9 Feb 24 Guest Rachel Barber
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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 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 traveller, a reader, a mum, wife and dog parent, and I know first hand 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.
Ellie: Hello, and welcome to the business of executive coaching podcast. I am very, very pleased to be here today with the wonderful Rachel Barber. Now I'm going to give a very brief intro to Rachel and let her tell us her story, but I was introduced to Rachel through not one, but two members of my group coaching program, the corporate to coach accelerator.
And they You know, they were sort of, you know, putting their hand up and saying, you know, Rachel's pretty great. Like she's really helping. [00:02:00] And I thought, Oh, I must talk to Rachel. So Rachel has helped a number of members of my program. With their writing for LinkedIn specifically. And I'm sure there's more to it.
So there's been work around, you know, messaging and framing and visibility and all of that. So we're going to dive into that. I'm going to ask her lots of questions about all of the sorts of things that coaching business owners are worrying about, particularly when it comes to how we show up on LinkedIn.
But before we do that, Rachel, I was hoping that you could tell us a little bit about what you do and also your story of why you do it and how you got to this place.
Rachel Barber: Absolutely, and thank you so much for having me, Ellie. , it's a real pleasure. So, yeah, I am Rachel Barber. I run a business, called Creating Stories, which is officially, today, six years old.
It's my, , Happy
Ellie: anniversary!
Rachel Barber: It's my business birthday, and this is maybe one of the first years that I haven't sent myself cake, and given myself a lovely little message from me to me, telling me how, Amazingly, [00:03:00] I'm
Ellie: doing, I'm not sure I know what my business anniversary is, but I'm going to make one up and I'm going to send myself a cake.
Rachel Barber: 100 percent you have to do it. You know, there's nobody else that will sort of celebrate us as much as we can celebrate ourselves. Or,
Ellie: or my next step where I'm going with this is I will make it part of my program. So anyone who joins, I can send them a cake.
Rachel Barber: I thought we were going with the idea of getting everybody else to send cake, which I am also better, better about.
Okay. I love it. How we're
Ellie: iterating. We should be, you know, we should have a business .
Rachel Barber: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, on that, so six years ago, , but hang on, , before I go back, I, yeah. So I'm Rachel Barber. I am a content marketing mentor and a copywriter with, as you say. an increasingly specific focus on helping, action taking and impact focused clients of mine make more money on LinkedIn by finding their voice [00:04:00] and taking up the space that they deserve.
And, you know, increasingly raising their voice with the right message to connect with, and then ultimately convert more of that, you know, dreamiest clients that they want to work with. So, six years ago, I was made redundant, out of absolutely nowhere, five weeks into a brand new job as a head of content in an events and publishing company, you know, I had a whole team, and everything, and it just, it baffles you, you know, it baffles you, five weeks in that that could happen, but that's a whole
Ellie: they were planning it for more than five weeks.
Rachel Barber: It wasn't like I was a, it wasn't like I was a junior hire. I came in at a senior level, you know, senior level means senior salary and why, anyway, it's not about them, you know, and They, were sort of the last, step for me in a career that was quite corporate. I'd ended up starting in [00:05:00] business development and marketing back in, oh, 20, 2012, I think it was.
And I just discovered the world of, the world of content marketing, the world of using stories and content. above and beyond the sort of the more traditional advertising. Yeah. You really build a connection with the people that we're trying to, to sell to, you know, let's, sort of say it how it is.
Under this understanding that there is a real need to connect on a human level, to tell stories, to share knowledge, to, provide value beyond a sales message. And. I have been a writer for my entire life, you know, I have, so I was, diagnosed with ADHD at about two years old. , it was, you know, especially for women, that's a, a real rare thing.
Scenario, so you can, [00:06:00] gives you a feeling for just how extreme the A DH ADHD was. a lot, a lot of
Ellie: energy. Yeah.
Rachel Barber: Yeah. They were like, oh, this is very, yeah, this is a clear case, . And, it really, defined my life in a, luckily, in a, positive way in that I spent a lot of time at school.
Being told I was naughty, being told I was bad influence, being told that I, you know, I was raising the volume of the class to my level, and I could have let that change everything for me. I could have, you know, I could have quietened my voice. I could have really gone down a very different path if it wasn't for, if it wasn't for the support of my, parents who realized that, okay.
She needs to make her education and ultimately her career work for her. She needs to really find the joy, chase that joy and, you know, embrace the energy that she has [00:07:00] and make, you know, make her career and her life work for her in that respect. For everybody else, it's different. But I do really believe it taught me that we all have a voice.
And we all have a story to share, and we should never, ever let anybody eat that. Quiet in that voice and women in particular, really sort of fall into that trap. And so for me, my whole life, my whole career, my whole education was about telling stories. I sort of ram raided my way onto the stage, onto, did, you know, I did comedy, I did acting, I was a sport, you know, I was into sports, , it was sort of where can I place this energy and this love for, you know, communicating and telling stories.
I went off to do a, a language degree. I realized that despite the fact that I struggled academically, there was one thing I could do, and that [00:08:00] was. Learn languages and communicate in those languages. I was very good at it. So, you know, there was French, there was Spanish, there was ancient Greek, there was Portuguese, there was Catalan, you know, give me a language and I'll learn it.
Yeah,
Ellie: that's so cool.
Rachel Barber: Yeah, and it was really for me, this. Thread all the way through to the world of work of there are stories to be told, whether they're mine, whether they're other people's, , you know, I went, as I, moved to London and I, you know, I ended up in my career, I moved into the world of marketing.
I, in my spare time, I was doing a lot of political campaigning and for women's equality and it was very much, okay, I've never had a problem using my voice. I think we can tell. I am driven by helping others to find their voice. And that sort of was really underlying for me for a lot of my corporate career, but where it [00:09:00] showed up was This love of, you know, through all of these marketing and content roles I had getting more senior and more senior as I went.
What I really loved was the mentoring aspect. What I really loved was the, you know, managing teams to help refine their writing skills. Their ways of telling stories of mentoring people. When I was at Accenture, for example, you know, Accenture in a corporate world, you don't get the, you don't get the traditional, you know, Line management, because you're all off doing projects as consultants.
But we would always have sort of, what do we call them, career coaches. You know, essentially you would mentor. Counselors.
Ellie: You know, better than I do, yeah.
Rachel Barber: And I was the person. there in my sort of department that everyone was like, have you heard that Rachel's available? She's got another slot, you know, and everybody was coming to me saying, I hear you're the career counselor to have because I was just a real advocate, you know, a real kind of believer that [00:10:00] for the younger voices in particular, And especially those from the more sort of underrepresented groups.
Okay, I can help you use your voice. I know, you know, we don't believe that women being assertive means you're being aggressive. No, no, that's, a no for me, you know. How do we control your voice and use it in a way that gets you where you need to be, where you want to be in the, in that instance in the corporate world.
And. I got to a point where I was made redundant, and I had been thinking for a long time, no, this just isn't working for me, you know, I'm too, I don't really fit this mold, I need to, I need the freedom, I need the flexibility, and I just decided, okay, first it was like, I'm going to go freelance,
Ellie: because
Rachel Barber: my whole life I'd wanted to become an entrepreneur, I'd wanted to become a business owner.
but I, nobody had told me that you could create a business out of the skills that you already have. Right? I was like, [00:11:00] well, I, don't, I haven't come up with a new Uber. I haven't got, oh, I don't have a big idea. Oh, it's not for me. . And it was really kind of game changing when I thought, okay, well, I'll go freelance.
It's doing exactly that what I essentially what I'm doing now, you know, part of my work is copywriting. So done for you content for clients, but you know, long form articles, web copy, that sort of thing. Increasingly more the sort of the content strategy where I'm helping clients, identify what content they need to be creating, what stories they need to be telling, what knowledge they need to be sharing.
To really make sure that they've got the right amount of people coming, attracting, you know, being attracted to them and then being able to move them down that marketing funnel. However we look at it, we know the marketing funnel isn't that sort of linear, isn't that sort of straightforward. But we still need to be attracting people by telling the stories that help [00:12:00] them.
understand that you're the person for them, that they want to be in your world, and not everyone will be, and that's, great. But when we get the ones who are, how do we nurture them? How do we show that we're an authority and expert? And just as importantly, as I know you'll agree, how do we make offers to them?
How do we actually tell them, you can work with me, and this is how. , And I was doing that content planning for all sorts, of clients. And it took me a couple of years, probably around kind of 2020, 2021, where I went, I'm not a freelancer. I'm founder of a business. I'm a business owner and there needs to be a difference here because I am not working for someone else anymore.
You know, I was, and I have to create this freedom. I have to create the business that works for me so that it works best for my clients. That's it. And from that point onwards, it has been, no, no, this is my business. [00:13:00] And this is who I work with. This is who I support. And quite organically, I started working with coaches, marketing coaches, for one came to me because I spoke their language, you know, no.
That I know what they need, but they don't have the time or as we all know, sometimes we're so invested in our own business that we can't take a step outside of
Ellie: it to see
Rachel Barber: what needs to be done. And I think one of the reasons why I have, I've ended up with quite a few coaching clients is because I'm really, really clear on when we talk about I don't really.
For me personally, I believe in niching across a particular sector or an industry or anything like that. For me, it's about values and ways of working. And so I specifically [00:14:00] create messaging around, bringing people on board who are action takers,
Ellie: you know,
Rachel Barber: who implement, who are ready to learn, take action, grow and thrive.
Be a little bit messy, be a little bit, kind of, progress over perfection, and they need to be people who want to make an impact. They want to take their own very specific superpower and make just a little bit of change. in the area that they feel so passionately and strongly about. And for me, those two things often really come together in the world of coaching.
Ellie: Yeah. I hear you and, I see a lot of parallels between your story and a lot of people who choose to become executive coaches specifically when we're talking about this audience. Because I think a lot of us come out of this corporate world with a sense of, yes, I sort of, I want to do my own thing, but it's not really a business, right?
I'm just going to. [00:15:00] I'm a coach because that's sort of an identity piece that, I have, but they don't necessarily, see it as a business. And I think there's a, really interesting journey that I, see certainly my clients and others go on, which is. A real shift where they go out there and they're like, yes, I'm a coach.
And people will obviously want to buy coaching. And then they don't. Right. And, it's not a case of, you know, that they will come. It's actually, there's things I'm going to have to do that every business owner has to do, which is. And I think that's what makes us business owners, as opposed to, you know, this idea of just doing our professional career in a different context.
So I really, associate with that. And I think a lot of coaches will, but where I want to start, and I've got so many questions for you, where I want to start is this idea of visibility. And you talked a lot about the voice, helping people find their voice. And I think. Yeah. That is one of the, the very [00:16:00] first hurdles that, coaches come across when they are having to sort of put themselves out there as a professional in this space.
And, and I'm wondering, like, how do you think about this? Because it's often like, it's a confidence thing, or it's a, an inexperienced thing, or it's like a lack of clarity about what do I actually want to say, or it's an awkwardness thing. Like, how do you think about visibility?
Rachel Barber: It's a funny word, isn't
Ellie: it? Because
Rachel Barber: outside of the online sort of business world, the world of marketing, it means, it sort of means something completely different. And, and we've taken it on this journey. And sometimes when we talk about marketing, we really overcomplicate things. We really overthink things and we unintentionally make things difficult for ourselves when actually.
Ellie: I don't know anyone like that, Rachel. God. No,
Rachel Barber: not at all. You know, often, and this is, this is the joy. This is what some of the [00:17:00] joy I find working with the clients that I do is that they come to me and they give me their challenges and I will be, you know, I, position myself as, you know, I'll give you a warm hug and a gentle shove, because I sometimes need to just say, Oh, you're really making this way too difficult for yourself.
Here is the easier. Yeah. way of let's not make this overwhelming. Let's, focus on what works for you because that's what's going to make you stay consistent. And so for me, being visible is about showing up and showing up in a way that simply works for you. And so it's about working out your own particular consistency, you know, We often confuse consistency and constantly.
They're not the same. You don't need to show up everywhere all the time. It's exhausting and it's not sustainable. One of the first questions I'll ask [00:18:00] clients when we plan your content together is, How much can you actually show up? And if it, and give, you know, let's start with the bare minimum. Because once you nail that and you start to see those little wins, those little results, We can build on it.
But the worst thing you can do is go, it's January the 1st. I'm coming out the gates. I'm going to post on LinkedIn every single day by the 6th, you haven't. You go, I failed.
Ellie: Yeah.
Rachel Barber: No, you haven't failed because what is failure, you know, and it's about working out what is going to work for you in terms of your energy, your personality, your life, because we all, we have to make this work for us.
And then it's about exactly like you said, it's about finding your voice. And for me, What I really love is that we have to find our voice in order to stand out, and standing out, especially in the world of coaching, executive coaching. Ooh, there are so many of us, you know, every day there are [00:19:00] more coaches being trained, and come to me and say, well, how on earth am I going to be different?
And there's a quote I came across recently by Oscar Wilde, which says, Be yourself, everyone else has already taken. Yeah, I love that quote. And I stood on stage at a speaking event last year and I said, Sorry, I hate this quote. Sorry to Oscar, but I don't agree. I want you to be yourself, not because there is no other option.
You know. Because actually you get to stand out by being exactly the person you already are. That is your differentiator. There is literally nobody else with the combination of your experience, your unique values, your approach, your skill set, and your personality. Those five things. When [00:20:00] you find your voice, you work out how to talk about those five things.
And I find it really refreshing, exciting, and liberating because it means you don't have to do any sort of any hard work, really. You just literally have to be yourself. You have to tell your story. You have to share your knowledge. You don't have to go away and do complicated courses on how to differentiate yourself.
Ellie: I love that, but the big, I think that sounds like, it's like you can take a, breath, right? So, okay. Okay. You know, I get to, to be myself and we talk about authenticity. It's like, okay, well this is how I could do that. Cause it sounds like a nice idea, but here's how I do that.
But what do we, what's your way of supporting people who say to you, and I'm sure they do just like they do to me, is that I write, the post. And then I just feel so scared to put it out there. Right. And sometimes I can articulate [00:21:00] what it is that they're scared of. Like, I'm worried that someone's going to read it.
Who knows me from my past career. And they're going to say, who's she to say she or he, to say that she's a coach, you know, I know what she's been doing or, you know, that fear of. What if, someone argues with me or, you know, what if, I say the wrong thing, like, how do, we deal with that?
Rachel Barber: Yeah, so I have a very simple answer that I do hear all the questions, I do hear that question all the time, all the time. Feel that fear, but do it anyway. It's honestly that simple and I think I have to stick to that response and I have to stick to my guns with this one purely because I'm not a confidence coach.
I'm not. If you have really, really deep rooted issues with confidence, I'm not the person to help you. And I think there are some folks who really do need that probably coaching, probably really sort of deep support on that front. But sometimes, what I actually think it can [00:22:00] be is a fear of the unknown.
And a few of, you know, what I have to just say to my clients, literally, what is the worst that can happen? Because we are not here doing brain surgery, friends, we are here sharing our stories on LinkedIn. People will disagree with you, people. And here's the thing, we need people to disagree with us.
We need people to go either to us, to our friends or in their own minds. She's not for me.
Ellie: Because
Rachel Barber: when we're for everyone, we're for no
Ellie: one,
Rachel Barber: you know? So I was working with a client a little while ago who was, a property, developer, building an energetic healing retreat. And it's really exciting and it's part of my, and she was, she spent some time in my Find Your Voice LinkedIn mentoring program.
And I said, this is amazing because [00:23:00] You will repel people, you know, I want you to lead into your woo woo, you know, I want you to talk about energetic healing. I want you to talk about your spirituality. You know, one of the, wonderful women who came from your program, who's working with me, she's, said, how on earth can I possibly talk about the fact that I'm an executive coach, but I also love doing a yoga retreat and I love all these different, potentially conflicting aspects of what I do and you know, in my view, they're not, they're not conflict for you.
They're your opportunity. Because that's how
Ellie: you
Rachel Barber: stand out. And absolutely, there will be people who go, no, thank you. I want someone straight legged. I want someone, , with just a very corporate mindset. But by leaning into that and not acknowledging the bits that give you the, bring you the passion and give you the differentiation, you then don't find your joy in showing up.
And then you don't show up. [00:24:00] Or you show up feeling flat. And when you feel flat, your messaging feels flat. Don't come to me. I am a really big believer in, finding the joy in your marketing and finding out what lights you up and what gives you the joy and the energy. Because then that really comes across in your, in your messaging.
Ellie: And
Rachel Barber: that's what attracts people. Want to be,
Ellie: Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, it's interesting, we do have a lot of conversations in the accelerator about not necessarily confidence, but that, you know, what gets in the way, what causes you to procrastinate about these things. And, you know, a lot of it is yes.
Fear of the unknown. It's also that just sitting with that discomfort, right. And being, which is. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. said, feel the fear and, do it anyway. And we sort of put a few more coaching frames around it. It's a common theme though, that we actually can't get past [00:25:00] it until we do it.
And we do it consistently, like you said, not constantly, but consistently.
Rachel Barber: The more you write, the more conversations you have, the easier it becomes. Because it's like anything. This, it's progress over perfection. It's a cliché, but it's a bloody good cliché. Because, Nobody is looking for the perfect LinkedIn post.
I mean, what even is that? You know, you've got one person saying the key to visibility is the best, most magnetic content. I don't spend any time in the DMs. I don't spend any time in the comments. Then you have some other marketing bro saying the only way to visibility is by doing the best comments and not focusing much energy on content.
Everybody's out there saying different things. And for me, I find that quite sort of disheartening on one hand, but also a massive opportunity because for me, it means [00:26:00] that I get to spread my message that you get to make your marketing work for you. And you get to, you get to be playful. You get to experiment.
You know, I've got a client who just really was struggling with the sort of the limitations of, A shorter, you know, the sort of the shorter LinkedIn posts and she was really wanting to try out the LinkedIn articles, you know, and I said, right, go away and go away and write one. And she was liberated because you, you get to, it's freeing.
You get to be, some people are just a long, form girlies, you know? And the beauty of that is we can then turn that into shorter form content after. We
Ellie: can,
Rachel Barber: you know, but also. When you're starting out and you're trying to find your voice do what work
Ellie: Yeah,
Rachel Barber: do more of that and We can then look at what's working.
We can look at what's not working, you know So when i'm working with [00:27:00] clients through find your voice we are meeting up once a month to plan that content and then we are checking in weekly and then we're looking at What you have posted and then? What we don't do is we don't dwell on it, but I will look at what you posted the week before, and I will give you sort of suggestions, I will give you observations, and I'll say, for the future, you know, make sure you have a little bit more white space in your post, make sure you don't have huge paragraphs, make sure that you're, whatever the recommendations are.
And it can be quite refreshing to be doing it retrospectively, because it means that the clients get to go. Oh, it's okay that it was like that this time, nothing bad happened. In fact, I had some really good conversations with people off the back of that post, but now I know how to just make tiny little changes.
And each week it's a growth mindset.
Ellie: Yeah.
Rachel Barber: Because at the end of the day, your LinkedIn profile in particular is this beautiful opportunity to have a really lovely shop [00:28:00] window. You've got so much real estate there to tell people what you do, who you are, and what you want for that. The opportunities are endless to make, to make a difference and every time you put some content out there The next day it's, you know, as we say in the UK, it's yesterday's fish and chip wrapping.
Yeah.
Ellie: Mm hmm,
Rachel Barber: but it's still there as a collectively compounding sort of resource that when someone comes to your shop window they can see all the different kind of areas of what you do and what you're about and they can binge your content and But then you move on to the next day and you tell another story and you keep growing.
Ellie: So I've been busting to ask you this question because I'm just curious, and this is not, this is a question without notice. What's your take on AI in, with, in content and how, you could use it sensibly and productively versus, you know, I think we've all seen the, you know, God, awful AI generated content that is [00:29:00] just, you know, boring.
Yeah. The same. Tell us your thoughts.
Rachel Barber: Yeah. And it's, a shame in a sense, because I have seen people getting really frustrated with, for example, the LinkedIn comments, the AI LinkedIn comments, and then becoming more and more frequent and people going, this is how am I supposed to engage? How am I supposed to engage meaningfully?
Maybe this isn't a platform for me. And we do see a lot of AI templated content. my personal take is, if you feel the need. To use AI to give you a starting point, to give you some content ideas, to give you a starting draft. If that makes you get out the starting blocks, do not feel any shame. Do not feel any, resistance to it.
But what we absolutely need to do is take that draft, take that idea, And [00:30:00] for me, empathy is a really important sort of value and principle with everything, you know, in marketing. We need to go and stand in the shoes of our ideal clients. We need to know exactly who they are and what they want to hear and how they're feeling and be able to take that content idea and evolve it for the person we're speaking to.
If we've got a draft, we need to make sure that it sounds like us. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Read it aloud and say, would I say that? And I think interestingly enough, sometimes we have that challenge even when people aren't writing AI content because executive coaches in particular and people who have spent a lot of time in the corporate world.
Ellie: Write like robots.
Rachel Barber: It is. I don't see any LinkedIn posts, so I'm like, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd written kind regards at the end.
Ellie: Look. You know? I know. I used to be a lawyer, Rachel. I used to be a lawyer. It took me a long time to get rid of the heretofore and aforementioned. Right? And
Rachel Barber: [00:31:00] you know, it's not simple.
It's not easy. You're not going to do it overnight and that's okay. But one of the best things you can do. There's a couple of things I found work really well in different ways for different people. One can be voice recording. When you have an idea, just record it into your, app on your phone.
I always find that when I'm in the bath, some of my best content ideas happen because it's typical, isn't it? Showers, baths, walks, anything like that. So great, I get my app out and I give, you know, do my little monologue. And my app on my Android device immediately produces a transcript. Brilliant. It's my voice.
If you can't do that, if you've just written a post, read it aloud. And then, would I send this to a friend? Is the question you have to ask. And there was a third one and I have forgotten it. We can We will circle back. We can, [00:32:00] yeah, exactly, we can circle back, kind regards, we'll come back to that. The thing is, it's muscle memory with all of this, you know?
And that's what I mean with this growth mindset. If the first piece you get out sounds formal, sounds formulaic, that's okay. We try, you know, we keep honing and we keep refining. but I would say, especially with social media content, veer as informal as you possibly can. Because nobody connects with formality.
Okay. You know, I want you to showcase your personality. I want you to have a sense of humor. I want you to use, you know, be a bit weird. I think people even think in the coaching space, there still has to be some corporateness to it. There still has to be professionalism. But you're trusting when you're working with a coach, you have to have such implicit trust with that person.
that you have to have the most meaningful connection with them. And you don't get that from something that [00:33:00] sounds like it's got a letterhead on the top.
Ellie: This, takes me to a next question. This is also not a question I told you before. So, so sorry about that. But one of the common questions that or discussion points we have when it's about LinkedIn is who are we talking to?
And the particular case that, that Is coming up that I'd love your input on is when we have corporate clients, right? We sell into organization, they are our clients, and then we have coaches within them, but we also feel this drive to speak to the individual that we will be ultimately working with, but those are not the people who will hire us.
Yeah. Yeah. How do we do that? Like, how do we manage that, dynamic?
Rachel Barber: Yeah. I had a client, I've had a few clients actually. That work in that way and they, the answer is you've got to do both. You've got to have two really clear, really clear profiles of who these ideal clients are, you know, because it's not [00:34:00] as simple as saying it's, it's B2B and B2C.
Your corporate buyer in, you know, quick quotation marks, the person who is the decision maker and the budget holder, whether they're head of talent, whether they're head of HR, learning and development, whatever it might be, they are, a person. They're not a building, you know, they're not a building, they're not an entity, they are a person with challenges, with aspirations, with values.
And they are looking for you to come to them based on those things. And it doesn't matter whether you are buying from within an organization or you are buying, you know, as a small, a solo business owner or as a consumer. People buy from people. We buy. with our emotions. We buy with our heart and with our, you know, we buy with our heart and then we do the due diligence with our head.[00:35:00]
Most of my clients come to me because they say, in fact, I just did a post about it this morning because I've just, because it's my birthday, I've just put a post out offering some LinkedIn blow ups for people to get those profiles looking really, really good.
Ellie: And
Rachel Barber: I've had people come into my DMS and say, I love what you, stand for.
I love your profile and the content you create. I need to find a way to work with you. And then they'll say, can you send me some samples? Can you send me some results? But once they've made the decision
Ellie: to work
Rachel Barber: with me, because we, could put content out that just shows our knowledge, that just shows our results, but so could everybody else.
So how do you differentiate? Again, how do you know that the person you're bringing in to coach your team is going to inspire them, is going to have empathy, is going to take them on a journey? [00:36:00] And that will be different, you know, you could have three different buyers within an organization and everybody could connect with somebody very different.
And that's the opportunity sort of right there. What are the challenges? So a question I will always ask when we're talking about a kind of a corporate buyer, decision maker. Are they investing purely on behalf of their employees, their team? Thank you. Are they really cognizant of the challenges of their team and they want to have them succeed and that's the kind of the messaging that you need to lead with or is their ego?
Are you actually speaking to the aspirations of that person too? How much do you know about this person? Do they want to rise up the ranks being the leader that made a difference? The leader that transformed a team, you know, you have to ask those questions and you have to really think about it But then you also have to speak to the individuals because those individuals are the ones that can go [00:37:00] knocking on the doors Yeah, head of yeah I've seen it I see this all the time in my personal life and in my professional life where , the head of HR has those people coming saying, this is a bit of a toxic culture or this is, I, I'm not happy with this, I need, some support.
I've seen this person. Could we have a conversation with that person? I think they could really help my team who are struggling to succeed a little bit.
Ellie: Yeah, definitely. What about, like we talked about, you know, I liked what you said about sort of let your weird, let people see your flavor of weird a little bit.
Rachel Barber: Weird,
Ellie: yeah. What's too much? Like too much in terms of too much weird, too much oversharing, you know, how do you know where to set your boundaries?
Rachel Barber: What a question. Your boundaries. It can only be set by you what they're going to be different for every single person. Some folks have really personal stories that have led them [00:38:00] to business that they've created to you know, the reason why they decided to become a coach or any other business, but those stories are hard to tell.
Yes, you know, perhaps they haven't, perhaps they're still a little bit raw, perhaps there's still a little bit too emotion there. When we have a situation like that, we have to find the little kind of nuggets of hope, of insight, of joy that we can pull out, that can start them out, develop that confidence.
But then we have coaches, I've seen it on LinkedIn, who go completely the other direction and are just like bursts of rainbow, of pink, of sparkles, of color, of weirdness, of, You know, every Friday, they'll do something zany and get everybody having a conversation and they'll swear and they'll be completely as wacky as they [00:39:00] feel confident and comfortable to be.
Each of those versions is okay because it's whatever gives you the ability to keep showing up.
Ellie: Yeah,
Rachel Barber: and it's not static. It's not one and done, right? You I've seen people completely evolve from being quite, and actually I'm a bit of an example of that myself. I, probably about 18 months ago, was quite sort of nicey nicey.
I've always been that person that won't be particularly polarizing. I've always, my message and my tone of voice has always been quite nurturing and quite sort of, soft and obviously my branding is very pink, orange, yellow, sunshine, you know, optimism. But then over the last six months or so, I've really evolved that to be, yes, I am nice, but I am also talking to you, the action taker, and I'm not here just [00:40:00] nice, but equally, I have ramped up the weird my The way I speak with my friends in, you know, on WhatsApp, the, the amount I use capital letters, the amount I use, exclamation marks, the the amount.
I always sort of high five myself in brackets by saying, see what I did there? You know, people appreciate that. And I had somebody comment on a post of mine saying something like, you are, you are one of the few joy spreaders on LinkedIn. Mm-hmm . Great. That's the people like, yeah, that's a lovely thing. You know, it made my day.
And it's fabulous because then the people who want that dose of infectious energy and joy in their life, in their business, come to me. Those who read my posts and go, she is exhausting, do not work with me.
Ellie: Yeah. And that is
Rachel Barber: also okay. Yeah. And it comes back to the first conversation we had, Ellie, that you cannot be for everyone.
So I encourage you to, I never [00:41:00] encourage everyone to go full weird. Just for the sake of it, you know, some people aren't weird. Some people are fairly, you know, a fairly sort of straight lace. Yeah, what we're looking for. It's authenticity as much as that's a horrible word these days, isn't it? It's become overused but,
Ellie: but yeah, identifying what is that voice that feels right for you.
So figuring out, yeah. Yeah. And I guess you can only find it by testing, right? You can only find it by, you know, pushing your boundaries, realizing it was too far. And if you want, delete it. That's my take. Like if you don't like it, you'd feel bad after delete it and don't do it again. We've all
Rachel Barber: done it at some point through either email marketing, LinkedIn, in person, we've all said something or written something that afterwards we've gone, that wasn't me.
That didn't feel like me. I don't. And I'm not talking about putting posts out that cause controversy or cause debate because I'm a big believer that we need to lean into that type of content in the right way. [00:42:00] But just with messaging that feels off or that doesn't, or we feel like we're hiding something or doesn't feel authentic, then we can delete it or we can leave it and we can move on and we can learn from it.
Ellie: Yeah. I like it. So I'm conscious that we're running out of time. So I have one more question for you before I want you to share a little bit more about find your voice. And that is about, you know, do we write differently on different platforms? So do we write differently when we're on LinkedIn versus when we're on email and, you know, how can we think about that?
Rachel Barber: I think we can and should, to a degree, write differently. With a caveat that when we're starting out and we're building up our visibility and we're building up a consistency, sometimes it's okay to just repurpose content. If that's what's gonna get you being efficient and building up. Because look, I know, and I've, I've listened to some of your podcast, Ellie, you know, [00:43:00] episodes, you talk about it's a numbers game.
It is a numbers game. 100%, you know, we need. To build that consistency and we need to be Finding ways to make our marketing work for us even when we're feeling a little bit low of energy, even if we're feeling a little bit kind of
Ellie: Yeah,
Rachel Barber: not in the game. What I had this conversation with a client yesterday and she said, I'm just a bit in the link down in the LinkedIn dumps.
That sounded so rhythmical. And I said, right, take your temp, you know, I give some of my clients, I get a template DM sort of messages they can use just to get out the starting box and tweak for themselves. Go and find, you know, go to your most recent connections. Send 10 of those messages. That just says, Hey, welcome to my world.
It's really nice to be connected with you and ask them a question. You don't have to think about it.
Ellie: You don't
Rachel Barber: have to, You don't even have to respond if they respond to you. You can leave that for a day when you're feeling better, but you've taken action. And so, coming back to my point, I went off a bit of a tangent there, [00:44:00] but the taking action is the important bit.
So if you are struggling to find your different voice in these different platforms, Don't repurpose your content and keep moving and growing,
Ellie: but
Rachel Barber: there's things you can do When it comes to linkedin for me versus email, for example, it's actually probably less about voice and more about format
Ellie: Yeah,
Rachel Barber: you can tell the same story.
You don't have to change yourself or your messaging
whether linkedin newsletter or an email marketing. We can be more long form we can introduce longer paragraphs we can introduce a little bit more sort of storytelling and we can take people over here with a link, we can add some more calls to action. We're not worried so much about the algorithm punishing us for taking, how dare we take, you know, take somebody else off the platform.
Ellie: But with
Rachel Barber: LinkedIn, we need to be really mindful that [00:45:00] essentially what somebody is seeing is what's on this, rectangular screen. And so we have to be really mindful of the white space.
Ellie: Yeah,
Rachel Barber: yeah, what we often see is three or four or five sentences in the paragraph on LinkedIn and and we got well Oh, that's overwhelming because we're scrolling.
We have to think about the psychology one or two sentences line break one or two sentences line break Change your rhythm of the sentence ask a question. Keep it interesting because you're battling with the feed Yeah, and that's That's where the joy of constantly learning, growing, testing is great because you can start to look at how other people's post.
What are the ones that get your attention? What are the ones that keep you engaged? And then, okay, what can I learn from that myself? And so for me, it's about making sure that you're using your voice to speak and get, someone's attention and pull them out of the feed, stop the scroll, and [00:46:00] Making that content about them as much as you can in the social spaces, while also of course telling your story.
But when you're going more long form in your newsletters, in your blogs, somebody has come to you. Yeah. To engage with you more. They want more of you. So you can then embrace your longer form voice, your longer form format. You can be a bit more, let's say, indulgent. Yes. You know? Yeah.
Ellie: Yeah, no, that's, really helpful.
Thank you. Now, can I ask two really, really short questions before, okay. And these, are like, I like to have some like, you know, like a quick action round. Who's your dream client? If you could have any client in the world, who would you choose? Oh my God. I know. No, absolutely putting you on the spot here.
Rachel Barber: You've put me on the spot for this whole episode, Ellie. You've got all
Ellie: the questions
Rachel Barber: at
Ellie: 8am, Michelle Obama. Oh, amazing. Have you ever said Amazing with
Rachel Barber: that food.
Ellie: Oh, so amazing. Have you ever said no to a [00:47:00] client? Yes. Turned to clients. What sort of reasons? Yes.
Rachel Barber: They have negotiated my fee.
And I don't believe in that when you negotiate someone's fee, you, I think it's different if you ask for the deliverables to be reduced or, you know, time to be reduced. But if you're just telling me that I am worth less, you want to pay me less for what I'm delivering when not a match, or if our values.
Yeah. I'm misaligned. If you ask me to work in a specific way that doesn't meet up, that means I won't give you the best service. And what I can see, there's a lack of integrity or empathy. I've said no on those fronts.
Ellie: Brilliant. Thank you. Okay. So if people want to work with you, Rachel, how can they get in touch with you and what would you, like to share with them?
Rachel Barber: So I would love them to come and join Find Your Voice. And up until pretty much this week, it has been [00:48:00] a one to one mentoring package. A rolling, monthly mentoring where we get together once a month. And, at the start of that month, We have a, we have a 45 minute call, you've given me some preparation before, just a simple kind of prep form and I ask you very specific questions and I am the, I am known for asking questions that really mine the golden nuggets of storytelling.
I know the right questions to ask and out of that session, we have a content plan for your month ahead. Thank you very much.
Ellie: Brilliant.
Rachel Barber: So you know exactly what content you need to create to bring people into your world at the top of the funnel to, you know, to tell those stories, to connect with them, to nurture them with your knowledge and your authority and your insights.
And most importantly, we create the ideas to sell your offer, to sell your services and to share your social proof.
Ellie: What
Rachel Barber: is your, to share [00:49:00] really good solid testimonials and recommendations because those, my friends, are the lead generating piece of the content. The more social proof you can share, the more reassurance your future clients get.
As part of the one to one offer, you get me as a copywriter in your pocket, reviewing two pieces of your content a month. And, and I love it. I love that bit. I love putting my little editing hat on and going really deep into the weeds of how we can turn those pieces of content, really, you know, all the way up to really perform.
And you get weekly check ins from me, like I said earlier in the episode. Around what you've done really well this week. What are your successes? How can we learn and grow the following week and to that. So everyone I've got in my one to all the one to one folk I have in the sort of court cohort, which is about eight people, they're all going to start coming together and we're going to offer group Q and a's some content writing accountability sessions and a group [00:50:00] content planning session.
And those particular features. can just be bought as a group, as a collective. So if you don't want the one to one element, you want something a bit more accessible, that is coming out in the next few weeks, I imagine. But if you want to get in touch with me, as soon as this is out, we can get you in, in the back door, basically, because I'm setting it up as we speak.
Ellie: Okay. Well, we will include that in the show notes, so I'll make sure we've got your LinkedIn profile, but also you can give us the link to, to find your voice. But yeah, thank you so much, Rachel, for joining us. like my mind is, spinning. So I'm sure that, you know, I'm thinking of lots of different ideas and ways I want to change my own content.
So, you know, I'm sure everyone else is going to be in the same boat. But I do encourage everyone follow Rachel on LinkedIn. She has lots of great content, lots of great ideas. And there's, it's very, it's very bright. Which I really love. It's very
Rachel Barber: bright. You'll get a little dose of energy and a little, dose of joy, which I think we all need.
Ellie: Yeah, absolutely. So [00:51:00] thank you again. It is so wonderful to have you here. Thank you so much.
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 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.
