A Podcast for Coaches

Mark Butler: My name is Mark Butler
and this is a podcast for coaches.

Today, I want to talk to you about
what I'm calling a marketing plan.

I'm proposing what I think, as of this
moment anyway, is one of the simplest

possible marketing plans a coach
could follow to fill their practice.

So I have three chapters for you today.

There's a fourth chapter, but I
think it deserves its own episode.

We'll get there.

We'll see.

Maybe I'll Maybe I'll do chapter
three today and then decide I

want to roll right into four.

But I think chapter four
deserves its own episode.

So chapter one is called goals.

Chapter two is called
a thought experiment.

And chapter three is
called the list of maybes.

So let's talk about goals.

I want to tell you the goals up front
because you might hear these goals

and say, those are not my goals.

In which case, great, this is
not the marketing plan for you.

And you're onto other things, bigger,
better things, whatever you want to do.

Um, but this entire marketing plan
is built around a set of goals that

if you buy into these, then I think
you'll find that this marketing plan

represents a best case scenario for you.

So the first goal here is
a full coaching practice.

Now for me, a full coaching
practice means somewhere between.

On the low end, 12 and on the
high end, maybe 18 clients.

And in a given week, what that represents
is around 12 to 14 sessions, probably

closer to 10 to 12 sessions, if I'm being
honest at this point in my practice.

So for me, that's full.

I know of coaches who are, who
are working as many as 25 and

30 hours a week with clients.

I think those coaches are superhuman.

I think that's amazing for me.

Full means.

10 to 12 sessions a week.

You get to define full for yourself,
but that's the first goal is a

full one on one coaching practice.

Now let's be clear.

Inherent to that goal is the
idea that one on one coaching

is the thing that you're doing.

So you make everything harder.

You make everything more complex when
you decide to sell one on one coaching.

And Fill in the blank,
whatever else you're selling.

In addition to one on one coaching,
it just introduces complexity.

And if you want to hear more about
the complexity, you can go to

earlier episodes of this podcast.

But this whole plan is built around
the idea that you would fill a one on

one practice and that the marketing
you're doing is in service of that

one on one practice, not one on
one coaching and some other thing.

The some other thing really
does muddy the water.

And you'll, you'll see more clearly why
when I get into chapters two and three.

So a full coaching practice, a sub
goal on the full coaching practices.

I want a full coaching practice with
minimal traditional marketing activity

and very little sales activity.

In other words, if I'm coaching
10 or 12 hours a week or 25

plus for those Superheroes.

If I'm coaching that much, and that's
how I want to be spending my time, I

don't want to be spending another two,
three, five, eight hours per week in

traditional marketing and sales activity.

So it's not just that I want
a full coaching practice.

It's that I want a full coaching
practice without having to spend

a bunch of time on content and a
bunch of time on consultations.

The best case scenario here.

Um, is I have a full coaching practice
in which new clients tend to reach

out to me and request coaching
rather than me having to feel like I

have to go hunt for my next client.

I mean, we're, we're, we're
being blue sky here, right?

Why not?

The goal is not for me to be
out there hunting for clients.

The goal is to receive emails, DMs,
texts that say, do you have availability?

I'm looking for a coach or I know
someone who's looking for a coach.

That's our best case.

Another sub goal on the
goal of a full practice is

I want my fee to increase naturally
and organically over time such that

I'm doing the amount of coaching
I want to do and earning the

amount of money I want to earn.

So look at that whole picture.

I am coaching the number
of hours I want to coach.

I'm making the money I want to make,
and I'm not having to spend a bunch of

time in traditional sales or marketing.

And I'm definitely not
having to advertise.

I'm not having to spend money on ads.

That's my best case scenario.

Now, as you hear those goals, if you
think, Well, no, the problem is I'm

seeking quote unquote unlimited income.

And I'm actually excited about the work,
the activity of traditional marketing and

sales, as in, I want to be advertising.

I want to be selling low ticket products
inside of funnels, et cetera, et cetera.

Okay.

No problem.

I mean, in my opinion, big
problem, but, but that's my bias.

That's the whole bias of this podcast.

If that's who you want to be, and
if that's what you want to do.

Everything I'm about
to say is not for you.

Not that you're not welcome to it.

You're welcome to it, but you will find
it, I think, useless because everything

I'm about to say is intended to fill
somewhere between five and 10 and 25

hours a week of one on one coaching.

And in my opinion, my worldview is I want
thousands and thousands more coaches.

Who are doing somewhere between
five and 15 sessions a week and

being paid very well to do it.

So that worldview, that philosophy
and that bias, that's what's

driving what you're about to hear.

Let's go to chapter two.

Chapter two is a thought experiment.

I want you to make a list.

No, I'm not telling you to pull
your car over or stop right now.

It really annoys me by the way,
when people in books at the end of

a chapter, they say, Before you read
the next chapter do this exercise.

I always think you're not the boss of me
Your mediocre book has not persuaded me

that I should stop what I want to do to do
what you want me to do So relax, I'm gonna

keep reading and if I decide to I will
implement Maybe some percentage of what

you're telling me to do I do get, I get a
little bit, uh, I get a little bit feisty

when I read these books because you're not
in charge of how I consume your content.

Don't tell me to stop anyway.

You can do this whenever you want
or never make a list of five people

who might accept coaching from you.

A coaching offer.

Take some time.

Just let the names flow into your head.

Five people who might accept a
coaching offer to reduce the friction

of the exercise, set the price of
your coaching at zero in your head.

So now you're saying, who are the five
people who would be most likely to

accept an offer of free coaching from me?

Some of you might discover that you
can't get three names on that list.

No problem.

This is not a test.

It's not an evaluation,
it's a thought experiment.

If you find you can't even get three
names on the list, no problem, we'll

address it, we'll talk about that.

Here's what would usually happen,
I think, if I take someone

through this thought experiment.

I think they will make the list
of five names and then they'll

immediately go into evaluation.

Oh, would she say yes?

I don't know.

We've talked about it the one
time and she seemed kind of

interested, but then I didn't want
to be awkward and make an offer.

So I just said nothing and oh,
he might, well, he's really

having a hard time right now.

He really needs coaching.

And then we start to evaluate
the people on our list of five.

I think many of us are walking around
with a list of some number of people.

There are actual faces in our heads and
we're thinking to ourselves, either I

would love to coach that person or that
person really needs coaching or how

might I offer coaching to that person?

No problem.

I don't think this is a bad thing,
but I think it cuts you off from the

insight that would actually benefit you.

And here's how you get to that insight.

Take that list of five.

Maybe it's only three, maybe it's zero,
but take whatever list you've made and set

it aside and make another list of five.

Let the names flow into your head, scroll
through your phone, look at wherever you

maintain a list of contacts and just let
names jump off the screen or the page.

Would this person, might this person
accept an offer of free coaching for me?

Repeat this process until the next name
feels really hard to add to the list where

you really feel like you're reaching when
you get to the point where you're saying,

Oh, Oh, you know what, there's that girl
who's the receptionist at the daycare.

Yeah.

You know, maybe, maybe, and the
more, when you're having to really

persuade yourself that that name
should be on the list, it's okay.

The exercise is complete.

This is not a challenge for
you to stretch your thinking.

Think of this as a low
hanging fruit exercise.

If a name pops into my head or is
on my screen and I think, yeah.

That person might accept an
offer of free coaching for me.

Maybe it's only a 10 percent chance.

Maybe it's a 70 percent chancE.

what we're testing for is do I think this
person is a maybe and if I don't have

to convince myself, if I don't have to
work very hard to persuade myself that

the person is a maybe they are a valid
maybe and their name goes on the list.

Now, I have no idea how many
people are on your list.

I frankly have no idea how
many people are on mine.

As I thought about taking myself through
this exercise, I thought, well, my

inbox probably has somewhere between
15 and 20 messages in it going over

the last several months of people
asking if I have coaching availability.

Okay.

All of those people are on the maybe list.

And then I have past clients and
I have current clients and I have

bookkeeping clients who, yeah, some
of them belong on my maybe list.

Frankly, the reason I didn't really take
myself through this exercise is out of

laziness because I thought I have to
block out some time and I actually have

to go through inbox and contacts and maybe
through my Stripe and PayPal history.

And just I have to think about friends and
family and I gotta build my maybe list.

I do think it's a worthwhile exercise, but
here's where it yields the most insight.

First.

The issue is not whether you can make a
perfect offer to one of the first five

people that went onto your list, because
that tends to be where you hang out.

I wonder if she would, I wonder if
she wouldn't, how would I say it?

What would I say?

It's not that that's bad.

The issue is if you were to make
coaching offers to the first five people,

whose names popped into your head.

Somewhere between optimistically,
somewhere between one and five of them are

going to accept that offer, but then what?

Then you might have a couple of clients.

You might not, but you still have
this looming lingering question

of what about after these people
are finished coaching with me.

Now, we know that some of them
will renew and some of them may

renew for years in the long run.

I think our coaching practices will
be mostly filled by longterm clients

with whom we have great rapport who
just keep signing up, renewing and

maintaining the relationship and being
in that position with a few clients.

I got to say, I'm so grateful for it.

It's amazing.

You've heard me talk about it.

The relationships are great.

The insights, the report, it's
all fantastic, but getting from

here to there can be tough.

When I hear people say, I have
one client, I have two clients.

I have no idea where the
next client will come from.

My hypothesis, what I'm, what I'm
suggesting today is that we would all be

wise to maintain a growing list of maybes.

And actually that's chapter three.

Let's go to chapter three.

Here's the hypothesis.

If at any given moment there are,
let's say 100 people walking around

earth who would maybe accept an offer
of coaching from me, then my practice

will get full and stay full forever.

Now, yes.

100 is a totally arbitrary number.

I have no idea what the actual number is,
but I'm anchoring you to that number to

give you the idea that the point is not
to have at any given moment, one or two or

three people who would absolutely say yes.

It's to have a bunch of
people who might say yes.

Now.

Maybe I'm just dressing up and reframing
the idea of having an email list or a

social media following, but it's not
quite that an email list, a social media,

following a podcast audience, , all of
these things probably contribute to and

support the list of maybes, but it is not
the list of maybes the list of maybes.

Are actual names that I can look at
individually and feel confident in myself

and say, I bet that person would seriously
consider an offer of coaching from me.

What it does is it indicates to
you how many relationships you've

done the work of creating and
nurturing such that that offer would

not be shocking or off putting.

Or even offensive to the person
that the offer would be welcome.

Now, it doesn't mean it's a yes, but it
means that the offer would be welcome.

And if I have enough people walking
around who would be happy to receive

an offer of coaching from me, then it's
inevitable that some of them will say yes.

So the limiting factor is not
how many clients do I have today?

It's not how big my email list.

Because by the way, many of you have
already experienced having an email list

in the hundreds, maybe some, maybe in
the thousands where you send , a coaching

offer to that list and you get no yeses.

, Because that list doesn't
necessarily represent or make

obvious the group of people who
would welcome an offer from you.

The only thing we know that they
would welcome is the next newsletter

or maybe the next post on social
or maybe the next podcast episode.

So they haven't escalated themselves.

They haven't raised their hands
and said, I am a maybe, and

it's the maybes that matter.

Let me tell you a story real quick.

Actually, this is, this is very recent.

This kind of drives the point home.

I received an email from a coach
coaches are who I have around me.

I received an email from a coach.

The coach said, I'm curious about the
possibility of coaching with you here.

A couple of the issues that
I'm thinking about working on.

And I will admit to you that when
I get that kind of message, I

usually consider it a done deal.

And I say, Oh, well, I'm
going to coach this person.

So I replied with a video side note.

It's really a hack to reply with video.

It's very personal.

It's just, it's a way of saying you
matter so much that I'm going to send

you a video and use your name and
talk to you about your, your message.

I think it's quite powerful anyway.

So I reply with a video and I say,
love to talk to you about those things.

By the way, I'm full enough right now
that it's really only Wednesday at 10 a.

m.

That I could work with you.

So if Wednesday at 10 a.

m.

Works, fantastic.

If it doesn't work, I don't know.

We might have to delay and work together
in the future or I might, I might

sincerely need to open up another spot
in my calendar, which I could be open to.

The person replies and says, Oh, actually,
I'm just curious about the potential

for working together in the future.

I'm just kind of putting out a feeler.

Oh, okay.

No problem.

And I can't remember if it was in that
exact moment or maybe a day later when

the person replied and said, there's
a member of my family who's actually

looking for a coach and Wednesday
at 10 AM might work for that person.

And I thought, Oh, okay.

Fast forward two or three emails later
exchanged with the person and the person

has signed up and paid for coaching.

And I've still never had a
conversation with the person.

So this to me is an example of the
maybes that are floating around

in my universe producing yeses.

That's why I believe in this hypothesis
that I don't have to look at that list

of people, the 100 people, hypothetically
speaking, and assume that they will

be the person who signs up for
coaching, who requests the support.

the way that list is benefiting me
is it's indicating to me that I have

confidence about the number and quality
of relationships that I've, that

I've created and that I'm nurturing.

Because in that whole scenario
that I just described, I didn't

even know that the person.

Who ended up making the
successful referral.

I didn't even know that that person
was a maybe on my list, but they

were referred by one of my clients.

So that client is definitely on my list.

That's a person who's already
signed up for coaching and may

continue to sign up for coaching.

They introduce me without me being
present to the second person.

And the second person refers
the third person and the third

person signs up for coaching.

That's how this happens.

And in order for me to stay in the right
mindset and to direct my daily activity

and my weekly activity toward the creation
and nurturing of these relationships,

I want to look at this list of a
hundred or three or five or whatever.

And I want to say, The more
of these maybes there are,

the easier it is for me to fill
and keep full my coaching practice.

Here's another story.

I recently was talking with a client who
has amazing coaching and training offers.

She does some training in
addition to her coaching.

And she was actually talking, we
weren't using this terminology, but she

was talking about her list of maybes.

And she said, I'm a little bit frustrated
because there will be people who ask

me about a specific training that I do.

And they'll say, I'm so excited to do it.

Just let me know when the next one is.

And then when she lets them know the
next one is coming, all of a sudden

they have reasons for not doing it.

It's very frustrating to her.

And I understand, and I don't
blame her for her frustration.

But we need a reframe here.

The reframe is not that her
offer actually isn't that good.

And it's not that these people are
flakes and it's not that no one

follows through on their commitments.

None of those things are true.

What is true is that those people's
enthusiasm is a strong signal.

It's a valid and valuable signal
of the quality of her offers

and of their confidence in her.

The only issue here is that there
are not more of those people.

What I said to her was, maybe you
have five or six or seven people

right now who have said to you,
I can't wait to do your training.

Just let me know when it is.

But because of whatever fear or
life circumstances or timing, when

you reach back out, they don't
say, Oh yeah, I'm ready to go.

Maybe one of them is ready to go.

The issue then is not.

That seven out of seven didn't say yes.

The issue is that there
weren't a hundred of them.

If there were a hundred people who
have expressed enthusiasm about

your training and said, just let
me know when the next one is.

I only need at any given moment,
10 or 15 percent of those supposed

yeses, which I'm calling maybes, I
only need 10 or 15 percent of those

to receive my offer in a moment when
they're ready and willing to say yes.

If I need a hundred percent of my
maybes to convert, I will always be

failing and always be frustrated.

But if I only need a small
fraction of my potentials, a small

fraction of my maybes to convert.

Then I'll always be full, I'll always be
happy and the magic, well, I'll always

be happy as a good news, everybody.

I just revealed the secret
to happiness in life.

This is it.

Just kidding.

What I mean is I will find it easier to
maintain my confidence in my coaching

practice because I will have enough
people who might say yes, such that only

a portion of them need to say yes in
any given moment for me to stay full.

I know how basic it sounds, and it
is simple, but the hard part is, is

managing our own thinking and managing
our emotional states while we're

letting this process work itself out.

I also understand that in the world
that we live in, especially in the

coaching community that many of us live
in, maybe is considered a bad word.

The people who have such a high
percentage of our attention, they

tend to be very transactional people.

And transactional people tend to
deal exclusively in yes and no.

And in fact, they make
that part of their dogma.

I can live with yes, I can live with no,
but I can't live with maybe I'm coming at

this from a completely opposite direction.

I live in maybe, and I love
maybe, Oh, you're a maybe perfect.

Because I know that at some point
in the future, if I maintain the

relationship with you, And I keep
giving you love in whatever form.

Maybe it's my podcast.

Maybe it's my newsletter.

That's where those things
factor into this plan.

By the way, if I stay present and
positive in your life, the day may

come where you have a change of
circumstances, a surge in life pain,

something goes on in a relationship.

Something happens where you
say, I got to get some help.

And then the maybe reaches back out
and becomes a yes, or many of those

people , who do live in, maybe they
will never become yes, but they will be

having a conversation with a loved one.

They'll be talking to a sister
in law and they'll say to their

sister in law, Hey, how are things
going in the, uh, relationship?

Oh, it's getting worse.

To be honest, I'm really frustrated
and I'm a little bit scared because of

the, for the first time ever, divorce
feels like an option and it's, it's

kind of scaring me and I kind of don't
know what to even think about this.

And then the person who is on your
quote unquote maybe list, the person

with whom you have a present positive
relationship says to the sister

in law, I'm so sorry to hear that.

You know.

There's this coach.

I, I, I follow.

And then I, I've talked to once
and maybe you should talk to her.

Maybe you should talk to him.

And then the sister in law says, I have
thought about looking for a coach or for

a therapist, but it's just intimidating.

I don't even know how to find one
that they can be really expensive.

And then the person who knows you
says, yeah, agree with all of that.

It is really hard to find a
coach or a therapist sometimes.

I know this person pretty well.

I mean, I don't know them personally that
well, but I really love what they say.

I love how they think I did talk
to them once and they just had

a really nice way about them.

You should reach out.

, and then the coach gets an email
asking about availability and price.

Probably that's how and why.

This works.

And since we're not trying to put 12
million people in a membership or 400

people in our quote unquote group program
or mastermind, we're trying to keep full

a practice with 10, 12, maybe 20 sessions
a week where we're serving clients and

building longterm relationships with them.

The scenario that I just
described is enough.

It is sufficient to fill and keep full
that practice and its entire focus

is on the people who might say yes.

Okay.

I just looked at the clock on my recorder.

Let's do chapter four.

Now, hopefully I haven't
lost your attention.

Chapter four is implementation.

Chapter four is.

Some very basic ideas you, if you all
know me, you know, I don't, I have a

tendency to overthink and overcomplicate.

And so when it comes to implementation,
I have to work very hard in the

opposite direction to make this as
simple as it can be for all of us.

So here's how we might go
about implementing this.

Number one, we do the thought
experiment that was in chapter

two, make the list of people.

In order to grow that list.

Right now, today, we shift our framing
of the list from people who might accept

a coaching offer from me to people
who would be happy to hear from me.

Now, I, and I think, and hope all
of you will find it pretty easy to

make a list of 100 names of people.

Who would be happy to hear from you.

Now you might be thinking,
what do you mean?

Happy to hear about my coaching,
happy to get my something.

No happy to hear from you as in hi,
just thinking of you hope you're well.

That's the level at which
we're approaching this, right?

Simple, happy to hear from you from there.

We can look at.

Non transactional.

Okay.

Our focus here is to be relational, not
transactional outreach and follow up.

And that can set, by the way, we're
now in a purely hypothetical territory

for me because I haven't had to do this
and it's not really a natural skillset

for me, but it's one I want to develop.

So now I'm not speaking
to you as an authority.

I'm speaking to you as a
peer who's curious about the

possibility of this working.

And I do have a sense and an instinct that
this would serve us well, but I'm going to

be honest about the fact that I'm now in
purely hypothetical territory for myself.

Okay.

So I make the list.

It's got a hundred people on it.

These are people who I think
just like me, care about me and

I like them and care about them.

And we want to hear from each other.

Now I'm looking at how do I stay
in touch in such a way that.

We just have good feelings between us.

Maybe it's that I'm a YouTube fanatic.

I watch way too much YouTube
and occasionally, maybe I clip a

video and text it to a friend and
say, this made me think of you.

It's 60 seconds.

And it reminded me of
something that we talked about.

Maybe I'm a person who loves books.

For example, once I was working in
my yard, I was listening to an audio

book, something in the audio book.

Triggered a memory of a
conversation I'd had with a client.

I stopped, I went into the
Kindle version of the book.

I clipped, I sort of screenshotted
that part of that book and I texted

it to this client slash friend of
mine immediately and said, this made

me think of our last conversation.

No ask, no offer, no get, like
there's no take in this whole thing.

It's just outreach and give.

Now, eventually we, of course,
we're looking for an opportunity to

make the best possible invitation
for the context and for the

relationship and for the moment.

And what I mean by that is if a person
who's on my list of people who might like

to hear from me, if conversation sparks
and they say, Oh, you know, I'm struggling

with X or Y or I'm hoping for X or Y,
then there's an invitation to be extended.

Now that invitation
could be an invitation.

To a conversation I could say.

Would you like to have a
conversation about that?

Or it could be an
invitation to a newsletter.

Not that the newsletter is the thing, but
it's just a way to take the relationship

from being one that exists completely
outside the context of my coaching.

To one that now can exist inside
the context of my coaching and

somewhere in there, a person.

Becomes a, maybe.

They become a person who would
not find an offer of coaching.

surprising or off-putting.

They become a, maybe it's part of
the relationships, natural progress.

Mark Butler: You see how we're
progressing here, but we're never

doing it in a transactional way.

We're always staying relational.

And our business model never
requires us to become transactional.

Because in the natural course of
being our best in that relationship,

the relationship progresses naturally,
and I never have to force or make

it transactional . The hard part
of this is patience and confidence.

That's my hypothesis.

And this is where I do have evidence
for my own coaching practice is that

progress will be slow and then quick.

And what I mean by that is the
journey from no clients to a few

clients could take a long while.

And then the journey from a few clients
to a full practice could feel very sudden.

It's because I believe there's
compounding in relationships.

To the point where eventually as
you've invested in relationships

and as you've nurtured and as you've
stayed in touch and I'm evidence

that you can do that really badly.

We talked about this in the last
episode, but if you do it at all, there's

eventually a compounding effect where
the success goes from feeling very, very

slow to very, very quick and you find
yourself suddenly having to deal with.

I've run out of spaces.

Do I need to raise my rates?

Do I need to open more room?

Is it time to go to groups?

Is it that we'll do a whole episode on
that anyway, the success I believe will

come slowly and then quickly, but it
will be built around and based on your

focus on nurturing the relationships you
already have, having those relationships

naturally become a maybe as in.

The number of people who might accept a
coaching offer from you grows over time.

And then they ask for coaching.

Remember one of my main goals here, and
for me, it's basically a non negotiable.

I don't want to be chasing clients.

I want them to be asking
me about my availability.

If that's not the way it's going
to happen, I'm frankly, not that

interested in being a coach.

So I will give up speed.

In exchange for that priority,
that's where the patience

and the confidence comes in.

All right.

So summing up the goal is I want
a full coaching practice that

requires very little traditional
marketing and advertising,

very little traditional sales.

I want my fees to grow naturally over time
along with the fullness of my practice.

And then through referrals, and
renewals, I want my practice to stay full.

Um, and my suggestion is that the
way to get there is to focus on

the number of people with whom you
have enough of a relationship that

they might accept a coaching offer.

And it is those maybes that will
fill and keep full your practice.

I know there's not a lot of detail
in how I explained , the how of that.

But hopefully I've persuaded you
about the possibility that it's

true, and then we can build on that.

Have a great week.

We'll talk to you in the next one.