Build Your Coaching Business with Ease w/ Greg Faxon

Welcome back to the Profit Your Knowledge podcast. Today is going to be an action-packed episode. I'm incredibly honored to have today's guest. We have Greg Faxon, who is a coach, mentor, and friend of mine. And, uh, I was in his full client roster program, which I'm sure we'll talk more about, um, today. But in the first, like, 2 weeks or so, I ended up enrolling a $5,000 client. So now I get to have Greg on the podcast and we get to talk about filling up your own client roster so you can get a deep dive into Greg's mind and whatnot. And I just love how, how simple he puts things. There was like so many ahas of like every time you say something, I'm like, God, this guy's a genius and you just simplify the process. And I think that was like probably my biggest takeaway. So honored to have you here, man. How you doing?

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, dude. So I wanted to dive into kind of just talking about like finding your coaching niche, which a lot of people struggle with. And I know you've written many different blog posts on this. I'd love to kind of hear about a little bit more about your story and hear a time when you really started to find this as your niche with helping people kind of fill up their client rosters. Like, what made you really decide to get into that?

I like that as a place to start because oftentimes people will see, all right, Greg is sort of a business coach for coaches. He probably didn't start there and what were the evolutions. And so I'll try to keep it relatively concise, but it should help people see that there is not one decision where you go outside, you look at the stars, you dig deep into your soul and you choose your coaching niche, right? No, it's going to happen in chapters. So when I started out, I was 23, was working at a marketing consulting firm. The long story short, did not want to keep being an employee, did not want to keep working there. And I knew I'd always been interested in personal development. So I was like, I heard about this thing called life coaching. I went to my girlfriend, I was like, maybe I should be a life coach. She laughed in my face, which is understandable. So I was like, I just graduated college.

She's like, you're kidding, right?

Who's going to hire a life coach who's so young? He hasn't lived a lot of life. And so I was always a little insecure about that. But then I was like, you know what? It does feel right to me, you know? And so I started writing, I started doing workshops, and I really realized if you give stuff away, for free, that can become your credibility. It's like, if, if you help me, it almost doesn't matter anymore, like, what your profile is, because you're credible to me now. And when I started out, it was a lot of generalist life coaching. It was a lot of, like, productivity, uh, career, like, align your career with what you're passionate about, um, and a lot of, like, positive psychology, like, well-being, happiness mixed all together. Were what the early workshops were. And I got a few people to hire me just by at the end of the workshop inviting people to have a strategy session, which is one of the things that I teach, a strategy session invite, complimentary call, and then you can talk about if they're a fit, how you would work together. So it started off very general life coach. I would say mostly career coaching, if I had to put it into a niche, is what people ended up paying for within that. And because I had gone through a process of what am I passionate about, what, and starting to explore that, I could at least teach a couple steps back for people who are like, I hate my job, but I have no idea. What I want to be doing. Excuse me. So that's where it started. I realized that I loved working with people around career who were becoming entrepreneurs, wanted to become entrepreneurs, or already had a business because of course that's part of my DNA. So I was sort of learning that as I went. So then it became sort of like, how do you take something you're passionate about, start making money from it, which is what I had just done. Again, one step back. And then I was like, all right, I really love working with the inner game of entrepreneurship. Like I'd always loved performance psychology and I was like, I can't help these people who have bigger businesses than me, like exactly on the marketing and the business side, but I know that I can help them on performance, productivity, mindset, overcoming fears, self-doubt that they have. So that's where I was credible within the niche I wanted to get into with entrepreneurs. At that point, it was a couple of years in and I had started generating— I kind of hit that six-figure mark for revenue. Obviously not all that's profit, but for revenue. And then I had people coming to me saying, how are you getting clients, especially when you're so young? And I started taking on some clients who were coaches, which I was very resistant of at the beginning because it felt meta. It felt like pyramid scheme to be coaching coaches. But I started to do it. I enjoyed it. People started getting a bunch of clients. I was like, all right, some of what I'm doing is working. And I had one conversation with a mentor who said, you know, Greg, I feel like you're sort of resisting this niche that's coming naturally to you now. You're good at it, you're getting results, which is helping people get coaching clients. What if you just leaned into that? And in that conversation, I decided, all right, let me just go all in, even if it's just for a year or two, trying to systematize what's worked for me. At the very least, it'll make me better in my business because I'll be writing down what I'm doing for myself. And that's when I went into the coaching coaches niche and helping coaches get clients. And that's how this chapter, which I think is starting to morph into a new chapter now. So, in some ways, I'm coming full circle being interested now around peak performance and spirituality again. And we have a coach running one of our main programs that helps coaches get clients. But that is how my niche has evolved over time. And hopefully, it's helpful for those listening to at least give yourself permission to choose knowing that it's one step in a journey. Not the ultimate final step.

Yeah, I love your story, dude, because every time, every point of the story, I was like, that's literally my story. Like, no joke, because I was 22 when I started and I was in construction work, so it's a little bit different. But I was, I was doing like 6 figures per year just about, and I was 21, 22 years old, and it took me a while to actually like muster up the courage. But I was sitting there just like dreading my job, and then I found like Well, you can actually get paid to like help people with personal development because I got into personal development when I was like 17. I read the book The Four Agreements and changed my life. I like, because I struggled with confidence for so long and that's like, that book helped me not take things personally, not make assumptions and all that stuff was just like building insecurity. So it gave me the tools to really help myself and I was like, you can get paid to like help people work on themselves. Like that's freaking incredible. So I ended up getting into life coaching myself. I got certified and whatnot and I felt so much like a generalist and was working with people, but I felt like a therapist and I was working with people. And I just despised like the work that I was doing, even though I was making good money. It was how I was making the money that didn't align with me. So I was very much like you where I was like, I want to help people with careers in some way. And but I didn't want to be like a career consultant. I just want to help people like find work that they were passionate about and get paid for and be able to be flexible. And then I ended up like testing out a couple of different types of niches and like positioning with the life coaching stuff. And then I found out about like productivity. I learned how to be able to be my own boss and be more efficient with my own personal system. So I started helping people build out like their own workflows and systems like that. And that's where I learned about like online courses and like passive income and that kind of stuff. And it started to work in my life. I'm like, this is freaking crazy. Like, I, like, I've done, you know, $10K calls or $5K calls, and that's amazing to be able to do like a high-ticket call. But for me to make like a passive income sale where I never met the person and make like $200 or $300 was like, holy crap, like this is game-changing. So I do that once, I can do it like thousands of times over again. And, um, yeah, and then I was like talking with clients and I always ask like, what's a win since the last time we spoke? And they were saying, uh, like, oh, this is my win. But then they wanted to know what my win was. And I told them like, oh, I've like made this course and I've been making passive income sales with it. And it's been like really cool. And they're like, that sounds super cool. Like, could you help me with that? And then I started working with them and I'm like, okay, like, yeah, I'll just teach you kind of what I know about it. And then they started to be able to grow their own businesses and be able to put calls through just using more systems in their business. And that's kind of what it evolved to. So that's where I'm at in this chapter of my own life. But it was just such a similar story to hear you say that.

One, one jumping off point from this, because I know you wanted to talk about niching as one of the first steps of getting consistent clients, is something I've been thinking about recently called the list strategy. So what you can do if you're not sure where to start on your niche literally write a list of things and start with like, you want each of the things to be things that you've actually done, you know, things that you actually know how to do because you did them. Like, for example, like, how do you, how do you find someone that you want to marry and build a life together? Like, that's something I've done. All right. Didn't do that. How do you build a six-figure coaching business without being on social media? It's like, all right, I've done that. It's like, how do you build a daily meditation habit? I've done that. So you can start writing down like, okay, here are things that I've accomplished that probably other people would want to accomplish. So just brainstorm a big list and all of those could potentially be niches. So the next filter we have after, have you already achieved it? Have you already done it? Is, are any of those things financially related? It's okay if they're not, but if they are, it's easier to sell money than to sell coaching.

Sure.

So try to, try to choose those. And then the final filter is, are any of those like bleeding neck issues? Like, are they things that like really we want to get solved? Like the person would be— have a high degree of desire or frustration around the thing. If you have something on your list that meets all those three criteria, it could be a great next niche. And the idea is you sort of stack niches, right? So you told me like I started with helping people find work they love. Then there was the passive income thing, but I couldn't have done that from the start. I kind of needed to do it myself first. At the same time, like you needed the first niche to get to the second niche. So you can every 2 to 3 years, I think it's pretty normal for people to evolve and as they've grown, have other people who want to source some of those lessons from them.

Yeah, I think that, I think that like being obsessed with your own niche and the problem that you want to solve for yourself and really like diving into that, like for you is just like, I want to grow my business. So it's like finding how to get clients and you started getting good at it. And you got kind of like obsessed with it in a way, and then you're able to teach other people. And even like, even if someone's just starting out, I think that it's really important to think about a big problem. Like a lot of people have, like you were saying that like list practice or exercise. And I always think like, what's a really big problem that a lot of people face and how can I solve it? Can I passionately solve it? If you look into the problem more and the questions people are asking is like, do you know how to do that? Or would you want to know how to do that and kind of figure it out? For them. Because that's really what business is, whether it's coaching or any kind of business, that we're problem solvers. And that's, that's, I think the biggest thing is like falling in love with a big problem that a lot of people face. And that is like that bleeding neck kind of issue for people. And, um, yeah, like coaches trying to find coaching clients, like that's the biggest question that comes around for people is like, especially if they're new, like where do I start finding clients? Or if they've, you know, been coaching, it's like, where's my next client coming from? It's keeping the consistency going. So it is, such a great niche to fall into.

I think you said something that's important that I want to highlight because I left it out of my original list strategy. You said the word obsession, and I do think that that's important. I think the niche that you're obsessed with will win over the niche that seems most strategic on paper. Like, there's some crazy niches. Like, there's people who help guys, like, quit watching porn. Like, there's, like, things that you'd be like, okay, that doesn't necessarily— it's not a financial thing. Like if you're obsessed with it, then your content's just going to be so much better.

Yeah.

Sometimes people push back on the concept of niching, which I understand because no one wants to feel pigeonholed. We all have many different parts of us, which goes into a different thing that maybe we can talk about, which is like your business doesn't have to be your passion. It doesn't actually have to be your whole life. You can have a life that fills you up besides your business. But I do think that if you're not sure about what your niche is and you find yourself pushing back, like, I don't even like this whole concept. Fine, you don't have a niche, do whatever you want. Just make sure that you're creating content that's helpful. If you do that enough, if you're able to teach what you know because you've done it enough times through content, you're eventually going to find what hits. Even if it's not on one topic, you'll still have people be like, I want help implementing that thing that you just taught in the content. And then you're fine. Over time, you'll realize that becoming known as the go-to person is helpful. It helps you charge higher rates. It helps you get better at the thing. So instead of helping 10 different people with 10 different problems, you kind of find some shortcuts. But if you're resistant to it, it may just not be the right time right now. Just make sure you are doing something in your business to progress the positioning, like creating consistent content.

Yeah, yeah. There's a great book, U², by Price Pritchett, and I have like a little planner and there's a quote inside of it and it says, the work will teach you how to do it. And I think that that's so big, especially when it comes to like finding a niche, is like you said, my experience too is that it's, It was us experimenting with like trying different things and just doing the work of like starting to find clients, starting to grow our business, and then kind of listening and making those shifts along the way. But you can't figure out— I think you actually said this— you can't figure out your niche just inside your head. Like, you actually have to work with people and experiment with it, and that's where you really start to fine-tune the right kind of niche for you over time. And I think people just stay in their head too much.

Great. Yeah.

So, okay. So if people are basically like finding a niche, I think is like finding a big problem that you can passionately solve and get kind of obsessed with. Like that's kind of how I like to think about a niche because niche is kind of a buzzword. Um, but how do we kind of like, if we find our niche, we do the list exercise we were talking about, what do you kind of recommend for like actually turning that into a coaching package and something that we can actually sell and how do we price that as well?

Hmm. So what I don't recommend people do who are relatively early on, either in the business in general or to a new niche, because sometimes you had a niche you want to change. Now you're in a way starting over with the skills you have, but you're starting over in terms of building credibility and knowing what works. So if you're in that situation, I don't recommend that you immediately go create a package with certain milestones, almost, almost that looks like an online course. At that point, you probably won't know what people actually need and in what order they need it. If you did it yourself, you may have some sense of the categories that people will need support with or the obstacles that might come up. But I think that people stop themselves. First they stop themselves because they don't know the niche. Then they stop themselves because they don't know their packaging and pricing. And this whole time they're not doing anything to promote themselves.

Right.

We want to avoid that. What I'd recommend instead is if you're going to start off selling one-on-one, selling a 3 or 6 month package, if you don't know what price to just do, $500 a month to start and get your first— like if you've never gotten paid ever for coaching, just get paid anything. Once you've done that for a session or two, $500 a month, 3-month package is a safe thing to start with. Eventually you'll probably want to do longer packages. And what I'd recommend is following a structure of having that sales conversation. Like, you know, for us, we teach the 3C Sales System, something that helps them figure out where they are now, where they want to go, what are the main obstacles. Now, if you ask the right questions about what they might need support with or what they're struggling with that's stopping them from reaching their goals, they'll give you the things that they need coaching on. They'll tell you. So like when I did, when I had a weight loss coaching, a fitness coaching business, like when I started that, I didn't have a whole package built out. I was just like, there's probably 3 main things people need help with. They probably need help with their diet. They probably need help with their training and they probably need help with their like inner game or stress management. They're not sleeping enough. They don't have intentional eating habits. They have stress, all of that. So that's all you need to know, like 3 categories. And if you don't even know that, just start having the conversations and just flip what people tell you. Like, all right, I'm having trouble sticking to a diet. Like, I always fall off the wagon. So it's like, all right, that's the first thing we're gonna work on is like how to not fall off the wagon. If you do, like how to get back on quickly. So that's number one. That's the first thing in the package. So I, I, I recommend co-creating the curriculum with folks. And on its surface, it can seem a little bit like, um, like flying by the seat of your pants kind of. Yeah. It can seem like, hold on, like, wait, like we're building the package with them. But this is a one-on-one engagement. The whole point is you have the ability now to meet that person where they're at in every individual session. So do that. Don't create an arbitrary container and then try to fit this person into it. It's not needed. Later, as you do group programs, as you do courses, we do need to know what we're doing because we're teaching multiple people at once.

Yeah.

And so starting one-on-one, then going small group, then going courses and crystallizing the curriculum each step of the way. Has more integrity to me because it actually allows you to build a curriculum based on real people and not just yourself.

Right.

So that's what I'd recommend in terms of packaging and pricing. And ultimately you can get to the point where you're like, all right, I want to have a high-end package. It's either one-on-one or group. And there's a whole way that we help people design those. I'm happy to dive into any component, but I would say don't let yourself get stopped on packaging and pricing because again, you can change it for the next client.

Sure. Yeah. Do you, what do you, what do you recommend? Because you said like $500 per month is kind of what you recommend with pricing as like a good safe starting point for like 3 months, which I totally agree. And then you said real quick, like if you're really just starting out, do a couple sessions where like pay me whatever. Do you recommend at all like coaching for free? And if so, how to get out of that rut? Because I know a lot of people and I have conversations with people and they just like, stay there and never really get out of it. And that's like a hurdle that they have, which can be like a fear of actually asking for money, you know. But do you recommend ever like coaching for free to get started, or is it just kind of like pay, pay what you pay, what you feel when you have those initial consults with folks?

In a way, you're coaching for free. The way that I do a strategy session or a consult isn't the same type of coaching session I'd have with an existing client. It's much more focused on figuring out the big picture of what they need and what they need might be my support or what they need might be someone else's support. They just need to take an action. But that first session is sort of a coaching session, but it's akin to someone saying, hey, this is important to me. And instead of going and helping with it and giving them suggestions and asking questions, you're just like, why is it important to you? Like, are you really going to do this? Right? So I think that that's in a way coaching for free. Outside of that, when you're seeing someone multiple sessions in a row long term, coaching that person for free. I'd say whatever gives you the confidence and allows you to keep moving forward and, and starting to charge and increasing those prices is fine. For me personally, I don't know that I've really ever coached a long-term client for free. My first client was probably $50 for the session or $70 for the session. And to me, that's just because it's not a hobby for me. This is my livelihood. So you become a professional when you start charging for things. If you are happy to have it be as a hobby or right now it's in hobby mode, do whatever you want. Feel free to coach people for free. Realize that they probably won't get as good results as the people that you're coaching on a paid basis just because they don't have the same level of skin in the game. And also realize that if you do it for too long, like you've mentioned, and people aren't getting results because they're not showing up, because they're not paying, and now you are not used to charging, you could start to create like a groove in your brain or your habits that make it hard to charge. But I wouldn't come out and say never coach people for free.

Yeah. Yeah. So it comes down to like the confidence that you have because that's like really everything is like confidence. It's huge with just being able to say like, I can confidently get you results. Like if you talk to, to you, for example, you're like, you've done this for a long time and you're really good and you have a great track record and you yourself, even if I didn't know your track record, I can just sense like you have some sort of like aura to you. It's like the confidence that you have. And I think that whatever you can do to just get going and start helping people, I think for the listener is the biggest thing. Cause that's really like the name of the game is helping people and charging what you're worth eventually. But you know, get to a point where like you can feel more confident to say, okay, I think I could actually ask for at least $50 a session for this and then start to put together a longer-term package. So, so Greg, let's talk about how to actually like book consults. We talked about finding your niche and everything, talk a bit about coaching packages and pricing. One thing that I really did want to cover before we start, like, how do we actually like find clients is you talk a lot about like your coaching archetypes. Can you tell me what those are and how that applies to us in terms of finding clients?

Coaching archetypes are 3 different personalities of coach, and each one has different tactics that work better for them to find clients. I adopted this from Malcolm Gladwell in his book, The Tipping Point. Talks about 3 ways, 3 different people who help ideas spread. I've just applied that to coaching and marketing. Connectors are people— I was gonna say people persons, but people people. They like people, they like connecting with people, they like connecting people to each other, uh, connecting people with, with resources and someone else who could help. And they're curious. For a connector, if they could just build their business by like having coffee chats with people, they'd be thrilled. And that's actually probably what they should do is what was one of the strategies. Mavens are a little different. Mavens, you and I think we're both mavens. We like to teach. We like to create content to share, to take things we've learned and try to distill it down, make it step by step. That's fun for us. We love to research. We love to find like, what's the best like headset that you can listen to that, you know, it has the best mic and then like it's the cheapest one. Like we'll research that and then we love to recommend those things. So that's mavens. Mavens tend to do best when they're able to teach. Creating content, blogging, podcasting, YouTube, things like that. Podcast interviews. The third type is salespeople. Salespeople tend to do best with like direct outreach, direct approaches, ads, video. Salespeople are naturally charismatic, so anything that helps their energy and their confidence get conveyed to someone else is useful. Speaking is good for salespeople as well. You're trying to think like, how do I get in front of my ideal client as directly as possible? That's the question for salespeople. And when you know your archetype, it helps you whittle down the list of potential marketing tactics. So there's a lot to just 1 or 2 that you're going to be successful at. And so if people want to know what their archetype is, I have a quick quiz. It won't tell you 100% for sure because it's 4 questions, but it'll give you a good sense at gregfaxton.com/quiz.

Cool. We'll put a link in the description too. So, okay, so people kind of can pinpoint roughly what their archetype is just by your description, but also taking your quiz. How do we actually find clients or find our next client? What do you kind of recommend? I know you have a guide called 21 Ways to Find Potential Clients. And honestly, every time I talk about lead magnets on other people's podcasts, I don't know if you do this, I always use you as an example. I'm like, I know this guy Greg Faxton, this is just like such a clear-cut example of a lead magnet, um, 21 Ways to Find Potential Clients. But yeah, what do you kind of recommend if someone's like understands their coaching archetype? Now how do we start to actually get people onto a phone call from there.

That's awesome. Thank you, by the way, for mentioning it.

Yeah, I'm promoting you all the time.

The way that lead magnet got created, which is the way that I recommend people create lead magnets if they can, is I was running a group program and this one woman, like every single call, she would just be like, but I don't know how to get clients, like what to do. And I'd be like, that's what we've been talking about this whole time. Like, I was like, I keep telling different ways. Like, and so I just got so frustrated after one call, I just like wrote a list. I'm gonna write as many ways as specific as possible. Like, here's things you can literally just do so that she has no excuses. So it ended up being 21 ways.

That's awesome.

And I was like, when it's come time to create a lead magnet, I was like, do I have any resources that I've already created? And if people are struggling with lead magnets, just look in your Evernote. Like, look at things you've already created for clients or yourself as a little reference, a cheat sheet. Those tend to be the most valuable versus something like, oh, let me go create something that could be useful for folks. So the question is how to find clients.

Yeah, like where can we go? So if we understand our coaching archetype, like how do we actually, based on whatever archetype it is, like actually have strike up conversations and then get them interested to actually hop onto a call with us?

What do you kind of recommend? Yeah, so in order to find clients, it helps to know who your client is. That's one of the reasons we talked about a niche, because if you're niches everyone, you can find clients anywhere. Like the person mowing your lawn might be a client, you know, go ask them into a free conversation. That's fine. I mean, there's, there's that book Prosperous Coach, sort of like just invite people to conversations and it doesn't matter who they are. It doesn't matter. Marketing doesn't matter. Just go have a conversation. And I actually think there's power to that at the right phase of your business because you just need to put yourself out there and you're avoiding it. But at a certain point it gets old when like you're at the grocery store and like you have to go ask someone to have a powerful conversation with you. It's kind of like gets annoying. So what I'd recommend instead is figure out what are the watering holes that your ideal clients are hanging out in. So this is a concept I got from Pam Slim. Watering holes are places like if you imagine the Serengeti, all the animals are going to the watering holes to get their sustenance. If you're a lion, you could hang out in a random place or you could just hang out by the watering hole, right? Like that's where the animals are going anyway. So there's communities, there's conferences, there's places that your ideal clients are already hanging out. To get support in this area. That's one of the reasons why one of the simplest ways, now that we're like not post-COVID, but now that we're, we're not locked down in the same way, one of the best ways to get clients is just sign up for an expensive retreat or, um, or event. Like, don't do the cheap meetups. Like, no one's, no one's buying shit there, right? Go to expensive events that are in your area of expertise and choose one that you'll just enjoy doing whether you get clients or not, because it's the wrong intention to go to get clients. And just go and meet people. You'll naturally get in conversations if it's your area of expertise where it's going to be helpful. And whether you book a conversation with that person when you're, when you're just having the talk or you follow up with them or you follow them on social media after, like that's just led— that led to so many clients, not so much these days, but so many clients when I was starting out before I had my own audience. So when you're starting out, you want to build your audience, you want to build your client base by leveraging other audiences and watering holes. Yeah, so that's kind of the first thought I have. Do you have any follow-up questions?

Or no, I mean, I think like the biggest thing when I was in your full client roster course, going through the actual like course content in and of itself, when you talked about finding clients, like one thing it was just like, oh my God, that's so simple. When you said it was like the, like one of the biggest areas that people struggle with in terms of getting clients is just inviting them and getting the invite right and being able, because people could be going to these events and there's a lot of people that do this and they connect with tons of people and they're having great conversations, but they never like invite invite them to do that deeper dive. And it's maybe that they're just too scared to do it or that they just don't know how to actually like phrase it. Like, how do I do this without sounding like spammy or salesy? And then it causes people not to do anything. Cause like the bare bones is like what I've kind of like my little 3-part, I guess, uh, methodology or mantra that I've given myself is like connect, inspire, invite. And that could be done through YouTube videos where like they find your video, now you've connected, and then you inspire them with your content to feel like what you're teaching is possible for them and that they can do it. And then you invite them to pick up a lead magnet so you can get on your email list or to book a call with you from your YouTube video. Like, same thing in a conversation. You go to this event, you're connecting with people because you're at the event, and then you have great conversations, you're inspiring them and they like you. And then from there, it's that invite piece. So a lot of people, it's like they connect with people, they'll inspire them, and this is like coaching people for free, but they never invite them to book a deeper consultation with them or to sign up for a program with them. So I guess like Yeah. Well, I love what you said about watering holes, especially going to like high-paid water— watering holes, cuz it's just way better quality people and it makes sense. And it's fun too. Like I, that's what I love to do as well as go to those events. Uh, but what can people do, I guess, to actually frame that invite? Cuz I think that that really is the piece that a lot of people are struggling with.

I love that you mentioned this because people think of lead generation like one big category. Like I just need to find people who would be clients. I need to, Even finding client, you don't find clients.

Mm-hmm.

You're right. You get the awareness of someone and they become a client after they have a conversation with you. And this idea of finding a client, what I almost think of is it's like, all right, if more people knew about me, there are just people who, as soon as they learned about me, they would just PayPal me right away.

Totally.

Right. I would, I would be able to skip it. I just need to find that person. It's like, well, maybe, maybe not. The reality is just like in the dating world, you can know a lot of people, but like if you never ask someone out on a date, like you're not going to, you're not going to have a life partner, you know what I mean? So at some point you do have to do that. And so what we talked about in terms of going to live events was how do you get that awareness? There's other ways to do that, right? Ideally, we want to be building an email list as your audience. That's sort of the gold standard of awareness that you could get. The second part of lead generation after building an audience is actually making invites. And in most cases, I recommend making invites first, regardless of your audience size, because there's often some like low-hanging fruit or there's just like there's people who you already know, who already know you, who could be clients. They haven't had that opportunity to hop on a call with you. So really, like you said, we're optimizing for consults, for calls. That's where clients come from. How you do it depends on the context. How I would make an invite at an in-person event would be different from how I'd make it to my email list. So you have to feel that out a little bit. You know, we have different like scripts that we teach, templates that we teach on how you can do that on social media and to your email list. So if you have an email list, you should definitely be sending out content that at some point in the content has a call to action. At some point in the content it says, hey, I use this transition if then. So you, you say at some point in the content, if this has been useful to you, or if you're not sure how to apply this to your situation, then book a strategy session with me, or then let's hop on a call. Here's the link to do it. So if then is a nice transition that feels more natural to teaching something or sharing an insight and then saying the next step for you is to hop on a call with me. You can use the same if then in a social context too. Like you can be talking about something at an event and be like, hey, I got to run to lunch. Like, if you want to talk more about this, like, I have some more ideas. Why don't we just hop on a call next week and then pull your phone out and book a time? So I think if-then is a helpful tool to fall back on, but you have to, you have to feel out the context that it's in because a strategy session invite on Facebook is going to be different from a strategy session invite at a live event or even via email where you have a little bit more room Or you can be a little more direct with the copy, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It is kind of that intention, which actually reminds me of something you have. Like, I have the screensaver right now, by the way, the high intention, low attachment. I got your blog post about it and was like, hell yeah, that's exactly what I need. So it's a, it's this really great mantra that you have of high intention, low attachment, what you call high lower. HEILA. But, um, I'd love to just kind of hear a bit more about that because I think that that is going to help us when we're looking for clients, whether it's an in-person event or messaging an email list or whatever it is, or on Facebook. Just the— what, what is like high intention, low attachment? How can we kind of apply that to finding different clients?

Okay, I want to talk about HEILA, and you triggered one more thought that could be helpful for folks. So we talked about how you make the invite depends on the context. You can also make an invite to past clients. A lot of people don't think about that, but especially if you've been doing this for a little while, you're going to keep building up that bank of people you've helped. They like you. Like, they're the easiest people to get to pay you more is people who have already paid you. And one of the things that you can do periodically is just like send a check and see how people are doing. And at some point in that conversation, what I usually do is I'm just like, hey, like, when are we going to work together again? You know, and it's kind of like tongue in cheek, but you'd be surprised the amount of times people are like, you know what, I actually have been like thinking about I needed help with this, this, can we hop on a call? And it's when you hear that, you're like, well, why didn't you just say that?

Yeah, they just need the invitation.

But you do need that invitation. And it's true that there's an opportunity to be rejected. There's an opportunity for some awkwardness, just like when you ask someone out on a date.

Totally.

But like, that's how the world works. You got to be direct sometimes. You got to be willing to go into that fear. So high intention, low attachment. I, I like to credit sources when I can. So this concept came from, um, a book called The Success Principles by Jack Canfield, same guy who wrote, uh, Chicken Soup for the Soul or something. Remember that whole series? And it was just this short chapter in the book. Um, and I was like, this is the exact concept that I've been searching for to bring together this paradox, which is like there's achievement And then there's contentment. And it's like, how do you thread that needle with both of those things? Because I feel like when I get really into a goal, I end up like dissatisfied, like I'm grasping. And then when I let go of the goals, like then I don't know what I want and then I'm not putting any effort in. So is there a middle way? So I've expanded that concept and high intention means what is the level of intentionality, effort that you're putting into what you want? There's a difference between someone who has no idea what they want just going through life kind of happy, whatever comes, comes. And there's another person who's like, hey, I would— I'm happy with my life now, but I'd really like to be able to retire by age 40. Like, that would be awesome. So I'm going to move towards that. I'm going to put effort in. So that's high, and that's high intention. Then low attachment means like, how much do you need that thing to feel okay? So an example of a high attachment is like when I get X, then I'll be happy. We all know those people. We've all been those people who are like, I had 6 figures, I'll be happy. I had 7 figures, like everything will be good, I'll be happy. If I find my life partner, like then I'll be happy. I'm not alone. And you realize at a certain point, like, this isn't working, like, right? Like the goalpost is moving and I'm bringing myself to everything that I achieve and I'm still an ungrateful person, right? So you gotta, you gotta be able to change how you're relating to the circumstances in your life. And these are two totally different skill sets: getting what you want, high intention; wanting what you have, low attachment. And so if you can cultivate a level of acceptance with whatever comes, while at the same time saying, hey, this would be a game that I'd want to play, let's go for it, and putting effort into it, That's the sweet spot where you're in flow, which is high intention, low attachment.

I love it. It's just like, yeah, I'm always telling myself this, especially like I'm really big on paying attention, like my energy with things, not just with business stuff, but like relationships or whatever it is, you know, and just goals that I have in my life in general. I interviewed this one guy. I can't remember his name, but he was a— he was like a mindset coach. And we talked about setting goals and it made me think of high intention, low attachment because he said, like, don't set goals that depend on somebody else's decision. And I was like, it was kind of interesting to say, but like, let's say getting phone calls, you know, booking consults, set goals on the amount of invitations that you will make and the amount of, you know, I guess like times that you're going to say, hey, this is what it looks like to work with me. Like, I want to hit X amount of calls this week. That's my goal to try and book that. But it's not like I want to hit X amount of sales per se, where it's like, it depends on the person who is, they have to kind of make the decision of like, I want to work with you. Do you know what I mean? So it's like you're setting the intention of, I'm going to make everything that I can on this effort. Cause like all I can do is really make the invitation, but I can't force someone to make the sale. So that's where the goal depends on them really. It's not on my output and my effort. And I thought that was pretty interesting cause it's about like high intention, low attachment. It's like, I'm going to do everything that I can on my part. Which is the high intention, but the low attachment is like, I'm not attached per se to like getting the sale and having that energy where you don't have that attachment, but you're doing everything right that you can in order to get the sale. You know what I mean? So it was just kind of, it was just an interesting way to look at goal setting for me. It was like, you can control what you do, but not what other people tell you to do or what other people decide to do, I guess.

One way I'd put that would be control the controllables.

Yeah.

So in sports psychology, there's process goals and outcome goals, right? Which it's, it's fine to set both, but being able to focus on the process, the part you control, is helpful.

Yeah.

And like another little mantra I use that's similar to high intentional attachment is just basically what it means is do your best, let go of the rest.

Yeah.

Your best, let go of the rest. And a lot of people will do that. They'll focus on what they can control and they'll say that they're focused on that, but like really they are tying a little bit of their self-worth to the performance of it, right? They may know that they can only control the controllables, but there's still a part of them that's clinging to— for something to happen, for something to be different, and feeling like they'll be happy. And then a lot of people will say, all right, well, that doesn't make sense, then why am I even setting goals? Like, if I don't think it's going to improve my life, if I don't want it, then why am I even setting it? And this is where my exploration of this has kind of gone into What motivated you like as a kid? Like, you don't have to be motivated just because you need a thing. You could just be motivated like, I'm curious about this. Like, what happens if I knock this block tower down? Like, what happens if I go try to do this gymnastics move? I think the more we can integrate activities that are intrinsically enjoyable, that we'll get something out of whether they succeed or fail, the easier it is to lower your attachment. And so these days when I'm picking projects and work goals and things like that, I have to check myself and be like, all right, if I'm really going to practice high intention, low attachment, I need to be okay whatever happens. So which of these goals would be inherently intrinsically valuable even if I failed at them? Like one question Seth Godin asked that I really like is a lot of people ask like, what would you do if you couldn't fail to try to be more fearless? He said, what would you do if you knew you would fail? What would you do anyway? Like for example, the writing, a lot of the articles I do, I put a ton of time into that. A lot of times it helps my SEO or I get clients, but I try to write articles because I know they're going to take so much time that even if I never got a single response, single client, no one liked them, I would still be glad I did it because it helped clarify my own thinking. On a marketing standpoint, this is why I have the idea of archetypes. If you're aligned with your archetype, you should be doing a type of marketing that you'll enjoy, even if it doesn't help you get clients. If you're a connector and you're building relationships, you'll get clients from it eventually if you're building the right relationships. But even if you didn't get clients, you'd be like, well, I just like building relationships. And I feel people view marketing as such a necessary evil that if you can find an intrinsic way of doing something, including marketing, it helps you lower your attachment.

Yeah. If it's fun for you, it's going to show in your marketing first and foremost, but also you're going to want to keep doing it. And I think that that's really the biggest thing because it has to get done no matter what. You got to put yourself out there. So I love it, man. There's so much good stuff here. Uh, I'd love to just kind of talk a bit about like what, what, what can we do? So we, we understand like the importance of finding a niche, you know, and then going to different watering holes, connecting with people that we can help, um, having a high intention, a low attachment. We understand our archetype and the importance of just inviting people to get onto a call. What happens after that? Once we get people onto a call, what, what do we do? What's kind of like the strategy session process to invite them now to consider working with us?

Okay, so the 3C Sales System, which I mentioned before, it's one of our like secret sauce things that we really give to clients and people who invest in our courses at a detailed level. Like we have literally in the Google Doc, like I've tested all these different ways of doing it and found what tends to work the best. So that's one of the things we kind of keep behind the vault. But I'm happy to give an overview in the time we have of what that includes. Which is 3 C's. Okay, so can— sorry, clarify, connect, and close. So every sales conversation, every persuasive conversation you have should hit these 3 different phases. The first is clarifying their situation and their goals, right? Some people in selling refer to this as like the gap. Where are they? Where are they going to go? Bigger the gap, typically bigger the problem, bigger the sale, like the more you can charge for it, right? If it's like, hey, I'm working out 5 days a week, but I want to work out 6 days a week, like, can you help me with that? Like, you're not going to be able to charge that much. It's a tiny gap. Like, it's like one conversation and you would help with that. So clarifying their situation, their goals— this is where you're going to be asking mostly questions. And ideally, you're asking questions that help them understand the impact of what's going on. If there's something that's not working, why is that a problem? Why do you want to fix that? If you have a goal, what's important about that to you? And a lot of people miss that. They kind of get the surface level. But they don't go further. There's a story I heard from Eben Pagan about like that. Just put this so perfectly, which is if you were a real estate agent and someone said, hey, we're looking for right now, you know, we're looking for a new home. First, why? You ask, why are you looking for a new home? And they say, well, we're looking for a new home because we want 5 bedrooms instead of 4 bedrooms, or let's say 3 bedrooms instead of 2 bedrooms. So you ask another why. Why do you want an extra bedroom? Like, well, we're going to have kids. Okay, that makes sense. You see, most people would stop there, right?

Right.

You ask again, why again? Why do you want an extra bedroom for your kids? And they're like, well, you know, when I was a kid, like, we only had 2 bedrooms. Like, we slept, like, with our parents, you know what I mean? Like, I slept on the floor and I always felt poor. I just don't want my kids to feel poor. Now we've got it.

Yeah.

Now this is something that we can actually use as motivation and help them harness this motivation. So we ask why not to create an artificial pain point or an artificial desire We just want to understand why are they really having the conversation in the first place, because that helps us understand the true value of getting the problem fixed. Because it's one thing if I'm helping you buy a new house or get an extra bedroom. It's another thing if I'm helping you create a situation for your kids where they never feel poor. So that's what I recommend. And clarify, get the situation. What put them on the call? Like the first question I ask is, what motivated you to book a call with me? That assumes that they're coming to you. So it's a certain type of marketing. But then I'm digging into why is that important? Why, why, why? The second is connect. So we want to connect what's going on for them with what we could potentially help with. Hey, this is like the bridge between phase 1 and phase 3, which is close. In connect, we want to do a few things. First thing we want to do is just recap what we've heard from them. All right, I'm hearing this is your situation. And this is the impact of it. These are your goals and this is why it's important to you to reach the goals. Just quick recap. If you're taking notes, you can literally read through your notes. It's amazing how powerful that is for people. Sometimes they just appreciate being seen. Builds trust. They're actually— you're actually listening to them. You've earned the right now to start talking a little bit more. Okay, so once we've done the recap, the final thing we're going to ask them about is the obstacles. Like, Why do you think you're not already there? Like, what's getting in the way of you, for example, like getting a bigger house? Like, what, what's missing right now? And they'll start to share things with you and you can just keep asking anything else, like anything else that you've already decided, like you might want support with. And now we're sort of seeding a little bit the idea of support. Like, is there anything else that you might decide you kind of need support with? We're going to get a list. So now we have their situations, we have their goals, and then we have the obstacles in between. So at this point we can say, I think I can help, or I don't think I can help. They may not be a fit for you. And then you can direct them to a book or, um, sometimes you may feel like you, you don't want to help them, but you don't want to be mean. So in that case, what I'd recommend is you just choose one action step or obstacle they've already mentioned and just politely be like, it sounds like, you know, you have to have that difficult conversation with your partner. Do you already know that? Why don't you go do that? Send me an email. Let me know how it goes. Right. That's a way to sort of gracefully let them be independent. But if you do think you can help, be like, hey, I think I can help. Like everything you mentioned, like that's what I do with clients. Do you want to talk about what I'd recommend for you, whether we work together or not? And that this is where you get into close, which is the final phase. Before we talk about what your coaching package or what your consulting package involves, we want to talk about here's the like 2 or 3 main areas that it seems like you need support with. The easiest way to do that is to flip the obstacles that they gave you. They did a good job, right? If we were talking, I'd be like— I was talking to someone in the interview, like, it sounds like you want help clarifying your niche, right? Right now you don't know who you're marketing to, so you don't know even like who— where to find these people. So we need to clarify your niche. You don't know what to say, like, when people ask you what you do, so then no one knows what you do. That's number one. Number two, we need to book some consults right now. Right now, your calendar, you don't have consults on it, so you don't have clients. We need to find a way to consistently book consults that fits with your personality. Does that make sense? Does that sound good? Yes. And we want to get there. We want to make sure that we have buy-in from them at each step. And then number 3 would be enroll clients. Okay. So those are, those are basically the steps of flow. Is the final one. If it all makes sense to them, we can say, do you want to talk about what it would look like to get my help implementing those steps? And if yes, that's when we can share first our, our package, what the coaching includes. The last thing when we ask, do you have any more questions? They'll probably ask about the investment, or we can say, do you want to hear about the investment? And then very simply, hey, the investment to work with me is $15K, right? Make sure your voice goes down at the end. No uptalk. The investment to work with me is $15K makes you sound unconfident. So state the price, and then concerns, objections, questions come up, and you can just calmly field those as though you were already their coach helping them decide on a different investment that was not you. So that you don't take it so personally. Ask them some questions to clarify if they have thinking that you feel like is selling themselves short. Be like, hey, I noticed you're saying this, but you already told me you wanted that, so that doesn't square up. What do you make of that? And they'll either pay or they won't pay and they'll go somewhere else. But that's the, that's the overview. Clarify, connect, close. Very simply, if you follow that, you'll do all right.

I love it. I love the simplicity of the whole 3C sales system too. It's, it's really awesome and it's helped me with sales enrollments as well. You talk a lot about like confidence and how it applies just our overall business, but how do you feel like confidence applies to enrolling clients? Like you talked about no uptalk, like dip your voice and that kind of stuff. What are just some like, I guess, some simple kind of tips that we can, that can help us just be more confident when we're doing these sales calls? I know a lot of people are going to struggle with that.

I have an article and an interview that dives really deep into this. So if you let me know, we can get it linked up. Oh, but essentially sales is a transfer of confidence. It's a transfer of belief because ideally you already believe in it. Very hard to sell something you don't believe in, but they don't believe in it yet. Otherwise we wouldn't need to have the sales conversation. So we need to transfer our level of belief to theirs. So the stronger your conviction, the easier it is to sell, frankly, to the point where you don't even need to know the words to say. Like you don't need to know the 3C Sales System to recommend like a show on Hulu that you like, right? Or like, like right now Emma and I are watching like The Ultimatum, my wife and I, like on Netflix. Like it's so good. Like we just like reality TV, so we're just like, you gotta watch this, right? And then if people are like, ah, I don't know, we got a lot of shows. I'm like, no, like here's why you have to watch it. And so that conviction will speak louder than the exact template that you use. Now having a template helps with your confidence. So it kind of has a double benefit there. But that's why confidence is important, is because you're transferring it. And the biggest thing you can do is increase your confidence in the service that you're selling. Obviously, a big part of that is actually being good at it and delivering it. Sometimes people are good at it, but then they don't take the time to collect and reflect on case studies. So because they don't have that proof that they can come back to when they doubt themselves, they're always like questioning, they always forget like if they're even a good coach or consultant. So I definitely recommend collecting those case studies both for your marketing and your internal confidence. Reflecting on those will help. There's a bunch of other things you can do to increase your conviction. There's things you can do in the conversation like just making sure you avoid uptalk on your price, but that's going to happen naturally if you think that the person should do it.

Yeah, totally. Having their best interest at heart, I think, is going to help a lot with people because it's just like, I know that this is going to help you. And having that confidence of just like, I know what your problem is. I know that I can help you, especially if you've helped people in the past. You just have a solution that's helped you. And it's like, if you actually do this, then it's going to help you. And yeah, I think that it will just come naturally when you do know that.

Right. And then, I mean, when concerns come up and objections, they sort of take on a different tone because you can kind of be like, I don't understand, like, I'm confused. Help me understand. I'm confused why you wouldn't do this. You said you had this problem. I can solve the problem. So let's do it. And it becomes a lot easier to overcome objections when you're not constantly doubting yourself.

Totally.

I love it, man.

So much value. We're going to start to wrap it up here. I just love to know, based on like your career in just being a coach over the years and getting better at getting clients for yourself, or not getting clients, but creating clients for yourself and filling up your own client roster and then helping other people do it as well. Based on all this information, knowledge, what do you wish that someone would have told you early on when you were starting out?

There is no better than here.

Hmm.

One of my friends locally, Ben Kruger, he runs a podcasting service called Cashflow Podcasting, and they help people set up their podcast and then also do the monthly editing and maintenance. We talk a lot about this idea as an entrepreneur that you go through periods of loving your business and being like, I'm going to shut it all down. I hate— you're like, is this my true passion? Like, I choose You're right, Mitch. And then it'll be like 2 days later, like sometimes I'll talk to him, he'll be like, hey man, we have to have coffee because I'm dying here. And we get to the coffee and I'm like, hey, what's going on? Like, and he's like, oh no, everything's good, right? So we kind of go through that roller coaster. And that's actually something I'm really passionate about helping people with. And high intention, low attachment is part of that. So that's probably going to become a next phase of my body of work is the inner game of all of this. But there is no better than here is a quote I got from him. Because we always think that the grass is greener. We always think that the struggle is going to end, and so much so that sometimes we forget to be where we actually are, like live the life that we have here with all the imperfections that are in it. And I think that if someone had told me that when I was building the business, I could have just started even earlier enjoying the process for what it is, even though I felt stressed about clients, even though I didn't know how to explain what I did. I would just be able to be a little bit more able to say, hey, like, I don't know what I'm doing. This kind of sucks. And still this moment is a moment of my life that I get to have. And I think it took me a while to get to that point where I stopped chasing something else to, to make me happy. So I would probably say there is no better than here.

Mm. I love that. So powerful. Yeah. Just to enjoy, enjoy the ride wherever you're at and just continue to do that. And I think it's. I think that's like where I spend a lot of time thinking about like my energy because it— and high intention, low attachment helps me with that. It's like I'm being too attached to an outcome. And then it's funny because I'll still be like working towards the same goals, but just being able to adjust the energy, it's like I have a different output. I show up differently, I feel differently. And then that helps me with the other areas of my life, like relationships with my girlfriend or my friends and family as well. You know, because I think as an entrepreneur, it's really big to just like to really be so attached to that end goal and to like overanalyze it. I've experienced this plenty of times to where it bleeds into the other more important areas of your life where you don't show up and be present with like your family or your girlfriend or spouse. And they're like, are you okay? You know? And it's like, that's causing problems because you're just too in your head and too attached to this kind of outcome. So I love that. And just being able to enjoy the ride, I think that really is Life changes.

Can I add one more thing to that?

Please.

Awesome. I think that's so important what you said about how you, your relationship with your business reflects, impacts the relationship with other people in your life. I think it's often framed as like, oh, you should do things outside of work so you can get filled back up so you can be better at work, which is still, which is fine, but it's still sort of the same production capitalist mindset of like the only value of the stuff outside of work is just to do better work. Um, absolutely rest is important for that reason, but for me, I, I'd much rather view it that the time I spend at work is just enabling a life outside of work. There's only so much, even if you design the most perfect job for your personality, there's only so much joy you're going to get from your work, in my opinion. Compared to a relationship. Like we're having friends over for like brisket, bourbon, and bocce. So I have like 3 briskets on the smoker.

I'm on my way right now. Come over. I would love to.

One, it really helps to be less attached to things when you actually have a life outside of your achievements. You know, like when you actually have people that love you regardless of what your achievements are and you like, You can go do stuff you enjoy. The ups and downs of entrepreneurship I don't think are sustainable if you don't have a solid foundation in your life because there's just too much riding on it. So yeah, I would encourage like enjoy the ride within the business and like enjoy your life outside of the business because you're going to need some endurance for this thing. Like I'm like 9, 10 years in, like you're going to need some stuff to keep you going because not every month is going to be easy. Some months are going to be like, holy shit, I don't know, like I need a client now, bro. Like, kind right now. No matter how good you get at marketing, it will never be like this line, you know, it just won't unless you have a business to the size where you can create that type of consistency. If you're a freelancer, if you're a 1-2 person business, um, you need to ride those out and you need something outside of the business to keep you full to do it.

Yeah, love it. Greg, where can people connect with you? What's the best place?

GregFaxon.com.

Cool, easy. I'll put links down in the description.

Not on social media. I went off of social media in 2020. So if you look for me on social and you're like, wait, is this guy even a real person? That's been a conscious choice. And they can sign up for the newsletter and get the blog posts that come out. But also a lot of— I send out stuff weekly that never goes on the blog that you can get on the newsletter.

Love it. Yeah. And I mean, to tell anybody, if you're— if you like what we talked about here, Greg is the man. Really, really helpful. Taught me so much just about marketing and, you know, growing my own business and being able to to enjoy the process along the way, as obviously, as you can tell just from the, the interview. So if you are interested, check out any one of his programs, his full client roster course or program. It's really a program because you get coaching as well. It's phenomenal. And I had great results from it. Again, the first 2 weeks or so, I made a $5K deal and it was just like, oh crap, that was legit. And yeah, Greg and his team do a great job. So I'd highly recommend to check out that program. And if you do, tell them I sent you. They'll make sure that they take care of you, obviously. And yeah, any, any kind of like last thoughts at all, Greg?

Last thoughts?

We covered a lot.

We covered a lot.

We covered a lot, dude.

Just have fun. Go take one thing from this conversation that stood out to you and try to put it on your to-do list or on your calendar, just because we all consume so much information. You can just implement one little tiny thing, maybe invite one person to a conversation, even if it scares you a little bit, then that'll be worth your time.

Love it. Yeah. Take one nugget, one thing that stood out for you. It's just finding your niche. If it's high intention, low attachment, if it's how to confidently use the 3C sales system and be more confident on your calls, find your coaching archetype, like review this episode again. I know it was action-packed, but pick one thing and just start rolling with it and that will reveal the next step. The work will teach you how to do it. So take what you learned here, get out there, make something happen, and we will see you in the next one.