273: Beating the Perfectionism Out of You and Starting That Coaching Business with Marc Mawhinney

Marc Mawhinney 00:01
So, I just jumped out there and I did it. You know, I didn't have this detailed business plan and I just said, "Hey, I'm gonna do it." I slapped up a website. I got 500 business cards printed. I had the most general, not only as a niche because it wasn't a niche, so I said, "Hey, I'm a coach for entrepreneurs." because I've gone through all this stuff, and I have a passion, love entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. And I said, "I want to help entrepreneurs."

Introduction 00:29
This is Happen To Your Career. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and then make it happen. Whether you're looking to do your own thing or find your dream job, you've come to the right place. I'm Scott Barlow.

Sarah 00:52
I'm going to be the operations coordinator for CASA which is... stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:59
This is Sarah. She has many passions and skills, which actually made it kind of difficult for her.

Sarah 01:04
My whole career type story has been one of, sort of, bouncing around because I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I could never figure it out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:14
Listen for Sarah's story later on in the episode to learn how she used career change bootcamp to help her finally figure out what fits her.

Sarah 01:21
I had the opportunity to really just kind of try to figure it out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:30
This is Scott Anthony Barlow, and you're listening to Happen To Your Career. The show that helps you figure out what work fits you by exploring other stories, we get to bring on experts like Karenina Jahnigen, who helps high performers figure out what's stopping them and overcome that immediately, or people that have pretty amazing stories like Cesar Ponce de Leon, who has been on an interesting journey and discovered what he loves, and comes from a background in marketing all the way to what he's doing now. And you can find all those plus more, because these are all people just like you, they've gone from where they are to what they really want to be doing. Today, we get to talk to Marc Mawhinney.

Marc Mawhinney 02:12
Just a little bit of background, I'm in Atlanta, Canada, which is a little more conservative part of the world. People here are used to being, okay, you're an insurance guy, or a real estate woman or a lawyer, you know, those type professions. So they say, "What do you do?" And I say, "Well, I'm a coach who coaches coaches." And they look at me like I have two heads, right? Like, "what heck is that?" Or they're thinking coaching has something to do with athletics. And oh, geez, "what are you, like, heading to the NBA or something?" So they don't really get it, although it's getting better in this part of the world. So I'm essentially a business coach, and the people that I help or other coaches with their business, anyone that comes to me that owns a bricks and mortar type business, or something like that, I refer them off, I only work strictly with coaches.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:55
As Mark and I have this conversation, you get to hear how to get into coaching in the first place, if that's something that you're interested in, even if it's not something you're interested in, you want to understand how it works, and how that can happen, and how coaching can benefit you on any side. And I'll tell you that back when I was in HR, the bulk of what I did was coaching. And that's actually what got me into HR in the first place was having a tiny bit of coaching experience and having that skill set that went along with it. So we get into all that, plenty more plus the "Leapfrog Theory", and how that can actually help you and how you can benefit from that. And the importance of linking coaching in business. Because a lot of people don't really understand that capacity, especially if you ever want to make this a business of your own someday. Or even if you have that interest in. We also get deep into comparison bias. And that's not something that is particularly helpful to you. So be careful who you compare yourself to. And we talk about how to do that part differently because it happens. It happens to us as humans. And also, Marc and I talked about not limiting yourself to your local geographic area. So many people are very focused on, "Hey, I live in Vermilion, Ohio. And there's only so many companies in Vermilion, Ohio." But the reality is you don't have to be limited anymore. And you haven't for a number of years by what's in your immediate area. And that is so cool. So tell you about that and a whole bunch more, especially if you're one of those people that might be interested in staying where you're at but still having a life and a career you love. Alright, Marc has a pretty amazing story about how he got to where he is now.

Marc Mawhinney 04:45
It's funny because actually the coaching industry wasn't really a coaching industry way back and updating myself but I would have been in that age bracket and around the late 80s. So the coaching industry wasn't a thing like it is now. But really it happened by accident, I'm an accidental coach. But then on the other side of it, I was coaching for years not realizing, which sounds kind of strange to say it but to make a long story short, actually I was in real estate for my whole adult life starting at 21. And I was 21 years old, I look probably 15-16 years old, I always joke that I look more like the paper boy than a real estate agent, you know, showing up to the doors. I looked young, you know, and I look a few less gray hairs and I have now probably. So I started in real estate, and I spent a decade building up my real estate, you know, 10 year, roughly where everything was going perfect. Every year, my business was doubling, and I was adding people to my team. And just enough hard work, I'm pretty soon as the number one agent out of 300, and some agents in the city and things are going great. And I picked the absolute worst time to expand my business, which was 2009. Anyone listening, they know where the story's going, you know, with the real estate market globally around then. And I grew to a couple offices and 100 agents and employees, and everything's going great until it wasn't going great. And everything collapsed. And that's in itself, we could probably do a whole series on that 100 episode type thing here to go over. But...

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:13
The 100 episode collapsed. It's a new podcast.

Marc Mawhinney 06:15
Yeah, that's right. By the end of it, I'll just be like, I don't know, drinking my face off, or something, sitting in the dark room, you know, just totally depressed now. It was interesting. I can look back now, and I realized that was actually a great thing that happened. If we were doing this interview in August of 2009, I would have been thinking something a little different. But after the business closed, you know, I stumbled through the wilderness for a few years, not literally, but not knowing what I was going to do, you know, so I kind of got back into real estate, and I was going to be doing some flipping, and then that didn't work out, I went through another stumble there. And then by 2012, I said, "You know what, I'm done with real estate. I'm not having fun. This isn't enjoyable. And I don't want to do this for the rest of my life." And it was actually through the help of several coaches and mentors that got me back on track. And then I started saying, "Okay, what do I want to do for my next business?" And that's how I got into coaching. And I started my coaching business it was... at the beginning of 2014. And it's funny because it feels like it's a lot longer, because I've done so much with my podcast, Natural Born Coaches, it has 500-ish episodes now, and just... I've crammed a lot into three, four years, basically. And that's how I got into coaching. But I'd actually been coaching for many years with my real estate team, just I didn't realize I was coaching at that time. But looking back, there's a lot of similarities and a lot of crossover with coaching there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:36
You know, short of the 100 episodes that are going to be produced later, that's a really compelling story. And I think there's a couple of things that I take away from that, one, seems like so many of us that have made big changes have been born out of seemingly not good events, I suppose.

Marc Mawhinney 07:52
Right.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:53
And I think that is, I don't know, it's hard to keep that in the moment. Like, for me, one of those was when I got fired from my first professional job way back when and then like, screw this, I'm not doing work that I don't like anymore, because it was terrible. But, you know, at the moment, same as if we were talking in 2009, when all that happened for you, it wouldn't have been very exciting at all.

Marc Mawhinney 08:12
It was a strange experience, because I had 10 years of no stumbles whatsoever, you know, and don't get me wrong, it was a lot of work, you know, I worked my butt off, it was a lot of 100 hour weeks, I was pretty much at a cell phone to my ear unless I was in the shower. And I'm sure I probably did some deals in the shower, too, you know. It was a lot of work, but there was no stumbles. So then you look at 2009, when that closure came, it was a messy closure. I mean, there's never a totally clean business closure, really, there's always going to be issues, but I mean, my part of the world, it's a cat get stuck in a tree, that's front page news. Like, there's not much going on here. And when that happened, suddenly, public enemy number one, you know, front page of the newspaper, and, you know, I could see it in a lot of other markets, it probably would have been on Section C page 25, if anything, you know, it's a real estate business, there's 100 agents and employees. But in this case, it got a little bit overblown with a lot of stuff. And that's okay, I can take responsibility. And if the business hadn't closed, that wouldn't happen. So that's my fault. But I hit a point where I said, "You know what, enough is enough. Like, I'm tired of getting kicked around here." And I learned actually more in that period of those couple years where I was going through that failure. And that struggle to find myself. I learned more in that time than I learned 10 years of the good years through there, which is, so failure can be good and actually take the lessons from it and you can turn it into something positive, as long as you don't wallow in self pity and, you know, stay down. So I got back on the horse took a little bit of time. And then I had enough of people kicking me around basically said, "You know what, that's a very powerful motivator, too, by the way to prove the haters and the critics wrong."

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:46
So I'm super curious, since you've gone through that, how do you sort of engineer that? Because one thing that I heard you say, which I absolutely agree with, and there's a lot of evidence behind that facts, not opinion, is that you're going to experience some of the highest degrees of learning through some of those failures or in some cases, you know, high stakes type events or whatever you want to call that bad, conventionally things that people would consider bad. Right? So looking at that now and having gone through that, have you encountered any ways that you can either engineer that or shorten the failure cycles or what's been your experienced there?

Marc Mawhinney 10:24
Well, the way that I did it was I did something that Chin Ning Chu talked about in the book, "Thick Face, Black Heart" she wrote it back in the early 90s. Not many people know about that book, it's kind of a cross between the art of war and thinking grow rich. And very few people read it, I read it a few times a year, because I love it. It's probably my favorite book. But Chin Ning Chu and that book talked about something that she called the "Leapfrog Theory". And what it was basically, she was originally from China. And then later in life, adult life she was in, I believe it was Portland, Oregon, and she won a government position that a lot of people in that city wanted. And suddenly they started trying to trip her up. And she couldn't do anything without people. A lot of rumors, a lot of lies being spread about her, just anything I could do. A lot of people were jealous of that and she was getting very frustrated playing in that I say, small sandbox, I'm not saying Portland's a small place by any means. But if she was still feeling very trapped, and once she decided to do what she said, "I'm not going to play their game anymore." She said, "I'm going to start writing books and speaking on teaching Western business people, Asian principles, business practices" and she said, "I'm going to become the expert on it." And she did it. You know, she wrote very popular books, she was a regular on Larry King, she was on all this media and stuff. And suddenly the people in Portland, Oregon couldn't touch her because she leapfrog them, you know, dealing with Larry King, and all these big vehicles and stages. And that's essentially what I did with my haters and critics as well. I just didn't realize it at the time, because I actually read the book after I engineered it. I stumbled over by accident. But what I'm doing in the coaching world is I said, "I'm not gonna play in the small market of 100,000 people that operates very much like a small town of 5000. I'm just not playing the petty little games, you know, and stuff. And I'm going to work with people around the world, I want to affect people around the world." And it's not to knock real estate, you know, I had a lot of good years there. But I can't impact the number of lives selling houses in a small Canadian province, in a small city in a Canadian province. Compared to coaching, I can touch a lot more lives and have a lot more fun and, you know, make an impact, have more fun, it's no brainer. So I did that leapfrog theory, where I just started dealing with people all around the world, people like you take, for example, popular show like this, rather than playing in that little sandbox. So anyone listening, go read, and I'm not an affiliate, by any means.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:51
Just a fan.

Marc Mawhinney 12:52
Yeah. That's... I'll get 10 cents for every book sale, but no, read "Thick Face, Black Heart" because I wish I'd read that book in 2009. It probably would have shortened that whole process even more than it was instead taken a few years to get back on my feet. It maybe would have been a year, who knows.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:06
"Thick Face, Black Heart" I didn't catch the author's name though. How did you spell that?

Marc Mawhinney 13:10
Unfortunately, she passed away but her name was Chin Ning Chu.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:16
Chin Ning Chu. Okay.

Marc Mawhinney 13:17
You got her.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:17
Perfect. Appreciate that recommendation. I haven't read that one yet. Well, let me shift gears on you then a little bit. Now that I've got another awesome book to add to my list here. When you're thinking about this coaching business and coaching as a business, how did you get started, first of all? Because, you know, we talked about that, you moved into this industry, we talked about where you're at now. But how did you really get started? What did it take for you to get your first couple of clients and how did that look for your journey?

Marc Mawhinney 13:47
My approach has always been very much "ready, fire, aim" as opposed to "ready, aim, and fire." And that's like the book podcast today. But that's actually an excellent book as well called "Ready, Fire, Aim" by Michael Masterson. But anyway, that's one you guys may want to check out as well. So I just jumped out there and I did it. You know, I didn't have this detailed business plan. And I just say, "Hey, I'm gonna do it." I slapped up a website. I got 500 business cards printed. I had the most general, not only as a niche because it wasn't a niche, I said, "Hey, I'm a coach for entrepreneurs" because I've gone through all this stuff. And I have a passion, love entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship and I said, "I want to help entrepreneurs." So it wasn't terribly focused in there and later months, I would narrow down from that. But when I got started, I just said, "Hey, I'm a coach for entrepreneurs, you know, I want to help" and I didn't do formalized certifications and training and everything, I really got started just by doing it. You know, those initial clients getting started with one on one, and then got busier and busier. And then eventually what had happened and where it really took off is I had two of my clients who were coaches. And when I compare those clients to the sessions that I had with clients that weren't coaches, night and day, I much preferred working with the coaches. They were more fun. I enjoyed helping them with their marketing and their programs. And everything else. So it's knock to knock Joe from Joe's plumbing. It's just, I jelled a lot better with those coaches. And I said, "I'm going to focus solely on that niche on." That's when I launched my podcast, Natural Born Coaches and started to really focus in and hone in on that world. And that's where things really took off from there. So anyone listening who's a coach, or who's thinking of becoming a coach, it's great, but you really nowadays I find half a bit more of a target, as opposed to saying, "Hey, I'm nothing against life coaches, you know, I think that their hearts in the right place and stuff, but it is easier if you can narrow it down somewhat." And that's when things took off for me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:37
So talk me through that then. Because I wholeheartedly agree with that. I think you save yourself so much pain, even talk to a specific group of people versus a very, very general group of people. But I mean, to your point, sometimes it's more important just to actually get started and go do the thing versus have the 42 page business plan that spent seven...

Marc Mawhinney 15:59
It's obsolete.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:00
Yeah, exactly. And this is something that before we hit the record button, I told you that my hope was, we could talk through what this actually looks like, here's the first couple of steps to getting this thing up and started so that people can actually get going. So for those folks that are thinking of getting a coaching business started, or have been trying and haven't had as much success as they would look like, let's talk about that. And let's operate from that. What do they do?

Marc Mawhinney 16:26
Yeah, the first thing to get out of the way is if you're a perfectionist, don't beat it out of of you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:31
Stop doing that.

Marc Mawhinney 16:33
Oh my god, if you're a perfectionist, you shouldn't be in business. I'm sorry, it sounds harsh, but it's true. Because I've seen perfectionist that takes six months to create a lead magnet, say for an email opt in, when it should take a couple hours, literally takes six months. So you'll drive yourself crazy. So if you're perfectionist, don't be perfectionist. But the first step that I would take is don't put a lot of pressure on yourself thinking that, "hey, whichever direction I pick to go into for coaching, I'm going to be doing this for the next 50 years." And you're tied to it and it's written in stone, you know, and then you put all this pressure on yourself, and you don't know, can I make money in that niche? And is it too narrow? Is too wide? And you really freak yourself out. A good way to get started, I would say, is look at different coaches that are out there, do some market research, not six months worth or a year's worth of market research, but, you know, go online and find some coaches doing some different things that resonate with you. Yeah, I really like what he's doing. I like what she's doing. That Scott guy is, you know, in that career world, I'd love Happen To Your Career, you know, I'd be interested in looking at that. And then they start spying on Scott in a way, they sign up for your email list. And any of the coaches that are interesting, sign up for their email list, see what they're talking about, see what they give out there for their free resource for their email, and do some market research that way. And that's probably the first start, we'll give you a perfect example. There's someone that I once knew, and he was interested in helping men get through breakups, that was essentially his niche, and he was coming out of a breakup himself. And he really thought he would enjoy that niche. And after doing it for a little while, he decided, you know what, this is kind of depressing. I don't want to work with heartbroken guys that looking for to get back on the horse. I want to do something different. It is sometimes you don't know that. You may think, "hey, I want to be a cancer coach" for example. But then it's just too hard emotionally, and it's not working. But you'll never know unless you try it. So get out there, just start doing some different things. Don't put pressure on yourself. And I think pretty soon you're gonna find out what you enjoy. And when you get out there and you get offering some sessions and stuff, you're gonna see who's attracted to you. So you may realize that, hey, 14 out of the 15 people were middle aged women between the ages of 45 and 50, who, whatever couple other things there. So that's who really seems to be attracted to me. I should explore this a little bit more.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:49
Absolutely love that. I've got 17 thoughts in my head. So I'm trying to decide which one to say first here but love it particularly because really, and to your point, and I mean, I think you've acted upon this as well. So your pro-positive and my story is very, very similar too, is just start doing it versus, I don't know, all of the things that can get you held up necessarily. And when you start doing it, you will have observations, you will have patterns, you'll have learnings, you have feedback, now created a feedback loop by actually going and doing the thing. So then you can observe, hey, I like this more than I like this. Okay, well, let's do more of this. And that's how it realistically works. This is why I wanted to have you on Marc. All our conversations have been very practical and useful.

Marc Mawhinney 19:38
Well what you're supposed to say Scott is, "Marc, I want to thank you. I made seven figures in a month by hiring you. And all my success is due to you Marc." Nah, I'm just kidding. We're joking.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:49
I only named two of my seven children.

Marc Mawhinney 19:51
Yes. But it's funny because I get coaches reaching out to me and they, to paraphrase ask in 50 words or less, can you tell me what I have to do to make six figures this year as a coach? And they want it handed to them on a silver platter. You know, here you go. It's only 48 words, here you go, here's how you do it. There's no magic answer. So whenever I'm talking about coaches, I always say to somebody, "So why do you have a coaching business?" If I just met you, I didn't know... you've been on my show, Scott. And we've talked a lot. But if I didn't know you, I'd say, "So why do you have a coaching business?" I don't say "why are you a coach", because coaching and business are two words that go together. You're an entrepreneur when you're a coach. And unfortunately, too many coaches come from backgrounds that they didn't have to sell, they didn't have to go out there and prospect, they didn't have to get people through the door. So they come from, say, an HR background, or they were a teacher, and they're all great careers, don't get me wrong, they're passionate about helping people, but they never had to go out of their cave in the morning with a club and, you know, beat something over the head and drag it back to eat it. And that's essentially what business and, I know sounds crude, but the sales is, you know, you have to go out there and you have to kill in order to eat. And they get started, they get perhaps their certification, they get their website up and realized, "Oh, shoot! I don't have a clients. How do I get clients?" So I always ask people, "why do you have a coaching business?" So I tie those two words together because if you're not willing to operate as an entrepreneur, or as a salesperson, you're probably not going to make it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:18
So moral and lesson number one, get yourself a club.

Marc Mawhinney 21:22
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And get a little leopard skin, like, kind of, a Flintstones, you know, rope wrapper.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:29
Perfect. So here's kind of what I'm pulling out, like all joking aside, I think that's a big mindset change for people and how they're thinking about this. And I'm interested in what you find, too, because you talk to these people all the time as well. But when I talk to people that are interested in being coaches, then we find a lot of people that are not looking at it, or not interested in it for the business purposes, necessarily, except to the extent of what they see that will get them.

Marc Mawhinney 21:56
Yeah, well, the way that they're looking at it in getting started is they think, "oh, I'll be coaching 80% of the time with clients. And then the other 20% of the time will be, you know, a little bit of marketing and tidying up paperwork, a little bit spreadsheets, you know, for accounting, but most of my time is going to be spent coaching" and you know what it's like, Scott, the reality is it's flipped, you know, you're lucky you're spending 20% coach, and maybe 10% or less coaching, and then the rest is going out to find those clients. And I think the problem is in today's landscape, you know, 2017, you go on to Facebook, and you're hit with all these ads, with people standing in front of rented mansions, Lamborghinis, yachts, promising seven figures as a coach, if you buy my super secret system and just implement my special funnel, and you won't even have to work, you know, you got to work five minutes a day on it or so. And then the rest of the time you're sipping girly drinks on the beach, and they get and they buy into that dream, and then all sudden they get in and see that doesn't work. And then it's, "oh, shoot, what do I do?" And, you know, that's one thing I'll say, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. And especially in those first couple years, I found that it took probably between year two and three of my coaching when it was really getting rolling, it took at least a year to figure out what the heck I was doing and be able to actually took 11 months to be make enough to move from my sales job because it was a good sales job for a telecommunications company. I worked from a home office and it was super flexible. But it took close to a year before I could go into coaching full time where the numbers were there. And it's gonna take that time it's not... I talked to some coaches, sometimes they're like, "Oh, man, I've been at this for so long. It's not rolling. What's going on?" And I'll say, "How long have you been doing it?" They're like, "Oh, my god, three months or six months" you know, I can't believe it. And I'm like, "Man, you're just a babe in the woods, you rookie at this stuff. It's gonna take at least a couple years to get your feet under you. But then you get rolling with it. So you got to be patient with the process as well."

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:50
I love that. Thank you for dropping that truth. And I've been taking, sort of, an informal poll for about four years now, just with people how long it takes to really get to that kind of inflection point where it gets, hate to use the word easier because really just your challenges change, but in some ways you gained enough momentum where it's not like you get to the point where you can support yourself in one way and even meet your expectations in another way for what you set out to do the business and seems like most people are between, like, that two and a half to three and a half year mark.

Marc Mawhinney 24:24
Yeah, that's what I found as well. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:26
But that's an interesting thing in itself, too. Because I would say to your point, like, you know, you asked to be like, "Ah, that's so long. How long has it been? Well, 45 days." And I don't think most people are going into it, looking at it as long term type of gig.

Marc Mawhinney 24:42
Yes, humans are impatient, right? And that's coming from me. I'm the most impatient man in the world, probably. I'm working on my patience. But I think what's really difficult nowadays is that you log into Facebook or whichever social media platform you frequent and you're seeing everybody putting out there, what's quote by Steven Furtick when he talks about "don't compare behind the scenes of someone else's highlight reel." And that's what it's like. Everybody's putting their highlight reel out there. So they all wake up brightener, a chipper at 5am, they run 10 miles, the scale a mountain in whatever city they're in, and then they're back to make love to their beautiful supermodel wife or their gorgeous husband all before 9am. And then they're making five figures by soccer every single day. And that's what you're seeing whenever you open up your computer. And that's where it gets difficult because you're not seeing all the struggles and you're seeing people that are BS and you're thinking "Man, that's so easy for them. Why I've been at this 45 days or 50 days, why the heck am I not doing all that stuff before 9am?" And it's just, it's an illusion.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:44
I find that depresses me. So I just don't even bother with it. I haven't for a couple of years now. Our business has grown enough to the point we're going to have to hire another social media person in order to...

Marc Mawhinney 25:56
Oh, congrats.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:56
Well, thank you. But I've basically been ignoring it because of that exact reason. Because I don't have enough willpower to not ignore it if I'm exposing myself constantly to that. So...

Marc Mawhinney 26:07
Yeah, you gotta be careful. I mean, with me, I have a gorgeous girlfriend, but it's 10am before we make love, 9am is a little bit unrealistic. But...

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:15
See, I knew there was a massive difference.

Marc Mawhinney 26:17
One really cool quote I heard, I'm pretty sure it was James Wedmore the YouTube guy. And I think that he said that, basically he was saying, "Don't compare yourself with someone further down the path than you are." So if, let's say, you're a coach, that's been in it two years, don't look at someone, like, we'll say, James, for example, he's been in this game for probably 10 years in the online space with to build stuff. Don't compare yourself to James Wedmore if you've only been at two years, and they've been at it eight or ten years, don't compare yourself to anyone. But if you can't resist it, and you have to compare yourself to someone, then compare yourself whoever just took the coaching certification with you or they've been at two years as well. But I'm really careful with that because it is depressing if you compare yourself to people who are putting up these false images on Facebook, trying to make it look like life's perfect and there's no way that it is perfect for anybody, but there's no way you can compete with that. And that's just going to get you into a funk and then you're going to get thrown off your course. So I'm all for social media. I get a lot of my business from Facebook, and I love it. But I'm also careful not to compare myself too much with other coaches there. I think it's very dangerous if you get into that game.

Sarah 27:28
I just didn't really have a thing, you know, that I felt like I was really good at. I always called myself a dabbler.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:34
Not only did Sarah struggle with the array of passions, but she also had some other segments.

Sarah 27:39
I couldn't walk anymore and bedridden for at least a year, probably closer to two.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:44
After she recovered physically, Sarah begin searching for a job again and struggled quite a bit.

Sarah 27:49
So I felt like I kept having all these false starts, which made me feel like I wasn't really building much of a resume. I knew was too vague. But it was because I didn't know what I wanted to do. But I just didn't ever feel like I could reach higher because I didn't have the quote unquote, experience, you know, kind of a thing. And that's where I think this course really helped.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:10
Now, Sarah was talking about Career Change Bootcamp, which helped her realize that setbacks could still be positioned to find the perfect job,

Sarah 28:17
You don't necessarily have to have the same job description for 15 years to have it apply to a new position.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:23
Sarah was finally able to figure out what fit.

Sarah 28:25
I'm going to be the operations coordinator for CASA which is, stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate, then hopefully in the next year or so bump up to the Operations Manager.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:36
Congratulations to Sarah on finding work that she loves. If you also want to figure out what work fits you and find that fulfilling career that lights you up and gives you purpose, well, you can find out how Career Change Bootcamp can help you step by step because, well, that's what we do. All you have to do is go to happentoyourcareer.com and click on career change bootcamp to apply for next opening, the next cohort, or you can text MYCOACH, that's MYCOACH to 44222. And we'll send you over an application and help you figure out if it's a great fit for you. Pause right now and go ahead and text MYCOACH to 44222.

Sarah 29:14
Being willing to be open to what is your inner self really, truly saying to you. And not just what you hear everybody else saying it should be.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:24
When you're getting started, and you're actually going through the act of either finding clients, that's one of the questions that I get asked a lot, you know, where do you get clients? Like, do you just go down to Lowe's and purchase one? Or, like, how does that thing actually work? How do you get clients? Or maybe somebody has, if gotten their first two clients that happened to be friends of friends or something and now they have to actually go and find clients either outside of what they're thinking of is their friend circle, and that's where they get stuck. So how do you work with that situation? Or how do you think about that situation for somebody who's right there in that sector, that time segment, what should they do?

Marc Mawhinney 30:01
Well, I guess it really depends. First thing, I would say, when it comes to clients, you want to fish where the fish are. So if you're in a niche, or, let's say, that's not really on Facebook, maybe it's more a LinkedIn crowd or something like that. Don't spend all your time on Facebook. And don't spend it in groups of other coaches. let's say, for example, because they're not your fish. You got to go where they're at. I'm not really big on, I dropped off, cut off a couple social media networks in the last year or two that just for me weren't yielding results, and they're more distraction. So Pinterest is one. I just don't get Pinterest, there was some really cool Star Wars cupcakes and stuff like that. I saw it pinned to walls. I like Star Wars, but it's not for me for business, just not my thing. Pinterest, Instagram probably should do a little more with Instagram. But Google Plus, don't get me started there. I just didn't get what I needed from those. So I focus primarily on Facebook, and then I'm on Twitter and LinkedIn, but Facebook's really the big thing. But you got to find it where your people are at. And I'm a big fan of coaching with an online coaching business. So I'm not saying you can't make it if it's local. But there's a lot of people that are in small towns, and they're becoming life coaches, and there's 2000 people there. Well, unless you're coaching everybody in town over the next 10 years, it's going to be tough to go and I just say, why limit yourself to that small. There's that sandbox analogy again, that we talked about with "Thick Face, Black Heart", I really say, you've got the Internet, and you've got access to 7 billion people on the planet that you can reach for no cost, essentially, just a couple clicks on a keyboard. People back in the 60s, entrepreneurs in the 70s, 80s would have given their front teeth for something like this. So why would you limit yourself to your town or to your city, if possible, work with people all around the world. And that's how I do it. All my clients are from away. You know, I've got clients in Dubai. I have a few in the UK, most of them are in the US. Now I have a few Canadians, but they're not in my rate in my city, here. I've worked with one or two local clients that came to me more by accident, they heard the podcast and even when I was working with them, we worked on Skype. I wasn't doing coffee shop meetings. I hate Starbucks coaching sessions. And I said, "Let's do it by Skype" where I can do it in my pajama pants and slippers if I want, you know, we're getting hammered with 10 feet of snow here in the lovely north.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:20
I'm pretty much the same way. I've only had, I was thinking back one local client. Otherwise, most of our clients are US based. But second most UK, China, Australia, we work with a lot of people in Australia. All over the world. And same reason, why limit yourself. Especially, depending on what... to your point, what niche you're in, and what target market you're at.

Marc Mawhinney 32:45
Yeah. Fear charging the right amount for your coaching as long as you're not charging peanuts, but if you're charging what you should be, you only need a handful of good clients to have a successful business. So at anytime I'm working with a maximum five, one on one clients, and then I'll have a group often running, you know, with a couple people up to five in a group. So I might have 10 clients tops that I'm working with directly. If I can't get 10 people out of 7 billion people on the planet, I'm in the wrong business, I should go do something else. And sounds harsh to say that but if you're not able to get out there and sell yourself to the handful of people on the planet, then go do something else, you know, get a desk job nine to five somewhere. Or if you really have to do coaching, become an inside coach, you know, say for a company that where you're working inside a corporation, they handle the clients directly, and then you get to work with it. But the majority of the coaches that are out there, you have to go out there and sell yourself. It's just the way it is. It's a business.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:42
And for accuracy purposes, we want to keep this accurate. I think there's only about 5 billion people that are on the internet.

Marc Mawhinney 33:47
Oh, is there? Okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:48
Out of the 7.6.

Marc Mawhinney 33:49
Well, that's right, actually not everybody in the planet's on the internet. But you could also snail mail them, you know someone in Australia.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:56
Exactly. Now you're thinking. But I think that's good perspective, though, truly is not the whole 5 billion. But if you can't get 10 people out of however many billion, then I'm not sure that this is necessarily for you or this model is necessarily for you. And then that's where you look at other options. So here's a couple other quick sort of rapid fire things that I get asked all the time that I'd love to foot to you. And you mentioned price. Should I worry about price when I'm getting started, when I'm getting my first couple clients? Like, should I be worried about whether I'm charging $4000 or $7,000 for this transaction? or how should I think about price? Because so many people are very very worried about that. Perfectionist. This means you. So how can, for perfectionist and non perfectionist like, how can they think about?

Marc Mawhinney 34:44
Well, I don't know if there's a huge difference between, say, 4 and 7000, I mean $3,000 difference. But as long as you're charging enough, I hate to see coaches either working for free or charging peanuts and there's a lot of them doing that. And in their mind, they make that logic, the reasoning that they have as well, I'm just getting started, this will give me experience. So I'll improve as a coach if I'm working with people for free. And then they'll give me awesome testimonials. And they'll refer me to everyone they know. And then I can bump my prices up. I get what they're trying to say. But unfortunately, that usually doesn't work that way. Usually, what happens when you get working for free for peanuts, you're not doing great work because you're starving, and you've got bill collectors calling while you're trying to do your coaching sessions. And then you get to start to feel resentful towards those clients, like man, I'm putting in all this work, and they're not paying me anything, you know. So it's not really good way to do it. I would rather see the coach spend his or her time prospecting for people who will pay them what they're worth, as opposed to spending that time sitting on the line with someone who's not paying or not paying much, because they're not going to take it. They don't have any skin in the game. So they're not going to be great clients. They're not going to work at it. They have nothing invested. So it's a waste of everybody's time. Take the time instead to go find people who will pay you what you're worth. But be aggressive, you know, if you're out there charging, it's fine. You remember the movie, The Wedding Singer Adam Sandler?

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:09
Yes, I do.

Marc Mawhinney 36:09
Yeah. I love that movie. So do you remember he was giving piano lessons to the old woman and she was paying with meatballs? She got to put his hand out and pay with meatballs. A lot of coaches are doing that. Now I don't know if they're getting paid by meatballs, but they're getting paid the same way. You know, peanuts are very little and you don't want to do that. Don't slap your hand out, just take a couple pennies. I've always used the thought that "I'd rather have 4 shiny quarters and 130 pennies." That's the old saying, I would rather work with fewer people who are paying me what I'm worth, as opposed to more people, they're paying me nothing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:41
When I think when you get started that way, you build from a different place, too, and you start, almost think about it as if you're going to improve from wherever you start from, then you can potentially start further ahead. Versus I do know a lot of people that have been successful by starting for free. However, my observation is that a lot of times those people take longer to be able to ratchet up their prices compared to somebody who started worthwhile value exchange.

Marc Mawhinney 37:13
Yeah, the results aren't there. And the quality of client too. I mean, don't get me wrong when I charged less. Yeah, they were nice people and stuff. But I had one client in particular again, I'll go to another movie. Do you remember What About Bob Richard Dreyfus and Bill Murray?

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:26
It's slowly coming back. Barely.

Marc Mawhinney 37:30
Bill Murray was really kind of crazy guy and Richard Dreyfus was a psychiatrist. And he got referred to him because Bill Murray drove another psychiatrists Nazi retired and got out of it, because that's how bad he was. So the psychiatrist calls Richard Dreyfus, I have a client referral for you and stuff. But as he calls him, he's packing up boxes on his desk. He's getting out of it. You know, that's a crazy Bill Murray drove. Well, I guess Bob was his name in the movie. So Richard Dreyfus took his family on vacation to cottage country, and his client, Bob, or his patient follows him out there, because he was calling him every five minutes. And if you didn't get a call back, you'd have panic attacks and stuff. And he ends up falling him out there. Now, it's not a thriller, or horror movie, it's actually a comedy. So what about Bob? And that's what my client was like, I had a client who, if I didn't get back to him, I'd say within an hour, he would get really antsy and stuff like, and I'm thinking, man, you're not paying me much. I think he was paying me a couple 100 bucks a month for one on one, like, that was not good. And since I've, my fees now are quite a bit higher, I'm at 6000 US for three months. So I don't get those issues, though. And I don't have people cancel their appointments either. So when I was lower pricing, I had people canceling for stupid reasons. And that very rarely happens now, unless it's something major going on. And I think that just illustrates the more skin in the game people have, they take it more seriously. And it's just, it's a better quality client. And it's better results, it's better for you, and it's better for the client. So the more you can charge, I'm not saying you have to start at $2,000 a month, you know, bare minimum, your new coach, I would start at least at 1000 a month one on one, if you're doing say for weekly sessions, don't charge a couple 100 bucks a month.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:10
When we've experienced... one of the observations that we've had, too, as we have, and we've upped our prices quite a bit over the last few years. But the more that we up our price points, the exponentially better we've been able to make our service and therefore the results that our clients are getting.

Marc Mawhinney 39:30
Exactly.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:30
And that is something that I didn't necessarily know, five years ago, I kind of suspected but didn't actually know if you would ask me at that point in time. But that's been a really interesting observation. So then it gets that momentum rolling because that gives us a little bit more time actually, it says substantially more time. And then it allows us to work with fewer clients and get each of those clients significantly better results.

Marc Mawhinney 39:54
Yeah, I think your one on one time should be that sacred time that you work with people who are working with you or are paying for it, you know, and they're paying you properly. And even in my business now, I make sure that a lot of the stuff I'm doing is, I've got, this gonna sound very old school stone age's, I've got a print newsletter, income paper newsletter for coaches. And there's reasons why I do it that way, that would be a whole other show. But it's called Seeker Coach Club, and I'm doing things like that. And I work with those handful of one on one clients. But the rest of the staff are things that give me leverage and allow me to reach more people. So if you're going to charge small amounts, make sure it's a hands off, kind of do it yourself, I charge $97 a month for that print newsletter. But it's the same amount of work as if I have one person in it, or a million people in it. Oh, sorry, it's not true. I have a few things in there that would be more... if I had a million people, I'd be hiring more people. But, you know what I mean, not a huge difference with the more people you get in there. And so anyone that approached me that just can't swing one on one, and they can't do my group coaching, because my group coaching is 2000 for three months, for my small groups. If they can swing that, then I can say, "Hey, look. Here's a way I can help. Here's my print newsletter. And here's the details." Then they can get my help. I'm not just throwing them away and saying bugger off, I'm actually helping them, but I'm not helping them directly with it. So that's a better way to do it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:13
So here's one more question that I get all the time is when people are getting started, and when people are moving down this track, how do they decide? And I've got my own opinions on this, but super curious about yours, because we've never had this conversation before. How did they decide how to piece together packages?

Marc Mawhinney 41:33
Yeah, well, your package is going to evolve...

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:36
Loaded question, by the way.

Marc Mawhinney 41:37
Yeah, we're gonna have to do, like, a whole series. We should co-host podcast here.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:42
So we got to do the 100 days, I don't know, whatever end podcast then we got to do the... yeah, so we got a lot of podcast to produce, Marc.

Marc Mawhinney 41:50
Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of it's just paying attention to what your marketplace is asking for, you know, I had Robert Coorey from Australia. He was on my show. And he has "Feed A Starving Crowd" is his book. You know, the great line by Gary Halbert, the copywriter, "Find out what your marketplace is hungry for and then feed it to them" as long as you enjoy doing that. So take for my business where I'm helping coaches grow there is I just have to look and say, what are the biggest stumbles and pitfalls where coaches are getting tripped up and if I'm doing a three month coaching program, then I start to map it out. Okay, I got 12 weeks, how can I split that up, you know, and hopefully I've got roughly 12 points which way it works out. And then we cover one a week and, you know, we can go back and do some review on some other stuff. So I think a lot of it is just using those two things by the side of your head, you know, your ears, and ask your marketplace, I mean, Ryan Levesque, another guy, he has a great book "Ask" he has a "Ask Method", just go out there and ask them what they need, what they need help with. And too few people do that they try to say, now, this is what I want to do. And I'm gonna try to fit the square into a circle hole and that doesn't fit, right, that peg and it doesn't work. So find out what the marketplace is hungry for and then feed it to them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:00
To some degree, I mean, that's how these questions are coming about because this is something that I've heard again and again from folks that are interested in getting started with their own coaching business or have just gotten started more recently. And so that's how these questions get to you. But then I think the other thing that I'm taking from what you said there is, if you go and do that and they're asking for something, you can start with whatever result you want to deliver and then work backwards from that in order to create your package and that's kind of what I'm hearing from what you're saying if I'm interpreting it correctly.

Marc Mawhinney 43:32
Right. Yeah, and that doesn't matter how much time you spend putting your package together, it's never going to follow that exact script. You've probably seen this too with your, Scott, is you think okay, here's what we're gonna focus on but then all sudden it goes in different directions because people are telling you, "Hey look, I need help on this" and, you know, even when I do my group sessions there's no two groups that are the same. You've got five different people I have in my groups and there's all sorts of different things popping up. So you don't have to have it all mapped out, I mean, it's good to have a rough guideline with, hey, this is the path I want to take them on but you're never going to have a completely scripted regardless of how well you know your marketplace you're going to get hit with some stuff from left field. So just don't overthink it and there's a perfectionist thing we talked about again. Don't be a perfectionist with it. Just get out there and do it your first... you're not gonna be as good, you know, in the early stages but you'll get better.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:23
So what are the biggest questions that you get when people are starting now?

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:27
You've asked a lot of them. "How do you get clients?" is a big one, you know, because how do you get clients and get asked often, "Do I have to be certified if I'm a coach?" and that could, there's another podcast.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:37
I know, man. That might be a rant slash podcast slash, yeah.

Marc Mawhinney 44:41
Yeah. You don't... if I had a dollar every time I heard that question, I wouldn't be talking with you today. I'd be down on my private Islands, you know, with my jets and stuff, my private planes. So I get asked often, if you have to be certified or should be certified, I get asked, "Oh god. What coaching niche should I do? You know, is this the right niche?" Or niche, I guess my American friends, you guys call it 'niche'. So things like that, that they get asked. And I think a lot of people are just... they get themselves so worked up, they haven't even gotten out there or very little and all sudden they're wanting to switch everything around. And they're all paranoid about things and working themselves into a tizzy. And it's kind of like riding a bike, you know, you can read every book out there on how to ride a bike before you actually get on the bike. And you could think, "Okay, I know how to do it" but you're gonna fall and you're gonna bang your knees up and get cut and bruised and scraped, and I think there's too few coaches out there, they're willing to just take off the training wheels and jump on that bike and get beat up. They want to have everything perfect before they get out there. And that's just not the way that you learn.

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:42
Totally agreed. So what is your answer? And then I'll throw in my opinion on the coaching certification piece.

Marc Mawhinney 45:49
You watch your show is actually sponsored by one of these certifications. So if you lose your sponsor...

Scott Anthony Barlow 45:54
You know our sponsor.

Marc Mawhinney 45:55
And then suddenly that talks about my haters in 2009. It's an interesting question, because it's hard to answer in a soundbite. I'm not certified. So that would tell you right there that I may have a bit of a bias. But I think that there are good coaches who are certified, but then I think there's lousy coaches that are certified as well. And then vice versa. So when I say that I'm not certified, I spend a lot of money, 1000s of dollars every year between workshops, and between programs and things to grow, you know, and to improve, because I think that that's important. I prefer to choose where I invest that money as opposed to saying, "Okay, I need that piece of paper on the wall for that certification. So here's 10k, you know, give me that piece of paper, because I need that." And I don't mean to insult anyone going through certifications, because there's some awesome certifications out there. And I've had a lot of those people on my podcast. So I think they're great. I think what's happened though, lately is there's a lot of really not good certification programs popping up because they see coaches as an easy target. And, hey, pay me 5k and then all sudden, you get done. And then oh, well, you got to get to next level, you got to pay me an extra 5-10k. And then the other problem that it has is the coaches going through it are doing these practice coaching sessions with their bodies from the certification. And they get so frustrated after a year of doing these because they're not doing real coaching sessions, like with paid clients, they're actually just coaching with the other coaches in the certification. And it doesn't feel real, and they get frustrated. And then the worst thing is I've had people go through certifications, and then they start working with me. And then they don't have money to pay for 20 bucks a month for AWeber for an email list, or they don't have 100 bucks a month to pay for their go to webinar or whichever webinar platform they're going with because they just shelled out 5 or 10k on certifications. And they've got diploma, the certification, the paperwork, but they don't have any clients and then no clue how to get the clients. So I think a lot of the certifications need to focus more on how to get clients as well as opposed to just the craft of coaching. And yeah, there's my two cents. Send the hate mail to Marc at Natural Born Coaches.

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:01
Go ahead and make that out. Actually, you can double copy, because that's actually very, very similar to my feelings on it. And I think the only thing that I would add to that is question, why you want a certification? What purpose do you want that to serve in the first place? Because if you're looking at it for credibility, because I get a lot of people that are like, "Oh, well, I just don't know if I have the credibility. But if after I get the certification, I'll have all the..." if that doesn't make or break, whether clients are coming to your door.

Marc Mawhinney 48:27
Well, here's all the sky because I just got a new printer. So if anyone wants my certification, they can send $5,000, I'll give you the address, and I'll ship first class mail. There's your certification. You've got it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:29
To the same door as the hate mail...

Marc Mawhinney 48:41
It's an inevitable coach's official certification and you're the most qualified coach on the planet.

Scott Anthony Barlow 48:46
Exactly. If that is the sole purpose, then it's probably not a good idea. If you're looking for on the flip side, like you mentioned, you know, people that are learning how to coach, there are some programs that really are much more about the piece of paper, and I'm going to call it, testing for comprehension, but you know some of the points, but really aren't about teaching you how to actually do that. And then there's still others that don't necessarily use effective methodologies. But all that said, there are a few really good programs that I've seen out there as well. So not the squash the few good ones that are out and about.

Marc Mawhinney 49:19
Yes, and I probably shot myself in the foot with some potential sponsors, but I will say there are good ones out there and they're worth every penny. It's just deciphering which ones are they. And when someone approached me with one I've never heard of, from someone that I'd never heard of that's offering it, then I'm thinking like man, you know, this probably isn't worth 5k or 10k. But there you have it. There's my two cents, my rants over.

Scott Anthony Barlow 49:44
I sure appreciate you taking the time and coming over here and spend it with us and helping people understand how to think about this differently and how to get started and get up and running. This has been awesome. Where can people find out, first of all, you already tell where you can send the $5,000 check...

Marc Mawhinney 49:58
For my certification.

Scott Anthony Barlow 49:59
But where can people find out more about you?

Marc Mawhinney 50:02
Yeah, the best spot would be naturalborncoaches.com not "naturalbornkillers.com" you won't get us. But naturalborncoaches.com. The other place I'm spending a lot of my time I've got a Facebook group that right now we've got about 5000 coaches in there. It's awesome, sharing a lot of value. And it's free. It's a coaching jungle. So if you go to thecoachingjungle.com, you'll connect in the group there, we'd love to have you. And finally, secretcoachclub.com is the income paper, prehistoric newsletter, the snail mail. Well, not even snail mail. We do it by Priority Mail, but we send directly to people's, to coache's homes right to their door once a month. So that's secretcoachclub.com.

Scott Anthony Barlow 50:40
Very cool. Go check it out. I'm a member of that Facebook group as well. I don't spend a ton of time on Facebook. But when I have, I've seen good things coming out of that group. And certainly been on the podcast, listen to the podcast, go over and check that out too, the good stuff. Hey, really appreciate it. Thanks again for taking the time and making the time appreciate it, Marc.

Marc Mawhinney 50:59
Yeah. Well, thanks for having me, Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 51:01
Do you enjoy helping other people? Or maybe people keep coming to you for advice? Or do you find yourself ending up in conversations about people's career over and over again? If you just find that you can't stop helping other people in these areas that you're enjoying and want to do more of it. Plus, maybe you want to add in more freedom or flexibility or travel or other ways to help others and you really want to take control of your own life and help other people do work that they love doing by making a huge impact, well, then guess what, if even just one of these is true, it's probably a safe bet that you would enjoy coaching full time tremendously, to receive more in depth help and get our 14 day series on How To Become A Career Coach and learn whether or not career coaching is viable for you and the right thing for you. And learn from other career coaches that have built businesses full time, part time, as a side business, and everything in between. Then you head on over to howtobeacareercoach.com and sign up for that series. Take a listen to what we've got in store for you, next week on the Happen To Your Career podcast.

Kelly 52:17
They really didn't have a lot of, you know, processes in place. And it was very, you know, just kind of shoot from the hip. I mean, here's we're continuing, they didn't have anything really defined, it was very difficult to do business. I didn't even have basic resources that I needed to do my job. We were constantly, you know, having management changes, and people are constantly leaving a lot of turnover. And that's completely normal for organization.

Scott Anthony Barlow 52:40
That's right, all that and plenty more next week. It's here on Happen To Your Career. I will see you next week, when the episode releases on Monday. Alright. I am out. Adios.