Episode 33: How To Find Coaching Clients with Marc Mawhinney
In today's freelancing dad conversation, I’m interviewing Marc Mawhinney. He teaches coaches how to find clients.
In the freelancing world and in the self-employment world, there's a lot of different things that you can do as a freelancer and as a work from home entrepreneur.
One of those things is being a coach or consultant.
Consulting and coaching is part of what I do also. I help coach and consult with companies on their video marketing strategy.
Marc teaches coaches how to grow their business and how to find clients. Today, he's going to share some insights on how to start that type of business and what it really takes to grow it.
He's going to discuss things related to how to price your services and how to know what you're worth when it comes to charging for this type of thing. Marc has been a lifelong entrepreneur who started out in real estate and then got into coaching and then teaching coaches.
I know that you're going to benefit a lot from today's conversation, especially if you at all are interested in, or are already coaching as part of your freelancing business.
If you're working with a company or working with an individual one-on-one and you're helping to guide them in some way, then as a consultant or a coach - this episode is definitely for you.
We’ve also got some general tips for other freelancers as well. Mark is also a parent who is working at home and navigating how to balance work life and family life, which is something we love talking about. So with that said, welcome Marc.
Marc:
Thanks for having me, Chad.
Chad:
I'm glad to have you on, because we're going to talk about a topic of self-employment that we haven't discussed before on this blog.
That topic is coaching, which is a very viable option for parents who want to figure out what they could do from home and how to produce income.
Coaching or consulting is a lot of what I've done and they are similar industries. But I wanted to first have you introduce yourself to our audience so that we can know a little bit more about what you do as a self-employed dad.
Marc:
Sure. I've been working from home since 2014 specifically helping coaches to get more clients without paid ads.
I'm also a dad. I have a 13 year old son and a stepdaughter who's four and a half, almost five years old. So kind of both ends of the spectrum: toddler and a new teenager.
You said in the intro that coaching is a great home-based business, I think it's probably one of the best out there.
You could do it from anywhere as long as you've got internet access. I love it and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Chad:
That's great. Can you share with us some background about how you got started as a coach and then how you started teaching the coaches?
Have you always been doing this? Did you have a previous career in this? Tell us a little bit about your story.
Marc:
Well, it's a really long story. To make a really long story short, right out of university, I got into real estate, and I did that for about 10 years through my twenties. It was going really well, and I built up a big business over that decade and opened up my own brokerage.
I had about a hundred agents and employees that were working with me and then suddenly everything collapsed.
I went through a rough period for a couple of years, and basically I was helped back onto my feet by several coaches and mentors who came into my life.
I didn't know anything about coaching back in my real estate days - I was winging it. I thought coaching sounded like athletics and sports, but I got a front row seat to see how coaching can help when I was going through those dark periods.
So when I was ready to get back into business in 2014, and I looked at what I wanted to do, coaching was right at the top of the list because I was very familiar with it from my recent experience. Now, here we are almost eight years later and still going.
Chad:
That's great. What, what type of coaching do you teach people? There's lots of different types of coaches. Is there a particular type or do you focus on just the concept of coaching in general?
Marc:
Yeah, basically I help any coach out there - that could be coaches who are life coaches, relationship coaches, health coaches, sales coaches, or any other kind of coach. I've worked with all sorts of niches.
What I'm working on is more the business side of things, not the craft of coaching, because there's plenty of places that offer certifications they can get and stuff like that.
I help coaches get clients and keep the lights on.
I work with coaches who are really passionate about what they're doing and they're good at it, but they don't have any clients and they're not going to get a chance to be in business because they can't keep the lights on.
I help them get to the point where they’re making a profit - which I think anyone in business should be. I know profit is a dirty word nowadays. A lot of people try to pretend online that they don't care about money. But you should care about money. Because if you don’t, you can't be in business very long.
Chad:
Yeah, definitely. I've taken various coaching training courses because a lot of what I do is to help coach businesses on their video marketing. I've also coached freelancers.
And yeah, most of those trainings teach you the craft of coaching, but you don't learn how to sell that coaching skill to others. So I spent a couple of years feeling like this isn't doing anything.
I feel like I can coach people, but I don't know how to sell it. I don't know how to grow a business out of it.
So it's great that you really focus on that side of it so that people can keep pursuing their passion and actually support their family doing it.
What would you say are some initial steps that somebody ought to take to start a business like this on a small, to no budget? Does it cost a bunch of money up front? What does that look like? What are those first steps when somebody doesn't have money to invest?
Marc:
Well, there's obviously some overhead, but nothing compared to my real estate days or other businesses out there.
You could do coaching almost for free.
Really, if you think about it, you don't even need a website, technically.
That being said, there's of course, a little expense because you should ideally be building an email list.
To do that, you have to have an email provider like a Weber, or MailChimp. So there's some small costs there.
I also recommend having an online calendar. It gives you that professional image, but it's also going to make things much easier for you when you're booking appointments. Just like when you invited me here for an interview -if we were trying to work it out manually it would be a pain in the butt for both of us.
So there's little things like that, but It’s a very low barrier to entry and cost of entry to get into it.
Those foundational things would be the first step.
I think it's more a time and energy investment in the early stages.
A lot of coaches I speak with make the mistake of saying that they want to get the business going without spending anything out of pocket.
They don't want to buy Facebook ads and spend tens of thousands of dollars and all this fancy stuff, but then they're not willing to compensate by rolling up their sleeves and putting in the work either.
You can't have it both ways. You have to roll up your sleeves and make up for it with effort if you're not going to be investing money into it.
Chad:
Definitely. Well, that's good to know for those listening who don't know what it takes, that it really doesn't take a ton.
It's not like what you think of when you think of starting a business. You aren’t going to need to go out and get investors and have hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to start a business.
You just need internet access.
You can always get some software and subscriptions to a couple of tools to help you in your business. But for the most part, it’s very, very low cost.
I think today's interview is really focused more on the type of freelancer that is getting into creating an online business. The ones who are going beyond just providing a service for another company and are trying to produce an online presence.
Do you have some tips for us regarding building an online business?
Specifically around creating that online presence without spending a ton of money on ads? What does that look like at first?
Marc:
Yeah.
First off you have to be really clear about who you're helping and how you're helping them.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm helping coaches get more clients without paid ads. If someone asks me what I do, I fire that out.
Unfortunately, a lot of coaches or freelancers who get asked that question don't have a clear answer. Or it turns into a five minute long speech and they're all over the place.
There's something that I call a barbecue pitch.
If I didn't know you and we were at a backyard barbecue exchanging pleasantries and talking about the weather or something, and then I say, “so what do you do?”
Your barbecue pitch is that clear, concise answer to the question.
Your answer shouldn't be a blank stare and it shouldn't be a five minute long speech either. That's pretty basic and straightforward.
The other thing is consistency. I think it’s an underrated superpower.
So a lot of people see those ads that say “make seven figures in 30 days from your hot tub” or something like that, and they think that you don’t have to spend a lot of time to do it or do a lot of work to be successful.
We all know that's baloney.
The reason I was able to get my business going and growing is that I've been very consistent. I've been doing daily emails to my list for over 2000 days now. April of 2016 is when I started those and I haven't missed a day yet. I've done 740 podcast episodes as of today.
I'm on social media every day, I get with my Facebook group and other stuff too. Consistency is not always a real sexy thing. It's not always exciting, but I think it's something that's very important.
I read Arnold Schwarzenegger's autobiography called Total Recall, and he kept talking about how he wants to be a machine like the Terminator. That's what I think of myself - being a machine, rain or shine. I'm going to get what I have to get done and be very consistent and disciplined with it.
Chad:
Yeah, that's really what it has to be. It's like a machine in a factory. If it stops, if it just gets turned off, and it's not going to produce anything. If you want to consistently produce results, you have to consistently put in that effort. Thanks for explaining that to us.
Marc:
I interviewed someone years ago on my podcast who was a coach. He worked with some really big names - Olympians and stuff like that. He was really big in the coaching world.
After trying to book that interview with him for months, the day that I was going to interview him, I came down with a weird bug.
Now this was pre COVID, so I was fine after a day or two, but that day of the podcast interview, I made a number of trips to the bathroom.
I probably should have canceled the interview, but since I'd spent so long trying to get him on the show, I really wanted to do it, and I didn't want to have to push it back. So I made sure the garbage can was next to the desk.
I recorded the interview and I said, ”I really hope I don't have to use that garbage can.” Luckily I didn't, and it turned out alright.
I tell that story because maybe it's stupid to do an interview when you’re sick. I should have probably gotten in bed and gotten some sleep, but that story highlights my mentality.
When you commit to doing something for business, you get it done, rain or shine.
Chad:
That's great. So a question that I get a lot, and that I'm sure you get a lot is:
“How do you figure out what to charge?”
I went through a rough period of undercharging and not even knowing how to come up with the right numbers. I kept comparing it to what I was earning when I was an employee, and I didn't know how to convert that into the structure of a business.
I kept getting caught up in my hourly rate as if I was worth that hourly rate based on my previous wage or something.
We get it in our head that there is a particular hourly wage that somehow matches our worth.
Then it gets mixed up with our identity and it can just become a mess. What tips do you have for this whole aspect of growing the business by increasing your pricing to match what you're worth. Or even figuring out what you're worth?
Obviously it's a complex subject and you can go on forever, but what are some highlights when it comes to pricing?
Marc:
Yeah, it's really tricky. It's tough in the coaching world because there's no standard of how much to charge.
It’s a complete wild west - you’ve got people charging peanuts o are doing it for free. Then you get people charging hundreds or hundreds of thousands of dollars every year for it and everywhere in between.
I always say to people that I can't come in and tell you how much you should be charging. It's a very personal thing, but chances are the people I'm working with are undercharging.
It’s human nature to want to undercharge.
I always suggest that you have to feel good about what you're charging, because if you don't feel good about it, you're not going to sell it.
If I said, Chad, “Hire me as your coach for a year, and pay me a million dollars. Let me know if you want to, I'll send you my PayPal.”
But even though I’d love to make a million dollars, if I don't feel good about that right now, it’s not going to work.
I also wouldn't feel good if I said, “okay, Chad, pay me twenty bucks a month.” Because that's too far the other way.
So whatever you're charging, don't just look at what everyone in your industry is charging because chances are they're undercharging.
They're all racing to the bottom. Set your price, but make sure you feel good about it and then reevaluate it. Maybe it's every six months you're bumping it up. That's what I like to do with mine. That way, you're constantly going in the right direction and you're stepping outside your comfort zone to do it, especially nowadays with inflation and stuff.
If you're not increasing your prices, you're losing. With the cost of gas, groceries, everything else that's going on right now, you have to keep up with inflation. So it’s tough to say that you should be charging “x” amount. You want to look at a bunch of different factors, but there are some tips to make sure you're getting as much as you should be
Chad:
That's a really great way to simplify it a bit and give us a good starting point for figuring that out and how to gauge it.
And yeah, I tell people a lot that it's very unpredictable.
What cost of living looks like, what inflation rates are, and all of that influences your pricing.
If you're just working as an employee your income will not adapt quick enough to how the world can change.
Being a coach, being a freelancer, or being self-employed, you have a lot more flexibility in being able to change your pricing, or just increase the value you're providing and be able to have that flexibility.
It gives you a lot to work with.
Tell us a little bit about what it has meant for your family to be able to have the career that you have.
What kind of benefits have come from you being able to work remotely, to be self-employed, and to call the shots on what your work looks like, what your schedule looks like, and even what your income looks like?
Marc:
Yeah. I don't think I could work in a corporate environment or work for someone else. I say I'm unemployable because I really never had a ”job.”
I've been working on my own so long that for me to go into an office nine to five and stuff like that just doesn't fit my personality.
We were talking before we started recording about one of the advantages for my stepdaughter and her daycare situation.
They just announced today that there was a positive COVID case, which basically means that every kid in there has to be isolated for 14 days or something. I'm in a part of the world where if anyone has a sniffle, they lock the whole province down. It's kind of extreme.
But anyways, I was able to change things with my fiance because of the flexibility that I have with my business. We even talked about the fact that if we were working, we wouldn’t be able to handle this easily. It would be hard to know what to do with our schedules if we were working normal jobs.
You can’t easily go to your employer and tell them you can’t be in for 14 days. So there's flexibility, which is especially important in times of COVID. But even besides that, just overall, it's great.
In the last week, my son and I have taken walks every day. I get to hang out with him - not just the weekends after schools like a typical schedule would dictate.
Since Daisy doesn't have school, we're doing stuff together earlier in the day as well.
I’m not saying you can just skip work entirely, but I make sure that when I'm working, I'm working and when I'm playing, I'm playing and then that all balances out with it. It’s great flexibility.
It’s also important, whether it's freelance or coaching, to make sure you're working with the right people.
If there's someone that thinks they have you on speed dial and they're going to pester you a hundred times a day, it's going to be a little more difficult to have that flexibility.
So fire those bad clients.
I have good clients and they know not to bug me because there's boundaries. I'll help them when they need help, but they're not getting an answer within 20 seconds either.
Chad:
Yeah, I'm, I'm really glad you shared that because that's a trap that a lot of people who are self-employed fall into. They think that since they have control over their schedule, it's okay to just work all the time or whenever.
But now that you're setting your own office hours, it is important to communicate that to clients, and stick to it.
I always make a point to communicate to my clients from the get go so that they know I'm basically operating like a normal business. Between nine and five, Monday through Friday, you can expect me to be a lot more available than in the evenings or on the weekends.
Actually, most Fridays I don't work much of the day, so I also make sure that they understand that Monday through Thursday, you're going to get a lot more from me. Communicating that to your clients is super important. So I'm glad you brought that up.
Marc:
Yeah. I'm an admitted workaholic and that probably comes from my real estate days. I could very easily work 120 hours a week and I could justify it in my mind too.
One tip which really helped me is a rule that I brought in not too long ago with working from home.
I try to do all my work in my office and not bring the laptop to different rooms.
Because what was happening was I was on the couch, watching good girls on Netflix with my fiance, and I’d still have the laptop open doing work and just glancing up every so often.
That's not good. So I make sure that there's a room for everything. There's a room for working. There's a room for reading. A room for us watching TV, and so on.
I think it's important because if not, your home is going to bleed all over. You're going to be working from the toilet when you're in there. It's very dangerous, so it’s good to set up boundaries.
Chad:
I completely agree with that. That's something that I had to learn after about a year into it, where I was kind of all over the place. I didn't have a set work area. It was a lot more difficult on the family too, cause they didn't know if I was working or not working.
I would be on my phone doing something, and they would be wondering why I'm not paying attention or not present. I’d have to tell them that I was working, and they would say, “oh, I didn’t know.”
It was a constant guessing game of whether dad was working or not.
It made it so much easier when I was like, “Hey, here's the hours I'm working.”
For the most part I have a default schedule during the week, but I can move that around if I need to. I also have a designated office space. I have a designated spot for work.
My son is five, and he absolutely loves Star Wars.
He also loves building Legos and I noticed that when I tried to keep the legos and the kids out of my workspace, it ended up being a lot more difficult to have my work time.
But now he knows that he can be in here when I’m not in a meeting or on an interview, and he understands that there’s times when he can be around and times when I need to do work.
Allowing him to feel like he can be around more made it easier for him to not interrupt when I need to get work done. He’s got his own space where he can do his thing and his work. And I have my space where I can do my work, and when I don’t need to be in a meeting, he can be involved.
It's important to have those boundaries and know what you're willing to allow and not allow and being able to work that out with your family. So I'm definitely glad that you brought that up.
What are some final things you wanted to share with us that you feel would be beneficial to this audience and specifically those who are maybe pursuing the self-employment path of coaching?
Marc:
I have a little sticky note by my desk. On it are certain times of the day that I set up boundaries for myself when it comes to social media, and Facebook in particular.
What was happening before was that I was popping on Facebook all the time to check my Facebook group and to answer messages and everything else.
It's tough to really do deep work like Cal Newport writes about when you're popping into Facebook.
Especially nowadays it's a dumpster fire with political debates and fights and everything else.
So I have certain times a day where I pop in, get done what I need to, and then get the heck out of there because Facebook and other social media is designed to hook you and keep your eyeballs on it. That's how they make money.
I call it drive-by postings. I get in, post what I have to post, and get the heck out of there. I'm squealing out of there.
And I think that's a really good tip for people working from home.
Especially nowadays with these darn smartphones that are in our pockets, 24/7. It's very easy to get distracted.
I've done really well in the last year, and I'm going to look to improve it. The goal for the next 12 months is to eliminate more screen time and put it towards books. I'm an avid reader, and I love reading books. If I had to spend an hour reading a Facebook news feed or Instagram or something like that, or a good book, I'm going to take the book. Or at least, I should be taking the book.
So that’s my tip: have boundaries around social media usage and don't be addicted to your smartphone either.
Chad:
Thanks for that tip. That's super beneficial and I've definitely had to battle with that as well.
Making sure that I don't get too distracted with things that aren't going to be the most productive is hard, but worth it. And when it comes to social media, that's really good advice for us, so thank you for that. Where can this audience learn more about you and connect with you?
Marc:
Sure. So the best spot is NaturalBornCoaches.com. That's my home space with everything. Also the Facebook group I mentioned has over 21,000 coaches in there and that's at TheCoachingJungle.com
Chad:
Okay, great. Well, definitely check those out. Thank you for your time today.
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