Welcome to the Rich Coach Club, the podcast that teaches you how to build your dream coaching practice and how to significantly increase your income. If you're a coach and you're determined to start making more money, this show is for you. I'm master certified life coach Susan Hyatt, and I'm psyched for you to join me on this journey. You're listening to episode 11, here we go.
When you hear the word marketing, how do you feel? Do you feel tired just hearing me say that word? Does the word marketing make you feel kind of anxious; a little stressed, uncomfortable, squirmy? Do you feel heavy, schlumping into your chair like, “Eurgh, can we talk about something else please?”
I’ve heard from so many clients who tell me, “I love my work. I love coaching. I love my clients. I just hate the marketing part of things. Finding clients is so tough. I wish I didn’t have to do that part. I love everything else about my business, except for that.”
Well, on today’s episode, we’re going to create a whole new attitude about marketing. Yes, ma’am, I want you to look at marketing in a whole new light so that it becomes something you actually look forward to doing rather than something you dread. So here we go, first, as always, we’re starting things off with a segment called your Two-Minute Pep-Talk.
Here’s your Two-Minute Pep-Talk for the week. This is the part of the show where I share some encouragement and inspiration to help you get your week started off right, and I try to keep it to 120 seconds or less.
So okay, boo, question – have you ever invited someone to do something and they said yes? Like you invited your friend to go see A Star is Born at the movie theatre and she said, “Hell yes, I am so there…” or you invited your sister to come over and watch the Grammy Awards at your house and you asked her to bring a bottle of wine and she said, “Yes, I am coming right over…” or you invited a bunch of women to meet up for a hike and then brunch afterwards and they said, “Yes, totally, let’s do this.”
Well, guess what – if you’re capable of inviting people to do stuff and if you’re capable of inspiring people to say yes, then you are already very good at marketing because that’s all marketing is. When you’re marketing a service, a program, a product, a retreat, a workshop, all you’re doing is you’re describing the experience and then you’re inviting people to say yes. That’s it. It’s simple.
So please remember this; remember that marketing does not need to feel like a big scary daunting confusing thing. Marketing is actually pretty darn simple. You’re describing something that you’re excited about and you’re inviting people to do it. Describe, invite, describe, invite, that’s all it is. That’s marketing; spreading your amazing energy out to someone else so that they can understand what it is that you have to offer.
And yes, of course, you can always get more training and learn new marketing skills, and you can come up with super creative marketing campaigns and you can improve your communication style even more and you can experiment with Facebook Ad campaigns and all of that is fantastic. But even without any additional training, I bet you are already pretty good at marketing.
You’ve already got the basic skills, already, instinctively, you know how to do this. Most likely, you don’t need to spend the next 10,000 hours studying advanced marketing techniques. Most likely, you just need to shift in perspective on how you think about marketing; a shift in your confidence and attitude adjustment.
Repeat to yourself, marketing does not have to be so complicated. It can be simple. And remind yourself, I love people. I know how to write a quick message to invite people to do stuff. In fact, I do it all the dang time. I am already very good at marketing. It’s true, you are.
Now, we’re moving to the part of the show where I give shout-outs to you; shout-outs to listeners, clients, all the wonderful people in my business community. Today, I want to give a shout-out to Ann-Janette Fennel. So Ann-Janette posted in the Rich Coach Club private Facebook group.
And she said, “I am so in love with the rebranded Rich Coach Club podcast and the latest episode with Hiro Boga.” And she quotes Hiro as saying, “If you truncate any aspect of yourself, you do not just do yourself a disservice, but you’re depriving the world of that aspect of you.”
And the other Hiro quote that was so popular from that episode, “The choices that we make have to embrace all of who we are.” #boom #lovethesoulofyourbiz. Thank you so much, Ann-Janette. It means a lot to me that you took the time to let us know what you loved about the podcast and that episode.
And hey, if you have something to say about this show, please send an email to my team, or even better, post a five-star iTunes review about the show or post something on social media and you might hear your name on a future episode. I love giving shout-outs to folks in my community, so holla at me. Thank you so much for the love. I love you guys right back.
It’s time for an interview. And today, we’re chatting with Stacey Smith. And I’m stoked that Stacey agreed to be a guest on this episode in particular, because she is the perfect woman to talk about marketing. Stacey’s a coach and she helps people reframe the way they think about marketing.
She encourages her clients to stop doing gimmicky marketing stuff, stuff that doesn’t work, and instead, focus on building deep, loyal, powerful relationships with clients. Strong relationships lead to more sales and more signups and more bookings and strong relationships lead to more revenue for you. Let’s get into this conversation with Stacey because she’s got so many gems to share.
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Susan: Welcome to the podcast, Stacey, AKA Diva of the world.
Stacey: Thank you for having me.
Susan: I am so excited to interview you because, as you know, this whole podcast is called Rich Coach Club in an effort to help coaches get over themselves about money and sales and marketing and make bank.
Stacey: Yes, that’s perfect.
Susan: And so I thought, who better to have on than Stacey? Because I have had a front-row seat to your success and I have loved watching you evolve and grow as a coach and as a businesswoman. And one of the things I have always admired about you is your total confidence in sales and, in fact, like zero hesitation to ask people for business. Talk to us about your history and where you think that comes from.
Stacey: I know where that comes from. Well okay, there’s a couple of things. I was always that kid that wanted the spotlight. So I’ve never had a hard time talking to strangers or being the star of the show. I went to a school for theatre. But after college, I was acting in Atlanta and doing the grind, going to audition after audition, and I found this audition for live infomercials; like a live infomercial team. So basically, doing what they do on QVC but in department stores. And I was in sales throughout college. I worked for AT&T and I did the Spanish Yellow Pages, I worked for Radio Disney, and I was like, this is the best of both worlds. So I auditioned and I got the job out of like 50 people and I ended up, within six months to a year, being one of the best in the industry, going around selling mops and knives and gadgets.
Susan: I love this because it’s like, whenever I think of you, my nickname for you in my head is ShamWow.
Stacey: Yes, oh I sold that too.
Susan: Yes, because it’s like, what a great – like ShamWow. I could totally see you in any department store being like, “You need this mop; what’s wrong with you?”
Stacey: You know, it takes a certain kind of mindset to be able to go into a store and make an announcement on their intercom that you’re handing out free gifts and you’re doing a show, and then have random strangers come up to you all at once. Like, 20, 100, like at Christmas time, it would be insane. There would just be like these ridiculous monstrous lines and you have to corral all these people and get them super close up to you. Everyone’s got to be touching. And you have like 10 seconds to make such a strong impression that they’re all willing to do that. Like leaving their carts and all their things, sometimes even their kids, you’ve got to have that upfront. And that takes a certain – that really felt like, to me, now looking back – in the moment I had no idea it was setting me up for this amazing life coaching career, but I mean, really, it feels like the school of hard knocks of sales. I wish I could take all of my clients and make them go pitch the Mr. Sticky lifetime guarantee lint roller in Walmart for a week, and they’ll never need sales coaching again.
Susan: Right, like instead of Diva Business School, it’s Mr. Sticky Sales School. This needs to be a thing, honestly, because listening to you talk, it is so true. I mean, what you just said about I had no idea that that was preparing me for this career in coaching – and I feel the same way about real estate. I loved it for a while and then I didn’t love it, and even though I was great at selling houses, it wasn’t my calling. But everything that I went through in that process helped me be just basically unashamed to ask for business and talk about what I could offer people.
Stacey: So good.
Susan: So when you were selling in department stores, what was the number one thing you learned about getting people to leave their carts, their children, and their frozen foods and come over to you and buy a knife set?
Stacey: Yeah, okay, so this is super – you’re in like super easy territory for me to talk about here. The number one thing, when you made an announcement that made or broke you is that you had to do the announcement like it was the first, last, and only time you ever did it.
Susan: Oh, like this is it.
Stacey: This is it. So people used to come up to me and they would ask me, like, how do you say the same thing – like store employees – they’d be like, “You have said the same thing over and over and over and over, like how are you doing that? How do you sound so excited each time?” And really, truly, it’s presence; like being committed to the moment and this moment is the only moment that we have and I’m going to give it all of myself. I’m going to give it everything. I’m going to show up and I’m going to do this. This is the only time I get to do this.
Susan: That is amazing and so important and I can see how training yourself, making those announcements over and over and over again about something that you probably weren’t super over the moon about. I mean, mops and knives, I can get excited about a good knife and a good mop…
Stacey: Listen, I got excited about the money…
Susan: Right, this is why I love you. So what would happen? So you committed to the present moment and you’re like, this is it, folks. This mop, these knives, Mr. Sticky, this is how this is going to change your life. Talk to me about how, in your mind, how many sales – how were you calculating or getting excited about the money?
Stacey: Well, I got excited about the money because I – this is actually something I think about a lot. I was, I think, one of the rare people in the company who would walk into any store and I just believed I was not leaving with less than $200. Like $200 a shift for me, was – and at the time, that was a lot of money for me – but that was like zero, like non-negotiable, I don’t leave stores until I make that much money. And sometimes, it would be upwards of $1000 a day. And I just knew.
Like, I walked in, and I knew, every announcement, I’m going to make money. I’m going to covert these people. It didn’t feel like it was out of my hands and, “Well we’ll see who shows up…” or, “We’ll see how they feel about the product.” I was like, no. I had one lady – I was on a military base in Biloxi Mississippi. I don’t remember what the base was called. And I had a lady come up to me – I was selling slicers – and she was like, “I’m not buying those, but I want to watch your next show. But I want to let you know ahead of time, I’m not buying any of those.” And I was like, “Great, sure, you should definitely come.” And she was in the first row. She was right in front of me. She bought five.
Susan: And so did you say to her, “Hey girl, I thought you weren’t buying shit, but look at you with your five slicers.”
Stacey: She was like, “I swore I wasn’t going to buy them…” and I said, “I knew that you were.”
Susan: Oh my god, I love it. Okay, so…
Stacey: Also, let me just be clear though; I loved all of the products. I’m kind of geeky about, like, Shark Tank is my show, I love QVC. I actually love products like that. I love to be sold. I love to buy things. So this experience was very fun for me and very natural and I really did use the products in my house. I still use some of them. I still use the mandolin slicer that I sold. I still use the Mr. Sticky. I loved the products. So it was kind of kind of a campy thing a little bit, but I really loved the products and I think that’s super important. When I’m coaching coaches, I’m always telling them, like, you have to love your offer. You have to think your offer is the greatest. I just did a launch yesterday. I just launched a mastermind I’m doing and when I started to do the pitch for it, when I started to tell the people about it, my cheeks were literally beaming I was so excited about my offer. And I think that that is such a huge important thing that is necessary to sales; you have to deeply love and be excited about and believe what you’re offering.
Susan: 100%, and I think that that, for all of you coaches listening, I think that if you don’t feel that way about your offer, you’ve got to get that way about your offer. You’ve got to figure out what you need to include or what you need to change in your mind about what you’re offering because if you believe – even back when I was in real estate, we used to say, you must have an unshakable belief in your ability to help this client either find a house or sell a house. And in coaching, it’s the same thing; it’s an unshakable belief that this is the shit.
Stacey: Yeah, and let me just offer this, because I think this is what happens when people don’t have this. This is a big part of the problem; I think a lot of coaches unintentionally – I don’t think anyone ever intends this, no matter who they are – I think that they unintentionally create programs thinking about, like, what am I going to get out of it? So like, how can I make the most money with the least amount of effort? I see so many coaches, the first thing they want to do is group coaching because, “Why only have three hours a week to devote to my coaching and I want to make $100,000 so I’m going in with group coaching. It’s going to be 30-minute.” And they’re creating this based on all the things they want instead of thinking about what is their client’s dream? What would make them freak out? I had yesterday that bought and she was like, “I have been running through my house screaming I am so excited.” Like, what is an offer that makes them feel that way? That’s where you have to create your offer from.
Susan: Exactly, and well, of course, you have to go back to service for your client of let me create something that’s going to solve their problem and make their world feel like a miracle has just happened. And I agree with you. I think so many people are, I don’t know…
Stacey: Like your retreat, Susan. It’s like, when you launched Barcelona, I was like, what in the shit? I’ve got to be there. I think about that all the time when you do retreats. I saw your Italy one and I am like dying inside because I have a road trip planned with Neil that we’ve planned forever in that month. And I am literally like, I have had so much turmoil because it looks like the most amazing offer ever. So of course, you’re happy and excited to sell it because it’s the most beautiful house. Everything about the offer is exciting and fun, so of course, it’s easy to sell.
Susan: It is, and it also, just back to what you were saying about, you know, what’s going to make my client feel excited and over the moon that you’re providing this, I often think, with my retreats, what would make them feel like they’re in a movie? And then I build what’s happening at the retreat from that place. And sometimes, I’m constantly upping the ante because I have so many repeat retreaters. I’m like, well they’ve already been in that movie, so I’ve got to come up with a new movie.
Stacey: That’s so brilliant. I love that.
Susan: I was saying to Scott – and you guys are going to hear this chicken soup story for the rest of your lives because it so illustrates this, but over last weekend – I don’t cook very often. I am actually a good cook. It’s not something I love to do, but I was on a kick and I made a whole bunch of stuff last Saturday. And one of the things I made was this homemade chicken soup. And the silver fox was out in the garage working on his race car and he came inside and he was like, “Tell me something good.” And I said, “I’ll tell you what’s good. I just made some bomb-ass chicken soup.” And he goes, “Oh, that good, huh?” And I said, “Yep, and if you don’t have some, you’re stupid.” And I was like, you know what, this is exactly how everyone needs to feel about their business offerings. Not that you would call your potential clients stupid, but that it’s like, listen – I was like, “If there was a chicken soup contest today, this pot right here would win.” And that’s how you’ve got to feel about what you’re selling, whether it’s your mastermind or Barcelona or whatever it might be.
Stacey: Yes, so good, 100%.
Susan: So what do you think in your work with coaches, because you work with people on sales strategy all the time, other than creating from a place of, “I want to make $100K, so the easiest way for me to do that is to offer groups…” and putting their client’s needs aside, what do you see as some of the biggest mistakes that coaches make around sales?
Stacey: The biggest they make is they make it about them. they take the whole process very personally. And I even fall into that. I just feel like that’s the human mind and its tendency to take everything very personally. But truly, when they’re on the phone with a client and a client says no, they immediately go into their thoughts and feelings about it and what they make it mean about them and the disappointment and the rejection. And when they’re all up in their head and their body, feeling all the bad things and getting totally in their own mind drama, they’ve lost focus of who’s in front of them and they lose the opportunity to just coach on that person’s thought process. Because, I believe literally every client that gets on a phone with a coach wants to buy coaching. People don’t waste their time.
They don’t just think, “I don’t really want to buy anything, but I’m going to get on the phone.” I think it’s a very small percentage of people. So they want to buy and they just need you to walk them through the process, and their mind’s natural response is going to be to say no when they hear the price. And when they hear the time commitment and it actually gets real and it’s not just this thing that could be true, this thing that could happen, they’re going to get scared and they’re going to say no or their brain’s going to tell them all the reasons they can’t. And they go and they make it mean stuff about them instead of just coaching the client and instead of just asking really good questions or really going beyond the no. And it’s not even not taking no for an answer, it’s just not believing the first no and being willing to get curious and investigate. I think that’s the biggest mistake people make.
Susan: Yeah, absolutely, I think the human mind naturally wants to be like, “Oh I knew it, it’s no good. I’m no good…” instead of being curious about what is the objection and helping the client overcome that objection. I mean, you know, Stacey, form all my stories, the biggest teacher in that for me is Ryan James Hyatt, who will find out what your objection is and overcome that shit before you have known what just happened to you. But I do think it’s getting curious and figuring out, and offering a sales call is really an opportunity to coach them.
Stacey: Yeah, I 100% agree. I teach kind of the opposite. It’s like, you save your best and deepest coaching for the objection. You’re like, now let’s go do the work. But yeah, I remember – this is a little silly funny story but it’s the epitome of how to react when someone doesn’t buy. I was in California, in LA, selling slicers with a Broadway performer. He’d been on Broadway. He was in Miss Saigon. And he had found this job and he was freaking phenomenal at it. And I was watching him sell it in this Walmart.
And at the end, we had people raise their hand if they want to buy. And he had all of this beautiful cut produce out and he had the slicer and all of the bonuses they get with it, and he’s like, “For those of you who want one right now, just raise your hand.” And no one raised their hand. And in that moment, in the pitching industry, it’s the worst moment. And then, he goes, “Wait a minute, hold on, let me say it one more time.” And then he went through everything they got, super slow, and then he goes, “So you get all of that for $40. You need to raise your hand.” And everybody raised their hand. And I talked to him about it after. He goes, “My thought was they were confused.”
Susan: Right, like do you hear the words coming out of my mouth?
Stacey: It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. He was like, “They were just confused. I had to say it for them again one more time, real slow.”
Susan: Did everybody start raising their hand?
Stacey: Yes. He just went too fast through the first part and their brains hadn’t caught up. And in his mind, he was like, there’s no way they’re not buying this. I must have gone too fast. Let me rewind and slow it down. And it was just like, so many people – I used to train people to do that and I see it with coaching too is so many people have that moment, and then they stop. Like, oh, they didn’t buy. They didn’t want it. And that’s it. And there’s no growth when you’re not willing to go past and get super curious as to why someone didn’t buy.
Susan: So interesting. So over the past couple of years, you have grown your business to a million-dollar business…
Stacey: Close to a million-dollar business. I’m not there yet. I have made over – I’ve made a million dollars in my coaching career, but this year, we’ll close that out. We’re close.
Susan: Yay, so excited. I want to be there toasting champagne when you cross that seven-figure mark in one year.
Stacey: Yes.
Susan: So what do you credit that growth to in your own mindset?
Stacey: What do I credit that growth to? I was thinking about this actually today; so random. I think I credit it to me always being willing to invest in myself and be the client that I want other people to be for me. Like, I am the model student. I just show up the way that I want my clients to show up, and that means I invest in myself. I invest in myself aggressively. I show up. I do the work, and that’s, I feel, the biggest thing. I just remember – and this will be so helpful – I remember when I was trying to hit six figures and I just had this thought that if I keep investing in myself and I never stop coaching with my coach and I never stop joining masterminds and doing trainings, there’s literally no way I won’t get results. If I just keep putting myself in the room with the people who are doing it, how will I not make it? Like, I had this image of, I’m just riding their coattails. I’m going to just grab onto the bottom of their jacket and I am not letting go.
Susan: Well I absolutely – everything you just said totally resonates because – I mean, I remember when I left real estate and was really scared when I was building this company. And I was like, who’s doing it and, like you said, let me go get in the room with the people who are doing it and hiring coaches and trainings and everything.
Stacey: Yeah, so many people are just like coming to me, telling me, “Oh but I invested in this and I didn’t hit $100K and then I’ve also already invested this much money.” And I’m like, “Yeah, if you bought a Subway franchise, you’d be 150 grand in debt immediately just to buy the franchise, I think. And that’s not counting all the other stuff you have to do.” Yeah, having a six-figure business or more is expensive to start. It takes an investment, and not just in your money; in your time. Like I, my first year, I didn’t listen to any music in the car. I filled my ears with only things that would help me move forward. I stopped watching TV and I just read. I literally went all-in every second of every day. If I was in between pitches, I had my ear buds in listening to Grant Cardone or Brooke Castillo or Lewis Howes or anyone I could find; any podcast I could find, any book I could find. Success Principles, Jack Canfield, I was always listening to something. Every second I could do it, I was putting myself in the mindset of other people who had come before me and done it.
Susan: It’s so important and in terms of deciding to be all-in, there’s an energy to being all-in. it’s not necessarily an activity, but an attitude. And so for you, it was like – I talk about this in BARE – one of the first steps in the BARE movement is called environmental diet; which is what’s coming at you through your senses, your eyes, your ears, your smells, whatever. So not so much about food, but what are you watching? What are you listening to? And the energy of all in is like, guess what, I’m going to make sure I’m listening to podcasts and reading books and not, you know, wasting time in Facebook groups that talk about how hard it is to make money.
Stacey: Yeah, I 100% agree. You just have to drown out all of the noise. And sometimes, even that environmental diet is the people that you associate with and the people that you’re listening to. And it doesn’t mean that you have to always cut people out of your life, but I just stopped going to my family and my boyfriend and my best friends for their opinion about my business and about what I was doing because they weren’t doing the work. They weren’t getting coached. They had no idea what my dreams and goals were. They couldn’t see the vision. So I also just stopped relying on my environment to hold my belief for me or to approve of what I was doing or validate what I was doing, and I focused on me and I just let my belief be the thing that led me the whole time.
Susan: Absolutely amazing point, and so true. Like, don’t go to people who aren’t running coaching businesses and ask them what you should do or what their opinion is. Like, terrible business advice from people who’ve never done it, who aren’t getting coached. You’re the only one that can know what your vision is and you’re the only one that’s going to do it.
Stacey: Yes, you’re the only one doing the work so it’s literally not even fair to ask somebody else to believe for you because they aren’t getting all of the coaching you’re getting. They’re just not in your brain. And I always say, if you can’t believe in yourself 100%, you cannot ask for anybody to do for you what you are unwilling to do for yourself.
Susan: Yes, amen, preach. We will wrap with that nugget. So, Stacey, of course, we’re going to have all the details in the show notes of how people can find you and hang out with you. What’s the number one way you want to encourage people to get to know you better?
Stacey: Oh my gosh, well I would say my website, except – this is the craziest thing that has ever happened ever – my hosting site just lost my website. Like, all of my information disappeared and they’re like, “Yeah, it’s gone.”
Susan: What?
Stacey: Is this not the craziest thing you’ve ever heard? I just had to laugh about it because who does this happen to? And I’m like, okay, let’s just start over. So I would say Facebook or my podcast are the best ways. I’m on Facebook all the time. I live stream a lot and I engage with my audience a lot. Like, I have a business very similar to yours. I like to be involved with the people. So I would say my Facebook and my podcast, Diva Business School podcast.
Susan: Yes, it’s a great podcast. I am on one of those…
Stacey: I had you on, yeah.
Susan: Yes, we’ll put the link to that episode in the show notes.
Stacey: Such a good episode. We talk about sales there too. It’s so good.
Susan: Oh good, good, okay. Alright, well thank you so much. I know you’re a busy lady, newly engaged, new house, rocking the universe.
Stacey: Thank you.
Susan: So go get some mo’.
Stacey: I love it. Thank you for having me on.
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What a fantastic interview. Alright, all through this episode, we’ve been talking about how to reframe the way you think about sales and marketing and create a whole new attitude. I have one more quick tip for you.
If the word marketing doesn’t feel exciting to you, then I want you to pick a different word and call it something new. Instead of marketing, you can call it describing and inviting. Or you can call it reaching out, connecting, building relationships, strengthening the bond, building a tribe, writing a love letter to your mailing list, sharing, uplifting, encouraging, tantalizing, making a generous offer, making a no pressure invitation, sharing inspiration for free and then inviting people to make a purchase and go deeper with you. Pick whatever word or phrase feels good to you.
Sometimes, giving marketing a whole new name can help you shift into a whole new attitude. Several years ago, instead of telling myself I needed to exercise more, I started telling myself, “I’m taking my inner athlete on a date.” For whatever reason, this new wording really helped me make a mental shift from hating exercise and avoiding it, to actually enjoying it, because I was dating myself.
So try this out. Give marketing a new name. Call it something fresh. See if that helps you to view the whole idea of marketing in a beautiful new light. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. And after listening, I hope you’re already thinking about marketing differently.
And I have a little challenge for you; sometime this week, I want you to reach out to someone and invite them to do something. Reach out to someone and invite them to hire you. Or, invite them to check out your new podcast episode. Or invite them to attend your free webinar, or whatever. Just reach out to someone and invite them to do something.
I don’t care who it is or what it is. I just want you to reach out to an actual human being and make some type of invitation that’s related to your coaching practice. It’s okay if you feel a little nervous. Be scared and do it anyway.
Who knows, you might be pleasantly surprised because they might say, “Yeah, sure, let’s go.” And even if they say no thanks, this is still a great thing to do because you’re flexing your marketing muscles and you’re getting more comfortable with it. So go practice. Just do it. I believe in you; go.
Alright, thank you so much listening to Susan Hyatt's Rich Coach Club. If you enjoyed today's show, please head over to shyattagency.wpengine.com/rich where you'll find a free worksheet with audio called Three Things You Can Do Right Now To Get More Clients. You can download the worksheet and the audio, print it out, there's a fun checklist for you to check off. Just three things to do. Check, check, checkidy-check.
This worksheet makes finding clients feel so much simpler and not so scary. So head to shyattagency.wpengine.com/rich to get that worksheet. Over there, you're also going to find a free Facebook you can join especially for coaches. Bring your coaching practice and your income to the next level at shyattagency.wpengine.com. See you next week.
