BYOB Beginner Group Session 2024 08 07

Good morning.

Morning.

And good afternoon. Is Read AI anyone's meeting notes? No.

Okay.

That's okay. There. There are all these, like, apps that are trying to get into my things all the time, which is really weird.

I think we. With my Google account, we did just sign up for Read AI, but I haven't played around with it yet, so I don't. I didn't know that it was trying to join. Sorry about that.

Well, no, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. I just want to make sure. If. I mean, if. If you want to. If any of you want to use something that transcribes the meeting for your own use, please let me know. Like, it's totally fine. It's just, I don't. If I don't know where it's coming from.

I haven't tested it yet, so I didn't even know it was linking onto this.

Yeah, well, when you figure it out, and if it is you, then it's totally welcome. Don't. Don't worry. I just don't want strangers here. This is our space.

For sure Z's.

Yeah, for sure. Welcome. Happy Wednesday. Let's start with some celebrations. While we're waiting for everyone to arrive, what are we celebrating this week? Jason, do you want to celebrate getting your first?

I don't know if I want to celebrate that.

But it means you're putting yourself out there, though. That's a. That's a mark of success.

Well, what I will celebrate is that that interaction last night was pretty terrible. It did not make me feel good.

Yeah.

At all. But I had my best market research interview yet this morning.

Amazing.

So, like, I was. I can now see, like. Okay, like, I can brush it off. And then because I hate the DMs, what I've started doing is at the end of my interviews, I'm asking if the interviews go well, if they'll refer one to three people to me to do the same interview.

Yeah.

So I'm hoping that will give me more interviewees without having to do as many DMs.

Yeah. Awesome. Now, something you can make it. You can do to make it really easy for them is you can, if they say yes, just say, awesome. I'm going to send you an email that you can just respond, CCing those people.

Okay.

Respond to just seeing them. And then that way, like, the. The balls in your court, you can follow up with them and it's really easy for them to book.

Okay. Amazing.

Cool.

Awesome. Congratulations. What else are we celebrating? Today.

I caught my LinkedIn live cancelling itself early enough to re resurrect it.

Wait, what?

So every Wednesday I do a live stream. LinkedIn just likes to change the times to like 3am or 1am on me.

Yeah.

And then the stream just like cancels itself and so I woke up early enough to like create another one.

So.

Okay. Okay. Weird. I haven't heard of that happening.

It does that all the time to me. And I'm not the only one. A couple of my friends, that happens to them as well.

Okay, well, congratulations. That's.

Thanks.

What else, what else are we celebrating today?

Hi, I. I've got one. So I, I was working on the email and it's getting so text heavy, it's like making me dizzy. Like, I'm like, I would. I don't even want to read this.

Yeah.

Why would anyone else want to read this? So. So I do. I'm going to ask a question about that later. But then it came to me this morning and it was actually like in my morning meditation, which. The magic that happens when you give yourself space to send like a. Just because it's been long enough. Like, I need to send these an email out. But like, I keep like nitpicking this one. I was like, oh, I could send an invitation to the WhatsApp group now.

Yeah.

And say, and hang tight, I've got a longer email coming your way soon.

Yep.

Love it.

I just sent that out like right before I hopped on this call.

I just want to say something on this. Uh, we have fear around long emails. Doesn't mean that people don't read them. Right. The importance is you want to make it super scannable. Right. So if you're doing a listicle, like the first couple words of each listicle is bolded and there's lots of space between everything. And it's very clear. Here's what this section's about. And here's what this section's about. And here's what this section's about. So people want to read the whole thing. They can. But also if they want to just like kind of scan through and be like, oh, I, I see where she's going with this. Than they can. So there's a way to do that visually that's really helpful for people.

Okay, cool.

But you'd be shocked. Like what people will sit down and read.

Okay, good to know.

Especially if they're avoiding work. I'll read anything.

Yeah. Or if they felt really connected to you also.

Yeah.

There was one, one creator who. I'm forgetting their name. Right. Now, but they would send these really long emails. Like if you were to copy and paste it into a Google Doc, it would like seven pages.

Yeah, mine was like three pages and I was like, oh, God, this is insane.

Yeah, don't. Don't worry about that. And also remember, this is your first whack. You can send it back to me and we can cut it down.

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Cool.

All right.

What else are we celebrating today?

This is a bit of a preemptive celebration, but I had a consulting company reach out to me about potentially working together in the future. So what. What they do is they help businesses scale up their revenue so that they, they can then hire coaches. And I really connected with the, the owner of the company. And one of the things she said is, we don't have someone like you. She goes, your niche is pretty specialized. She goes. So we did some more informational. But I'm celebrating that somebody found me because, hey, we don't have someone like you and for potential to work together in the future.

Awesome. No, that's huge. That's absolutely huge. And that tells me that you're doing a really good job. Banging the drum about, here's who I am and here's who I help and here's what we do, and here's who I am and here's who I help and here's what we do.

Yeah.

Awesome. Wanted to just do a quick announcement before we dive into Q and A today. I just posted an announcement in Heartbeat. Um, next week I'm actually signed up for a seminar during the morning. So some of the call times are changing for next week. Monday, Sprint will be moved back two weeks to the fourth week where we don't normally have a Sprint. Brave Biz Labs is going to be at 1pm in the afternoon Eastern time and then the co working session is going to be immediately after at 2pm and we don't have this call next week, so nothing changes there. Sales lab is going to be on the same day. Nothing else changes. But just wanted to make sure you guys saw that. What questions do we have today?

I know I have a question, but I don't have. I don't know. I don't. I don't know if it's ready yet. I guess. Yeah, I think it's maybe more about. I. I don't think I'm ready. Can someone else go?

Okay, who wants to go?

I have a. An interesting question of like, do we take side quests and if so, how many is too many? What I mean by that? Is I've gotten a lot of, like, engagement. I posted or commented on something and I got a massive amount of engagement. And this was all like, interns and people trying to interview at Amazon, which I have a decade at Amazon, so I know how that works. But I have all these people now asking for, do you have any tips? Do you have any help? Do you have any this. That could be a whole side job. I know people actually do that as a job, but I'm like, do I capitalize on that or do I just kind of like, put some good karma out there and leave that alone?

Yeah, yeah. So you want to follow the trail. Sui vais le piste. Follow the trail of where that would lead, if it would lead to business. Sure. And like, side quests can come in all shapes and sizes. Like, I'm doing a side quest right now where I'm volunteering my time and expertise for a political campaign. Right. It's already leading to business. Right. Because I'm getting in front of a ton of people. Awesome. Right? Interns and people just wanting their first job. Does that lead to you getting business?

No, I was more thinking about helping people in the, like, preparation, interview phases. I was thinking more promotion that could lead into a whole thing. Right. But I don't know how much time I want to spend there. And it's actually, it's. Unless I have to almost like carve it back into, like, how to work on promotion without getting burnout, like, to kind of bring it back to, like, my business. That's why it seems like a total side quest.

Yeah. So here's the thing about when people come to you and they're like, hey, can you help me with this specific thing? They don't want you to make it about what you also do. Right?

Yeah.

Like, they want help with their problem and they're asking you. It's like, hey, like, I know you build dining room tables, but can you come in and redo my bathroom? Like, you're not also wanting a dining room table?

Yeah.

Right. So you absolutely can say, hey, I do like a three session package where we, like, identify your strengths, we go through all the stuff, we prep you for the interview, and then we, like, you know, do the. Whatever the next stage is. And it's, I don't know, a thousand, fifteen hundred dollars?

Yeah.

You know, and if you wanted to sign up for it, like, here's the link. And you're not doing a sales call. You're just like, here's how you. Here's what you can pay for. And I'm happy to guide you through this. You know, there's nothing wrong with that, especially early on in your business, especially if you're not advertising it. Right. Because you know there's a stage in the beginning of the business where it's like, money. Yes, thank you, I'll take more money. Yes, thank you. That ends fairly quickly because we don't want our business to die of canduitis. But there's nothing wrong with having like, if people are asking you for help with a very specific problem. There's nothing wrong with you saying, hey, I've actually gotten so many requests for this that I put together this little three part coaching package that's way more affordable than my normal work. And I walk you through exactly how you can do this, this and this, and it'll help you interview better at Amazon. That's totally an option.

Yeah, that's a good idea actually.

Yeah. But I would set it up in acuity where it's like paid in full. Right. And they get three sessions and that's it. And maybe some email, like they can email you a question or something in between if they have anything.

Yeah, awesome. Thank you.

Yeah, of course. What other questions do we have?

I have one. So I, I woke up this morning with like this pang of anxiety of having invested in this. I'm in the process of now doing the market research, doing the things that I can control, but I have this intense desire to generate enough revenue to pay for this so that I'm not in debt. Because right now I'm in debt.

Right.

And so what's, what are some things that you could help me with that would be the fastest path to revenue? If that's just doing more market research interviews faster, great. But if there's something else, then I'm open to suggestions.

Yeah. So number one is as you're going through market research interviews, if anyone's like, hey, I think I could use help with this, or like what you're talking about, like, yeah, do you have anything I can sign up for now? Just say yes. And it helps a lot if you have the Acuity payment link all set up and if you have an agreement all set up. Because like, here's what happens when people are like, oh, I want to work with you and we don't have it set. We're like, ah, sure, okay, let's. Let me get back to you on that. And then time kills deals. Like that is. I want you all to all remember that time kills deals. So if you have all that set up, you can say, oh cool. Well, that's not really the purpose of this call. And we don't really have time. Why don't we do this? I have this time and this time available tomorrow. Why don't we hop on for like 20 or 30 minutes and really talk about what you'd want to accomplish through coaching. And I'm happy to design something custom to you. Right. Because like you're still designing your program.

Right, right.

And so you always, I want you to imagine like you have a very picky eater kid who like, if the gravy touched the peas or the mashed potatoes, you can't like, you have to just throw them out. They're never going to eat them. So like you have to have the, the market research calls in one Tupperware container and it can't get contaminated by other stuff. And then you have to have the sales call in another container. Can't get contaminated by anything else. Okay. That's what keeps it very, very clean. And like it wasn't a trick to a sales call. Right.

Okay.

And it also helps you really understand what they want because when you're doing a market research interview, you're being very selfish with what information you want to know. And like, yes, you're getting a lot of what they would want, but on a sales call you're getting slightly different information. Right.

Can I ask one follow up question? So if they didn't explicitly say, yes, I want to work with you, how long should I wait before going back to them and saying, hey, seems like there was a potential fit here. I'd like to see if you're interested in talking about doing some coaching.

I would actually do it on the call at the very, very end. I'd say, hey, this was not the point of this, but what you're talking about is exactly what I work on. And I don't know about you, but I like, I really connect with you. And if you're ever looking for a coach to help you with this stuff, I personally would love to work with you. Right. You just start up, you just, you just offer that up.

Right.

And if they're like, yeah, I would, I would love to, to talk about that, you say, okay, cool. Like, of course, like this is not the point of this call, but do you want to set up a separate time to talk about what that looks like?

Right, right.

And then you set up that, that sales call, that strategy call.

Okay.

Okay.

You like full permission as you're going through your market research interviews. If you're really Connecting with someone and you hear like a lot of need and a lot of pain and a lot of desire for what it is that you do with your clients. Full permission to go for it, you know, and also full permission to start marketing what you do right from go for you. It's a little trickier because you are dancing between two niches, which is going to slow you down, you know, so, like, the choice is really yours if you want to just like choose one to go with and then dance with the universe and see what shows up. Right.

Yeah, I can't. I haven't been able to get myself to a place of full, full committal, which I think is a problem. But it's because I think I need the market research to see what I'm gonna even like. Like, there's one woman I found that does sobriety coaching for women. So I reached out to her and I said, hey, I am thinking about maybe offering something like this to men. Would you like to talk? She wrote me back right away and wants to talk, but I don't. Yeah, I don't know yet. I wish I knew.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I, I'm just thinking cash wise, the drop off around. Sorry, I just want to make sure. Okay, cool. So we'll make sure that if you have any questions, we'll get to you before you drop off. So you want to cash wise, like the easier sell is always something with career.

Okay.

Usually the thing that people are most willing to admit that they need help with, it's usually the thing that they're already aware that they have a problem with that they're willing to admit that they want help with. Variety might be a longer thing, you know, because that's really tough conversation to have with yourself around. Oh, I think we have a problem or I think we're slipping towards having a problem. Or you keep trying up and it keeps like, you keep like getting a weekend and then you start drinking again. Yeah. You know, not to say that there's not a market there, but it just, it might be longer, you know, and this is just my, my take on this. It, you could do the market research and start marketing it and I could be completely wrong. Right, But I don't know if you are.

I, I, there seems to be some creators in the space that are, have like huge followings and then there's a lot that don't. And, but I worry about having diluted messages in both areas because I haven't picked Elaine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, as a general rule of thumb, if people think that they can do it on their own or I think that they should be able to do it on their own. It's a harder sell for them to sign up for coaching.

Okay.

Right. And they're far more likely to sign up for something that's lower ticket.

Right, Right.

So it, it might end up being something that like, you'd go like the career path. And then as you're growing your, your client base and as you're growing your audience is an as you're. And as you're. And as you're. It becomes kind of like the lens of which you look through things. You know, it's like, you know, yeah, you want to, you want to transform your career, but like, you know, to what end? Like, what do you want your life to look like? And is alcohol helping you? You know, for some of my clients, part of our journey is that they want to dial back on, on the drinking, you know, and then it could be a lower ticket thing that you do that's kind of like a side quest, but it's related to your overall brand, you know, My point being is that you don't have to build both at the same time. They can both happen, but they don't have to happen at the same time. If you don't want to be in debt, then I say pick a lane and devote all your energy to that because you are going to go slower if you're trying to figure out two.

Yeah, I'm feeling that. So that's, that's helpful. Thank you for sure.

Yvonne, want to make sure you get a chance to ask any questions. Is there anything.

No, I, I did want to add something to Jason if, if it's helpful at all. Two things. One, don't get discouraged by the jerks out there. I think one thing that helps me and Katie, you've said this too, is imagine the people who need your help and so don't quit because of them. Right. Like, there are people out there who need your help. And I'm always surprised by the people who message me who are like, thank you so much for bringing up this topic because I'm drowning in burnout. But just like drinking burnout has some shame around it. So I'm dealing with a similar issue. So I'm curious how you're thinking about your messaging about sober curious because I've even seen. We talked about the one year no beer guy and the thing, the reason he became super popular. It's not aa. You don't have to quit drinking forever. It's not A black and white. It's more of the, do you. How do you want to survive the next 28 days without a drink? Or how do you go to that event without drinking? Or can you drink non alcoholic beer? Is that okay? So it's. I think sometimes people are afraid of the, like, I'm not ready to commit or their shame around it. That doesn't mean they're not out there. I think they just take a little longer to come along.

Yeah. Yeah. There's so much. There's so many, like, weapons that get thrown at us as we're going, you know, dealing with our own demons. You know, it could be a spouse being like, really, you're having another. You know, it could be like not remembering the night before and thinking, oh, shit, like, I'm gonna turn into one of my parents who had a drinking problem. You know, it's. So whenever we're in a space that could cause shame, we want to be very careful about our messaging, especially for landing people's dms. Right. So for instance, if you're a weight loss Coach, you're not DMing people saying, hey, do you want to lose weight? Because what if they hadn't eaten? Like, you have just triggered the fuck out of them. You could cause them to relapse.

Yeah.

Because it, like, they don't have a defense to that. They don't have a defense in their dms, you know, versus when they're seeing stuff and it's like targeted to them. So they don't know if you're like, going through their pictures and be like, this person needs to lose weight. Right. So we want to just think through, like, what are the repercussions of us reaching out? You know, and couldn't trigger something for someone. Could it make them feel like, the way they feel when their spouse is criticizing them or when their kids are like, oh, daddy, do you. You didn't remember to come to my thing. Right?

Yeah. Career pivot is definitely less of that.

Yeah, exactly. You know, and in the background. Doesn't mean that you can't share your own story. It doesn't mean that you can't talk about the impact, the positive impacts of like, of not drinking anymore. You know, you get to build that into your brand. Very much like I have built in ADHD into my brand. It's a huge lens. But it's also like, I don't just have ADHD clients. I have clients who are also neurotypical. Right. But it's just like, I'm very, very easily accessible for people who have ADHD, PhD. That makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah.

And also know that, like, you can start making money with the wrong niche. I did it myself. Started making money as a dating coach. Didn't end up a dating coach. Made money as an executive coach, didn't end up an executive coach long term. And then I'm here. You know, just because it's the wrong niche doesn't mean that, like, you're going to waste time and not make any money. You can absolutely make money at the wrong niche. Okay.

Yeah.

But, yeah, it's. It's. And it's one of the reasons why we want to point to. To Yvonne's point. Like, there's. There's shame around burnout, which, you know, of course, we think is silly because it's like, it's just something that happens, but we want to point to what's the stuff that's actually happening in their life that they can point to and be like, this is the problem. Even though we know it's not actually the problem. Yeah, my boss is an. I have to work too many hours. Nah, let's bring it back. Cool.

Yep. Cool.

What other questions do we have? Yes, Rachel.

Okay. I'm just. I'm just thinking what's a lot right now. I mean. Yeah, that. That piece I definitely am going to want your feedback on. I need to. I think my goal is to get it to a final draft place today. But one thing that I might just need, like, actual coaching on, so. But I'm gonna bring it here anyways is I'm having trouble. I'm realizing that I'm moving so slowly and. Sorry, that was a cat. I don't know if you heard the meow, but, yeah, I'm moving so slowly, and I'm realizing that I, Like, I haven't been in touch with the vision. And if I'm being honest, I actually don't even really fully know what my vision is right now.

And.

Like, I trust that it'll come, but at the same time, it's like, how do I stay motivated when I don't have a team? I'm basically. I'm, like, doing this by myself, you know, Like, I've got a handful of clients, but, like, not that many. And I'm just realizing, like, me not showing up, for me, it impacts my ability to coach. Like. Like, I can just like, see, like, the whole system.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I just feel me like I'm being out of integrity with myself, and I see how it affects my coaching and. And I haven't been in touch with my vision, and I sort of feel like. Like frustrated and. Yeah, I feel frustrated and there's even, like, a little bit of shame.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's. We have this expectation that because we're trained coaches or because we teach on this stuff, that we should be perfect. Right. Which is so far from the truth. Right. You're human and you work with other humans, and of course, like, you have a path, but, like, especially if you're really, like, working on something and you're focused somewhere, you're going to veer off the path and you're like, wait, shit, where am I? I'm lost in the woods for a little minute. Right. But you're always going to find your way back. Right. So my question for you is, how do you recover?

Yeah.

What's your process to recover? Because this is going to happen for years. This is going to happen for as long as you have a business. There's never going to be an answer of, like, here's how you always stay in touch with your vision. That's never going to happen. Okay. I can say I've been at this for six and a half years, and I still have days like that. I still have weeks. Like, I have months like that sometimes. Right. And so. But it's all in the recovery. It's all in the how do you bring yourself back?

Yeah.

Right. So I want you to try something, and I want you all to do this. Okay? So I want you to put your hand over your heart. And, Yvonne, if you have to drop off, I understand. And I want you to imagine you're taking this ball of light that's in your mind, it's your consciousness, and you're drawing it down, down through your skull, past your jawline, down your neck, and you're planting it firmly in your heart center. And I want you to remember that your heart center does have neurons. It does have the ability to do thinking and store memories, but it also doesn't have a language center, and it also doesn't have a fear center. Your heart space knows exactly what you're capable of. It knows all the resources that you have available to you. It knows the endless amount of creativity you have access to, and it also sees what's coming your way. So I want you to ask, what is the best way for me to stay connected to my vision and let whatever answer bubbles up, bubble up. What'd you get?

Mine. Like, one of the women that I interviewed that was basically like, I want to work with you. Let's meet and Then we sort of like played phone tag and like, it didn't work and we like, still haven't met. She just came into my awareness. And I think the story that I have about that is because like, when the next steps are obvious and I don't take them, then I feel really stuck. So like, that's like a very obvious next step of like, get that woman on your calendar. You know, have a meeting with her and then. And like, it's like when I don't do what's obvious, then I get really frustrated with myself and then I'm like, I don't know what to do.

Yeah.

So, yeah, so that's just what came is like, take the obvious. The obvious next steps.

I love that. I love that. Yeah. You know, for you, I mean, and for all of you, like, your, your work is about impact, it's about helping people. You know, oftentimes we get all flipped out about like, what am I doing and like, what am I getting out of it and bringing it back to like, whose life are you actually changing? Right? Whose life are you making better with the work that you do? You know, that's also something that's really recentering. But yeah, I love that, that question. What's the next obvious step?

Yeah, and I think also when I'm in this like self doubt place, I feel nervous about like my new pricing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I'm like, okay, well she'd be an amazing client, but what if she says no to my pricing and then I lose the opportunity? And, and also is it even worth that? Like, you know, sort of all the things.

Yeah. So I want you to think about someone else, like your ideal clients and imagine they have an interview coming up for a promotion and imagine they have a day like this of like, oh my God, like I just read that whole article about how to negotiate a hire salary, but like, oh my God, I fucked something up yesterday and then this is going on and like, they're never gonna believe that I'm worth that. So maybe I should settle like for the higher title. You know, when you're feeling like this level of insecure and like you're starting to question everything, like, let's shift it into like when that stuff comes up for your ideal clients. Right? Because like, it's such a great place for you to access all those emotions and write about it and create content that's actually empathetic marketing for your ideal clients. Right? Because when you're like jovial and happy and laughing and you find everything charming and Funny. It's really hard to write about shame.

Yeah, right.

And when you're in shame, it's really hard to write about the happy stuff. So instead, like, when you're happy, write about the dream. Write about what people want and the impact and all the inspirational stuff that you, that you can come up with. And when you feel like shit, write about feeling like shit and make it relevant to your clients.

You know, and.

And we don't have to be perfect. Our clients don't want us to be perfect. Okay. If we can say, hey, I help people with this every fucking day of my life and I still struggle with it myself. Like, oh my God, I feel so much safer coming to you and admitting that I have this problem. You know, you're not holier than thou, you're not perfect. And I'm not going to be embarrassed admitting that I am like a up human that has this problem. It makes a huge difference.

Yeah. Okay.

That help?

Yeah, I just have, I feel like it's like. And I'm like, but then what about this? You know, I just have like all, like all the self doubt is coming out in all the ways right now.

So. Yeah, yeah.

But that's helpful. Thank you.

So here's, here's an exercise I want you to do on your own. I want you to do a shame inventory. And I think I've talked about this before. Remind me if I have.

I don't think so.

So when you do a shame inventory, I want you to set a timer for like five or 10 minutes. And you're literally going to make a list of everything that you feel shame around. And I want you to be very specific. You're going to literally write out the sentence. You're going to be very specific with how you're starting the sentence. So it's either I have shame on or I feel shame of or with I feel about. Whatever the grammar is. We don't want to say I'm ashamed. We don't want to like reinforce to our subconscious that like, shame is part of our identity.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And you list off a bunch of stuff and like, weird shit's going to come out. Stuff that you're like, I don't even feel ashamed about that. I don't know why that came out. But then something's going to come and be like, oh my God, this is the thing. Right. And. And then we can unpack it from there. But start with that.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Of course. And don't do more than 10 minutes or else you're going to get really fucked up.

It's dangerous.

Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Good enough.

Okay, cool.

What else do we have today? What questions?

Yes, Monica, I would like some help on verbiage on how to. Structure messages to my client that reschedules very often.

Yeah.

And I have to remind them, hey, you know, you don't have anything booked. Get something booked also like the, you know, the meetings don't roll over. I don't want you to lose your meetings and all of that. And I'm feeling a bit like a broken record. So I'm like, I just need to re. Focus on, I guess I don't, I don't know, just help with verbiage on how to get them to schedule and not reschedule.

Yeah. So here's something that I want to train you all on. It's not your job to make your clients use what they're paying for. It's not your job. There's a customer service aspect of this and then there's also a managing your own time aspect of this. So like I would in your next session with them, have a conversation and say, hey, I'm noticing that two things are happening. One, we're, we're rescheduling our sessions a lot. And just want to remind you there is a 24 hour cancellation or reschedule policy. So just want to make sure that we're considering that in our rescheduling. But also I'm noticing that sometimes like you're not utilizing all your sessions. So I was thinking, would it be helpful if we were to just set up like a standing every other week session so that way you're for sure going to have the sessions on your calendar. Right. Because how many sessions do you do per month?

Yep.

Perfect. Yeah, so we'll do every other week. And that way you're not losing sessions if you don't utilize. If, you know, if you forget to schedule one month and what's a time that's safe that you generally won't have to reschedule on? You know, so you're doing it in their favor. It's less about like you being annoyed because I would get annoyed with that too. So. And it's more about making sure that they're holding themselves accountable to what they signed up for. I will also name that. This is typically also a sign that you, you might be charging too little.

Okay.

Right. Because if someone's blowing it off, if someone's just like, eh, whatever, like they're, they don't have skin in the game. That's not skin in the game behavior.

Okay.

Right.

Okay.

I had a client show up with the stomach flu to a zoom call, and I'm like, what are you doing? What are you, like one on one client? She's like, well, it was. It was within the 20. Like, I'm not a monster.

Go be sick.

We can reschedule. Go away. Go take care of yourself. You know, but like, that's skin in the game behavior, you know? You know, that's like, I'm gonna, like, make sure I have saltines and ginger ale and all the stuff and hope I don't bar from my computer. Yes. You know? Yeah.

Okay.

So something to think about.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

And it might also just be something that you set up with your clients. It's a standard. Every other week. We set a regular time. You know, you can also just say so your schedule doesn't get tuned out. So you could say, I work with clients on Tuesdays and Thursdays or Mondays and Tuesdays, and we'll set a regular time. And, you know, you can reschedule, but you do need to reschedule like a minimum of X amount of hours beforehand. Yeah. And then you just go from there. Right. Yeah, we. We really train our clients on how to behave with us. Right. So like the first thing we do, like the first time, they're like, oh, my God, you know, I got double booked. Can I reschedule?

Of course.

We want to be nice, but remember, you're training them on what's acceptable behavior. Right. So if you're like, okay, cool, like, totally understand. Like, you weren't. You weren't expecting this. Happy to make an exception this time, but just want to remind you there is a 24 hour cancellation policy, you know, in place. So happy to make an exception once, but going forward, if. If there is late notice, like, unfortunately, we're just going to have to lose the call.

Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Mm. It's not comfortable, but it's necessary or else you're just gonna have to be chasing people down. And that's not fun either.

Yeah. Yeah.

I had a client who signed up with me, I think, like in 2021, 2022. And she signed up for. This is back when I did six month engagements for one on one coaching, and she signed up for six months and she signed up for monthly payments and she used two sessions, you know, and if you. If you did the math, those two sessions were $4,000 each. Right. And she didn't. And I followed up with her. And I followed up with her. When it ended, I like, canceled the payments because I'm like, I don't want to keep charging you, you know, and said, hey, listen, like, happy to honor all these sessions. You have until X amount of time. She's like, great, thank you. Never use them. Never. Also never asked for her money back. Never complained. You know, she didn't have the skin in the game. Yeah, that's why I raised my rates then. So. Yeah, good enough.

Yes.

Thank you.

What other questions do we have today?

Do you have a standard contract template that you would recommend that we work from?

Legally, I can't. That would be me practicing law without a law degree.

Okay.

Big no. No. So what I would recommend is posting in Heartbeat, asking if anyone else has found one. Okay. They're willing to share. You can also, like Google Online. There are a lot of just standard agreements you went through. What was the program that you went through?

The coach training Canada Coach Academy.

Yeah. Reach out to your community there and just say, does anyone have a standard thing that I, you know, could borrow the language on?

Okay.

You know, there's, we don't want to play lawyers for ourselves, but we all do it in the beginning, you know, and so like, as soon as you can't afford it, obviously hire a lawyer to draft up a contract that'll protect you. But also for coaching, it's, it's not a high litigation field and it's more high. It's higher litigation in the U.S. right. But I mean, like your, your business policies that you're going to have in there are payment terms, what your cancellation policy is. You know, so it's a six month engagement, no cancellation, you know, whatever. And then after six months, it might go to month to month, whatever you choose for it to be. And then you want to list out like, what they're getting. And we're not talking like you're gonna get coaching on transformation and this and that, because you don't, you can't control that. You can't control that in the session. Like, if they don't come to you with a problem along those lines, you're not coaching on it. So you want to be clear, like you get two sessions a month, you get on demand, you get this. Right.

Okay.

Yeah, that makes sense.

It's one of those limitations that I wish I could help on, but I, I legally just can't.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, And really, I mean, David Fryman, he's an American lawyer, so he does offer a special deal to my clients for Contracts. I mean, he can't do a Canadian contract, but his wife is Canadian. And it might be worth reaching out to him and asking if he knows any Canadian lawyers who.

I actually know a lawyer that can probably help me if.

Yeah, okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Cool. Does that help?

Yeah, yeah.

But you know that there's nothing wrong. I mean, this is my non lawyer perspective. I never had a problem with the, the agreement that I wrote myself.

Okay.

So, you know, all right.

But again, this is not legal advice. This is.

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

Here's how you kind of like, you know, fake it till you make it until advice deal.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

What other questions do we have?

For my audit analytics stuff, I've been doing some work pulling together some material for a potential course that I'm building out and I ran into a new standard that's being rolled out by the iia. The International Internal Audit.

Yeah, folks.

And I guess in my favor.

Right.

So this, this new standard basically says that all of these internal audit departments need to put together a strategy and how they're using technology. And so I'm like, so how do I put myself out there without being like, hey, this is required. Hire me. Or like, is that the right approach? Or I don't want to be like, do that.

It's the law, like around it. What's like, what's gonna happen to them if they don't do it? Yeah, penalties. I'm asking.

I, I haven't got into the penalties yet. Yeah. Like, I just found this out like this week. So I was like, oh my gosh, maybe I can leverage this.

I got you posting about this two times a week. Okay, okay. And fear, like, don't. Because it is something to be afraid of. It is something that, like, you're not creating false insecurity, you're not creating false scarcity or, or false sense of fear. It's like, like, this is now the law.

Okay.

You don't have this. Here's what's gonna happen. You know, you could lose your accreditation here. You could have to pay this penalty. You could do this, like, if you like that stuff stuff, go for it. But also know that I work with my clients to create exactly this strategy. And I have availability coming up in September, October for X amount of clients to help them come up with a plan. Okay. Right. And then to book a call if you need to. If you need this, you know, and also point to what is it about you that makes you so qualified to help them through this.

Yeah.

You know, you can point to Helping people do this before is even something that the government was aware could be possible.

Yep.

Right.

Yeah.

And just bang that drum and email everyone that you know who is in audit. You know, you could also, you know, you speak at a lot of events, reach out to the event organizers and ask them, hey, listen, this is something that just came out in audit. I know you have a lot of clients and a lot of participants that are going to be impacted by this. I'm actually rolling out a whole workshop on, like, what they need to know. Do you want to. I'm happy to do this virtually for your people if you want to launch it to your list.

Okay.

Right. And then you're going through. Here's what you need to know about the new requirements. Right. And then you're. But you're not solving it for them. You're not helping them solve it for themselves. You're just saying, like, and here's what's going to happen if you don't have. And by the way, if anyone, like, needs help with this, I've been doing this since before this was even something the government was aware of. Yeah. You know, and I'm offering like a free, like 15 minute strategy call to, like, see what, you know, what might need to be done internally. And then if you need help with it externally, if your team's already at, you know, bursting point, burnt out, can't take on more, I do have some availability coming up.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's huge.

I want to try to incorporate some fun messaging in there too. And I'll, I'll think about that. Just because I don't want to be like, this is the law. You need to abide by the law. Because that's why, that's why I kind of like teeter of being in audit and then having to get out because it's like so draining to be like, you need to follow the law. Like, and here's, here's what I want.

You to do then. Whenever you're writing about something like this, I want you to use, like, gifts and memes from. Yeah, like over the top movies about the law. Right. So Men in Black, like, you're in violation of, you know, of universal code 7663, you know.

Okay.

And then like, what's that movie with Tim Allen for Richer poor where the IRS is like, chasing them down with a gun? Okay, IRS doesn't do, obviously. But like, anything that is ridiculous and out there, that's how you can make it fun.

Okay, I like that. All right.

Yeah. And you can say, obviously the government's not going to come after you for not having a technology plan, but, you know, I like this.

Yeah.

Okay. I like that idea. Thank you.

Awesome. What other questions do we have?

So right now for the market research phase that I'm in, I've been recording the calls because I have a difficult time paying attention and listening and typing at the same time. Okay, so what's the. What's the best strategy for actually now taking that information and building some sort of actionable list or something for the nuggets that I want to pull out?

Yeah. So I would recommend using a tool like Otter AI or some kind of transcription tool. And then I would, if I were you, I would manually go through and clean up the US Oz and like, the weird grammar, because it's like, even if you show it to me, I'm not even going to be able to read it as it is as a basic transcription. Clean it up. Don't. Don't reword stuff. Don't, like, rephrase it into your expert speak. But, like, clean it up. So it makes. It's like a logical sentence. Right, Right. And I would honestly copy and paste it into a document. Like, make it very clear. Here's the question you ask, and here's their answer.

Right.

And you can go through and highlight, like, the important parts of the answer.

Right, Right.

Yeah. Like, one of the phrases that she used today on the call was about knowing when it's time to leave the party.

Yeah.

Which I thought was a really nice line that wouldn't have been words that I would have used. But when I heard it, I was like, oh, I know exactly what you mean.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you know, when you hear stuff like that, you can say, oh, my God, that's such a great way of describing it. What's the feeling underneath it? Like, give me an example of, like, what's your fear if you stay too long? You know, what are you afraid of if you do leave too early?

Yeah.

Because the point of market research is, like, we, like, we're really good at coming up with metaphors for what we do because we have a very deep understanding of what we do. We want to get in touch with, like, the raw, real language that our clients are actually using, you know, And I love that metaphor. I think it's something that, like, your ideal clients will get, but we also want to explain it in their words.

Yeah, right.

Yeah. Like, she used the term itchy feet. She was like, when I. When I stay in someplace too long, I get itchy. Feet.

Yeah.

Like, I just needed to move.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And like, how does that show up day to day? How does that impact how she shows up at work and in her relationships? You know, the reason I stress, like, typing while they're talking is honestly a. Because it helps you capture it in a way that you can read it after the fact that. But also it. You're going to be quiet while you're typing because you're going to be catching up with what they're saying. Because none of us can type really as fast as people talk.

Right.

And so people, like, more silent time to fill in and explain what they just said, you know, so maybe I'll.

Try it with a friendly.

Yeah, yeah. So, like, even if you're not typing, I would just stay with silent longer, you know, or say, oh, tell me more about that. Yeah, right.

Okay, cool.

But yeah, like, logistically, I would. I would upload it into something like Otter AI, Transcribe it, go through and clean it up so it's easier for you to pull information out of and then we can map it out from there. And honestly, like, you don't even have to really go through and map it out in a really formal way. Like, literally, what I do with my market research interviews is when I'm creating content, I'll open up three, look through the problems and look through the hopes. Copy and paste stuff into a document. And those are my prompts.

Right. Because that's the point of the market research, is the prompts for the writing. Right?

Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah. And after a while, you just get to know it so well that when you go to write something, you know exactly what your clients are struggling with. It's not something that you have to constantly refer back and be like, is this what Janice said? You know what Janice said? You know what she's struggling with? You know, Chandler keeps dumping her and she's really upset. Friends reference. Anyway, Does that help?

Yeah.

Actually, I don't know if Chan. If Janice got dumped by Chandler, I thought she. Never mind. Not important. Any final. Any final questions before we run out of time?

I just want to add to that in that. With the market research. Yes. You want to pull out the actual verbiage. That's like top notch, but like, for the. Describe yourself in five words and describe your not self in five words. So what I did was I take all of my notes and I have them in my Google Drive and you have access to Gemini through Google Drive. So I scrubbed out, like, everyone's names and all of that. And then ran that document through Gemini to pull out trends of like those top five verbs or adjectives or whatever. And that was helpful for me and not having to go through like 50 interviews and try to figure out the trends on myself.

That's actually a great call out. Absolutely. Yeah. Because I mean, if, if 30% even of the interviews use the same two or three words, those are the words you're using to describe your ideal clients. That's going to be on your website, that's going to be in your LinkedIn profile. That's going to be in most of your posts. Like most of my clients describe themselves as.

Right. What's interesting is like, the women that I'm interviewing are telling me that they really want freedom and work life balance. And the one guy that I interviewed was like, I don't care about work life balance at all. So there's like an interesting thing there. I don't know. I. I don't have a lot of the only male friends that I have are like jiu jitsu friends. Like, that's my group of guys that I hang out with. I have a more difficult time connecting with that audience than I do with.

Yeah, it's.

But, but I don't want to market my. I don't. It's weird. I don't know.

Yeah. So I mean, there's who you market yourself to and there's who's want. Who wants to do business with you. I ran into this dating coach. I wanted to be a dating coach for men. I got one dude and eight women.

Right.

Dudes did not want to hire me to be their dating coach.

Right, Right.

It changed as I moved into executive leadership coaching and then into business building. Now I have a pretty like, split. But you don't, you don't control, like what gender, what, you know, demographics choose, like connect with you, feel safe with you, feel like they want to connect with you.

That's true.

So this is part of that dance of the universe that we were talking about.

Okay. Yeah.

So you might just end up working with women. You might end up. And you don't necessarily have to. To market it that way. Like, I'm a dude woman. But you know, in the language that you use, if you're speaking about the problems that your clients struggle with, a lot of it's going to be, be from the feminine experience. Okay, Right. And you know, the feminine experience is like, there's a lot of expectation on being able to balance work and life and all the responsibilities that we have in both. You know, that is unique to the, the feminine experience. Because men, men don't get asked like, oh, who takes care of the kids while you're at work? You know?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I gotta run. I have another call starting right now.

Thank you so much.

See you later. All right, Monica, take away from today.

I, I like what Rachel said in. When she said what did. Oh, take the obvious steps?

Yeah.

I don't, I don't know what that quite means for me yet, but I don't know why that stuck out at me. And then what you said in that we need to. We are basically like training our clients how to work with us. And I'm. When you said that, I was like, oh, did I already, like, mess up? Because I've been working with my client for like a while. But.

Oh, no. And it's something that happens over time. I had, I had a client just if you have a couple minutes. Um, I had a client who had a baby during our work together. So we planned a maternity leave. And then of course, she had a newborn. So, like, there was stuff that was outside of her control. And I was a lot more lax with her on my cancellation policy. And then, and then I got a text saying, hey, I have a chance to play tennis today at our time, so I want to reschedule. And then I had to have a conversation around like, hey, like, you know, I'm very flexible usually with, with our rescheduling because, you know, it's usually stuff that's outside of your control with the baby. But for stuff like this, I do have to stick to my, my 24 hour cancellation policy. And she totally understood.

Yeah.

You know, but it's, it's something. We're humans working with other humans. It's going to be imperfect. And, you know, it's, it's, it's renegotiating what the boundaries are, which we have to do in relationships anyway.

Yeah, right.

We have to do it with our animals too. You know, not effectively.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, Cool.

And then, and then also, you know, in your onboarding call, you know, you can, in your onboarding call, you're really going through and like, showing people, like, here's what our relationship looks like. Here's what you can expect from me. And, you know, here's the cancellation policy. I do make exceptions for these kinds of things, but in general, it is a 24 hour, you know, and then of course, if someone's like, oh, someone died. Oh, I'm sick. Oh, someone died. Then you're like, okay, like, we need to have a talk about either your health, the health of your family, or do you actually want to do this?

Yeah. Yeah.

Because remember, at the end of the day, if you're chasing down clients to. Who've already bought from you and aren't utilizing their sessions, that's taking away from the time that you're. You could be using in getting new clients and creating marketing assets and all that stuff.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

Cool.

Cool.

All right. Awesome. Cool. So I will see you on Friday. And you know how to find.

Sounds good.

All right. Bye, Monica.