What to do BEFORE hiring a business coach or buying a class

We are now live, I believe. Sally, how are you doing?

I'm good. How are you?

I'm doing well. Next. Or. Sorry, Next week is the last week of school for my daughter, and then my boys are going to be in summer summer camp after that. So we're like, end of another school year successfully, which is a lot easier than last year. So I'm just glad to make it to another finish line.

Amazing. You're doing it. You're doing it, Terry.

I don't know how you do it.

But you're doing it.

I never said I was doing it well, so kind of pushing through, but I'm looking forward to chatting with you because I don't think we've done an event like this before. We've talked quite often, but I don't think we've done this before, so.

No, you're right. You're right. And I just want to say I love how whenever I talk to you, you're like, yeah, no, I'm like, I'm not doing that much. You know, I'm not taking it easy. I'm just doing. And then I see, like, Terry, Terry, Terry, Terry, Terry. And I'm like, yeah, if that's Terry not doing that much, then I want to be Terry.

Yeah. Well, I have Megan, who's also on the call as an assistant, an executive assistant who helps with a lot of stuff. So that's why it looks like I'm doing so much. I'm up and chilling. So, yeah, amazing.

Megan, you're killing it. You're doing amazing.

She is, but. Welcome, everybody. Let me know if you can see us and hear us. Just let me know actually where you're dialing in from. That'll be cool. I'm here in Brooklyn. And, Sally, where are you now? Because I feel like you moved somewhere like Long Island. I did.

I used to be cool and be in Brooklyn like you, but now I moved way out to the north fork of Long island, and I live in a very small town called East Marion, right by Orange Point. So.

Cool.

See if anybody knows where that is.

Well, I'm sure it's a wonderful area either way.

Beautiful. It's not. It's not Brooklyn, but it's beautiful.

Yeah, I mean, I could use a Brooklyn break every once in a while, so it's. There's pros and cons, as you know. So, yeah, I'm excited to chat with you today because often as a entrepreneur or a business owner, it's tempting to look at various opportunities to grow through. Could be mentorship, it could be through some online course or some kind of savvy consultant, but then you never really know, like, trust this person. Is this what I need? You know, does make sense for me. And I think it's dangerous to invest in something when you're not clear on two things. First of all, what's your desired outcome? And the other is, where are you right now in your business? Right. What needs to get fixed? Because otherwise, you're tinkering with things that don't need to be tinkered with, and you might potentially be ignoring things that need to be addressed. So I'm glad to have this conversation. And, you know, as a consultant, I talked to so many people who have said, hey, you know, I kind of want to work with you, but I work with this other person. I gave them, like $30,000 and I got nothing out of it. And I remember hearing this exact same statement before from someone, and I'm like, I charge, like, half of that, so I don't know how that happened, where this person ripped you off. And now I'm going through the ringer to get, you know, to give you some real results, and didn't even charge nearly that much. But before we officially start things off here, I'll go and introduce myself. So my name is Terry Rice. I am a business development consultant, and that normally involves helping solopreneurs, mostly people who are in a professional service business, grow their brand and revenue. Also a staff writer, Entrepreneur magazine, which is a lot of fun. And I have two podcasts, one through Entrepreneur magazine and another one through General Assembly. So a lot of content creation. Also four kids. Oddly enough, none of them are home right now. Normally at least one of them's homesick or whatever, but, yeah, I'm free. So that's good to know. But on Selly on your end, do you mind introducing yourself as well?

Yeah, sure. My name is Celia, and that's why most people call me Selly. Like, call your cell phone. I am a growth strategist and a fractional coo. So sometimes for some, I help entrepreneurs and small business owners really begin to implement key business fundamentals into their business and simple systems so that they break through their revenue plateaus. That's the.

That's the short story that was well versed. And right now, Andrea is saying she can't hear anything. Is anyone else having trouble hearing us? I want to make sure.

Because I can hear you.

Yeah. Does anyone else? Can anyone else here? Sounds like someone might have been able to before, but we'll check on that to make sure that we're in a good spot. So, yeah, I mean, you have a very clear understanding of who you're helping and the outcomes that come from that. And that just shows the benefit of being prepared, right. To answer these questions because often you might have like this raw talent, this raw skill, but if you can't communicate it in a way that's very clear, clear who you are and what you do, how you help people, you'll get lost. So just a quick heads up for everyone, the way she introduce herself, get on that. Right. Because it works. But let's go ahead and just think about this initially, right? So you're a business owner, you're a solopreneur, you're a startup, and you need some kind of help. You know, you're feeling this, you know that you need some kind of guidance on how to take the next steps. I mean, what are the benefits from your perspective in regards to seeking outside help?

Well, I'm going to back up a little bit and I'm just going to say I'm so glad we're talking about this subject because like the story that you just mentioned, if someone came to you and said, I just spent this much money, that's why I brought this subject up to you, is because I have so many clients that come to me with a little bit of that same objection of I've spent so much money on coaches, why should I work with you? So it got me thinking about this, right? And this. I hope we can make this a dialogue. This is just an interesting subject. Why do we ever go to anybody for advice? Here's how I like to think of it. Okay? I'm 41. I have a very, very diverse and strange background, right? But in my brain, within my brain lives only my answers, my lived experience, my knowledge, the things I've studied and the portions of all the things I've studied, the portions that I've been able to live out in the world. So I already know my answer to a problem, right? Like my brain already knows what most likely I'm going to come up with. So why ever go to somebody else for consulting coaching? I think number one is perspective. I think that a lot of times, especially as entrepreneurs, many times we are our own bottleneck. We are we a lot of times. Like, I give people tactics and tools and strategy and Excel sheets and I build dashboard. I do all the things. And a lot of times we are our own bottleneck. So number one reason is just to reframe a different perspective. Hearing something A different way can be the key that unlocks something for you and. And blows your worldwide open. That's number one.

Yeah, let me hop in there. I'm sure there's more as per your bullet points there. But one thing I heard recently on this podcast with Dr. Michael Gerbay and Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall Goldsmith made the point, which he's made several times in his career, is what got you here won't get you there.

I love that one.

And I think that issue is often with business owners or entrepreneurs, whoever it may be. They're like, look, look what I built by myself. You know, I started from nothing, and now I have this. Why do I need someone else to help me grow this? But again, if you think to yourself, again, you know, what got you here won't get you there. That's when you realize there's this deficit that needs to be filled. And that's the challenge I have sometimes when I'm coaching someone or consulting them, whatever you want to, however you want to frame it, and they feel like they know everything. And I'm like, yeah, you do. You know everything. You know, like you just said. But you don't know everything that. That I know. And if you can't have this beginner's mind in this moment, right now, we're in trouble because now there's friction. And it's hard to make progress when there's this friction present. So I just want to kind of double click on that. Have you had that experience before where, like, it's like you're begging someone to. To like, let them help you, but they're just like, they. They're almost like feeling like they already know anything and you're. You're somewhat wasting their time, I guess.

Yeah, absolutely. I definitely had to fire a client once because of that. Right. Because really, the people that I work with. You're amazing. I always tell my clients, you're already a badass because you're an entrepreneur, and that takes, you know, that takes guts. So you're already amazing. You've already done amazing work. You're doing great. And I'm just really skilled in finding what the gaps are and finding what the bottlenecks are and solving for them. And because I'm kind of an engineer and operations minded, I'm going to build out what you need. Right. But I've definitely had one experience where I did have to let a client go because a colleague of mine, I'm going to. I always try to give credit where credit is due, but a colleague of mine Named Abby said to me once that her criteria to work with her is you have to be willing to be wrong. And I was like, oh, that's so good. Right? Because even me as a coach and consultant, I go to people willing to be wrong. I'm like, teach me all the ways. Let me learn, let me start over. Let me have beginner's mind. If you're not willing to be wrong or willing to try something new or try something on precise to your point, you are going to continue to get where you are right now. And so I typically work with people who found themselves in kind of a revenue plateau or their businesses up and the revenues up and down, and they can't seem to get out of either get past the plateau or get out of that up and down cycle. And I'm like, cool, great. You're doing amazing. And now we're going to find the thing that's going to unlock and take you to the next level. But you have to be willing to go, I don't know, everything.

Yeah. My default is to prove why I'm right and I have to actively say, like, wait, you know, maybe I'm wrong. And my buddy Jason Pfeiffer, his dominant question is, what am I missing? What am I missing? Right? And then if you have that kind of mindset which is opposite of mine, which is, I already got it, you'll be much more, much more successful in seeking help. And I really do have to fight through it. Like, I'm not joking, but you mentioned a few things, right? So you said, you know, the first thing is, you know, you have to be, you know, willing to, you know, accept this help. But I stopped you as you're kind of bullet pointing other things that go into the need to get help. Like, why? What's the benefit of getting help?

Oh, yeah. So the first one was just perspective, right? New perspective on an old problem.

And.

And the second is actual skills and tools. There's going to be different people out there that have developed skills and tools that you haven't. A great example of this. I always tell my clients when they're hiring, when they're growing their team, I always say, you're going to be tempted to hire somebody just like you, somebody that you vibe with, that you're like, oh, yeah, me too. I do that too. On the weekends. Oh, yeah, it's so tempting to surround yourself with people just like you. But when you're building out your team and your company, you want it to be filled with diverse people and diverse skills. Same thing with a coach or a consultant. Right. You. If you're, like, amazing at social media and marketing, you're not going to go hire hopefully. And hopefully you're not going to hire a social media and marketing coach or course or whatever, because you're amazing at that. You're going to go look for somebody with different skills and to fill in some of those gaps. So those are kind of my two. Like, why. Why you'd want to hire a coach or a consultant in the first place is you're realizing that you need a perspective shift.

Because.

Because what got you here is not going to get you to your goal, number one. And number two, there are probably people out there that balance you out. Right. With skills that you don't necessarily have. And that's typically true, like, internally and organizationally. Right. Like, you wouldn't want your COO to have the same skills as the CEO. They're very different roles. Right. So it's the same thing for a consultant or a coach. You hope that they bring in a totally different toolkit to the table.

Yeah, I love that. And Allison's chiming in, saying you're getting a new perspective on an old issue, which is beneficial. And she's also saying badassness is entrepreneurship. Yeah, I hear you there, Andrea. Glad to hear that you can hear now. And Anthony, thanks for chiming with the help there. But I just want to say, Marvel, good to see you here, and looks like we have a few other people as well. Brandon, good to see you, too. And I don't want to sidetrack too much, but we're doing a quick poll here. Can you just let me know if you're dialing in on your computer versus your mobile phone? We just want to make sure we're optimizing the experience. But if you can answer that question, that would be amazing. And then we'll keep rolling right along here. So, okay, so we realize that, hey, we probably need some help, and we're willing to do it, but how do we understand what our deficits are if we have blind spots to them? So how. How can you even get an idea of, like, what's going well, what's not going well? Like, from a measurable perspective, how can you think about your goals and then from there, find someone to help you achieve them?

Okay, that's a really great. That's a really big question. And that's like, literally what I do is try to figure out actually what's not working. So we're going to try to find, like, some simple workarounds around this one. I think number one hold all the horses, right? Number one is what is your goal? Number one, be very clear about what is your goal. Is it a particular revenue goal? Is it a, I only, I'm working this much to achieve this and I want to work this much. Is it a, I have four children at home and have to find a way to provide for my family, while also, like you've mentioned in the past, being a present father and what does that look like and how do I build that? So what is your goal? Because I think one of the things is I observe that when we're not clear about what our goal is, that's when we can get shiny object syndrome. Does that make sense?

It does. I'm hearing a bit of overlap between goals and vision, so I just want to kind of double click on that. From my perspective, a vision is, you know, what is the best version of your life look like? Right. What does your day to day look like? What circles are you in? What do people say about you? What do you do on the weekends for fun? Where do you live? Whereas a goal is more or less like an accomplishment, like I make $200,000 a year, or you know, we have this many employees or we're active in this many markets and there were very clear goal posts you can make towards hitting these, these goals as per the name. And it can be both short and long term. Whereas a vision is more sustainable. It's usually a bit further out, but you actually know what it feels like. And as a result of that, you can reverse engineer the steps needed to hit this, deliver this vision, and those are essentially goals. So are we aligned in thinking that we need both a vision and goals? Because otherwise it might be a little confusing.

Yeah, absolutely. I love how you said that. I definitely always start with your vision of what is your vision for yourself? Not just the revenue goal, but what's your vision for yourself? What does this business do for you and your life? What does it do for the community? Absolutely. I like that you said the goals can lead up to the vision over the long term. That's beautiful, very solid. But in this particular case, I'm going to get more granular and talk about goals. Right. Because sometimes I'm going to use revenue as an easy example. Right. Because we all think that we have a particular revenue goal. And so when you get clear on what that revenue goal is, then you start to look at, to answer your question of how do I figure out what I actually need and what I need to be looking at. If we're talking about a revenue goal. Right. Then we get to look at, well, what are all the things that I'm doing that actually create the goal? Okay, so, for example, I have three offers or I have three products, let's say. And I can quickly do the math and see how they can lead me to, let's say, a 200k goal. Awesome. Then where do you think your focus probably needs to be?

Is that a question I have to answer? Mm, I would say 8020 rule. Right. So what are the. What's the 20 to get you 80% of that revenue?

Oh, I love this. You're like, I got it. 80 20. Yeah, absolutely. Right. Like, so if I'm really clear, okay, my product suite actually is built to get me to my goal. I probably just need to make sure that I have a plan in place to 80 20. Use my time wisely to make sure I sell the amount that I need to sell in order to hit my goal. Okay, so this is where the, like, the tricky part comes in. Because what's going to happen is you have this kind of clear, linear thinking, and then life's going to happen. Right? Everybody on every social media channel is going to be telling you all the things that you should be doing and that you have to do and all the courses you should be taking and all the coaches you should be hiring to do all these things. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Yep.

Right. So. So this is why. This is a very, very simple example, but this is why it's important to first know the goal. Because if we're not really clear on what that actual goal is, because for some people, it may be not so concrete, like a number. It may be, I want to write a book. Okay, so what does. So if you want to write a book, then what are the steps that help you either create thought leadership or get you in relationship with the publisher, or do you want to self publish? You know, what are the steps that lead you to that? And a lot of the noise that you're taking in and thinking that you have to do is probably not serving that goal. So that's why I say understand what your goal is first.

Double click on that too. Because let's pretend my goal is. One thing I'm doing now is I'm offering LinkedIn training to organizations. Right? I'll train your whole team so they can create content on behalf of your organization. That's my goal. But someone could easily say, oh, here's this system. I have to Help you land more speaking gigs. Wouldn't that be fun? Then you'll get in front of your target audience and you can try to sell your services. So, sure, maybe that's one way of doing it, but it's not the only way. But if I chase this shiny object by saying, oh, get on stages, then I may be ignoring some other, maybe easier ways to, to go ahead and get these, these clients maybe just writing really good content consistently as opposed to taking this course. So, 100. I think it's, those goals are great, but then there's different channels or vehicles you can use to achieve them.

Yes.

And now we're 80, 20. What's the easiest way to do it? Right. Maybe it's not becoming a professional speaker. Maybe it's just like, you know, doing. Having good organic content or even like old email or whatever. So I, I say this because oftentimes I'm guilty of this, right? I'm at my desk and I'm working on something and I'll stop and I'm like, this is not the best thing I should be doing with my time. Like, I'll feel irked. I'm like, this is annoying. This is a waste of my time. This is not a good look. And it's because I'm not aligned with that, you know, again, that 20% that will help me hit this goal. But if you don't have that awareness because you don't even have the goal, then you're just like, oh, I guess this makes sense. You know, I'm busy, which means I must be productive and just can keep on doing it for another, you know, six hours or so.

Yeah, this is not a good look for me. Exactly Right. So, yeah, so what you did was speak specifics into kind of the example I was giving. So absolutely. 200k goal. There's a lot of avenues to get there. Right. And the 8020 principle, if we're going to talk about it in that way, is which one is the simplest, which one is the easiest to get me there? Because right now, because what's happening is there's trends and we see trends, and everyone's saying, go be a speaker and get on other people's stages. That's a trend right now that you see coming up. So you're like, okay, I have this revenue goal. Go get on other people's stages. But to your point, there's probably about. Well, I can name about nine other strategies that you can do to get you to your goal faster and that are easier than that, you know, because You're a speaker and that's how I met you. I think I saw you speak on. On something. I don't even remember it works, right? But how long did it take you to get on the stages you wanted to get to?

Yeah, no, it took a while, so. And I think that's the thing. Like, there's no and. And Tabitha, I see your question. I do want to get to it. There's no right way for everyone. It has to be the right way for you. Because if you hate the process you're taking to achieve the goal, you either will quit or you might just hate your whole business in general. You're like, oh, I have to do all this just to like, make a buck. So whenever I hear people saying, oh, this way's dumb, this way's dumb, this way's dumb. This is the way, I'm like, bro, like, that way, maybe you don't like it, but someone does. And it's wrong to say it's dumb because someone might prefer it, right? So I think there's a need for self awareness too. Before we even think about the channels we're going to use to hit our goals. Otherwise, again, this coach is going to say, here's this way to do it. It's worked for all these people and everything else is dumb except for this. And you're going to fall for it. So there's a need for that self awareness. And Tabitha, I'm going to grab your question right now. This is going to be for you. Selly, do you ever use the smart goals framework?

Hi, Tabby. I'm going to be really honest with you. Not since business school, but that doesn't mean it's. I think maybe that's probably because it's now intuitive, right? But I don't, I don't think about it that way, but I think probably what I do is the smart framework. But I don't think about it consciously, if that answers Your question, Ms. Tabs.

I would assume it does. And I would say this frameworks are there. So you're not just grasping at straws, right? And just making it up as you go along. But after you get the point of it, like, you can kind of just go, especially when you're X years into your career. But again, that's the thing. Like even, like if a coach or course is saying you do it exactly this way, you can kind of use that as a rough guide, but you want to make it your own. And if you're so rigid that you have to follow the same Framework, they don't always work in the wild. You know, they're working in some kind of, like, educational setting. Right. In academia. But in the wild, it's like, no, look, you know, we can't measure this, you know, the admin Smart. We can't measure it, but we'll feel the impact, you know, X months down the line. Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Just means, like, we gotta skip the M for right now. Right. Is it attainable? I don't know. It's my first time freaking doing it. I just got, like, a dream to launch this business. So, yeah, I think that's where those frameworks can be the enemy of progress. Because you're waiting for, like, this perfect situation which may never come along.

Yeah, yeah. And so, and, but back to the scenario that we're giving, it is kind of built in. Right. We're talking about a revenue goal and people telling you all the things that you should do. And it might turn out. It might mean tabby, for example. It may mean, when you really comes down to it, you have to sell 10 pieces and have two clients a month.

Cool.

That's the breakdown to get you to your goal. That's a smart goal. Right. It's really simple. Love the simplicity. It's measurable. Right. It's actionable. Because what you're going to do now is you're not going to go focus on speaking on other people's stages. You're not going to go do all this other stuff. You're actually just going to go implement one simple Strategy to sell 10 pieces and get two clients. Right. So it is a smart goal without us having to have taken the time to make sure that it fits into a framework. That's how I would think about that.

I love it. All right, I'll let you continue. Stop about all my extra questions.

What? You. No, you totally keep stopping me. That's the fun. That's the fun. Where were we?

I don't even know where we were. We were talking about goals. We're talking about 80, 20 and having the clarity on what goal makes sense for you. And then from there, rolling forward.

Yeah. So in the context of.

What we.

Were just talking about, I met this coach. That sounds fascinating. Okay, let me. Let me take a minute. Let me get clear on what my goal is. And does this particular coach consultant course directly speak to the goal I'm trying to hit? Right. So this is why. Why start with your own goal? What is the thing that you. What's your objective? What is it that you're really trying to do. And now you can put those two together side by side and say, oh, gosh. I mean, that Instagram ad was so compelling. I clicked, I swiped, I did all the things, I got the freebie. I'm. She's so good at sales. Like, I'm, I'm in it, I'm in it. And let me just take a breath and take a step back and go, wait a minute, what's my goal here? Right? 200k months. But this person's gonna teach me how to build a content strategy of 30 videos in a day. Is that really the thing that's going to hit my 200k sorry year? Okay, so you, you're giving yourself a mental exercise of hold on, Shiny object syndrome. I see you, I see you. You're sparkly, you're awesome. I'm impressed. But is this the thing that's going to help me move forward towards my goal? Does that make sense?

It does. And I want to first of all acknowledge Zoe saying, I try to go with whatever framework works for this for the specific client. So I love that. No cookie cutter approaches. And I want to ask a question from the audience, yes or no, have you ever bought an online course from somebody you didn't really know that well and just never ended up taking it? So again, that shiny object where someone dangled that thing, it's like right now it's only 29 bucks and you bought it, but you've never, you didn't take it or you didn't really complete it? Is that, does that happen before? Because I can say I'm guilty of that. I bought a lot over Black Friday last year, which are still on the shelf. That's take. But I think that that leads me to my next question is like, how do you determine what kind of help to, to get between, you know, a coach, a consultant, an online course? Like, how would you say we can explore these different options to see what makes the most sense for us?

I think in all of the scenarios. Well, here's an easy differentiator, right? A course is typically you have to be self motivated.

So.

Already a course is, am I actually, do I have the bandwidth? Am I actually going to take the time to sit and take in information and then apply it? Because the information is great and knowledge is power, but it's not going to actually move the needle if we're not applying it. So in the terms of a course, do you have the bandwidth to do it? I'm definitely guilty of buying a lot of courses that I think are probably phenomenal, and I haven't. I never even had a chance to open them. Okay, so what's the most you spend.

At a course and not. Not started? I'll be honest, I. I dropped $2,000 on one.

You're gonna go there. Wow. You're gonna go there. I think a course that I've never actually used. 500 was my max.

Oh, I beat you. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think. I think it's a bad thing. But. But Brandon saying he's done the same thing. So is Anthony. So, yeah, we're guilty. But I love the point you're making about. With a course, you have to be very self disciplined. Right. And I've proven in a few cases, obviously, I wasn't. I did take this one online course by this guy, Justin Welsh, about how to create LinkedIn content, and it was freaking amazing. Right. I think he did a good job of packaging it in a way that you can get through it in the weekend and feel like you accomplished something.

That's nice.

But I also had more of a vested interest in doing it because my goal was to create better content on LinkedIn because I knew the impact from it. So going back to what you're saying.

Going back to point number one, exactly why did you do it? Because it. It was aligned with your goal for yourself.

Yeah. Yeah. I should have talked to you before I bought the $2,000 course. Well, I'll tell you what. That course was a vote for the person that I wanted to be.

Yeah.

But it was not ready to be. And I think that's the problem because I was talking to one of my friends, Brittany Barnhart. She worked with this one person who hired her as a. As a coach, more or less. And Brittany's like, look, I only work with people who are like, feel this way and this way and this way. The person's like, yeah, sure, that's me. But then when she worked with them, found out that was not the case. So sometimes when you buy a course or even work with a coach, you're doing it to vote for the person that you want to be, but you're not in a spot right now where you can be that person. So you feel like investing in this for this. This person. Having that sunk cost will help, but I think you have to do some inner work first, and then it makes more sense to go ahead and do that as opposed to chasing that spiny object or that idealized version of yourself. Otherwise you're just $2,000 poor and you're still the same person you were before.

Yeah. And I think there you said this earlier, that's where self awareness comes in.

Yeah, I dig that. So let's go deeper on Guilty.

In the chat.

Yeah we were talking about spending money on courses we never took. So let's go deeper than how do you. Okay, I get the course thing to an extent. So how do you decide to work with a coach, a consultant? And I want to go even deeper. This is going to be tough. How much do you determine you want to spend on this? Or how can you determine how much you want to spend on this? Actually make a complete sense.

I need a throat lozenges for this question.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it. And this is a million dollar question. Hopefully not, but like it's an investment, right? And there's been times when people have reached out to me saying oh, I have this mastermind group and you know, it's only a hundred thousand dollars. I'm like where'd the only come from? Like is that, is that a typo? But I mean if I was going to make another million from it, cool, that's not a bad fit. So, you know, sight unseen, how do you determine how much you're willing to invest in this, this resource, whether it be a coach, a course, like how's, how's that work?

So I think you just, you know, you started to hint at the answer to this. But what I would look at this is a simple framework, since we're talking about frameworks, is how long is the engagement? Right? How much does that engagement cost? How long does it take me with my current business model to make that back? So in an ideal world, whoever that person is is up leveling you in a way that you'll make it back even faster because you've up leveled your game, you've changed your business model, what have you, you've got more clients, whatever the thing the promise is. But what I'd like to think about when I purchase things, even today, because I still, I do work with people, I do work with coaches, I do purchase things. But I think about, I know how much I make right now. I know what my model, what I'm capable of right now, I know where I'm at. How long does it take selly today and present to make that money back and is it shorter than the period of the course? So number one, do I make the money back while I'm still in that course or that mastermind or that program. Right? So if the mastermind is three months, am I making back that money in the three months? That's number one.

Let's stop there for a minute because, like. Yeah, because I used to have a group coaching program, and I think it was $3,000 for three months. And I'm like, if you get one client, from what I'm teaching you, which you will, you're good. You know, it's like, it's. It's a good investment. So that's a good way to think about it. And I'm not saying if you have a scarcity mindset, but if you're just kind of frugal and you're like, look, man, like, I can't project that far down the line when I'm gonna get this money back. I need the money now. That's a really good way to think about it that I haven't considered before. So thanks for bringing that up.

Yeah. That's what I do, what I think of for myself. Right. Cool. $10,000. How long does it take me? How many clients is that for me? Or how long does it take me to make $10,000 back? Got it. Does it make sense? Cool. That's number one. Number two is I believe in always having core capital in your business. So rule of thumb, you should have two months of core capital in your business. In terms of cash in the bank, what I mean by core capital is that you can cover all of the expenses that it costs to run your business. That's what I mean by core capital. So knowing that I need to have two months of core capital in my business at all times, at a minimum, will investing in this consultant coach program make that reserve go down? That's my other measure.

Let's stop there, because that's important. Right? But on my end, I'm a solopreneur, right? So my core capital to run my business, it's pretty low. It's. I don't have a high overhead, but I do have four kids. So, like, that's.

That's part of your core capital, right?

In a sense, I guess so. The other way you're saying it, but, like, that's a good way of thinking about it. Like, will this make me lose my reserves? Right where I want to at least be making this much money per month in order to be a good spot? Not, am I tapping into my savings? That's a whole different conversation. But, like, right. Will this, like, lower my. My take home to the point where now I am, you know, at the point where I have to go into my savings. So that's. That's a good way of considering it as well. So. So, yeah, this is. This is helpful. I feel like I'm a student in this whole conversation.

I'm just like, yay, the tables have flipped.

Yeah. I'm just reading my little questions over here. I feel like I'm getting free consulting, too. That's why I like doing the show. This is awesome.

Terry was my first coach ever when I decided to become a consultant years ago. So this is very fun.

Oh, I know. I was your first coach. Okay, cool.

Yeah, you were. Yeah.

Was that your last. Were you, like, done with it after that, or.

No, no, it was amazing. It was amazing. It, like, opened my mind of, like, oh, I can do all these things as a consultant. And here's the other. Here's the mindset piece to that money part. Why do I not want you to kind of go into your reserves even to work with me? Because when you show up stressed about money on the coaching calls, that also means you're going to start showing up to your sales calls and to your audience stressed and thirsty. Let's call it thirsty. Nobody wants to buy from a thirsty person. Right. And when you're. When you're in a stress state about money, you're also less open to new information. You're less receptive. You have a little bit of a. Maybe a vibe towards your coach rather than being like, this person's got my back and is teaching me something new or giving me skills. You're in a stress state. So that's why I think it's also important to, like, make sure that you're not totally depleting your bank to take on a coach or a consultant or Course. Because you actually want to be in an open, receptive state where you can take all the tools, take the learnings, show up in your world to your in your fullest. Right. And exponentially grow.

Your perspective on that is different from some people, and I can appreciate it because some people might say, like, if you're clear on what you want to do and, you know, you're confident who you're going to hire, you should be okay going into debt because you'll get it back later. Right. I've heard that same argument, and there's merits to it, but it's the uncertainty, you know, what are you going to get from it? And on my end, I took a course in 2007 on digital marketing at NYU and it was $900. But at that time, I had about 1100 dollars to my name because I was unemployed.

Right.

So that was a big bet. But I've made millions like literally since then from that $900 investment. So. So back then that was hard to see. Right. But it obviously did pay off, like literally. But I think it's. That's where we kind of come to the point I want to get to next, which is how do you vet people? Or even opportunities could be a course to make sure you're not about to get ripped off.

Yeah, I love that you that you said that. And we could go deeper into that. I do believe in betting on yourself, by the way, but I do think that. So how do you vet someone when you're working with someone and you're trusting? There. Someone said in the comments, I can't remember who said it, but that the coach and client relationship. Zoe said this about the coaching client relationship is so important. Like, I want you to feel safe to work with me because I'm most likely the strategies and tactics and things I'm going to have you do and see in your business. I'm most likely going to make you, you uncomfortable. So I don't want you to show up on the call insecure about money also because there needs to be some level of like, trust and comfort there. Does that make sense?

It doesn't. And I'll kind of add into that too. The reason why I want people to feel like a hell yes. Is because I don't want to have to feel like I'm auditioning every time I talk to you. Right. I don't want you to feel like, oh, I better hit it this time or else, you know, they're going to be pissed off or fake like, you know, whatever. It's like, look, let's just, let's, let's evolve together, you know. But if I feel like I'm always like on the hook for immediate results, like right now, I just ain't doing it because I'm tired. Like, I have four kids and I have stuff to do. So if I don't have that trust in you, that's where it becomes an issue. So I'm not saying that your approach to saying make sure you have the money is wrong. I'm just saying on my end it's like I can't help you in solve for your, like your, your, your lack or your scarcity mindset that you're projecting right now. Otherwise it's like it's too much energy trying to manage that part and not enough going towards your business. So that's. That's the way I feel about it. But that's.

Yeah.

Kind of a stoic approach. Yeah.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. So, absolutely. We got another. Guilty. Anthony is saying, guilty, guilty, guilty.

Yeah. And then Andrea's chiming in here saying, hey, you know, I'm with you, Sally. There are a ton of people that take courses and put themselves in debt and don't move forward. Yeah. And that's what I don't want to happen because. And I know we're kind of. Keep on seeing this topic. I've taught digital marketing courses at NYU as well as General assembly for years. Like, probably six, seven years. Right. There are some people that are investing, like, $5,000 to vote for the person they want to be, but sometimes they don't do anything with it whatsoever. Whatsoever. Like, I'll look at their LinkedIn. It has not updated to what they were before. And I'm like, damn, that's. That. That sucks a little bit. Right? Because that's a lot of money. So. And I think that's why I'm even more careful about who I work with, because I don't want that to happen either. And I'm glad to hear that, you know, our engagement went well and you're happy with it, whatever. But if that's it too, there's a guilt that's involved if I take someone's money and I think I'm doing a good job, but for some reason, it doesn't land. Like, you don't. You don't take off or just reverse land and take off. But you see what I'm saying? Like, you don't get something from it. That's. That's my issue. I never want someone to look back and be like, man, I'm sorry I ever messed with that guy. Like, I wish that didn't happen. So that's another reason why I'm guarded about who I work with, because I don't want to underperform and have that guilt.

100. 100. I mean, we're. We're human too. Right? And I'm with you. I really invest a lot of time and energy and mind space to the success of my clients. So I want to make sure that I'm working with someone that is also in the right headspace to grow.

And I love Tabby's comment here. She says, as a rule of thumb, I've heard, would you invite this person to dinner? And Tabby, what I often say is, like, would I hang out with this person, this person on purpose? So it's pretty much the same thing, right? If it's a chore to get on the phone and talk to Sally, it's like, gosh, you know, maybe we shouldn't have done this. And going back to what you said earlier, it shouldn't be because we're so like minded. It's just because I can enjoy the conversation even if we are different people. Right. But if it feels like a chore, then it's like you can't show up as the best version of yourself because you're dragging your feet before you get on the call. You're looking at your watch when you're on it. And then afterwards, the next person you talk to, your energy is lower because you're so exhausted from talking to this person that you would not invite to dinner and, or hang out with on purpose. So I know we're getting in the weeds a little bit about, you know, these partnerships to an extent, but I think it is important to consider.

Yeah, it's so true.

So how do we not get ripped off? Sorry, that's the question I asked you like 10 minutes ago.

How do we get not ripped off? Okay, so this is one that I'm guilty of recently, which, what got me thinking about this. So full transparency because we're all here and we're open. I recently purchased something that was very expensive and thinking I was going to get something that I needed that I was clear that I needed and that I didn't know how to do. And I went to, you know, Mind Valley recommends this person highly and he's a really famous person and he has a whole team. And so I kind of just trusted all that and didn't really do my homework and didn't research and didn't dig into the stuff. So here's the thing. I paid a lot of money for a strategy session. How do you know you're not going to get ripped off? I'm going to make it super simple, like an operations person, like I am. Make sure the person's going to give you the how. Right? The rule of thumb and marketing. And you, you know this, Terry, you're an expert at this. But you know, we sell people the what. That's the saying, right? We sell people the what. We sell people what they want to hear what they feel like they need. There's a strategy to selling. But what, what you, what you don't give away for free in all of your marketing is the how. Because that's actually the service. The service that you deliver is the how. Okay? So make sure when you're about to pay somebody $10,000 for just a strategy roadmap of something, that that strategy roadmap actually breaks down the how and isn't a whole slide deck of more great ideas. Because I recently paid a very famous person's team for a deck of great ideas. And then I thought, well, yeah, I mean, I'm a strategist. I. I could have come up with some. I could have come up with these ideas myself. Right. That I came to you with. I was hoping you would tell me how to do it. So that's really the key, what I want you guys to ask yourself when you're.