A Podcast for Coaches

Hey, I'm Mark and this is the
beautiful business podcast.

Although I think I'm going to change
the name to a podcast for coaches.

And there are two reasons for
that one, I'm a branding genius.

So if I think that a podcast should
be called a podcast for coaches, then

really that's the end of the discussion.

But two, I want to call it a podcast
for coaches because that's what it is.

It's a podcast for coaches.

And I actually kind of like the forced
constraint or narrowing that that

could come from that, because if I
call it a podcast for coaches, it'll

probably be a small hedge against my.

Tendency to get distracted, tendency
to kind of get outside my lane or

get outside the lane of the thing
that I'm currently working on.

Anyway, I'm Mark Butler and you
might be listening to a podcast

called a podcast for coaches.

So it was almost exactly a year ago to
the day that I published the last episode

of this podcast and it was a wild year.

I did a lot of coaching and
had a loved one, my, my wife.

Go through a cancer diagnosis
and cancer treatment.

And very fortunately she is on the other
side of that now, or at least as much on

the other side of it as a person can be.

Many of you are way ahead of me
in this experience of cancer.

And you know that you don't
get to say cancer free after

a person goes into remission.

You say they are in remission and then
somewhere between five and 10 years later.

Um, if it works out that way,
then you get to say cancer free.

Anyway, Kate went
through cancer treatment.

She came through it really well and
heart goes out to any of you who

have had a similar experience because
now that we've been through it,

and frankly, I think that our, our
experience of it, um, was not what a

lot of families experience of it was.

Kate, of course, had a brutally
difficult time with treatment.

Uh, but even then, you know, her
prognosis was good from the beginning.

So heart goes out to any of you,
any families whose prognosis

was different or is different.

Anyway, this episode is called
377 sessions, 149, 000, because

that's the quickest summary of
my coaching practice in 2023.

And I wanted to kick off
2024 by talking about what.

I experienced and what I learned in
my coaching practice in 2023 and how

I feel about it and how I think it
might look in the near and far future.

So four topics I want to talk about today.

Number one is the
workload of a 377 session.

Um, coaching practice, number two are the
relationships that are, are part of that

practice that grew from that practice.

Number three is the finances.

What was the actual financial experience
of a 377 session coaching practice?

And last we'll talk about the
marketing and what I think it looks

like to sustain and maybe grow
a coaching practice like this.

So first let's talk about the workload.

If you've listened to this podcast
before, you know that I coach on average

two days a week, three weeks a month.

I coach Tuesdays and Wednesdays
with some rare exceptions.

And I coach the first, second
and third weeks of the month.

So.

Those 370 sessions were completed in
roughly 36 weeks of the year, which means

roughly I was doing about 11 coaching
sessions per week, which averaging

out is about five coaching sessions
per coaching day throughout the year.

Now, at the beginning
of 2023, I was busier.

I had as many as seven sessions per
day on a Tuesday and a Wednesday.

And I've got to say those
were more tiring times.

There were plenty of Tuesdays where
I was scheduled to go nine o'clock

in the morning to four o'clock in the
afternoon without even a lunch break.

I do 50 minute sessions.

So the intention would be that I would
finish a session, have a minute to sort

of clear my head, use the bathroom,
grab a snack, whatever I need to do,

and then jump on the next session.

And.

So after a month or two of
that, I realized I don't

think this is sustainable.

I think I do much, much better with sort
of a three session morning and a three

session afternoon or even a three and two.

And that feels very, very
good, very sustainable to me.

I don't schedule coaching on Mondays,
Thursdays, or Fridays for the most

part, those are the days when I run my
bookkeeping service at letstothebooks.

com, the bookkeeping service for coaches.

So Tuesdays and Wednesdays
are my coaching days.

And as the year progressed and my
coaching load lightened a little,

I found that I really, really
look forward to my coaching days.

It's a very different kind of work.

In my bookkeeping business, I do
a lot of software development.

And so it's a big context
switch to go from my bookkeeping

work over to my coaching work.

I'm really grateful
that I enjoy them both.

And so that's interesting to me.

One of the biggest takeaways for
me is how important batching seems

to be to my, to my way of working.

I don't think I would do well with, say,
two sessions a day, five days a week.

Or I wouldn't do as well.

I think that it would be a harder
switch if I were to, say, be working

hard on my bookkeeping business from
You know, eight in the morning to

three in the afternoon and then do two
coaching sessions or even to do two

coaching sessions in the morning and
do bookkeeping for the rest of the day.

I haven't run the experiment, but
for me, batching feels really good.

Part of the reason batching to Tuesdays
and Wednesdays feels good and to batching

to the first three weeks of the month.

is because it creates
a lot of white space.

It feels extremely sustainable.

I look forward on Monday nights.

I'm able to look forward to my Tuesday
coaching sessions on Wednesdays.

I'm happy to be having my sort of
coaching Friday, if that makes sense.

I have a great client and she
knows that she's usually my

last session on Wednesday.

And as we finish our session,
she very often says, have a great

weekend because she knows that
my coaching weekend is starting.

It feels great.

I used to think that coaching
was an easy way to make money.

In fact, I thought, it's such a
cheat to make the amount of money

as coaches that we do because
coaching is, you know, it's easy.

Well, 377 sessions isn't
even that many sessions.

I know coaches who coach much more
than my average of 10 hours a week.

Much more.

For me, anything beyond that
10 or 12 hours a week starts to

feel like a much heavier lift.

And it starts, for me, it starts to call
into question whether I could do it or

would want to do it for the long term.

So The way I'm currently
operating, I could see myself

coaching at this pace forever.

I'm 44 years old now.

I could see myself as an 84 year old
waking up on a Tuesday morning and saying,

yeah, I've got my six sessions today.

It just, it's a very good rhythm.

Talk a little bit, maybe more
about this later, but I think that

developing a healthy coaching practice.

can potentially flip the whole
concept of retirement on its head.

Because if I can make the living that
I'll describe later in the episode,

working two days a week, well, how
different is that from being retired?

Especially since the work that I'm
doing has a lot of meaning for me,

has a lot of intrinsic value to me.

So this is why I think I've said before,
and I will say again, I encourage my

fellow coaches to work in the way they
hope to succeed for the long term.

Now, I do think there's a benefit to
getting too busy for a period of time.

I think it stretches you.

I think it builds your muscle.

There's a lot of good that can come
from getting too busy for a short period

of time, but the goal in my mind is to
then settle in to a nice, sustainable.

Rhythm.

Unfortunately, and I've talked about this
before, I know I will talk about it again.

Unfortunately, I think what happens is
coaches let themselves get into that too

busy phase and then they think the only
way out of that too busy phase is to

change their business model to go from a
one to one model to a one to many model

or from a coaching model to a training
model according to my definitions,

which I've shared in past episodes.

It's not that that's wrong, although I do
think there are some hidden costs there.

What I encourage people to consider is.

Um, let yourself get pretty busy and then
look for sustainability inside the current

model because my current coaching life,
now that I'm building the muscle and the

stamina to pretty comfortably, pretty
easily, pretty happily do an average

of 10 or 12 sessions over the course of
two days, it is starting to feel easy.

And I have to ask myself, do I want
to go from having something that feels

really good to, Really value added in
my life and in the lives of my clients

and feels pretty easy To something
that feels hard Without necessarily a

big change in the benefit to me or to
my clients So Something to think about

when it comes to the workload is am I
working in a way that I want to sustain?

Or am I working in a way that
feels like in order for it

to be successful long term.

I will have to change it I think
I've found a groove where it could be

exactly what it is for the long term.

And that's very interesting to me.

It's especially interesting to me to
think about the possibility that someday

maybe I will sell my bookkeeping business,
or maybe I will build a team that runs

the bookkeeping business without me.

And in that case, now I am
kind of functionally retired

with my coaching practice.

I'm working my two days a week, my
three weeks a month, and the rest of

the time I'm doing what I want to do.

Now, the reality is I probably wouldn't
change my other days that much, but

it's nice to know that you have options.

So the workload feels amazing to me.

The business model feels amazing to me
and the relationships feel amazing to me.

So let's talk about those.

I probably served 20 ish clients in 2023.

We'll talk more about that
in the marketing section.

The thing that has surprised me is what an
affinity I feel for my coaching clients.

I'm invested.

Now I'm not invested in an enmeshed
way where I'm laying awake at night.

Losing sleep over whether they're
going to do this or do that.

Although I definitely did go through that
phase in my coaching practice back in

probably 2015, 2016 at this point, it's,
it's this very differentiated affinity,

this differentiated investment that
I feel in my clients where I do think

about my clients outside of our sessions.

I pull for my clients, I hope
for them and I care about them

and I care about the friendships.

I care about the friendships that, that
exist outside of our coaching sessions.

Uh, I really believe
in long term coaching.

I really believe in the power
of spending dozens of hours and

beyond with a single client.

I've experienced it as a client
working with my own coach or therapist.

And now I'm experiencing it as a
coach where we are having Sometimes

dozens and dozens of conversations
and what it does is it opens the

door to two things in my mind.

Number one, it opens the door
to seeing patterns that you're

then able to show your client.

Now you might have had an instinct
about those patterns early in the

relationship, but as time goes by,
sessions go by, and trust and rapport

build, your client finds it easier to
trust the insights that you're sharing.

Because they don't think you're
just dropping in, you know, sort of

parachuting into their life, dropping
opinions on them and then bailing.

I've had experiences now where
I can say to a client in our

34th session, look, I think this
thing is just like those things.

I think this is all part
of a similar pattern.

Does that resonate with you?

And sometimes it does resonate with them.

I also think that as a coach who
works with a client for the long

term, I'm able to celebrate things
that they might not even notice.

I'm able to draw attention to
wins that they probably think

are too small to celebrate.

And this is the reality of
experiencing change in our own lives

because we're living our lives.

It's hard to notice changes
that are happening in our lives,

especially as they come slowly.

But if I'm working with a
coach for the long term.

Um, the coach can say, and actually
this happened a couple of months ago.

It's vivid in my mind where I was
able to say to a client who is sharing

some experiences with me, I was
able to show that client contrast.

Hey, notice how you used to react
this way to that kind of situation,

but now you're reacting that way.

Notice how you used to feel this
way about that kind of situation.

And now you feel that way.

I'm also able to say things to
clients, you know, because we're

meeting on zoom and I can see them.

Hey, You are physically
different in my eyes today.

You just look different.

You look lighter, you look happier.

Something is going on, tell me what's
going on and then we can explore that.

It's not that that can't happen in a
short term coaching engagement, but

I think it's less likely to happen
in a short term coaching engagement.

Another thing that I experienced
recently was the opportunity to

tell a client that I was wrong.

in some of my early assessments.

This happened literally yesterday.

I said to a client, Hey, do
you remember that thing I said

to you, whatever, a year ago?

And I was putting you in
a certain kind of box.

And she said, yeah, of
course I remember it.

I said, I was wrong.

I don't think that's what's going on here.

And I'm sorry, I don't think
that's what's going on here.

I think it's something different.

When you're in a long term coaching
relationship like that, you have

the opportunity to come back
and say, yeah, that was a guess.

That was a hypothesis with more data.

I'm coming to the conclusion
that I was not right about that.

Here's what I'm seeing instead.

So it's this amazing collaboration
where the client has.

Uh, a chance to reveal themselves to
you and to themselves over the long

term, learn from it and grow from it.

These relationships mean the world to me.

I look forward to continuing in many of
these relationships because my clients do

have a tendency to renew and I love it.

I'm grateful for it.

It has marketing and business benefits
that we'll talk about in a second,

but it also has amazing relationship
benefits where over the long term.

You can come to deeply know a person
and to help them know themselves.

And I think only good
things come from that.

So that's the state of the
relationships that came out of

this, you know, 377 sessions in
a year practice about the money.

I did go look it up and my coaching work
generated 149, 000 in change in 2023.

That's higher than I thought it would be.

I wasn't paying very close attention
throughout the year, ironically,

because I'm the bookkeeping guy, but
it ended up being about 149, 000.

That's an amazing amount of money.

Going back to what I said earlier about
the possibility that if my bookkeeping

business were eventually to be sold, which
I don't think is the more likely outcome,

what's more likely is probably that the
bookkeeping business will be run by a

team and my main focus will be supporting
them and developing the tools there.

But mostly coaching my
clients and creating content.

When I think about having my, my
only intensive work days be Tuesdays

and Wednesdays, three weeks a month,
and having that translate into an

income stream of 150, 000 per year,
or, you know, maybe I can grow that.

That's incredible.

The coaching industry has its quirks.

And one of its quirks
is I don't think that.

A lot of people consider 150, 000
in a year to be a lot of money.

I think they consider it
sort of middle of the road.

I think in the coaching industry, we're
all very anchored to very big numbers.

I think there's some benefits there
because it can expand our vision.

And of course that can be powerful.

Also, if you go to anyone in your life,
almost anyone in your life, And say,

I work two days a week, three weeks a
month, and from that I generate 150, 000.

Who's not going to be shocked by that?

I think it's shocking.

I think it's an incredible outcome.

I think it's an incredible outcome
that's available to thousands

of, I mean, so many coaches.

I'm working with 20 clients.

I'm mostly at capacity.

I've got some room.

I plan to assign, I hope to sign some
clients in the next few months, but

if I can do this, I think thousands
of other coaches can, can do this.

For me, that's a very exciting result.

I'm proud of it.

I enjoy it.

150, 000 does not cover
my family's lifestyle.

So at this point.

I do need other revenue to support
this lifestyle, but I do find

myself thinking about well, okay
How does this hundred fifty thousand

become three hundred thousand?

I'm not especially goal oriented
and I don't really, you know, buckle

down and say it's 300 or die this
year It's not how I really function.

Also, I'm not sure that's the
healthiest way to function.

I've been Coaching, you know,
I've really been in my, in my

coaching business since 2014.

Now that's, that's really where the
coaching business kind of solidified

and became a thing and started to
support my family between my money,

work, bookkeeping, CFO ing and
coaching a decade now is where I am.

And I think that there's a lot
of hidden cost to trying to

grow your income too quickly.

I think that it has some
big psychological costs.

I think it has some big emotional costs.

It of course has big benefit as well,
but I think the cost gets ignored.

So when I think about my 150 and
how it might become 300, that

does sound really great to me.

But I don't intend to make
that transition quickly.

I intend to allow it to happen naturally.

It would of course happen through some
combination of more sessions at the same

price, same sessions at a higher price.

Or the introduction of
other business models.

This podcast might give the impression
that I'm opposed to training business

models, but I'm not, I have a, I have an
ongoing vision or fantasy for selling

a very expensive training program.

Very expensive because I think there
can be incredible value in those two.

The reason I haven't offered it
yet is because it doesn't exist.

I have not gotten to total
clarity in my mind where I could

sit in front of a prospect.

And say, I am 100 percent confident
that you will be glad you paid me that

amount of money for this experience.

But I promise you, as soon as I do
fill that, that program will exist

and I'll sell it so enthusiastically.

So that can be a way to grow the income
stream and also bring some leverage

into the income stream if it's done
thoughtfully, if it's done with care.

So that's the finances.

Let's talk about marketing.

At the beginning of the episode,
I think I said that the last time

I published on this podcast was
almost a year ago to the day.

In the meantime, I have been very
consistently participating in my

other podcast, which is called
beginning balance, which I do with my.

Very close friend, Jesse Mecham, who's
the founder of YNAB, the software company.

Beginning balance is the most consistent
thing I've ever done in content creation

in 15 years of content creation.

Cause I really started
content creation about 2008,

but this podcast did not get
published since late January, 2023.

I don't think I sent
any newsletters in 2023.

If I did, it was a very small handful
and I didn't make any social media posts.

And as I was prepping for this episode
and acknowledging myself that I

published almost zero content in 2023,

I had a few emotions.

One emotion was surprise.

I feel to a certain degree validated
and vindicated because I have said in

the past, when it comes to a one on one
coaching practice., you don't have to

think about , content creation at the
same rate or volume as someone who's in a

training business, someone who's selling
courses or group coaching or memberships.

I published almost no content
in 2023 and I made 150, 000.

Now, how did I do that?

Well, because of the
relationships I'd been building.

Over the previous decade.

I don't mean to make it sound
like an overnight thing.

The point that I'm trying to
make is the 150, 000 happened in

2023 without content creation.

I feel that some of the things I've said
in past episodes are validated by that.

Where the job is actually.

To go build relationships, connect
with people and where appropriate

offer coaching or honestly wait for
people to ask for coaching, because

that happens to, that's pretty wild.

So one emotion about my lack of content
publishing in 2023 was surprised.

Another one was actually guilt.

Now people get, especially in, you
know, 2024, people get very weird

about the word guilt and how, you
know, we shouldn't feel guilty.

No, I think guilt is appropriate
in some scenarios when you,

when you feel deep down.

That there was a right thing to
do, and that you either didn't

do it or you did the opposite.

That's a case where guilt
is the appropriate emotion.

And I have this sense, a person,
maybe one, but a person could benefit

from me talking into this microphone.

And I have some evidence that that's true.

And so when I think about the ability
to transfer some experience, maybe

help a person shift their thinking
or their emotional state, just by

talking into this microphone, and
I think about that I don't do it.

Yeah, I feel guilt.

And I think that guilt is appropriate
and I think the risk, the appropriate

response to guilt is a decision to,
to change and to be better content

creation is a, is a puzzle to me.

It is strange to me how I don't seem
to be able to crack the formula for

talking into this microphone by myself.

On a regular basis.

I think that's weird.

I do think I have at least a
partial solution beginning balance.

The podcast I talked about earlier that
that consistency it's been running since

2021, it has almost a hundred episodes.

I think I don't really check
or pay that much attention.

The consistency there is built on the fact
that one of my very best friends in the

world and I have a calendar appointment.

And during that calendar
appointment, we record a podcast.

We miss often like we flake we're
scheduled to meet every week.

We probably cancel 30 or 40
percent of those appointments.

One of us will cancel.

He no showed today.

I'm going to send him a text and say,
Hey, back in my day, a man's calendar.

RSVP was his bond, but we
recorded two last week.

Who knows?

It doesn't matter.

Trust me.

No one in the world is going to be
less annoyed by a person flaking

for an appointment than I am,

But it's been so consistent
because I've had a collaborator.

And so I am thinking about this podcast.

Tentatively named a podcast for
coaches and how maybe it requires

collaboration in order to thrive.

Another thing that will help is that
many of my clients have been using this

forever and I'm just late to the party,
but a good friend of mine, Josh, told

me to check out this software Descript.

Holy moly, I have not been more
impressed with a piece of software

in probably the last 10 years.

The friction that Descript removes from
content production is mind blowing to me.

And I think that's going to
help me be more consistent here.

So I do have every intention of pushing
publish more often in 2024 and beyond.

Partly because I do think it will
keep my relationships fresh and fresh,

healthy relationships contribute
to a thriving coaching practice.

And partly because I believe
it's the right thing to do.

It's the right thing to share
an experience that could be

helpful to one other person.

And I don't care if it's only
helpful to one other person

that's leverage enough for me.

Yeah, I think that's it there's some
nuts and bolts about you know marketing

and Running the practice that I will
talk about in upcoming episodes I

have an episode coming up that I've
already recorded a draft and I think

I'll rerecord it about Marketing
coaching and how I really think it boils

down to how we need to be interested
in our clients and their problems.

We need to be interesting to
our clients and then we need to

connect and share and converse.

That episode's coming
up in a couple of weeks.

I've got an episode coming up
about how coaches are making money.

And how I think it's weird that we
even have to say that because of

course coaches are making money.

And yeah, that's where we are.

Thanks for tuning in.

My intention is to have an every
other week published schedule.

So a couple of times a month,
enjoy your coaching practice.

What an incredible way to make a living.

I'm blown away by it.

We'll talk to you next time.