stuck in busy work. Right. So if you do nothing else, I always say focus on outreach. That is the one thing that will turn the dial. And then the other things that we talk about, those are the next, the rest of the 20%, if you like, of what's going to really make a difference. And then finally, you know, principles wise, everything you do should be adapted to your business because that's what we're here for. These are guidelines, concepts, tools that I know work, but you need to adapt them to your environment, to your ideal clients, to your offers. There are some pretty common objections or challenges that come up when, when we talk about putting in place some of these marketing tasks. The first one is that I don't want to annoy people, right? And this can come from a few places, but it's usually not coming from a place where you're, you know, worried about annoying people because of its impact on your sales goals. Usually it's coming from either a position where you find people annoying, right. Or you're afraid of people not liking you if they find you annoying. And so there are two different ways I want you to think about this. One is to, is that you can go down this path of exploring, you know, what is, where does this need to be liked come from? So if you have, you know, a therapist or there's someone that you can work with to go a bit deeper. It's likely that there's a bit of work to be done on this. And look, as coaches, I would say that we are more prone to this than, than other people. I see it pretty commonly. But that real need to be liked and not to upset people is a bit of a theme. And I think that there's always some work to be done based on, you know, what are our stories about what it means to be liked and not liked. So you can do that. The other approach, which is, I think a good option in a shorter term, is to harness more of a, an act or an acceptance and commitment approach to this. And that includes noticing and recognizing this fear of annoying people or the fear of, you know, underneath that maybe not being liked and then so noticing it and honoring it and recognizing it and then deciding that you're going to take action anyway because you know that your goals and your values are bigger than this fear that you have. Right. And that they are bigger even than the response of someone who is in fact annoyed. Right. So that we can, we can be okay if someone were to be annoyed because we're doing this for bigger picture reasons. And look, the truth is I have had people respond to me, to some of my social media posting or emails who have been annoyed and have, you know, really, really not wanted to, you know, communicate with me. I mean, most just if they're not interested, they just ignore it, to be honest. But some people will be annoyed and it's okay. So as like one of the biggest people pleasers and people that need desperately to be liked by others, as I consider myself, you know, I have chosen to leverage the fact that I'm here to build something, right? I'm here to build a business. I'm here to support my family. I'm here to put myself out of my comfort zone. And those things allow me to show up even when I know that it's not for everyone and that some people won't like it. So, you know, that's. I hope, I hope that helps how you think about things. Another common objection or challenge that people have is that they, they feel uncomfortable doing it. Right? Putting yourself out there, putting your ideas out there, promoting yourself, saying you are an expert, sharing your, you know, assuming that people want to listen to what you have to say. Yes, that is uncomfortable. It is objectively uncomfortable. And it's going to continue to be uncomfortable. Now, it's not going to continue to be very Uncomfortable, hopefully it becomes less and less uncomfortable. And that's been my experience and the experience of so many people I've worked to. But, you know, stretch and a little bit of discomfort is a sign that you're doing it right. To be honest, I think it's a good sign. Now, finding it wildly painful might be a sign that you need to ease in even more slowly than you are. And so if that is you and you are feeling like so uncomfortable that you feel a little bit paralyzed, bring it to group coaching and we will talk about it and we will figure out an approach because there is always a way we can slow it down and we can take incremental steps if you are feeling really uncomfortable about it. Another objection people have is that, you know, sometimes these things like outreach, reaching out to our network, or posting, you know, more than more than once in a blue moon on LinkedIn can feel a little bit salesy or sleazy in a bad way. And, you know, to that I say we must recognize that we have been hit over the head with a message that sales is bad generally for most of our life. But in fact, every business in the world is a sales business on some level. So if you aren't selling, you don't have a business, you have a hobby. And I think as coaching business owners, we need to rewire our brains to think a little bit more positively about sales and about marketing. And I mean both our own right and ourselves doing those tasks. And also when we see it like when people sell to us. And so I want you to think about how could you create some more positive associations with sales and marketing. For example, when have you had a great example of being sold to? When have you felt like marketing was very authentic and truthful and felt like it was giving you value? So I want you to just think if you fall into that trap, right, that you might have some sort of preconceived judgments about what it means to be selling something, then go and do that work and think about all the good experiences that you've had. There are some common questions that people ask when it comes to the this, this program and particularly our five hours a week strategy. So first question, can I do more than five hours? And my answer, yes, you can. The more you do, the more, the more results you can expect. I think more is, is definitely more when it comes to comes to this work. Can you do less? Sure, you absolutely do can do less. But you need to be aware that equally your results are going to be less significant if you're doing less work. The third question is, can I configure this to work for my personality, my business, my approach? Yes, absolutely. Please adapt everything, make it work for you, tailor it. Unless you're using style and preference as a way to avoid one of the big pieces of the work. So so long as the work's being done, so long as you're comfortable that you're not, avoid avoiding doing something that feels uncomfortable. Please make it your own. I think it'll be much powerful if you do that. And then the question is, well, you know, is, is that it? Is that all the marketing I need to do ever? I'm totally covered. And the answer is yes and no. So no, you don't have to do anything else. Insofar as the. These are the basics of a very solid digital marketing strategy. If you do these things, you will be miles ahead of most coaches in the market. But there are likely some other things that you might want to include in your overall marketing strategy, right? Not just your digital marketing strategy. And that includes things like attending events, speaking at conferences, leveraging those networks, networking more generally and you know, things like deliberate referral marketing. Those are all things. Or even live events, running your own, you know, breakfast briefings, international women's day sessions, all of those sorts of things are things that you would probably also want to do. But you they are not the core of your strategy, they are an add on to your strategy. My tips if you know, as you go through this process, firstly, we need to avoid the common traps of perfectionism and procrastination. And so I've got a few tips to help you get past them. Firstly, for all my perfectionists out there, please aim for 75%. If you are aiming for 100%, you're going to be very frustrated and you are not going to get anything done. And as you'll see as we go into this, you need to be operating at quite a pace to get everything done in five hours a week. And it'll take a while to get there, but you will absolutely get there. But you need to aim for 75% and that means have a go, write a draft, you know, do an edit or two and then let it be enough. And this is really hard because we want to be perfect. We are anticipating all the ways other people might judge us in negative ways. The truth is, a lot of what we put out there is not going to be seen by that many people and it is going to be scanned, right? Nobody is reading or not many people are reading the intricate minutiae of our posts or our blogs or our newsletter. So most people are not going to notice if there is a mistake or if we have omitted something that could have, could have made it, you know, 1% better, 75% is great. And then you can, you know, iterate on it and you can edit it from there, but you have to know when to stop. And the truth is, for true perfectionists, your perception of 75 is probably everyone else's 90. So that's pretty great. I would say overall, think of this work as an ongoing experiment. Okay, so, so if we think of it as an experiment, if we take a view that we're trying things, we're iterating, we're going to continuously improve, then a few things happen. Firstly, we keep improving, right? So we have a real growth mindset, we keep getting better and better. And then the thing I really like about an experimental mindset is that if something doesn't work, if it goes, you know, it goes badly, then rather than falling into a heap of saying, well, this is my strategy and it didn't work and it's the end of the world and I give up, then we're much more likely to be able to get back on track and try something new a lot quicker. So it is a strategy for, you know, long term sustainability to think of things as experiments and continuous improvement. I would also say just remember to focus on, you know, why you believe in what you do and why you genuinely believe that you can help people and organizations and communities. So make sure that, and the value that you offer in the services you have, make sure you keep those front of mind. And remember that when you're selling, you are actually helping, right? Sales is a service you are doing. You are helping those people. You're not there to push anything on them. You're here to help help them get clarity. And so anything you can do to make sure that more people know about what you do and more people have access to the services you have, then, then there's more people who are going to experience a positive outcome. So don't forget that piece. And then a final, you know, another note of things to remember is that connection and relationship is so important, right? So we want to make sure we, we stay anchored in that when we're doing our outreach, that we're not just pushing our sales but equally connection is important and we should do it first. But it is not the only thing. So we need to also remember not to get too. Sometimes you can get sort of bogged down in that phase we need to make sure that we are also always moving towards relevant conversations and using the strategy of curiosity to get us there, which is asking good questions. And of course coaches are so good at that. So that is going to be a natural strength for you. And then the last thing I want to leave you with in this introduction is that there are of course you have a lot of resources available to you as an accelerator member to get some extra support as you go through this process. So don't forget to bring all of your questions on either the curriculum or the implementation of the curriculum to your group coaching sessions or to the Facebook group. And for every element that I've included in this course, I've included all the information you need or linked to it. But you can also go into the portal and you can luckily find masterclasses, workshops, resources or more information on most of these topics that we're going to talk about. And if you wondering if there is anything else, you can always post in the Facebook group and Gillian or I can help you find what you need. Okay, thanks for listening. I am really looking forward to hearing how you go as you go through this program and as you get your five hour marketing strategy put into place in our next module, we'll start talking about building your pipeline which is one of those foundations that's going to allow you to really be effective in your marketing time. Thanks for tuning in today. I hope that it's been really helpful for you. And please don't forget to head to elliscarf.com forward/bookacall or jump over to LinkedIn and send me a DM saying call and I'll send you a link so that you can book a time that works for you. If you would like to discuss your corporate coaching business, what the next steps looks like for you, what your strategy is going to be in 2025 for your business. I think this will be a great discussion and I'd really like to to learn a bit more about your business. So thanks again and I'll be back next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Business of Executive Coaching. If you found it helpful, please share it with a colleague or friend on LinkedIn and don't forget to tag me so I can say thanks. I would be tremendously grateful also if you would leave a review on Apple Podcasts. More reviews means more people can find us. Have a brilliant week and I look forward to to talking to you again soon.