Audio stream
Mark
(Do me a favor: just go listen to or watch the first 30ish minutes of the class recording. This short segment of the class will pay your Office Hours membership for years.)
There’s no reason to criticize yourself for purchases you’ve made in your business in the past. I promise I’ve “wasted” way more money than you have, and I’m not mad at myself about it.
The goal in your business finances is to like your reasons for spending. If you’re spending because of FOMO or boredom, that’s not ideal.
To help yourself feel confident in your business spending, use these three questions:
- What problem am I really solving with this purchase?
- What are the keys to success for this purchase?
- How many times am I willing to lose this amount of money?
If you’ll honestly ask and answer those questions, you’ll minimize financial regret while you grow your business.
Judith
Judith’s close friend (who runs a million-dollar business) works with a marketing agency that generates leads for her and then sells those leads. In other words, they handle all the marketing and sales, allowing her to do nothing but serve her clients.
That agency is offering to give Judith a similar service, but she’ll need to sell the leads as they come in. Sounds like a great deal, right? Yes, it could be.
I do have some concerns:
First: They’ve told Judith she needs to spend $2,000 per week on Facebook ads. She doesn’t have $2,000 per week to spend on ads…unless the ads pay for themselves from day one. Otherwise she’ll be putting the ads on her credit card. (This isn’t my biggest concern, but it’s a factor.)
Second: What happens if this actually succeeds? Could be great, right? Maybe, maybe not. If these campaigns actually work (and they could!), how many leads would Judith be getting on a weekly basis? Does she have time to talk to all those prospects? (She told me she’s already getting up at 5am to coach, and coaching during her lunch break.)
I’m not sure when she’s going to do all these sales calls, let alone deliver the coaching she’s going to sell. Again, not a deal-breaker: if this actually worked maybe she’d quit her job or go part-time. But she needs to go into this understanding that if it works she’s going to be working with a ton of prospects and clients.
(By the way, the biggest risk here is tons of no-show consultations, which is not uncommon with a Facebook-driven one on one coaching business.)
I’m not sure when she’s going to do all these sales calls, let alone deliver the coaching she’s going to sell. Again, not a deal-breaker: if this actually worked maybe she’d quit her job or go part-time. But she needs to go into this understanding that if it works she’s going to be working with a ton of prospects and clients.
(By the way, the biggest risk here is tons of no-show consultations, which is not uncommon with a Facebook-driven one on one coaching business.)
Third: What are Judith’s keys to success here? This is question #2 from tonight’s class: Before you spend the money, ask yourself what skills and assets have to be in place for this purchase to be a win. What branding, copy, photography, video, and website assets does Judith need in order to be ready to work with this agency?
A possible issue with this opportunity might be a mismatch between Judith’s business and the agency’s typical client. If they’re accustomed to working with business owners with a longer sales history, this relationship might not be set up for success.
For me, this opportunity is a solid maybe. Ask a lot more questions, get clear on what’s required, and go from there.
Becca
Becca is feeling great about letting powerful coaching conversations be her entire “program.” No need for excessive structure or worksheets, etc.
Her question now is: What should she be spending time and energy on in addition to hosting regular lunch n learns, sharing content on Instagram, emailing her list, and working on her podcast?
I told Becca I think those are great tools for building her business, so I wouldn’t have her add much else. The question would be: how can she enhance a person’s experience in each of those areas?
I used a couple examples from my own business: Instagram stories and the Office Hours emails (like this one!). I told her I’m looking for ways to make those more compelling and engaging because they’re my primary points of contact with everyone in my world. I’m spending time (and a decent amount of money) trying to make my content as useful and consumable as possible. I’m trusting that–in the long run–people’s affinity for me and my work will grow as I consistently invest in the relationship.
Becca also had some concerns about a lack of engagement on her content. She’s not getting many DMs, emails, replies to her newsletter, etc that would indicate resonance with her audience. It’s all feeling too quiet.
I have a few thoughts here:
- Patience is still key. You’ll find your voice and discover resonance if you keep doing the work, keep trying things, and keep serving.
- Some of your best content ideas will come from coaching. If you don’t have much coaching going on in your business, give more of it away. Doing your work will help you discover your strong opinions and see what does resonate with the person you’re trying to serve.
- Look for opportunities to disagree with the conventional wisdom in your community. You’re not trying to create controversy. You’re digging into your clients’ world, looking for unchallenged, widely-held beliefs that you don’t agree with…and then broadcasting your disagreement in a productive, value-added way.
(This happens to be exactly what I’m doing with Office Hours, but you already knew that.)
I’m not going to pretend it’s easy to find resonance with your ideal client through content. But if you’ll hang in there, stay in conversation with her, serve her, and keep producing…you maximize your chances of success.
Heidi
Heidi and her business partners have decided to consolidate their one on one coaching to a single website, then divide those coaching payments according to who is actually doing the work. She wanted to know if that’s an okay thing to do (from a money management and accounting perspective).
Yep, no problem.
She’s also wondering the best way to pay contractors that work in the business. PayPal? Something else?
Yes, PayPal works. But it charges the contractors a fee (unless you send the money via “friends and family,” which is against PayPal’s terms (also Venmo’s terms, while we’re on the subject).
I’ve always used a service called Gusto to pay my contractors and employees. I pay a small monthly fee per contractor. The service makes it easy pay people via direct deposit, with no fee charged to the contractor.
Riece and Breian
Riece and I had a great discussion, with Breian jumping in (very helpfully) to share her experience.
The question is: what about Facebook ads?
(I might have gotten just a little…animated during this portion of the call. Probably worth clicking through and listening to the audio segment.)
This is Riece’s confusion:
Her mentors at the Life Coach School talk about how Facebook ads are essentially like an ATM: you put $1 in and get $2 out.
(I’m not even going to address the fact that her mentors’ analogy is dumb: that’s NOT how an ATM even works. I digress.)
So she’s wondering (for good reason), if it’s that simple, why wouldn’t she be focusing on Facebook ads?
This is the problem with the “just hurry up and get your ads going” advice:
It’s just not. that. simple.
If Facebook ads were as easy as “put a dollar in, get two dollars out,” would anyone be talking about literally anything else? Wouldn’t there be many, many more high earners in the life coaching community?
Riece brought up the example of a program where coaches were guaranteed a certain revenue level, and, as far as we can tell, 40% of them made it.
By the way, that’s an amazing (no joke) success rate!
Unfortunately, it’s also a 60% un-success rate. Is that the program’s fault? I don’t believe so. Is it because the coaches who participated didn’t have a perfect mindset? Sure, that’s going to be part of it.
It’s also because there are tons of moving parts with any Facebook campaign, and it’s very normal for people to feel like they made a full effort with their campaigns without getting any meaningful traction.
So, no, it’s not an ATM.
Breian jumped in with her own experience: she did everything by the book, and it was working…sort of. She was getting people to sign up for her email list and it was costing her very little “per lead.” But none of those subscribers were doing anything: no email opens, no replies, no consults. Her business has grown exclusively from relationships. She plans to keep investing her energy there.
Does that mean Facebook can’t work? Of course not. Plenty of people are using it to grow their businesses. (Maybe even I will!)
My question is this: in the long run would you rather build your business on your ability to build and strengthen relationships? Or build it around someone else’s algorithm? I know my answer.
Again, I’d encourage you do listen to this entire audio segment.