How to Start a Coaching Business Q&A with Terry Rice | 2/04/2021

Cool.

All right, so welcome to Q and A, and I'm looking forward to answering all of your questions today. So you can go ahead and load those up as you see fit. But we did have some come in advance, so I'm going to grab those right now. The first one is actually from Jimaris, so Jimaris, welcome. Thanks for joining today. I think this is your first time here, so glad to have you and want to make sure you get some value out of your time because I know you have a. You have a little one at home, just like I do. So your first question I love. How do you never run out of content?

Right?

Because I know it's difficult when you're constantly trying to put something on social media or write something and you feel like you're repeating yourself over and over again. How do you refresh yourself and make sure that you're not boring your audience? Well, it all starts with those content pillars that we talk about in the course where you say, okay, I want to define my personal brand. And you would say, well, what are the pillars that represent who I am? Right? So one has to be your craft, right? You're a digital marketing consultant. Another could be industry updates. Hey, did you hear that iOS 14 has this new update, so and so forth, and have content around that. The other part should be your personality, right? So it could be you playing with your kids, it could be you talking about your hobbies, so on, so forth. And you would write down content for each of those pillars and this matrix which you can access through the course. But one way to never run out of content is to continually comment on People's content on LinkedIn, on Reddit, on channels like Quora. Because when you, when you see this other content, you'll get inspired and say, oh, I never thought about writing about this. And then you can do so. So don't feel like it all has to come from within. You can also just get inspiration from the world around you and then from there create content about it or the questions that you're hearing from your target audience.

Right?

That's going to be another good way. Because I know, I say all the time, questions, create content. So what questions do you get from your audience? And one question I got today was actually kind of scary. One question I got today, the subject of this email was termination letter. And I'm like, I got fired. I'm like, what the hell's going on? Then I'm like, I don't work for anyone. How am I getting terminated? And I read the whole email and there's like this one person saying, how do I fire my client? And I was like, okay, you could have probably put that in the subject line instead of termination letter. But either way, she's like, how do I fire my client? And I have not been asked that before. I've been asked, you know, when should you let go of someone? And, you know, what's that look like? But no one ever specifically asked me, like, what to say verbatim, how to fire a client. But heck, now that seems like it'll be a good blog to write, a good LinkedIn post, at least. What do you actually say? Because you don't want to burn bridges, right? You don't have a bad relationship or bad memories, but you also want to make it clear that, hey, we're done. And normally when I've had to, I don't like using the term fire. But, like, separate from clients, I've, I've resisted giving them other suggestions of people to work with because when it's done, I just want it to be done. I don't want that to come back ever again. But again, that's an example of a question that for me was just not something I thought of before becoming content. Another thing is you can refresh your content too, right? You can say, hey, going back to the iOS 14 update when this first happened, here are my tips for how to navigate it. Now that we have some more data, here's some more. So you can still refresh content that you, you did before. And at the same point, if you see someone else write about something that's kind of dated, you can use that inspiration. Inspiration to write content about it, too. So don't worry about making it super perfect or like, you know, like this, like, I don't want to say impactful, but like, don't, don't put pressure on yourself or your content to be, you know, perfect. And Jamir, I'm just out of curiosity, how often do you post on LinkedIn? How often do you write articles? Because the more you write, the more random ideas you get. And then you have a backlog of ideas of things that you want to write about. So I would say just, you know, just move forward with it and keep on cranking out that content, but don't put pressure on yourself to make it, you know, the perfect piece of content that no one's ever heard of before. Because there's this book by Gary Vaynerchuk, it's called Crushing it. And he says, you know, every story's already been told before. But it hasn't been told by you. So don't even feel like you have to have a unique piece of content you're putting out. It can be something that everyone else has already written about before, but you haven't. So if that takes pressure off you, hopefully, then you can go ahead and move forward. Another question is this. Do you recommend giving your resources to learn a new skill, or should I actually teach the skill within a course? All right, so when I first started teaching at General assembly, that question came up all the time, right? Hey, if we're talking about using HubSpot, do we have to teach HubSpot in the class? Or can we link to HubSpot's guide saying, here's how you do it? I think when it's within the scope of your class, like, if it's like a Facebook marketing class, yeah, you should probably be teaching Facebook. But if you mentioned, oh, when someone gets on your email list, then you can use HubSpot to nurture them later. If it's more of an afterthought, I would say consider leveraging a third party. Because when you're going through product demos, this is how you do it. It's like you push this button, then that button, and that button. Someone else has probably said it before, including the company. Now, if you do want to do that, let's say, like, that's the core function of this course. The way you add value is you kind of talk people through it. You can say, look, I know this part seems super difficult, right? It seems challenging, but don't worry, we're almost there. That's where you come in. As opposed to reading like a user manual, your own savvy, your own soft skills, your own emotional quotient is really what kicks in there. But if it's more of an afterthought for the course, I would say, yes, you can definitely recommend resources. And to be. To go farther on that. When I taught at NYU and General assembly, what I would do sometimes is say, look at these other resources before class. Look at this first to get the background down and then come to me and I'll answer questions for you.

Right.

I did the same thing when I was consulting, especially digital marketing.

Right.

Because the more you know up front, then the more, then the more deep the conversation will be once we actually connect. So I'm all for it. Unless it really is like the central theme of what you're teaching. Then you should put your own spin on it. But great question there. See what else we got in here that's in here yet, but we have more over here.

So.

This question I love. This is one that I'm seeing a lot lately. People saying, look, I like my current job, but I don't want to have a 9 to 5 anymore. I want to consult my company, right? And this is something that's kind of delicate because you literally have to say, look, I want to quit, but I want you to be my first client. And by the way, that happens very often. So for those of you that have nine to fives and you're like, oh, you know, how am I going to leave? Maybe you don't have to leave completely, but you do have to be very frank in that conversation and say, hey, if you, you know, I like the atmosphere here, I like the work, but I just want the freedom to do my own thing. And you would express clearly what that would look like. I will still have these responsibilities. So have that all written out. And these are the things I won't be doing, such as, you know, team meetings or whatever. And the value add to the company is they can actually save money potentially because maybe they're no longer paying your health insurance, right? Or any other perks that go along with you being an employee. So you, you want to have a plan going into it, don't just say, what do you think you have to say? Here's what it would look like, right? And again, the benefit of that is you can start your consulting business with a very large client, meaning your old client and your old company. And then from there, you already have a testimonial because it tells everyone how good you were, where it's like, you quit and they still wanted you to work there.

Right?

So, yeah, I fully support that. Quitting your company and then bringing them on to your first client.

Cool.

All right, let's get some more questions here. Like, everybody's being, I don't say shy, but it's kind of soaking in today. What else was there? I'll grab this one first. Lauren. Oh, gosh. This question is great. I'll read it for everybody else. But yeah, do you have a System for managing LinkedIn messages more specifically, but feel free to answer generally as well, requests from recruiters for certain positions. I ask because sometimes I'll get one where my reaction is, oh, yeah, I could do that, but often becomes a fleeting thought and I don't do anything with that viable information. So more or less, there are potentially high value conversations you could engage with that occur on LinkedIn and you forget about them. I do that all the time. That's why I laughed when I saw this, because I used to have that problem. What I do now, Lauren, is this. Whenever I have a high value conversation that starts on LinkedIn, I actually put that in the HubSpot. HubSpot's a free CRM you can use to track leads, deals, so on and so forth. I put it in there and then I gave myself a reminder to follow up within X amount of days.

Right.

So, hey, you had a chat with Lauren, she said this, make sure you follow up and then that'll be there as a task. So if I don't get to it or follow up with it, then I know to do so. But I really try to get it off of LinkedIn as fast as possible because you know how it is. Like there's so many messages, there's like real ones and there's someone who's like, oh, I'd like to talk to you about your business goals and how I might be able to help. And it's like, great, you know, so it gets buried in that. But yeah, so I would highly recommend keeping those in HubSpot. And to go a step further, Lauren, what I also do is I'll keep a spreadsheet with the LinkedIn profile URLs of some of these individuals, so I can just quickly go to it as well if I want to check in and see what they're up to, if there's a reason for me to comment, so on and so forth. But that's the process I would recommend. And let me know if you have any questions about that, especially with HubSpot, because it's a great tool to use to keep track of all that stuff. You can't do it all yourself.

Right?

There's too much going on. You can't just have it in your head or like random notes somewhere. So that's, that's what I would highly recommend. But I'm guilty of that as well. That's why I had to start the system.

All right.

So let me go over here. Oh, I never finished answering the question, how do I fire a client? Right, so the way that you would do it is don't write an email with a subject termination letter first of all. But the most, beyond just being blunt and honest, it's being helpful about off boarding them saying, okay, well look, my last day, I'd love to have it be the 30th. So between now and then, here's how I can prepare you to either handle this stuff yourself or transition to someone else. Right? So give them some kind of document where it's like, you know, here's what's currently going on, here's all the logins, here's whatever. But just be cool about it as possible, because even if you fire a client, they might recommend you someday. That's actually happened to me before.

Right.

I had to let go of someone, and they still recommended me to other people and tried to work with me again in the future. Cause I was cool about it on the way out the door. So when it comes to that situation, that's your goal, is just to be as graceful as possible when.

When you're.

When you're done.

Well, all right.

Another one here. How do I deal with trolls? Yeah, right. You're posting all the time. And, you know, people sometimes don't want to be too polite. I think it's. It's important to realize that you're going to have some healthy debates.

Right?

That's how it goes. But I always say this. If someone's just, like, visceral and angry, then you should just do your best to ignore it. And I'd actually say it sucks they feel that way on a regular basis. And these are grown adults posting these things on social media. But also, like, I had this problem recently where I thought someone was being rude, and it was really just a misunderstanding on my part. Like, he was asking questions, and I read it in a sarcastic tone, but he's actually just being very genuine. And I was like, oh, crap. You know, so, like, read it twice is what I'm saying. Cause maybe it's in your head that you think someone's being rude, but they're actually not. So it's food for thought there.

All right.

Got another question here from Saroshi. Okay, so how do you overcome mindset blocks to complete a task I'm working through developing an online course. We feel overwhelmed. I've tested the content out with a similar mini course, and now people are interested. So any tips on completing an online course like you did? How do you overcome the mindset blocks? Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. Like, you're. You're never gonna. It's. You're never gonna feel like it's perfect because you want to help people. And you're gonna always think of these random situations that might come up that aren't in the course. And I get that. But again, that's why we're here right now. That's why I do Q and A questions about what's in the course. I'm here for you right but realize you have to get it out because you will never get that feedback if you don't ship it. And you already did ship it with a mini course that people are saying they liked. So that perfection is the enemy of progress. And I'm sure you've heard that before. But you need to get through that because if you don't get the feedback, you can't improve upon it. Because any course you can update, right, you can say, oh, here's another section I added in. But it's. You just realizing that some people might not like it, right? Some people are going to have challenges with it, but you're, you're actually inhibiting your ability to help the people who do need it. So I would say ship it and just realize that this is. I don't say it's failure, but when you make those mistakes, it's data. It's not a setback, it's data. So you won't get that information, though. You won't get that data if you don't ship it out there. So that's what I would say. And I'm not saying this is your case at all. But sometimes we talk about stuff we're going to do and then we delay it and delay it and delay because it feels good to talk about it. But it's like when you actually do it, you're like, oh, crap, I'm on the hook now. I talked this good game for like three or four months, and now it's like, it's out there and what's going to happen? Because in your head, it's like, you want to be the person who made a course, but you don't want to make it and complete it and, like, have to kind of deal with that backlash. But yeah, just get it out there and it's going to get better and better every year. When I first started teaching at General Assembly, I wasn't that good, in my opinion. Like, I had raw talent because I was. I was doing digital marketing so I could talk about my day, but I didn't know how to, like, instruct people. I didn't know how to put together curriculum. I wasn't good. But if you ask around now, people will tell you I'm one of the best instructors at General Assembly. I've been there five years. But when I first started, I wasn't that good at all. I have very patient students, luckily, but I wasn't that good. I could admit that. So I would say, yeah, just, just get it out there and don't, don't be concerned with having it perfect. It really is a mindset block. It's like you're getting good feedback. So I would say go for it. I want to stop for a second and just kind of share something that I think is going to be relevant. For any of you who are thinking about making an online course, I would say build it to scale. Build it to scale. And by that I mean make a course you can sell to an organization or a university as well as individuals. And I'll, and I'll tell a story about that real quick. So obviously, you know, course I created, right? My college, the University at Buffalo, reached out to me saying, hey, Terry, do you want to speak to to our alumni or to our entrepreneur group about something? And I'm like, yeah, I can talk about starting consulting business. And like, great. I said, by the way, if you want, I have a course I can sell attendees as well. You can license it at a university level. So I'm like, yeah, you can buy a hundred licenses for the course. And they go, that sounds pretty interesting. We never thought of that. They're like, do you have a micro accreditation for the course? I'm like, no, but you can probably figure that out. Like, you guys know how to do that stuff. You're in college, right? Like, yeah, yeah, you're right. And we're in talks of doing that, right? Of selling this course as a license, not as a one on one. And where that idea came from is like my buddy Drayshawn Ryan, he's an SEO expert. He has an SEO course. Someone took his course and got hired at an agency and that agency said, wait, who made this course? We want to buy it for people that work here too, right? So what you want to do is look beyond the immediate, right, which might be individuals, and say, how can I amplify the reach of this content, right? How can I amplify my capabilities? And Instead of making 30 or 40 thousand dollars, make 3 or 4 million, right? So in any given situation, there's probably chances to do that. But back to the original question. That's where those mindset blocks or those limiting beliefs come up. Where you might be concerned about writing an email or asking a university to license your course, right? You can do these things. They might say no, right? But if they say yes, it's like, holy cow, now I have, you know, I sold this many courses, now I have more time for my health, for my kids to make another course, you know, whatever it is. But don't let these limiting beliefs hold you back Because I've fallen victim to that before. So bit of a tangent there, but hopefully that's beneficial because I think a lot of us, you know, we have those challenges. All right, make sure I have this. Mark is answered. All right, let's keep them coming here. I want to make sure you all get value out of your time here. Dennis, welcome. Good to see you here. And while we're talking about kind of. Yeah, you're all good. While we're talking about already a lead magnet, so some kind of PDF, some kind of free handout. Could be a free course, whatever it is. Not yet.

Yeah.

Going back to what Jim Maris was saying, actually. Jim Maris, do you have one? But going back to what he was saying, I would make sure I had that complete before I focused too much on. On upping my social media game.

Right?

Because the thing is, you want to have an end game. When do you monetize it, right? So if you have that cool lead magnet once in a while, you can say, hey, by the way, if you have questions about this, download this PDF now. You're building your email list, so that's something you want to get done within the first month or so. And a lot of my people that are in my. My group coaching program, I don't say they're stalling out on it, but it's like they're taking longer than I would prefer. And I'm like, just get it done. Just get it done. Because back to the original points. Like, you'll have these mindset blocks that make you think, oh, it's not good enough yet. You know, there's a problem with it. So and so forth. My lead magnet that I currently have that one page business plan. 500 people have downloaded it since I think the end of December, right? So since the end of December, 500 people downloaded so in a month. And I have not heavily promoted it. Like, definitely not anything paid. And this guy reached out to me this week. He's like, hey, Terry, I love this. You know, this, this PDF, it's amazing. It really opened my eyes. By the way, there's a typo on page two. Did you do that on purpose? And I was like, no, I obviously didn't do it on purpose. Right. Thanks for calling it out. But again, 500 people have downloaded. A lot of people have told me how great it was fixed. You can fix it, right? I had my niece fix it. My niece is my virtual assistant. But if you hold yourself back by saying, oh, I'm not sure what color blue to use or what's up with the font, so on and so forth. You're never going to get it out.

Right.

And Jemeris is saying he saw the post where I admitted how I messed up. Yeah, I mean, but even that's content. Even that is content. Because if you present yourself as someone who's perfect, oh, I know these things. You know, I've spoken at this conference, I worked at this company, and by the way, here's a typo. You know what I mean? Like, here's a, you know, here's, you know, something I messed up on. It humanizes you so that. That's a good way to create content. Another one of my friends, she had a video on YouTube and someone's comment was, this thing's boring. Like, I don't know where you're going with this thing is horrible, and it's boring. That's the comment they had. She made that her post on Instagram. She's like, feedback like this, you know, is upsetting at first, but it also lets me know, like, this is not my target audience because the people that I want to help would never talk like this.

Right?

This is just some random person who's having a bad day, and I'm not going to let them impact me or stop me from creating the content that I enjoy making. And I know a lot of people enjoy consuming, so there's like these little micro moments that happen all the time that if you think about it enough, it can become content. I'll give you another example. This woman reached out to me yesterday because she wanted to get in the course that we're all in.

And.

And for some reason, her login wasn't working. Camera.

Why?

Right now, technically, I could say, then it's not my job. Like, there's a help button right there. You click it. But when you're an entrepreneur, when you own your own business, you're like, no, I want to take a hundred percent responsibility for what's going on.

Right?

I'm the one who sold to the course not teachable. I want to make sure she gets in. I'm not going to tell her to go, you know, contact the help section. So I reached out to the help section for her, and I was like, hey, this student can't come in. Here's her email address. What's up? And they fixed it. But even that can be a story, right? Because someone's gonna say, wow, that guy actually, you know, was behind his product. He could have just said, buzz off. And even though he does have, you know, a bunch of kids and, you know, stuff to do, still took the time out to help this woman. So jimaris everyone else. Like, these are the little micro moments that you can create content around. And don't humble brag. Like, I'm not gonna be a jerk about it. Like, oh, look what I did. I sent an email, right? It's not that big of a deal. You know what I mean? Like, still, like, that's the content. When you're like, what should I write today? Write about your day, right? What did you experience in the day that might be interesting or relevant even if it's not going to provide value? Like, here's how you, here's how you do one thing or another. So you should never really run out of content if you're, you know, kind of thin slicing life and paying attention to those stories. All right, what else we got going on? Lauren saying, that's funny. Lauren saying finding minor forming error in the coaching and consulting workshop file empower me more proves your point that if you're trying to be perfect, you're going to hurt people who you're trying to help. Yeah, I mean, there's, I mean, there's so many times I've seen like books, like real books that have sold millions of copies and there's still like typos in it and it's like, like, okay, whatever, you know, they, they just shipped it and they're, they're done. And you don't want to do it on purpose, but it's like, it's like you ever watch a movie and it's like the actors are eating and all of a sudden it's like the person has this much in their glass and now it's only that much and it goes back up again. Like, stuff happens. They're not going to reshoot that scene just because of that one little thing. It's like you have to not suspend your disbelief, but kind of get over some stuff and focus on the value as opposed to nitpicking every little thing. Otherwise you'll miss out on so much in life in general. Another question here. At what point in your course do you recommend completing the business plan? I would look at it first and get an idea of what it should look like. And as you go through the sections, like, the first one's clarity, right? So once you get done with clarity, you should be very clear on your target audience because that's part of it. How are you going to help them? That's part of it as well. And then when you move on a bit More. And so it's about you. It's your why. So you can put your why in whatever you want. Like, you know why. You know you're doing this. And then after that, it goes more into what we cover in module three and four, the marketing pieces, like your personal brand and marketing. So when it gets to the point where it's like, what's your personal branding statement? That would be. I think it's in three. The marketing part is in four. So you would actually, you can follow along those sections and complete it as you go. And then at the very end of the course, that's when I would do your roadmap. Okay, what do I have to do in the next week? The next. I think it's 60 days. The next 90 days. I would do that at the end. Because you can sit there and digest and say, okay, that was a lot. But knowledge uninvested in labor is wasted. So what am I going to do next? And I really want you to do that because the goal of the course is not for you to, like, you know, feel cool or like, like, wow, this is interesting. It's for you to get outcomes. And that's why we're here every week, because I want to make sure you get those outcomes. So once you finished it, that's where I'd plan out the. The roadmap. And if any questions come up, you know, you can obviously help me or reach out to me for help as well. So Jamiris is saying most of his content is storytelling and he's running out of stories. Just go on, go on Quora, go on Reddit. Like, you can go on any forum for, like, E commerce people or Shopify owners, and whatever questions they have there, you need to start answering. So mind those questions. There's actually this one person, a digital marketer got his website to the top of, like, SEO just by going on Quora and answering all those questions on his website. Because he got, again, questions, create content. So if right now you're doing storytelling, what I would do after this call is I would write down 10 questions your audience has. Maybe it's 40.

Right?

List them all out, and from there, there's your content plan. Start answering those questions, and then you'll never run out of content. Yeah, I would do that. But again, like, really commenting on posts is a. Or it could be even like on Reddit or Quora is a good way to come up with content if you're. If you're low on it. All right, I think it's all the ones that came in in advance. Oh, another thing. I know your speaking topics. We cover that in module four as well. You really want to get that done as quickly as possible. And I'll tell you why. I'm speaking at the Digital Summit. Oh, shoot. Next week. Actually, I forgot about that. I'm doing this thing for Digital Summit, and the organizer reached out to me and said, hey, Terry, the person who was supposed to speak on Wednesday canceled. Do you know anyone who will be a good fit to speak? And one of my clients, she's a content marketer, and she's now focusing on doing content marketing for E commerce. And she has this speaking topic. I'm trying to find it over here. Do blogs still help e commerce?

Right?

Like, that's the question. The answer is yes. But since she did that initially, because she went through the program, since it was ready, I sent it right back over. The guy, I'm like, oh, Lauren Lang would be perfect for this. She has this content or this talk that's ready. What do you say? He's like, yeah, connect me with her. So if you don't have these things ready, then you can't take advantage of those opportunities that come out of nowhere. So these are the fundamentals that come along. And that's why you can't wait for it to be perfect. Because you feel like, oh, I'm still tweaking this, I'm still tweaking that. Don't worry about it. Worry about it. Because if they don't like it, they'll tell you to change one thing or another. But if you have nothing, then you're in trouble.

Right.

There's this other program that Pharrell is sponsoring. I can't remember the exact thing, but it's like, to help entrepreneurs who are disenfranchised get access to funds. And someone from that organization reached out to me. Can't remember the name right now. Doesn't really matter. But they're like, yeah, we're looking for speakers for this event, this program. Do you have anything ready? Yeah. Boom. Here you go. I gave them a link to my website with all my workshops that are detailed out.

Right.

So you want to have that stuff prepared in advance, because if you're like, oh, I'll get back to you Wednesdays, like, forget it. We'll go to someone else.

Right.

And my personal philosophy is to be purpose driven, prepared, and patient.

Right?

Purpose driven. Love what I do. Like, I'm enjoying myself right now. Prepared. That's me waking up at 4:30 in the morning. Tweaking my workshop descriptions of my website. So when someone does ask and impatient, hey, things take time, right? Things take time to unfold. And if you have a scarcity mindset or you're projecting lack, you'll get upset or you'll get rejected because you people kind of, they feel that from you. But there's so many times where actually, I'll tell you another story. This is gonna. It's gonna trippy. This guy from that I used to work with at General assembly sent me a message on LinkedIn saying, hey, Terry, I see when you're doing LinkedIn ads, there's an option to put in like UTM parameters or like third party tracking. And I'm like, yeah, those are UTM parameters if you want. Or there's other stuff you can use too. By the way, here's a video that'll walk through the process. I could just ignore them, but he's a nice guy, so I did that. But when I googled, when I googled like UTM parameters defined. The second video was this guy that reached out to me three years ago and wanted me to create content for his platform, like a Facebook course or something. I told him no because I didn't really feel like doing it right, but I was cool with him. And he reached out to me later, asked me a question and answered and I was like, oh, crap. This guy has a community. It's called Click Minded or something like that. Yeah, I think it's called Click Minded. And he makes SEO courses and Facebook courses, so and so forth. I'm like, well, hell, I should probably present to his audience because I can sell, you know, either this course or a workshop or whatever to him. So I reached out to him and I'm like, hey, let's talk. And you know, we'll see where that goes. But that would have never happened if I had dissed Dan, who reached out to me on LinkedIn and I dissed the other guy three years ago when he asked me a question after I already told him I didn't want to work with him.

Right.

So these things take years. But everything you're doing right now, everything you're doing right now is building your brand and your business. You'll get rewarded for years. So even if it doesn't happen right now, you're still doing the right thing. You're still holding true to your morals, your core values, so and so forth. You're wanting to help people. So don't feel rushed to become right. You're becoming right now and you're on the way. So hopefully that story is relevant and helpful, or at least inspiring. But yeah, it's crazy how people come out of nowhere and, you know, they just want to work with you. Or this, you know, this just appear in your life. Again, question here. Can I send you a link to my workshop description? Yeah, sure. I can do that right now, actually. I'll put that in the chat window if it's helpful. But, and here's the thing, right? Let's just be kind of blunt here. You don't have to have the presentation done to pitch it. All you need is the title, the description, and don't forget the key takeaways. Don't forget the key takeaways.

Right.

What. What are they going to learn? Feel, experience, do differently from attending this workshop, right? Make sure you have that there. And then once someone actually, you know, hires you or books you, then go build a deck. Which is why sometimes I'm building my decks at like four in the morning because I sold something that doesn't exist yet, but it does now. So that's how it goes. But eventually you want to have like, four core workshops or talks. I do workshops more than talks lately, because workshops, I feel there's more of a defined outcome where talks are like, oh, let me tell you about one time when I was sad. Then I'm not sad, but I'm not sad anymore. And you don't have to be sad either. Like, I don't do that stuff. I'm more like, hey, here's how you make money, or here's how you become more productive, you know. And that's just my approach. But that's what I find people are paying for these days. Because if you're doing a remote session, people don't necessarily want to tune in to like, a talk. If it's a workshop where they can, like, improve after it, I think they're a bit more receptive to that. So eventually you have like, four of these that are built for the same audience normally. But once you build a deck, you're just done. Now what you really want to think about is this. This part's really important. So actually write this down. Build lead magnets that align with your workshops. That way you can send it to an organization, a university, so on and so forth, and say, if you like this, I actually have a workshop that supports it. It's an hour long, so. And so forth. Everything you have should. Should be aligned. Because what you can also do is this, right? Let's say Dennis has like, you know, four talks and he's like, you know, which of these are, which of these are, you know, working or not working, so on and so forth. If you're giving out a free lead magnet, which is the topic of one of your talks, and no one wants it for free, guess what? No one's gonna pay you for it either.

Right?

So you can actually test to see, is this a good idea? Does this workshop make sense?

Right.

If you're trying to give away information for free, people are like, no, thanks. You should probably think of another workshop so you can do some testing around that. I talked to this woman as part of this series that I did with mailchimp and Entrepreneur magazine where I was consulting people about their problems. And her problem was she could not find what workshops were beneficial for her to produce. So we said, heck, do you paid ads around your lead magnet put 500 bucks into it if no one's. Because that way you can reach more people than doing it organically. If no one's clicking to even start the process of downloading it, that means people don't really care that much. So if you're wondering is this a good topic or not, I'm not saying do paid ads, but I'm saying if you really want to find out quicker, you could literally say, hey, you're in this target audience. I'm sending you this ad. Do you want this? And if everyone says, no thanks, it's probably not a good idea.

Right?

So it'll get rid of some of that guesswork on your end. Because I know some companies will do that. They'll do that to test taglines, products that don't even exist yet. They'll run paid ads. You get an answer a lot quicker if you don't want to do some kind of like market research. It's like if someone saw that, like a Google Ad for it or even a Facebook ad, would they even click on it? So you can do that too. If you really want to get specific. Dennis is saying, sell before you build. Yeah, as long. As long as you can actually build it. But another thing is with your, with your workshops, try to avoid doing custom ones because those are a time suck. Those are time suck. And it's like if you're making a workshop for left handed chiropractors in Anchorage, Alaska, who want to get more, I don't know, like, clients. It's like, what, am I ever going to use this again? And that feels like a drag. So that's why I'm saying get these four core ones down and say, here's the menu. If you want, I can change it around a little bit, but it's going to take me hours, hours to make a custom one. And you'd have to charge them a lot more than anyone else to do that. If it's worth your time for me, I'll make a custom one if I think I can reuse it again later. But otherwise it's not a good fit for my time normally. But those are. Those are a lot of fun.

Right?

Like, 20 minutes left. So just in general, how's everybody feeling about the progress you're making in the course? How's it going for you in general? Would love to get some feedback on that, too. One of my buddies is in the course. He's like. He's like, this is dense in a good way. He's like, this is not for someone who's just trying to get through it in a weekend. He's like, this is like actually how you both. You launch a career. And I'm like, yeah, you know, I don't want someone just like, oh, I want to, like, rush into this industry. I'm like, no, you're going to be a success. You're not going to, like, have, like, a cool tagline and then fail because you didn't do all this research. Um, so, yeah, that's how it goes, Lauren. Saying good and getting better, slowly picking up space. Yeah, it's Lauren, that first part, I call that the lonely work. That's why I said, like, when you're doing all that research, like, you know, what does my target audience care about? What are their problems? It's. It's hard going on platforms like Twitter and Reddit and just reading stuff, right? Because you're looking for that signal and the noise. But if you don't do that stuff, gosh, it comes in handy so much in conversation when you're writing your content, so on and so forth. That's all part of it. But it's like when I used to do digital marketing consulting, when you're trying to optimize a campaign, you're trying to find what's messed up, right? But you're like, oh, is it the audience? Is it the ads? Is it the bid? Is it the placement? You're poking around forever and you're finally like, oh, there it is, right? It's pretty much the same thing with this. It's like all that lonely work up front, and then you're like, okay, now I get it, right? I don't know if you watch Cobra Kai or, like, Karate kid, but like when he's like painting the fence, it's like that's why you're doing all that stuff. So you learn karate at the end of the course too. Another question here is what do you feel about doing free workshops with a large professional organization filled with your target audience? How can you convert the attendees to paid ones, paid one on one clients or course takers? If it's your target audience, I would say yes. And let's take a step back. Just you saying that you've done workshops for a large organization that gives you more street cred, Right? You post about on social, you have it on your website, you can mention it when you're pitching people. I've spoken at Google or for Google, I think three or four times. Never been paid Amazon three times, only got paid once. I'm not going to keep going. But you get the point. If it's a good organization that your target audience is a member of, yes, you can actually monetize it by saying, oh, by the way, if you want a copy of my deck, go to my website or here's this lead magnet, so on and so forth, you can monetize it. So I would say go for it. Because the people in that audience, it's so crazy, like they'll remember you for years and they might reach out or one of their buddies might reach out, so on, so forth. And they'll, you know, they will work with you eventually and you'll get better at delivering your content too. So as long as I'm reading this again, as long as your target audience is there, yeah, it makes sense. So that's why you need to have that lead behind. And in that lead behind specifically, don't just say, email me, have questions, say, here's how I can help you. Click here to schedule a power hour where I'll review your questions in advance and I'll give you direction on how to move forward with every challenge you have. Click here to, you know, buy my online course. You get access to this, that and that put that in the actual lead magnet, be overt about it and then have an automated sequence behind that.

Right?

So four days later they get a different email. Hey, how's it going? Four days later, here comes another one. Hey, checking in again, right? You can obviously say it better than that, but no, absolutely. I mean for me. But that's the benefit of having your talks prepared, right? You're not doing a fresh talk, it's like, no, I got an hour, I'll do it. Like when my college Reached out to me to talk. They're like, how much do you. How much do you charge? And I was like, what do you got? I mean, I don't need a lot of money for it. They gave me, like, 500 bucks. I mean, that's less than I would normally charge, but I was like, I got an hour. I can do it. And it showed goodwill, which is how I can kind of shift more towards this licensing deal as well. So, yeah, absolutely, I would do it. But be careful of this. Be careful. This. This drives me crazy. When someone reaches out to you to speak at their event and the audience is like, yeah, we'll see. Like, maybe they're a good fit for you, maybe they're not. They won't pay you, but they are charging attendees. That's a horrible combination. That's a horrible combination because they'll say, oh, it's good branding for you. But you're like, I don't really want to get in front of these people.

Right.

And you're not going to pay me, but you're charging them to see me, but I don't get any money, and I'm never going to make any money. In that case, I would pass. Not just because you're not going to make any money. It's almost insulting when someone does that.

Right?

So, yeah, sure, it's nice to practice your content, but in my gut, I would. Wouldn't feel right because I'm like, this is. I'm being, you know, taken advantage of at this point. So the only way I would do that. I'll take. I'll give you one caveat. The only way I would do that is if it was in person and they took pictures and. Or videotaped it, then I would do it. Because then you could put that in your speaker reel.

Right.

But that's the only way. If I'm not getting paid, it's not my audience. If I'm getting pictures or a video of it, then that'll be acceptable.

Right?

So Dennis is still validating his ideas. He found an organization to source train VAs.

Cool.

You're doing your interviewing tomorrow. I like that. Yeah. Dennis, with your va. I mean, the most important thing for me is to, like, just be very clear about what you want from them. And I use a tool called Loom to record those. Those videos. So I'll say literally, like, here's how you do this. Watch me do it. It took me 10 minutes. So don't, like, increase your hours, because I know it only takes 10 minutes to do something like this. But I think that'll be great for you to do that. And you're saying that you're trying to build your credibility through three parties, through third parties. Like, I am having some credentials. Most people ask for a previous pitch. So.

Really?

Okay, any advice to get started? All right, so the challenge is you're trying to get some street credit and everyone's like, where have you spoken before? Yeah, we all start there. Start at libraries, right? Start at libraries, Start at chambers of commerce. One thing I mentioned last week is I'll be speaking at hopefully several libraries over the next few months. I have two lined up right now. Yeah, two. Start there, right? Start at a non profit, start at whatever. But just get some credibility. Get one testimonial about how great you are and then it snowballs, Right. I don't remember my first speaking gig, actually. No, it was at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. Yeah, it was there. And then another one at a co working space. Like a larger co working space. And then from there it just kind of, you know, move forward. So start there. But. Yeah, yeah, just start there. That's really it. And you almost want to be on a smaller stage at first because let's pretend you do mess up. You know, it's like it's only 20 people, so not as big of a deal. Yeah, that's what I would do. Do you have a website? Yeah, I have a. I have a website. So you don't have one yet? Yeah, if you don't have a website yet, then aim for those libraries. Chamber of commerce. That's what I would say. Do have a website with a speaking opportunity. I have a speaking page on my website, if that helps. I can put the link in, take.

A look at it.

Yeah, but these are all things that happened over the years. I didn't start off like this. You'll see. You're not making sense. I'm inferring. Oh, I know what you mean. A website that I would go to for speaking opportunities. Is that what you're asking? I think so.

Cool.

Got it.

All right.

No, I know there's. There's. There's several out there. What I found is, and I don't know the names off the top of my head, what I found is the ones where it's like, will find these speaking engagements or speakers go. Or people go there to find speakers. They don't normally pay typically, so that wouldn't work out too well. But General Assembly. Yeah, go ahead. You know, like if you have a talk that you want to do for GA even let me know, you know, if I can. I can help out with X. I know, I know what you're up to, so let me know. But even this, like a local university, like Erie Community College in Buffalo, I just live in Buffalo, reach out to them and say, hey, you have this, this program for adults who do this. Can I just be a guest speaker once? You know, can I be a guest instructor for your class? That's still credibility. Then you're saying, I spoke at Brooklyn College or, you know, this local community college, whatever it is, you can start there too. And then if you're, if you're in person, I would say get pictures even on your cell phone. But you can distill even when you're doing it remotely. Just take a picture of your screen while you're presenting and have like their logo up on your website. All that stuff. That'll help build your street cred too. So, yeah, that's what I would do. You're in California. Yeah, I'm a New York man, so I hear you there, but it's. It's fine. I mean, Dennis, I don't know if I really feel the need to ever speak in person again unless it's in New York and it works with my kids schedule, to be honest. Cause, like, I've been having a blast the last shit almost a year, right? Doing it, you know, remotely. And once I'm done, I'm done, you know, I could just walk out the living room with my family. So I would just really get used to, you know, presenting remotely like I am right now. And even on my end, like, just get some basic gear, like buy a selfie light. It's gonna cost you 30 bucks, so. So you'll look better because, like, if I turn my selfie light off right now, here's how I look, right? So you don't to be that guy. Just pay 30 bucks for a light and you'll look better. I just realized I have my headphones on for no reason because you guys aren't talking. Forget. Get some headphones if you want to. You can also get a microphone. This one, you know, it's good enough. But yeah, I don't know, like, if I were an emerging speaker right now, I would just get really good at delivering content remotely like I am. So maybe get a standing desk so you have more, more energy and you can like, you know, move back and forth a little bit to, you know, do that. But that's what I would do. And Shiroshi's asking, do I think the trend will remain. I don't think it's going to remain. I think we'll eventually go back to in some capacity doing in person events. But for the next few years, this is my guess, people are going to be kind of skittish about it. And even when, even though it does what does become a thing again, it's like so many organizations realize they didn't have to be doing this stuff in person. Right, sure. Is it nice to, you know, meet people? Because like, that's really why you go to conferences sometimes to meet people, not just the speakers, but it's like we found another way and it's like, it's cheaper, right? So one of my buddies, this guy, Toby Daniels, he's the founder of Social Media Week and they went remote with all their talks and he's like, I don't think it's ever going to come back the way it is. But then Ad Week just bought Social Media Week, so they obviously know his vision. And Adweek's a very big conference series as well. So is it going to remain that way for a while? And I think this trend will remain where you're doing remote stuff indefinitely because it's so much cheaper. It's easier on people who have families, don't want to travel, whatever. So yeah, I mean, my vision is having like a studio in my home where I can just quickly set up and just do great stuff like this hell daily, you know, if I could because I enjoy it. So I would double down on, on that. All right, got another question here. Due to time constraints, I passed on the opportunity to apply to present in front of what would be my ideal audience. I still plan to attend as a participant, but I'm wondering what your suggestion would be for follow up. To still get my foot in the door and make the most of the event. All right, so Lauren, I want to tell a story and if this is applicable, cool. If not, I think it'll be applicable. So I actually wanted to speak at Social Media Week like three years ago and my submission didn't make it through. So I reached out and I said, look, I see on your website you have all these recaps of past sessions. Can I go there and just write recaps? Is that cool? And like, yeah, sure, come on. You know, they gave me a platinum pass which cost $2,000, and I was in the green room like with all the other speakers and I met all of them and I really just got in good with the organization too, to the point where the following year I Did two keynotes. One in New York and one in New York City. Sorry. And one in Los Angeles.

Right.

So what I'm saying, Lauren, is, is there a way for you to follow up afterwards or even before and say the same thing as me? Like, hey, would you like me to write recaps of some of your, you know, your keynotes or something along those lines? But just find a way to really connect with the organizers by providing value. I would do that, right? Because for me, I was like, holy cow. Like, this worked. But the thing is, now you can do that with any event that you want to get in good with, right? Oh, you already have your speaker's book. Well, hey, have you thought about, like, having, like, recaps, you know, on your website or even, like, on LinkedIn or something? I can write an article for LinkedIn or Medium. You know, I'm willing to do that too. Because you'll become a better writer, right? And again, you're. You're endearing yourself to them as well. And it's like those little things, like, pretend things did still exist in person, like conferences. I'm acting like it's a mythical thing. Hell, I'd volunteer to be an usher. I'll be the guy handing out lanyards. I don't care. Because I'll meet everyone who comes through the door. Because my ego doesn't get in the way of stuff like that, right? Because I know what the point of being there is. And in fact, when I joined the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, I volunteered to be on the new member welcome community because I wanted to meet every new person when they came to their first event. So I was at the guy at the door, like, handing out, like, name tags and stuff. You were like, oh, don't you want to be in there networking? I'm like, no, I'm good here. Because now every single person who joins is going to know me. So when I reach out, saying, by the way, here's what I do. What do you do? I'm not some random person. I'm that guy who gave you your name tag, right? So there's, like, this game within the game that you can master. You can amplify the impact of any situation, even if you do get turned down to speak because you're playing the long game, right? And not projecting that lack and scarcity. So, yeah, so reach out and let me know how that goes. Even little things, like share their. Their social post as an Instagram story. Oh, this thing's gonna be awesome. And then, like, if they dm you in return, start that conversation afterwards, like, yeah, thanks for, you know, messaging me or whatever. Then you can continue from there, too.

Cool. All right.

Let me do something real quick. I need to write down all the questions that got asked because I want to write that in the show notes. I'm going to copy all these before I bid you all adieu, but are there any last questions I can grab before we do head out? I know we're at the top of the hour, but I don't mind hanging out if I can help.

Cool.

All right, well, it's been great, so thanks for your questions. You gave me some ideas for content, so I appreciate that. But I'll see you here next week. And, you know, keep pushing through the course. I know the first one, the first module, the second one actually is challenging. It's supposed to be, right? But when you're like, man, this is tough, think of that as a trigger to separate yourself from everyone else who would have phoned it in, took the easy way out. Then a year later, like, hey, how come no one likes my posts? How come no one's reaching out to me for speaking gigs? How come no one's buying my service? How come everyone's talking me down for my rate? It's because they didn't put in that work first.

Right?

So do that. And if you need help, I'm here. I'll see you next week, but thanks for your time and have a good night.