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[00:00:00] Welcome to the business of executive coaching. I'm Ellie Scarf, an ex lawyer turned executive coach. Over the last 17 years, I've coached in house, I've been an associate coach, and I've run executive coaching businesses with teams of coaches around the world. My clients have ranged from global brand names to boutiques, startups, and more.
and organizations doing good in the world. I now run the Impact Coach Collective, a community of executive coaches who want to level up their business skills and take action in a community of like minded peers. I'm a traveler, a reader, a mum, wife and dog parent, and I know firsthand that our stories have a huge impact on our businesses.
The executive coaching business is tough. And I've learnt all the lessons through plenty of mistakes, and also with some great mentors. This podcast is all about growing a thriving executive coaching business. [00:01:00] You can build a coaching business that is profitable, sustainable, and that supports your personal goals, whatever they are.
I'll be sharing tips and ideas translated for your context, as well as stories from the field with brilliant coaches and mentors. If you want to level up your executive coaching business skills, Then this is the place for you.
Hello. It's good to be back. So I've been, I'm going to say shocked lately by a few stories that I've heard about engaging business coaches and coaches that they've hired to help them in various growth stages of their executive coaching business. And it, it really worries me.
, we're often at quite a vulnerable place when we're starting and growing our businesses. And I've heard stories of people making investments that are really significant. So over 5, 000 [00:02:00] but they're feeling unvalued by the coach or the mentor or the owner of the program.
I've heard stories of people joining programs or getting one on one coaching and then discovering after the fact that there was a lot of marketing, a lot of smoke and mirrors, but not a lot of substance behind it. And that the content they received wasn't what it was sold, sold as and that the coach didn't really have the knowledge that they purported to have.
And I've also heard stories about people being targeted really when they're at that most vulnerable point with really big promises that they desperately want to believe. And, and I totally get that because when we are feeling at our lowest, when it comes to our business, we really want to fix, right? We want someone who can help us.
And we want someone who can, can help us solve our problems quickly and feel good about it. And so. We hear a lot of success stories, but we often don't talk about how it can feel when these investments go wrong. And when we make a [00:03:00] bad call or we invest our money in the wrong training or the wrong coaching, it can be associated with a lot of shame and a lot of guilt and this fear that, you know, well, we've stuffed up, stuffed up once.
So now we can't possibly get the help we need, or we might make a decision that coaching doesn't work. And. And so this is really sad. And firstly, I think I should say that I think that most coaches and mentors, business coaches and mentors specifically are great. I think that they offer a lot of value.
But not all coaches are right for us at all times. It's really about knowing what our actual need or problem or goal is and making sure that when we hire a coach or a mentor that we're solving the right problem. So I wanted to talk a little bit today about when it makes sense to invest in a coach and when it doesn't make sense to invest in a coach, because if I can save you some money on the wrong investment, I would like to do that.
And as we go through, you'll hear [00:04:00] some of the mistakes that I've made and also some of the great things that I've invested in. So. You know, I feel like this is a case where I have walked the talk. I have spent the money rightly or wrongly and I've learned the lessons. So I have a lot to share. In the interest of transparency, I have invested a lot of money over the years.
In my own coaches and my own development. And particularly in the last few years, when I've shifted the focus of my business from my executive coaching practice to working with executive coaches as a coach and mentor myself, I've been investing a lot of time. In a business coaching, marketing, coaching, all sorts of things.
And a lot of this is, is about growing business. And it's also something that I do so that I can translate some of those learnings for the executive coaches that are in my programs. So I've invested, I would say, so maybe in the last three to four years, [00:05:00] I've made investments between 1000 or below and 20, 000.
So big investments in some cases. And the best ones that I've invested in include working with Rachel Rogers through her club that's associated with her program. We should all be millionaires. And that for me was incredibly inspiring at a time when I was just wanting to figure out what would it look like to, to build a business that looked a little bit different.
That was. Not just a service business that it was included sort of digital content. So that was amazing. And I stayed in that for a couple of years. I also invested in a program with Nina Christian and I'll put links to all of these in, in the show notes in case you're curious, cause I know I'm always curious about what other people are doing.
And the program I did with Nina was some sort of. Consulting about personal branding and content development. And that was when I really didn't have a clue about what it meant [00:06:00] to develop a personal brand and to develop sort of content processes and what I should be talking about. And that was a really, a really wonderful process.
I also, once I started diving into building my own self paced courses, so digital courses, I invested in what's called a VIP day with Tina tower. And that was a day when I went and sat with Tina and worked through my strategy for launching the corporate to coach blueprint and the impact coach collective.
And that was incredible. And I think without that VIP day, I think. What did take me six months would have taken me 12 to 18 months. So that was amazing. And I also joined her community her empire builder, which was also fabulous. I've been investing recently in working with a marketing consultant, Claire Pelletro, particularly on learning about what it means to advertise and advertise on social media [00:07:00] specifically, which until recently was something that I just didn't think was for me.
But what I have discovered is that actually just like I'm on Facebook and I'm on Instagram, so are other coaches. And so it's a way of, of building connections with those people. So I'm exploring that at the moment. And then I've done some other smaller programs, such as LinkedIn marketing programs with Halataha.
I've signed up to programs with Mariah cause, which is all about different marketing strategies as well. So I really believe in investing in myself and investing in my business. But through all these investments and the work that I do, I've got a real sense of when it does make sense to make an investment in business coaching or mentoring and when it doesn't.
So when it doesn't make sense, firstly, I want to share. The, the biggest thing I would say when you're looking at any sort of coaching or mentoring or training that's related to your business is that if they're [00:08:00] making promises that sound too good to be true, they probably are. And there's a lot more regulation at the moment in terms of what businesses can, can promise, particularly if they want to advertise.
And a lot of those, you know, make six figures in one week. And it's, it's still out there and, and you will have seen it, I mean, certainly if you're like me, you get a lot of messages by people offering to fill my books with consulting calls within, you know, very short amount of time. And could I possibly handle 100 more clients and, you know, all of, all of those sorts of things.
So, If it sounds too good to be true, that is a sign that you should probably be, you know, proceed with caution. Now, sometimes it just means it's a, it's a wonderful program, but sometimes it means it's probably full of crap. To be honest. The next reason why it may not make sense to invest in a coach or a mentor is that you need to make sure [00:09:00] the experience of the coach matches the outcome that they are saying that, that they can get you.
Okay. Because a lot of times I see, you know, when I, and I, and I don't see it in their marketing. I see it when I look into their LinkedIn profile, for example, and I see people coaching something and coaching how to do something successfully. But when I have a look at their profile, they've really only been doing it for one to two years.
And so they did the thing briefly and then they decided, Oh, I'm going to coach other people how to do that thing. And now. You know, I, I have a, have a degree of humility because I don't think you need to have decades of experience necessarily to be a mentor or a coach on a particular subject. But I think that the problem with working with these sorts of coaches is when the questions or the needs that you have go beyond the surface level, when there's any sort of complexity or, or, or, or, or, or, or, When there's you know, a context that is, is not the norm [00:10:00] that, you know, you, you, you might lack that sophistication of thinking and sophistication of experience and that depth.
So I would just say have a look at the experience of the person you are, you are committing to before you actually make the decision. Another time when it doesn't make sense to invest in coaching is when the investment is going to put you in a significantly negative financial position. Now, this is a bit tricky because we do need to have the right balance between making investments that will improve your business financial position and ones that are an overstep and won't contribute to improving that bottom line.
Thank you. This one can be really difficult to figure out without making a few missteps. And, you know, I, I have a lot of people who would really love to join my community but they you know, they just don't have the resources available to do it. [00:11:00] And, I will always talk to those people and give them my honest feedback about whether I think the investment is worth it for them.
Because in some cases, the investment in what we talk about is absolutely what they need to get those clients in the door. And my hope is that Anyone who joins my program will more than recoup their investment, you know, by, you know, by a country mile. But for some people I can see that they're, they're not there yet, either in terms of their thinking or in terms of their business and that they would be better off in making a different investment in coaching.
Now that doesn't mean you need to have your business. You need to have any clients or anything like that when you join, but I think you do need to have certain mindsets in place and a willingness to take action on the things we talk about and do it, you know, in a reasonably in a reasonable time period.
Cause what I don't want is people coming in and learning good stuff, but not [00:12:00] actually taking any action on it, because I think that's when we're not going to get the most out of our investment. So, you know, I, I say, I like people to join me when they're within a year of starting their business. And then, and, or, or, you know, up to two or three years.
After they start their business. So, you know, it's, it's about figuring out what is your sweet spot. The also, so another example of when it doesn't make sense to, to do coaching or buy a coaching program or a mentoring program is when you really like the idea of what the coaching is or the problem that it purports to solve.
And these are usually group coaching programs. So they have a focus but your business just isn't there yet. And so I, I, when I. So before I was running my program for executive coaches, I was attempting to scale another program that was more aimed at organizations. And it was a brilliant program. It was a transition, [00:13:00] transition focused.
Program. I didn't have a lot of the skills that I have now in terms of selling. So it was, it was interesting, but one of the things I invested in as I started that business was a consultant to come in and do some process mapping and automation and CRM set up for the whole, the, you know, the end to end of, of how, you know, how a client would go through our coaching process.
It was like a, a standardized coaching tile style facilitation day. But it was, I would say a really bad investment of money on my behalf. And although the, the, the coach who did it did a great job, like they made a beautiful process. Everything was automated. The tools we set up were amazing. But without the clients to actually run through it and at scale, it was a waste of money and it was something that I could have done manually or in a spreadsheet or using a project like a, just a task [00:14:00] management tool.
So, you know, I learned that one the hard way. And so the last thing I was thinking about in terms of, you know, reasons we might avoid you know, when it doesn't make sense to get a coach or a mentor. Is when we don't have the time available to capitalize on the investment. So to avoid making a misstep in coaching, one big tip is make sure you have the time available to get the result that you want from the coaching.
So it may be that a coach or a mentor is a great investment, but it's not the right time for you. And look as a coach, it, it pains me, it pains me to tell someone that I think it's not the right time for them, but sometimes I do sometimes it's not just, just not the right time. And that they need to come back in six months, three months one month when it is, is the right time.
But at the same time, we also have to balance it with if you are a sort of person who will put something off forever and you need someone, you know, an investment to give you a bit of a kickstart, [00:15:00] then maybe it is the right time. So, you know, all of these things, you've got to think about how it applies to you.
So enough of when it doesn't make sense, when does it make sense to invest in a coach or a mentoring program? So the first thing I would say is if you are starting something big, if you're undergoing a transition. Those sorts of scenarios, when you're starting a business, for example, or wanting to grow your business where there is a knowledge gap, coaching can be brilliant and particularly those sort of group coaching programs that are attached to a, um, curriculum of some sort.
So those are important. And so, for example, some of the most common knowledge gaps that we work with in the impact coach collective and the corporate to coach blueprint are things like. Your business basics, developing a coaching offer, what's involved in that sales and marketing strategies, building an online presence, selling coaching into companies assessments and accreditations and which [00:16:00] ones you should get.
So, you know, if you have very specific knowledge gaps, then it can really make sense to, to get access to that knowledge in the most efficient way. Similarly, if you have a problem. That you just don't have the knowledge or the expertise to solve either technically or mindset related or business related, then, then you find the coach that can help you solve that specific problem.
Now you have to do a little bit of work and make sure that you are identifying the real problem and not just the symptom. Of the problem. So, for example, what you might think is a technical problem could actually be a deeper mindset problem that you have so, you know, and you might find a coach that can help you to deal with both of those.
Or you might say, okay, well, I'm going to invest in that coaching around mindset. Because I believe that if I can make that shift, then a lot of the other outcomes and results down the track will fall into line. But if the issue is really, Oh, well, I [00:17:00] just don't have enough eyeballs seeing my offer. Then that is more of a technical problem that, that you can solve.
So the other time when coaching really does make sense, or it's like a coaching program makes sense is when you are considering a new direction or you have made a big move, set up a business, for example, but you are feeling stuck or you are feeling like you've made the wrong decision. Sometimes what you need is to feel inspired and just to.
To regain a bit of that excitement and that passion for why you've made this choice or why you're going down that this path. And generally the best way to do that is engaging with people and coaches and mentors are a good example of this, who have walked the path that you're embarking on and have achieved the things that you hope to achieve.
Because there is definitely a sense that what we can see and what we can understand we can achieve, and we [00:18:00] need to have that vision and that, that belief in its possibility and its possibility for us before we can get there. It's so powerful as a source of motivation and inspiration, particularly when we are in the inevitable down patches and those, you know, those times when we wonder if we can really do that, if we can achieve what we've set out to, if we can, we can, we can do it.
And so, you know, We need to know that we can work through the hard bits and great coaches and mentors who've walked the path before you will help you to know that you can do it. Also, often coaching and mentoring programs include community. And in my experience, you generally come to business coaching for the content, for the coaching and getting, you know, eyes on your business, but you stay for the community.
And the community you connect with becomes a hugely important part of the journey that you're on. There is nothing [00:19:00] more powerful, more powerful than a group of people going through the same journey as you. Coaching can also make sense if you just need a roadmap. So, So sometimes we are ready to take action and maybe this is the same as having a knowledge gap, but maybe we are ready to take action, but we just need direction and we need a structure to get us there in the most efficient way.
And investing in a coaching or mentoring program is an excellent efficiency tool to help you avoid spending too much time on things that don't actually turn the dial. And make sure that where your time is invested is in, you know, the 20 percent that's going to get you the best outcomes. Finally, this might be a bit controversial, but coaching and mentoring investments are great and generally will have a bigger impact if you are the sort of person who responds to external accountability and support.
So I'm a person who can procrastinate like nobody's business, [00:20:00] but if there is someone expecting me to report in or give them a deliverable, then for sure, I am getting that done. I want the gold star. I want the pat on the head. And so you might be this sort of person, or you might not be this sort of person.
But if you are coaching can be very helpful for this. Now it's not the same as outsourcing your self management, but it is a lever you can pull if you know that this is the sort of thing that will help you get things done. And sometimes, you know, that, that means you need to engage like, so. A lot of coaching programs that I've been a member of, I've been surprised that people don't come to the calls.
They don't ask questions in the group. They don't use the community the way that they could. And then they are surprised that they don't get out of their investment what they could. So, you know, make sure you, you do those things as well. So an interesting example of this sort of externalized accountability that can be helpful is in a marketing program that I'm currently [00:21:00] in it's a very significant investment.
So probably the highest cost of an, for an annual investment that I've made and what they have given us. Is there is a financial incentive where they're returning some of our money that it costs to join the program. And it's only a small amount. I think it's like 500, which is a very small part of this investment.
And they're returning it if we hit certain activity milestones by the end of August. And I am not kidding you. I do not care about that money in the scheme of the investment. I mean, I care about the money, but I am like Pavlov's dog that when I commit to someone that I'm going to do something, I am going to absolutely push until I get it done.
So it's been very effective for me in making sure that I get the outcomes that I want. So my goal for all of you and for all the people in my community is to make great investments in coaching. And that, you know, I want you to be [00:22:00] inspired. I want you to learn the things you need to learn. I want you to solve the problems that will make a difference.
I want you to be a part of a great community and I want you to take action and implement everything you learn. And I think that is probably the most significant piece of the puzzle actually. So the investments you make should give you those things. So if you have any questions about that, just feel free to drop me a line because I can help you assess whether something is a good investment for you now, or whether it's something you might want to wait to invest in.
Before I sign off, I just wanted to let you know about a free class that I'm running later this week. It is all about pricing for executive coaches. And specifically how you can increase your prices from wherever you are starting at. So it might be that you're currently offering pro bono coaching and you want to start charging.
It might be that you you know, have a rate, but you feel like it is too low. I want you to go further on that journey from pro bono to premium, [00:23:00] whatever the next step is for you. So the strategies I'm going to share in this masterclass are the ones that I've used over 17 years as a coach. And I think they will help you if you are the sort of person who.
Overthinks your pricing. If you want to feel more confident in being able to state your pricing and sales calls or if you just sometimes get overwhelmed by all of the facets of what's involved in pricing, these free class is for you. So just head over to elliescarf.com/pricing class-og and sign up. I'm going to put the link in the show notes too, but I would love to see you there. And if you come, make sure you let me know that you listen to the podcast so I can say, hi, look forward to seeing you all next week.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the business of executive coaching. If you found it helpful, please share it with a colleague or friend on LinkedIn. And don't forget to tag me so I can say [00:24:00] thanks. I would be tremendously grateful also if you would leave a review on Apple podcasts. More reviews means more people can find us.
This episode was brought to you by the Impact Coach Collective, where executive coaches grow their businesses in a community of peers with business education, mentoring, deal clinics, and more. If you'd like to contact me or work with me further, all my free resources, courses, and more info on the Impact Coach Collective can be found at elliescarf.com. Have a brilliant week, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.