How to Start a Coaching Business Q&A with Terry Rice | 2/18/2021

Okay, welcome to Q and A. We're going to get started shortly. As a quick heads up, this is your chance to get obviously any questions answered about the course, about your practice, any random emails you got from people that you need help answering, now is a chance to do it. We had some come in in advance, so I'm going to answer those. And then we have a special guest, Dennis, who's going to ask some questions as well. So I'm going to bring him up as a panelist. But let's go ahead and get started here. And the first question was, how many workshops do you lead per week and how do you keep getting them? That's a good question. I normally lead at least one per week, and a lot of times that's through General assembly. But this week I did one for General assembly, one for Entrepreneur, and actually two for General Assembly. So three. And, you know, it's a lot of fun, but the way that you get more is to do a good job and that way people recommend you to other organizations. This woman, I just got an email today saying, oh, my friend saw you speak at this event last week. She said you were great. Can you speak at our event? And I thought that was cool, you know, because like, I. It was literally like a week later. And this additional event isn't paid, but they normally have about a hundred people show up, which is a pretty good number for attendance rate for a. For a webinar. So I'll do that. But I was leading one with, with Google like three or four months ago. And the woman that I presented with, this woman, her name is Sandra Garcia, she literally said during the event, hey, if you know anyone else who could value me speaking for their organization, please let me know. And like, damn, how come I've never done that before? So it stuck in my head to start doing that going forward. Like, literally say, if anyone knows anyone who I want me to speak with them or for their audience, let me know. So that's a good reminder for me to do that, because if you don't ask, the answer is going to be no. But if you do ask, the answer will be yes or no. So you might put that spark in someone's head to actually ask that question. So just want to get in the habit of doing that. Another question, how do I write for Entrepreneur or Forbes? Well, I don't write for Forbes, so I don't know. I know they have something called the Forbes Coaches Council, which is a paid membership. You can join to write. And then Entrepreneur magazine has the Entrepreneur Leadership Network, which is also a paid contributor platform. And the benefit of that is you'll work with an editor who will help you learn how to write, essentially. And you can use that for lead generation by sharing your article. Obviously you're going to build your authority as well. So if you want to do that, that would be a good use case for that. What else? How do I make myself stand out when replying to an RFP request for pricing? Yeah, those are hard because when you reply to an rfp, it's like, maybe it's like a government contract or something, they're somewhat rigid. It's like, what do you do? You know, like, there's no like room for creativity, more or less. So what you can do is make yourself stand out when they research you, right, when they research who you are, what you do outside of what you have in that rfp. So maybe it's like your social media presence. Do you have really good content on LinkedIn they can look at and say, wow, this person, you know, the responses to the RFP were great, but while she's always writing good content on LinkedIn as well. So I would stand out by my personal branding and just showing that, you know, you are very involved in the industry because that could be the differentiator. So. So that would be my advice on that last one. What are some things you wasted money on when you first started out? Okay, normally people ask me what tools and apps I use. Not like, what did I waste money on? But I like that one because there's so many people saying what to buy, not what not to buy. What did I buy? Oh, you know what? I bought this tool called Shit. What is it? Sam Cart. I think it helps you, like, increase your conversion rate for like buying like online courses, stuff like that. And I saw this woman I knew who I respected, she was using it. So I'm like, oh, I'm going to buy Sam Cart. And that'll encourage me to hurry up and build my online course. This is like five or six years ago and I never both. I never even bothered building the course. Took me like another year to build it, but I paid like 600 bucks for it. Actually more because I forgot to cancel renewing it. And that reminded me, I'm like, never buy any kind of tool or app until you're ready to use it. Don't think, well, buy this. This will make me use it. Buy it when you're ready to. So even if you are going to create an online course, don't sign up for Teachable until you have your outline done and maybe even, like, your scripts or your slides, if that's what you're doing. Because you start paying as soon as you sign up for it. So as soon as you sign up, you should have time blocked off to start creating the course. Don't say, oh, I'm gonna buy this. It's gonna force me to do it. Like, no, just get an outline first and then go ahead. And then go ahead and purchase it. So. And then beyond that, wait to buy the paid version of anything if there's a freemium version, Wait to buy the paid version of anything until you grow into it. Until you're like, wow, if I just had this functionality, it would be so much better. I could do this. But don't, like, just buy the most expensive stuff thinking it's gonna make you better, because a tool's not going to do that. Your hard work, your creativity, your expertise will, but the tool's not going to. So it's like whenever I'm sure you have one of those friends, like, every time they start a new hobby, they buy all the most expensive stuff. It's like, really? Yeah. You're buying all that stuff? Like, you don't even know how to ski. Like, why do you need all this, like, double black diamond worthy gear? That's usually the way I think about it. So don't spend money on something until you have a good use case for it, and then you can go ahead and make that decision. Okay, but what I want to do now is bring our buddy Dennis up. That's all the questions I had in advance. I'm going to put my headphones on, and Dennis, we're all looking forward to getting an update from you, so let me do this, and you should be good to go shortly. See Dennis, how's it going? Good.

What was your.

I'm good. I like your. Your background. I'm actually. I ordered. Yeah. What is that?

It's an ostrich.

If I remember. Well, that's a gift to my wife, to one of her. Her friends, actually. Yeah. I'm actually having a background made, like a custom one, just to kind of make it a bit cleaner behind me. Because you have, like, a nice clean wall. I have like, all these weird angles and everything. Oh, yeah.

Took me some time to find the perfect angle, so I get to it. But what are you doing exactly? Like a green background. And you're gonna put something on it.

Or directly a physical background, like. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. It's like It'll be like a vinyl thing you can roll up.

Okay.

Like over here, I guess. And my socials over here, so.

Got it. That was pretty cool.

Yeah, looking forward to it. But more importantly, how are you? How are you doing?

Yeah, good, good. I can totally relate to the last thing you were talking about about tools that don't buy them until you have the use for them. Because even me, sometimes I'm like, okay, you know what, I do the seven day trial, so that's going to push me to do the thing. And that doesn't.

So yeah, yeah, I learned that the hard way. So glad that you figured that out a lot.

Yeah, it's the kind of things. But yeah, compared to last time, to be honest, I was really just stuck in the way that I feel. I have a hard time defining a buyer Persona. And that's the thing too. Like we were talking last time, I know the tools, I know everything, but I don't have the what or the who. And so that doesn't work. That's exactly kind of where I'm at. Where I'm like, I need to perfect the knowledge in any direction I'm going. I'd say so the direction doesn't really matter. I try to go towards something I want to do in digital marketing. Like, I think I should go one way, either like Google Ads or Facebook ads or one of those without trying to do everything. But it's more when I'm thinking, okay, who I start selling that to. Yeah, it's really outside for me and I'm having a hard time being like, okay, companies with less than 10 employees that are doing like, I don't know, 50k a month or something like that. I'm having a hard time defining something. Would you say that doesn't really matter? Just test and see if that sticks?

Or let me ask you a question first. Have you done this for like as a consultant yet? Any kind of Google Ads never paid. Okay, so I have an idea. I have an idea. Google has a grant for nonprofits. I think it's around $10,000 a month they can get in Google Ad spend.

Okay.

What I would consider doing is reaching out to a few nonprofits and saying, hey, would you feel comfortable with me? You're kind of interning with you for the next two months where I'll run your ads at no cost. And it won't cost you anything either because Google has this program. That way you'll get practice running ads. And I would focus on lead generation because lead gen you can apply to Pretty much any industry. Right. Ecom B2B, so and so forth. So if you become an expert at using Google Ads for even just lead gen, not like donations for a nonprofit, that's a transferable skill and you'll get a good testimonial from them as well. But it won't cost them any money to kind of have that leap of faith with you. And heck, you might find that you like working with nonprofits too for all you know. So you never know.

It's not something I really know either. We don't have non profit in Europe. But yeah, I'll try that. That's a good idea. And yeah, Legion. That's obviously I'd say the carrot to.

Attract because yeah, usually when you say.

Oh, I do Google Ads, people are like okay, cool. But you say oh, do lead gen through Google Ads. That's what people understand. But I don't know, I feel like Legion. I don't know. I see so much of it. Maybe because we're in this bubble. As soon as you start typing into Google digital marketing, you get bombarded with all those ads and stuff like that. And I feel like there's so much competition like lead gen. Feel like everybody's doing that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's pretty popular. But I think where you can differentiate yourself is right now. If you were to ask me, hey, Terry, do you know a good Facebook guy? I can give you a bunch of people who know Facebook and Google. Over the last, I would say five years, it's become increasingly hard for me to find a good Google Ads person because a lot of the Google Ads people are now just doing paid social because it's like, oh, it's cooler to have a cool, you know, picture and then like a meme or whatever. As opposed to Google Ads. Yeah. So it's something to consider. Even if it is lead gen. You could be more niche just by saying I only do Google Ads like that's it. And you just go really deep with that. That platform as opposed to spreading yourself to. Now there is an advantage to doing both because I used to do that when I did account management. I would send traffic to a website with Google Ads and then retarget with Facebook ads because the CPA was so much better after.

Yeah, that's the best way.

So maybe. And I'm now like contradicting myself. One way to think about it is like you could still say, hey, I'm doing lead gen, but I'll send traffic to your website with Google Ads and maybe retarget With Facebook to convert them, it's. It's up to you, but I think, well, what, what program are you more comfortable with? Is it Facebook or is it. Is it Google.

Right now? Facebook more.

Is it Facebook? Okay.

Yeah. Now, to be honest, I didn't really want to get into paydads that much. I'd rather do the SEO, the long game, I'd say. But I feel like it's harder to sell, uh, especially at higher price point because you don't have an ROI that's 30 days or 60 days. Usually it can be six to eight months. I feel like it's harder to sell, especially to begin. So I should better sell. I mean, start with ads.

Yeah, I forgot about that. I mean, it's like. I didn't forget about it, but like, it is tough as a new person to say, like, oh, trust me. Have you heard of the Crowd Network? C R O U D Network?

I don't think so.

Write that down. Crowd Network is. It's based in the UK and in New York, but essentially what it is, it's an agency, but their talent is all freelancers. All freelancers except for like a few internal people. And what you do is, you'll say, okay, these are my skills, like paid search, paid social SEO or whatever. And they will, based on the rate you indicate and your skill set, they'll give you jobs to do. Okay. So you might start off maybe a bit more junior. And maybe the tasks are like auditing in a website for like, you know, robots blocking Google or something like that. But it could be a good way for you to get involved with them. They've been around probably like five, six years or so, and they have a good foothold here in the US and in the UK as well. So I would consider that. You know, this guy, Chris Tate, he's the. He's like the CEO or something like that. He'd be a good person to look out for. On LinkedIn, it's Chris K R I S Tate T A I T. Okay. You could more or less get a start with them, but it's like when you're. When you're brand new like that, especially with SEO, you need someone to kind of take a chance on you. And have you ever done a website audit?

Kind of. Because I do mine. I have a blog and that's why I'd like to keep developing my blog and stay into the SEO game so I don't spread too much with my blog and what I do for clients. So kind of, yeah, I'm used to audit my website and the one I wife is working for, she's working for a big corporate. And most of the time, look at the analytics.

Okay? It's funny, every time we talk, it's like there's all these random ideas and it kind of settles down into one thing. What I'm thinking right now, that could be cool. Is this where you create some kind of checklist for how you audit sites for SEO? Like, maybe it's the top 10 things. And then from there you could, like, videotape yourself auditing a site for a company you might want to work with. Like, maybe it's like in the food industry. Maybe it's whatever you would say, hey, did you know that you have this text that's blocking Google from indexing this part of your page? You're literally saying, google, don't rank me here. Or you have your. Maybe it's a restaurant. You say you have your menu upload as a PDF, and unfortunately, it's a lot harder for spiders to crawl a PDF than it is your HTML. So you might have the best chicken, catch a Tori in London, but no one's gonna know because we can't crawl that as easily. I did this for, for entrepreneur. I did this, like, a quick audit of this, this person's website, and I used the. The Google page speed test, the page insights test, and their website scored a three out of a hundred. So I was like, dude, like, this is not good. It's weird stuff, but the benefit of that is it spits out everything they need to do to fix it. So you could even, like, do that. You could, like, reach out to a few companies and say, hey, by the way, I realized, you know, I noticed your site's loading this slow and here's the impact. And like, literally, you can use a tool called Loom L o o m to record yourself. And there's like a little talking head down here where you're like, going through this site and you could say, here's how you fix it. You know, it's not that hard. Do you have any more questions, let me know. That's another possibility too. If you really stick with the SEO route, what would be really fun is if you, if you found something wrong with the crowd website, that agency, like, look, you're selling SEO services and your site is messed up. Like, yes, that would be hilarious. But yeah, I've seen that work before where you literally fix the problem for them and then you say, hey, if you want to work with me, let's do this. And where it gets interesting is you could go on to say, hey, if you're doing Facebook ads or Google Ads, your page speed's messing that up too. Because your quality score gets impacted in a negative way if your website loads slowly. Same thing with Facebook. And by the way, about 40% of mobile customers will leave your website if it does not load within three seconds. So you can do that too. Another thing I used to do that was a lot of fun when I did Google Ads is. Or sorry, Facebook ads is I would look at the delta between clicks that someone paid for in an ad and landing page views, meaning someone actually waited for the pixel to load. And sometimes they were losing like 50% of their clicks their website because their landing page took so long to load. So you can even bring that up. You could say, hey, here's a fun test for all of you to run right now. If you guys aren't sure how your website's doing right now, run this report. Landing page views and website clicks. Let's see how much that lines up. That's how many clicks you're missing because of potentially your site speed.

Yeah, I'd say those are not higher level. But at what point in time would you say it matter? Because I feel like if there is a point where as far as you're just starting with Facebook or Facebook ads, I mean, can still be a pretty much lost those 50% but as far as the ROI is positive, you don't really have to think about modifying it. And all those things like modify the SEO like the HTML or modify this just between the click and the page view, it's more high level, I mean higher in the, not in the fulfillment, but in the need of a company. At what point in time do you feel like a company needs that.

Whenever they realize that they're losing 50% of their clicks? It's important to me because you're automatically by design, if you're losing half your clicks, you're doubling your CPA because half people who want to go to your website couldn't or they wouldn't wait that long. So for me, I always say you should fix the website experience before you send any more traffic there. It's not efficient. Right. Why would you send, send more traffic to a website when you know no matter how well you do, your impact is going to be half like what's the point of doing that? You would say, okay, let's not do this. And those things are kind of basic, you know, to someone like you and I. But for someone's like look, we're busy and by the way, we have an agency doing that. We didn't even know that was going on. When you point that out. Because I used to love doing that when I did audits. When you point that out, they're like, it's an eye opener. Right. They have all these cool charts and all these, you know, all this data points and they don't know that if they could just remove that JavaScript from their landing page, they can like increase their efficiency by X amount. Those, those fast and easy wins are great because that buys you like a month or two. We have to start getting very complicated and find other wins. If you can find those quick, high, high impact wins, it's very beneficial.

Okay, well, it's already good advice.

Well, I used to do this. That's why it's easy. Yeah, it's, it takes a while but like, yeah, I would try to find some of those common things like that are messing people up from an SEO standpoint, from a social standpoint, like whatever, whatever makes sense. And then start doing like videos where you describe it or you audit it. Yeah, yeah, that would be a lot of fun. Yeah.

Always prospecting.

Yeah. And then crowd network and try to find other networks where they, where they let you more or less state your own rate.

Okay.

And you'll say, hey, I'll do it for, you know, whatever makes sense to you. Because I know you've done upwork before and you said you didn't like that, is that correct?

I've tried, but yeah, same. It's hard competition and everybody's looking. It's really a race to the bottom price.

That's why I like crowd because when I first, when they reach out to me, they're like, what's your rate? I'm like, well, how much you pay? They're like, what's your rate? I'm like, okay, well thank you. I'm like, they're like, that's the joy. We want you to be flexible and like to get paid what your value is and that's it.

Much.

Here's another thing I'm going to suggest. So we already have that stuff done, right? So it's like, you know, do some like audit type work. You can reach out directly to companies and show them like, hey, this is messed up. Join crowd. I would also consider this strongly. I would consider reaching out to local colleges that have like marketing classes and say, hey, would you like me to do a one hour presentation on digital marketing? Like real high level, the stuff that you need to know and you can just kind of walk through what you think will be basic. But to the students there, right, whether they're in college or it's an executive education thing, they'll say, wow, that guy's awesome. Because if they're not going even, like half as deep as you can with digital marketing, you're going to blow them away. And I remember I would teach. I used to teach at nyu, and I was surprised that none of the students there in their integrated marketing program had ever run a paid ad whatsoever. And I was like, like, what the hell? Like, you guys are grown adults. Like, why are you not doing this? They have this cool system. So I would do that. I would just come up with some kind of speaking topic like digital marketing fundamentals or whatever, pitch that to various colleges, and then on your website or on your LinkedIn, you can say, oh, I spoke at, I don't know, the colleges around you. But like, I spoke here, I spoke there, I spoke there. That will build your credibility even more and you'll get comfortable talking about it in front of a crowd. So that would be another homework item I would take on as well. That's a good idea.

Would you directly go on the website? And they probably have a Contact Us page or something like that.

What I would do is I would see, like, what actual professors are teaching, like, Intro to Marketing. And then if they don't have their email address there, I try to find them on LinkedIn and say, hey, Kelly, I see you teach Intro to Marketing at Dublin College or whatever. Do you ever bring in guest speakers? I have this talk. It's called Digital Marketing Essentials. Would you like me to present that to your class? And then from there, that's how you'll start getting used to speaking more and start growing your network as well. That's a good idea. All right, well, I feel like you might have enough homework for tonight.

Yeah, that's plenty. Already.

Cool. So, yeah, get started on that. We can check in next week, but I feel this is a. Based on your experience over the last week, this is a good next step to take and then see where things land from there. Of course.

We'll check in next week.

Awesome. Well, great chatting with you, as always, and I'll have a good evening. You do. Take care. Bye.