How to Start a Coaching Business Q&A with Terry Rice | 8/12/21

So let's go ahead and get started. We're gonna do some Q and A. Here we have Brenda coming up with a question. Brenda, how's it going? You're on mute right now, so I can't quite hear you.

Okay, now?

Yeah, sounds good.

Hello. Hey, how are you now? Okay. I feel alive working a lot. I'm working today with I have like three platforms. I realized I start my email list in GoDaddy platform with my website. So now I've been working for the past months learning, you know, new tools. So I work on a landing page in Mailerlite. Then I learned about honeybook because I was looking for the invoicing automation automatic service. And I'm looking forward to their tutorials and I can see that they have a lot of features. So I'm thinking, okay, how am I going to do this easier so I'm not running between platforms and if I have something already done, if I can move it from one place to another, I don't know your experience, what can you recommend?

Let me make sure I'm clear on the problem. So you're using HoneyBook for proposals and for invoicing and what's the other use case you're trying to solve for?

Everything starts like two years ago with GoDaddy platform. I was using GoDaddy for the website and to have my email list. So recently, like two months ago, I started working with Mailerlite, looking to work to do this landing page for the lead magnet. I have the lead magnet in the cloud. So then I was like, okay, how am I going to do the invoice in effective way? So I learned with you about the HoneyBook and now I have these three platforms. So I'm thinking like, okay, how is the best way to work on with this with not too much hassle between platforms?

I think one common challenge is the amount of tools available for any entrepreneur. And my goal normally is to use as few as possible because it's less of a hassle, one less login, so on and so forth. But I think we're all going to have a few core tools that we use. So with HoneyBook, it's great for sending out invoices, proposals. You can even use it as part of your prospecting process. Or when someone fills out a form, they get a sequence of emails or prompts encouraging them to take an action. But when we're talking about email marketing, that's going to be a different platform. And it sounds like you're using mailchimp for this mailerlite Mailer Light, you said that's a new one for me. But those are two completely different platforms and different use cases. So that more or less is what it is. But I would say if you can adopt a workflow where it's like, okay, if someone comes in through Honeybook as a prospect, but they don't actually convert, maybe you just move them onto your general newsletter list so they still get your emails. And there might even be some kind of integration between Honeybook, for example, in this Mailerlite, I'm not sure, but I think internally you have to have a flow. You know, here's what happens when someone becomes a prospect if they don't become, you know, who I want with to send them the newsletter. But you'd have to build that out. I don't know that you'd be able to make those two, either one of those two platforms do everything you're looking for.

Okay. So it can be normal, like to play with more than one platform.

Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of platforms like, like Honeybook, they're trying to do more. So before, like, I think like six months ago you could not schedule calls through Honeybook, but now you can. So they're trying to add this functionality. Maybe a year from now, six months from now, they will, you will be able to send emails, but right now you, you can't. At least not. At least not, not the way you're talking about it. Not your use case. You can send one off emails to individuals, but you can't do like newsletter email blasts through HoneyBook.

Okay. Okay. Okay. I was wondering what I was able to do with the tool because I'm still learning about it. So. Because you have the experience with it. So I was thinking, okay, you can give me some great advice so I don't feel overwhelmed if it's not necessary.

Yeah. And I think the story for me to take away from me is that you're using these tools to automate processes that can waste your time, energy and talent. So I'm glad to hear that because often that's the challenge a lot of entrepreneurs have, especially people like you. You're like, here's my zone of genius. Here's what I enjoy doing. It's not setting up all these tools, but if you set up all those tools, you have more time to do what you enjoy. So.

Yes.

Glad you're going through that process.

Yes, thank you very much. That was my main worry for today because I'm working very, a lot for this to do. The launching, the official launching, this Month at the end of the month, so. And then, well, the next step. But I need to do it.

Awesome.

So thank you very much. I'm learning from everything.

All right, good to hear. All right, I'm going to somewhat demote you to an attendee and then see if anyone else wants to come up. Looks like we have Kevin and Athena here, so let me just kind of do this.

Great.

But Kevin, Athena, do either one of you have questions that we can help out with in regards to growing your business? Obviously, let's see, you can just enter in the chat window, like yes or no, if you have a pointed question to share out. But while we're. While we're waiting for a response here, one thing I will say is this. I've been hiring freelancers lately just for an agency that I'm developing, and it's been great being on the other side of the table when you're hiring a professional as opposed to the person who's hiring their services out. Because you see what it's like to be in those shoes. You see people's onboarding processes, the questions they ask, so on and so forth. And I've been blown away with some people the way that they just make sure that, first of all, you're a good fit for them, not just they're a good fit for you, but how they make sure they can actually deliver on the promises that they're making. So it helped me just revisit the way that I onboard people. And on my end, it's been an eye opening, but it also showed me some people aren't too great at it. And those are the ones who aren't going to be, unfortunately, super successful as we. As we move forward. Because as work and workplace have been decoupled, even more people realize, hey, I don't have to work with someone who lives in Brooklyn or. Or Buffalo. It could be someone in Bangladesh. And whoever is the most talented and maybe economical solution is the one that's going to win. So just keep that in mind. But I see Kevin wanted to come up and talk, but I see two people named Kevin here, so I'm going to pick one and see. See which one is correct, and we'll see what happens here. All right, so we got Kevin Yee here. Kevin, was that you that want to be a panelist or no. And you're on mute right now, so it's okay.

Oh, yeah. So I actually had a question as well.

Go for it.

That piggybacks what you were talking about, so I know you're that you're outsourcing people at the moment for your agency, but as you're outsourcing this talent, I guess I'm kind of curious, from your end, what do you feel like has been the most helpful or valuable outsourcing.

For your agency, meaning the process or the. I mean, what they're actually doing, the.

The actual tasks in your business and stuff like that as well. Right.

I'd say a copywriter, because a lot of stuff, like I'm also like, I'm hiring people to do implementation of ConvertKit, stuff like that, and that's valuable, but there's not a lot of creative talent necessary to do that. It's just like, I'm not saying just pushing buttons, but you're pushing buttons, but someone who can say, all right, let me get an idea of what your company does, what's the message you want to get across? And then create copy that supports that. That's really hard to find. And on mine, I'd say that's the most viable part of the team that I've created so far, because I'm not going to sell anything I don't feel comfortable with, meaning I don't feel that we're going to be able to deliver great outcomes. So I've actually been hiring multiple people, multiple copywriters to test them out and finding those people where I'm just excited to see their content, like literally excited to see them and talk to them, these copywriters, that's been the most impactful thing. And what I've also learned, though, is I'm not giving people enough information sometimes to be successful. And I'll give you an example of that. So this one person, I hired them to write a lead nurturing sequence and two nurturing emails, then one sales, then two nurturing emails, then one sales. But sure, they're going to do their research on me, my company, my competitors, but the more information I give them, the better. So what I started doing is saying, look, here's a couple articles you can reference. Like, here's some data points you can make. Here's, you know, some other information that's out there already that you can reference in part of the Nurturing series especially. And that way they don't have to guess what's going on inside of my head, because I'm already assuming what's going inside of my audience's head, right? So there's like plenty of opportunity to disconnect. And once I have an example of what success looks like, what I think looks good, I can then Say, okay, how can you recreate this more or less in your own tone of voice? Right. So the initial email they get for the welcome series is excitement, it's congratulatory, the next one, so on and so forth. The more guidance you give anyone, the better they're going to do. And on mine initially I was like, oh, just read my mind and get back to me in three days. And that landed sometimes, well, sometimes it didn't land well. But the onus is on me to properly encode what I want them to decode, otherwise it's not going to work out too well.

I do have a follow up question too. Is there a process of how you identify like high priority tasks when you're outsourcing?

Yeah, I mean, I think of it this way. There's certain tasks that don't require creativity. They might require great attention to detail, but no creativity. So if I give like my niece is my virtual assistant, she's probably listening to this right now actually and there's times when I ask her to put my articles on my website that does not require any kind of creative skills whatsoever. It requires attention to detail, making sure you know how to use squarespace, but no creativity. So for me, yes, that's important. But the talent pool people can do that is very large and the amount you would pay for that is very low. Right. But when I think about again those creative things like someone who's writing, someone who's doing video editing, so on, so forth, that's a lot harder to find. And when you do solve that problem, you want to make sure that first of all you retain those people. And, and one thing I've been doing is saying I'll pay you for 5, 10 of these in advance just to lock it in. And you can actually get a volume discount like that too. But that way you're saying, look, you know, I just need to be, to be available for this stuff, I need a two day turnaround, whatever it is, but just showing that you're willing to invest in them by prepaying for these services. And I think that's how I've been able to build these relationships. Cool. And that was your question? Yeah. So it's, it's been a lot of fun. It's, it's also respecting people and their time zone different sometimes. So I'll ask people like, hey, you know, it looks like it's kind of late where you're located, do you want to talk at some other time or at least asking about situations like I used to have a A video editor in the Philippines, and there was a hurt, there's an earthquake. And I was like, hey, you know, just checking in. Is everything okay with you and your family? Right? I mean, there's nothing I can do if there's not anything okay. But just showing, like, those little things where I think a lot of people that get hired off of Fiverr or Upwork, they're just get beat down. They get treated like a service provider, not a person. And if you can treat someone like a person and say, hey, look, you just got married. It's okay if you take some time, or like, hey, I know it's the weekend, so on and so forth, you will get better results. But one thing that one of my business partners told me is this. And this was surprising, because when I originally put some bids out on Upwork, I was gonna pay people way too much. And I didn't know what too much was, but he was saying he's like, that's way too much to pay for this project. And, like, my goal is to make sure that people feel rewarded and recognized. And he's like, unfortunately, that's not how it works. They'll just think you're a sucker. They'll think you don't know what this stuff is worth because you're paying so much for it, and they'll take advantage of it. So that really surprised me, where it's like, I think I'm being more, you know, giving. And I'm saying you should always. You should always be generous and respectful. But, like, when I was overdoing it on accident, he told me there's a downside to that, because, like, Kevin, right now, if someone offered you $10,000 to cut their yacht, their yard, you'd say, hell, yeah, I'll cut the shrubs for another 5,000. You know, like, if that's. If that's where their mind is at that point. So it was beneficial to seeing what it's like from someone who's had experience doing this stuff before me and just leveraging that on my own as well. All right, so if there's no more questions, we can kind of make it short this week. But this has been great catching up. And I do want to revisit those tools that Brendan was asking about. Is it hard to implement these tools? Sometimes it can be. I mean, just depending on your level of comfort with technology and marketing and so on and so forth. But if you could just push through that, you might be a weekend away from saving so much time by automating your email marketing. By automating the templates you're creating for your proposals, all that stuff. So, yes, it will take time, but once you're done, it's done. And then you can take advantage of the compound effect where, like, these small things that seem, know, almost insignificant sometimes compound greatly over time and yield great results. So spend that time doing it and push through because there's, there's great outcomes once you do. All right, so I'm going to take off and take care of this sick kid. But thanks for your time this week. And any questions, you can pop them into the Facebook group or I'll schedule with you next time. So take care.