How to Get the Best Return on Investment from the Next Investment You Make in a Coach

INTRO: [00:00:00] After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Kathryn Thompson takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you're ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen her and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you're in the right place. Be the sought after entrepreneur podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter. One size fits all approach to marketing and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life. Welcome to be the sought after entrepreneur podcast. And here's your host, Kathryn Thompson.

Hey, hey, super stoked that you're tuning in this week's episode. I cannot wait to dive into today's topic [00:01:00] because I'm going to be sharing with you how to get the best return on your investment from the next coach or mentor or program that you invest in that promises to help you grow and scale your business.

More specifically, how to attract more people into your world, but also how to increase the sales that you are making in your business. Now, if you're sitting here at all and you're feeling shame, guilt, frustration. Maybe some bitterness, maybe some anger, maybe some disappointment in yourself for investing in a coach or a mentor and not getting the return that you wanted out of that investment.

Or you invested in something and midway through the programmer experience you realized what that person was teaching you was not in alignment with what you actually wanted to achieve, but you didn't know that until you got in there. And now that you're locked in, you actually can't get out. And so the investment's kind of going out the window because you're not going to apply the things that [00:02:00] they're teaching you because it's not in alignment.

Or you try to force yourself to do it and it never feels good in the long run. I've been there. I know so many people that have been there. And if you're feeling even remotely that, I want you to keep listening because I'm going to help you. Self assess what it is that you actually need so that you can make decisions from an informed place.

I'm a true, true believer that when we invest in things that we think we need, we've been sold on that idea, right? We've been sold on something, whether it be freedom, more money, more clients, whatever it is. And we look at that person and go. They've got what I want, and I'm going to invest and trust in that.

And then when we get into the experience, we realize it's probably not for us. And so I want to help you know for yourself and do the due diligence for yourself and your business so that you can find the right coaches for you. And you can also ask questions to help you [00:03:00] qualify whether that coach is the right person for you.

I'm also going to share with you the key critical ingredient that's an absolute must if you want to move your audience down that customer buying journey from cold to sold way faster. And in my opinion, this key ingredient is not being taught to the depth and level that is needed if we actually want the strategies that we're learning to work.

Which is why I believe a lot of people are hopping from coach to coach and strategy to strategy. Because we don't have this key ingredient dialed in and it's not being taught. So I'm going to share that in this episode, but I want to start with the self assessment piece so that you can get. Um, and where you're at and where you need to sort of focus your energy and what is going to be most optimal for you.

So that one you're not investing in a coach or a consultant or a program that will actually not help you or isn't aligned with [00:04:00] you. And so I want you to be able to make an informed decision. And so. Let's start with the first place that a coach and consultant usually is when starting their business.

Now, what I'm going to share with you is also applicable, I think, to product based and brick and mortar to some degree, but the coaching and consulting industry online or course creation industry online is Sort of a unique way in which we do business or at least unique problems start to come up that we wouldn't necessarily experience in a brick and mortar.

And by that, I mean, when I started my brick and mortar business, when I started to lease the space and put signage up and all the things, I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew what my product was. I knew what I was selling. I knew what made me different and I couldn't have. Not known that to sign a lease on a brick and mortar space.

And the reason would be is because I wasn't going to pay, you know, three, four or 5, 000 a month per rent [00:05:00] to figure it out. I feel like in the coaching industry, we spend months trying to figure out what our offer is. We spend months showing up on social media, putting out content, building an audience while still trying to figure out what our offer is.

And to me, that's backwards in so many ways. And I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to share my experience of why. So, let's just put this out there. Let's just say I started my brick and mortar business, and I think I've shared this before. But if I started my brick and mortar business, I had no idea what I was doing, and I rented a space, and I had a storefront.

And I had no signage, I had nothing, and I just sat in that place, and I tried to figure out what I was gonna do. I would be pissing away money. Literally. Rent. Everything. Right? And then, if I was building an audience of people, what am I building an audience of people for? Like, what content am I putting out there?

Am I just sharing [00:06:00] whatever I want? And then I'm building this audience that may or may not be in alignment with the offer I eventually go to put out there. Well, the same is true for your coaching business, right? So if you have this inkling and this nudge that you want to start an online coaching business, or you want to create a course or program, or you want to be a consultant of some sort online, and you don't know what your offer is, and you don't know what you're going to offer, The last thing you want to do is build an audience because you're going to go and build an audience of people that may or may not at some point be interested in your offer.

And so you're spending all of this time doing that, right? So hiring somebody who's going to teach you how to grow a following on Instagram, not the best investment. Hiring somebody that's going to show you how to build an email list, not the best investment. Hiring a coach or mentor, that's going to show you how to [00:07:00] build out a marketing and sales system using evergreen or Facebook ads or whatever, not a good investment because you're going to go into the program and you're going to spend the first, I don't know, four or five months trying to figure out what your offer is.

And you're not going to utilize the expertise of that coach sitting in front of you. And what often ends up happening is you get frustrated, bitter, angry at that person. Because you never should have invested in that program in the first place, because you weren't in the position yet to really benefit from their expertise and what they were teaching, where you need to focus your energy.

If you don't even know what your offer is, is to solidify what your offer is. Is to figure out what it is that you want to offer, who you want to support and why you want to support them and how you can best support them. And the type of coach and mentor that you would [00:08:00] look for is somebody that's going to help you with that sort of high level messaging and offer positioning and articulation.

That's the first person you want to invest in. Because they're going to help you package and position what you do. And from that place, and only that place, can you decide then how you're going to market to people. I'll always say, putting the right offer in front of the right people at the right time is what creates that customer journey, but also creates no brainer sales.

It's when we try to put an offer in front of the wrong audience, That we experience lack of sales, nobody interested, speaking to the void, feeling friendzoned, whatever it might be. Because we've built this audience of people that are not even interested in what we're doing. And I did that. So I'm speaking from experience, but I've also seen a lot of other people do it.

Um, and get frustrated with the fact that they've got a thousand people on their email [00:09:00] list and they're putting out. Offers that people aren't buying. And how I learned this was I created my quiz, I created my quiz and I sent my quiz out, and then I started to see the people that were coming into my email list.

But I also started to see the people that were already on my email list. What type of businesses they had. And I had a lot of people in my world that were product based brick and mortar service based brick and mortar. Service based online who weren't coaches and consultants. So when I went to try and sell an offer that was speaking to coaches and consultants, all of those people in my audience were like, this isn't for me.

And therefore didn't maybe sell it the way that I wanted it to. Because what I did when I started my coaching business was I started building an audience, building a following. I just started to share what it is that I. So I wanted to share about and I was passionate about. And the reason I did that was because I had my brick and mortar.

So I wasn't really under pressure. [00:10:00] Let's just say to make this a go. Cause I ha I was working full time at my brick and mortar. It was sort of like this calling and nudge. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to post on social for six months and build a following and then eventually sell offers. You know, I wasn't ready to sell the offer yet.

So I thought I'll just build the audience first. And to me, that's really. Backwards, because we want that offer. We want to be able to put the right offer in front of the right people at the right time. And so if you're in a position right now where you're questioning your offer and you don't know what it is, or you have an idea, but you haven't sold it yet, this is what we call offer alignment.

You need to get in alignment with the offer. You need to package and position it. You need to know what it is that you're selling, and you need to know how to communicate that to your audience. This is very different than. Building out a funnel and putting emails into it and a masterclass, right? This is the high level offer articulation.

What you do, why you do, [00:11:00] how you do it, who you support, why you support them and the types of results or benefits or transformations that they're going to experience from doing this work. Now, this doesn't mean that you have to iron out an entire curriculum in this particular phase yet, but. You can if you want to.

Some people need that full detail. I'm not one of those people. I don't need like the full curriculum mapped out with every module there and recorded in order for me to feel rock solid about how I can support people. But I know some people do. And so If you're at that phase, that's who you want to invest in.

You want to invest in somebody that can help you walk through that and really get clear on what that is. And this is different than a brand strategist, right? So a brand strategist would be somebody that would help you with like the colors, the logo. The look and feel of what you do that to me is like something that you could do later on.

I don't think that you need a perfectly polished brand [00:12:00] to start putting an offer out there. This is where I think a lot of other people make mistakes is that we want to get the brand and everything to look pretty and like the website and all the things and I get that. But to me. It's validating an offer is like the priority that we want to focus on first, because without a validated offer and without an offer that's going to sell, like, we don't really have a business.

And so to me, that's like the top priority of like, what is the offer? And how are we like, what is it that I'm selling? And from, like I said, from this place. And this place only can we start to build out an aligned marketing and sales strategy from this place only can we start to figure out how we want to communicate with people again.

If you decided, Oh, I'm going to start an Insta profile because that's where I like to hang out. Or it seems like everybody's there. Or I hired somebody to teach me how to create an Insta profile and to create [00:13:00] content for Instagram. And then you go and create this offer. You feel like this offer comes to fruition and it's supporting like high level executives.

Are high level executives more likely to be scrolling on Insta or are they over on LinkedIn? So now you've got this offer and you've built this audience on Instagram, but really your people are not even on Insta, they're over on LinkedIn. So now you've got two platforms you're trying to manage or you try to stuff this offer on Instagram and nothing happens because your audience actually isn't there.

It's about putting the right offer in front of the right people at the right time. Well, in order to put the offer in front of the right people, we have to know where the people are. And if they're not on Insta and they're over on LinkedIn and we've put all this work in cultivating this audience on Insta, we've now wasted a ton of time and energy, right?

So from the place of offer alignment, we can create a marketing and sales strategy that is in alignment with that offer. We can create a [00:14:00] pathway that's in alignment with that offer. We can create content and marketing that's in alignment with that offer. So that's the first place you want to start if you're in this offer pool, where you're like, I don't really know what I'm putting out there.

It's not hiring the social media manager or the sales coach because, or the marketing coach, because if you don't have anything to sell yet, the marketing and sales coaches, aren't going to be able to help you. And they might tell you they can, but you're going to spend a lot of time in their program trying to figure out what the offer is.

So that's the first place you want to start is offer alignment. The second place that you want to go after that is in the content and copy the communication. And the lead generation, like, where am I? Now, if you are completely rocking your offer and you've got people buying from you, but it's predominantly like word of [00:15:00] mouth, or they randomly sort of drop into your lap and it's unpredictable and you don't really know where people are coming from, or you don't really know when the next person's gonna come because it is word of mouth, then the next phase, in my opinion, that you want to focus on is reach, or lead generation.

alignment. So it's how are you reaching new people in your business, but how are you generating leads in your business consistently? And I see a lot of people stuck here, right? And this can look like posting social media content, hoping. That you attract people into your world and there's not really a consistent strategy on what you're posting, when you're posting, how you're posting it and you don't really have that consistency of lead generation coming into your business.

Like I said, it can feel very random or it's word of mouth and you have no system in place for that lead generation. [00:16:00] Then that is the next place you want to focus on. And what do I mean by lead generation? Well, if you have experienced a program where you were invested in a coach and they said, okay, I want you to use Facebook groups to attract new people and I want you to post in that group asking a question or sharing a freebie or whatever it might be.

That's a lead generation strategy, right, is using Facebook groups to attract new people. Another lead generation strategy would be, um, Instagram engagement, right, so reaching out, cool DMing, or just DMing and engaging with people to bring them into your business. That's lead generation, uh, Facebook ads could be lead generation, putting out an ad that has people calling your business, DMing your business, opting into a freebie.

That's lead generation. And so again, you can see now, if you don't know what your offer is, [00:17:00] Then how would you know what would be an aligned lead generation strategy for you, for you, but also for your audience, right? A lot of my people, if I started cold DMing everybody, I'd be turning everybody off. I hate cold DMing, but I know my audience hates cold DMing.

So, if someone told me that I had to DM a hundred people a day, or send out a hundred emails a day to people, Like there's absolutely no way and these are strategies that are being taught and these are strategies that I hear regularly from people who book discovery calls with me to inquire about Spellbound and they say these are the things that they're being taught that they're not aligned with and these are things that I don't teach, I don't teach particular strategies, let's just say I help build out aligned lead generation strategies for people, I help build out aligned The offer articulation, I helped build out the marketing and sales component of it.

And that [00:18:00] can look like building out a quiz that can look like hosting a free masterclass that can look like speaking on stage that can look like using podcasts and being a podcast guest. That can look like going into other people's Facebook groups. If that's what you want to do, that can look like teaching what you do and other people's programs and courses that can look like doing a live launch.

That can look like an evergreen sales system that we put into place that can look like a bunch of different things. I don't prescribe one strategy or one system to people because every offer and every industry and every audience is different. I'm not just teaching you how to make sales on Instagram because your audience might not be on Instagram.

It might be on LinkedIn. I'm not just teaching people how to sell on LinkedIn or how to use Facebook ads because. That's not the only method that could work or benefit your business. So you've got your offer, you're [00:19:00] rocking it. You need support on lead gen by putting that offer in front of the right people.

That's part of it, right? So now you're on the lead gen and you're rocking your lead gen and things are awesome. What would you then focus on next? Well, there's a whole customer journey. That I talk about a lot, right? So attracting people into your world, getting people to opt in to your email list or opt into your world, or come follow you on Insta or LinkedIn or DM you or whatnot.

It's like, what do we do next, right? To me, there's two more phases that I think are really, really, really important to get into alignment with. Number one is the nurture part of this customer buying journey. And we need to get into alignment there and what that looks like. So, for example, that could look like having conversations with people in the DMs, staying engaged with them, you know, paying attention to what they're doing, liking what they're doing, [00:20:00] supporting them there.

It's the nurture, it's the conversations. How are you having conversations in your business? And who are you having conversations with? This could look like networking, going out to local community networking events. This could look like virtual networking. Like... What does that nurturing look like? And one of the biggest questions I'll often get asked is I do so well with word of mouth, Catherine.

And if you could just put me in front of people and I could just have conversations, then I would like be thriving in my business, but I'm stuck with this piece of it because I've come from the offline world where people would walk into my brick and mortar and I'd have conversations with. Or I'd go out to like local networking or people know me in my community and I can just have conversations and I will just naturally sell from having conversations.

How do I translate that into the online world? And the thing that I want you to consider, if you're even remotely thinking that or feeling that is [00:21:00] you're likely thinking about it from a different stage because it looks different. Um, and mortar. For example, when someone walks into your physical store, you could have a conversation with them in the online world.

That conversation doesn't maybe necessarily start, like when they give you their email address to a freebie, right? The, the conversation starts after that. And to me, it's sometimes up to us as coaches and consultants to strike up that conversation. And I will often hear. People say, I don't want to reach out.

I think that's skeezy or icky or whatever. But if somebody has expressed interest by opting in providing their email or even DMing you, right. If you use like DM me the keyword blank, or if you agree with this, shoot me an email or you'll see things in Facebook groups. Like I created this checklist.

That's helped me and my clients do X, Y, and Z. Do you want it drop in the [00:22:00] comments below? Like. Those are all ways that you can drum up conversation with people and the nurture phase of it. I want you to be really, really clear on this is not necessarily to sell them. It's to build trust, but also to help them qualify whether the offer that you have is the right offer for them.

And this is where I think people Go sideways because we go from like, I have an offer or I don't even have an offer. I'm promoting, but I don't know what I'm promoting. Okay. I have an offer now and I'm going to go and sell it. So I'm just going to go sell it when we have to create the lead generation.

We've got to bring people into our world because you have this offer and you try to go sell it and you blast it on social and it's crickets. This is exactly why, because are you putting the offer in front of the right people at the right time? Are you selling to them at the right time? Are you positioning the sale at the right time?

And to me, lead generation, [00:23:00] lots of people are shopping around. They might not even know that what you have is what they want. And when we can show what I call this, like, not forced or rushed, or here's my offer, buy it. When we can take that energy out of it and create this beautiful experience where you can decide if they're right for you, you can qualify whether they're right for your program, which is why the offer phase of this is so critical.

Because... You can assess these are the people that would benefit the best from my program. And these are the people that won't, I do this all the time with spellbound. I've had someone recently asked me, like, do you turn people away? Cause I'm in the midst of getting support in my business to help me take some of my sales calls.

And they said like, how do you turn people away? And I said, these are the qualifiers of people who are not ready for spellbound. And. We will turn people away. We will say, come back when you're ready. Or here's something that will support you to get you ready for it. Because [00:24:00] that's the other key thing about this, right?

Is like you want a clear articulate offer and it's not just to sell to anybody. It's getting clear on what is the transformation you can offer them. So that they see a return on investment. That's the due diligence of the seller, right? Is to make sure that they're accepting people into what they do and people that they can ultimately help and turning away those that they can't help in that moment.

So that's what the nurture phase is all about. And that's nurture alignment. So if you are, you've got a lot of people coming into your world and you're not seeing sales on the back end of it. There could be a nurture misalignment happening where you're not nurturing at all. You're just expecting people to come into your world and buy what you're putting out there without any conversation, any connection, any form of trust building.

And that is a big, big piece of the customer journey. That's often missed. And. Where we tend to focus [00:25:00] is, okay, I've got leads coming into my business. I've got this offer leads coming in and I have a conversion problem. And I actually say, you don't have a conversion problem. You have a nurture problem.

Cause if you can build trust and you can actually show your people that you're not just taking anybody and selling anybody on anything, and that you are asking the right questions and qualified questions to really support them, then they can see and feel that. Then the sale will naturally happen because your marketing is doing its job, right?

Your marketing is doing its job. And so let's just say like your crush in the lead gen, you've, you're building trust, you're having beautiful conversations, and now you're going, okay. I'm not really selling or I've been launching and I'm riding this launch rollercoaster and it's not for me or I'm relying on word of mouth or, um, I'm doing some type of other sales strategy.

Maybe I'm selling predominantly from stage and I don't really want to do that [00:26:00] and I want to go evergreen, right? Then you got to get into sales alignment. Like what sales strategies. Do you want to employ in your business and why and what those are can be a variety of different things. Like I said, in the online coaching and consulting space could be an evergreen sales strategy, could be a launch sales strategy.

It could be standing on stage and selling only from stage. It could be networking and doing in person networking events. It could be selling from other people's groups, leveraging other people's audiences. Whatever that might be, that's your choice and what feels in alignment to you. Again, it's different for everybody.

So... That's how you look at who and how you want support. If you need help with offer, you start with the offer. If you need help with like lead gen and sales, usually there's a marketing and sales coach that would be able to help you with the lead generation [00:27:00] and the sales component of it. But what you want to look for again is sort of that nuanced.

Approach, right? Is the approach right for me? Do I want to use Facebook groups to sell? No? Okay. Then that coach isn't the right for me. Do I want to use, you know, Pinterest? Or do I want to use paid ads? Or do I want to only do organic? Or do I want to spend all my time on Insta creating content five days a week to sell?

Like, these are questions you have to start to ask yourself. Because... That will help you distinguish the coach and the mentor that you want to hire and how they can best support you. Instead of getting into a program and going, Oh, they're asking me to DM a hundred people, or they're telling me I have to spend two hours a day in the DMs in order to nurture.

Oh, shit, I'm out, you know, or they're telling me I have to only sell via sales calls, and it's the only way well, then [00:28:00] that might not work. I love sales calls. It's the for me the best way to make connection and have conversation, but I get that it's not for everybody. And so Um, I don't just teach sales call method as a way to sell.

I also support people in writing sales pages and cultivating a beautiful funnel that way. So it's again, not a one size fits all, but what I'm sharing is is that these introspective questions that you can start to ask yourself, but also take a look at the world around you and look at what people are doing when it comes to their lead generation and sales.

Like how are they actually selling and how are they? You know, when are they pitching the offer? Let's just say, is it at the end of a five day challenge? Is it at the end of a three part live training series? Is it at the end of a masterclass? Is it via email, like a two day promotion in their emails? Like how are they selling?

And does that align with you? And it doesn't mean that you have to hire a coach that has. All of the [00:29:00] same values and all of the same approaches as you. It just means that do they have the depth and breadth to be able to teach something other than a one, like a one size fits all or a step by step process that worked for them, right?

Cause that's also what we see a lot in the coaching space is like, this worked for me and I've now built out this process that worked for me. But the problem is you get all these varieties of different people coming into your world that might not align with that. So the lead generation in the sales can usually go hand in hand.

It's just a matter of does that person that I'm wanting to hire, are they able to. Create multiple different ways of lead generation. Do they understand the variety of different lead generation strategies out there? Or are they only teaching on their own? How do they nurture and build trust with their audience?

Does it require a lot of time and effort and energy? What does that look like? And then sales wise, again, [00:30:00] what processes are in place for selling? Are they using only a sales page? Are they using only sales calls? Like what is it that they're using to sell? And this is again, where I think a lot of mistakes happen is that.

I'll see a lot of people go, I need to focus on building a sales page. And to me, writing a sales page is one of the last things that you do in a lot of ways, because you want to articulate the value of the offer and you want to build out that first before you even start to think about how you want to sell it.

Because you might not even need a sales page. Like I didn't. Write a sales page for Spellbound until this summer. And I had been running the program for months and months and months, right? It was the last thing on my mind because I had an offer. I had a plan of how I was going to attract people into my world and had a plan on how I was going to sell people like to get on calls and have conversations to sell Spellbound.

That was my process. And that's what I put into place. And to me, it [00:31:00] was the simplest, most direct path. So I'm going to having conversations and to be able to really talk about the offer. Now, I've talked a lot about strategy, and I've talked a lot about different lead generation strategies, I've talked a lot about like nurturing and how we can kind of do that, I've talked about the sales strategies, and this is what's predominantly taught by a lot of different coaches and mentors out there.

But, The key ingredient that is rarely taught in programs to the depth that is required beyond just high level messaging, who you are, what you do, why you do what you do, what your offer is, who you support, which is what I call high level messaging, is the content and copy that's required to actually move people down that customer buying journey.

Because somebody that's coming into your world, new and doesn't know who you are, requires a different level of communication than somebody that's at the nurture phase. And also the sales [00:32:00] phase, there's different levels of communication that needs to happen in order to move them down that journey. And that ingredient to me is the key ingredient that is an absolute must if we don't know how to communicate at the different levels of the journey.

It won't matter what strategy that you employ in your business, it won't work. And that's why so many of y'all are hopping from coach to coach or trying to find a strategy that works. It's not the strategy. I shared a ton of different strategies. Sales calls, work sales pages, work launches, work evergreen works, uh, using other people's audience works, being on podcast works, speaking from stage works, selling on LinkedIn, selling on Insta, selling on Tik TOK, it all works.

The one key ingredient. That is a must that you need if you want the strategy to actually work is communication, is being able to communicate with your people and put that offer in front [00:33:00] of them at the right time in order for them to buy and at every stage of that journey. Requires a different level of communication.

It requires a different level of connection. It requires a different level of trust building. And that to me is what you want to look for above all of it. If you're, if you're in the lead gen and sales nurturing part of your business where you're like, okay, I want to grow and I want to reach more people and I need to hire a coach and a mentor, who do I hire?

What are they teaching? Oh, they're teaching strategy. What form of content and copy support did they offer in their program? And I'm not talking surface level content and copy, right? I'm not talking about, um, Again, the high level content and copy feedback that's offered. I'm in a, I'm in an experience right now where I get copy support, which I absolutely love cause I'm a copywriter, but I will tell you this right now.

It is high level [00:34:00] copy feedback. The program itself is designed for leading copywriters and people that are very, very experienced in copywriting. And so high level. Information that we get back, we can apply and implement because we know it so well, it's like second nature to us. So someone can give me high level feedback and I can run with it.

But if copy and content creation and marketing and sales is not your jam, you need more depth and context and feedback from that perspective so that you can integrate it into your world and really learn it. And if you don't have that, and you're just getting this high level feedback, it's going to take a long frickin time to really integrate this in, and it's probably going to take a lot of frustration and headache, because the strategies you're employing doesn't matter which one you're employing.

If you don't got the content and copy, and how to communicate, when to communicate, why to communicate at the different levels [00:35:00] of the customer journey, It's not going to matter. And I know some of you might be thinking, Catherine, well, what about energy and mindset? All of those matter, but I'm talking about the customer mind journey and marketing and sales specifically.

I always think having a mindset coach or an energetic coach or doing somatic work is vital to this journey and something that I'm always investing in and something that I'm always getting the support in, which brings me to one other. Thought is looking at the coach and mentor that you're wanting to hire.

And, and are they embodying what they teach? So if somebody is preaching energetics or mindset work or anything like, did they actually have a mindset coach? And you can ask these on sales calls. Y'all, you can ask these in emails. You can ask these questions in the DMS, no questions off limit. And if somebody gets insulted by what they're like, if they get insulted with the questions you're asking, that's a red flag right there that they're probably not the best coach for you.

[00:36:00] Right? I just had somebody recently asked me, who are your coaches and mentors? And I was, and I answered very honestly, I have a mindset coach. I had a somatic coach that I work with, and this is monthly, right? So it's like, I'm working on this stuff monthly. Those are the two coaches that I have right now.

I don't have a business strategist. I'm working with somebody to help build out team in my business at the moment. Um, but it's more from an implementation perspective. So they're helping me implement. Um, they're not coaching and mentoring me necessarily on, um, Why I need a team or how to be a leader in my business.

They're actually coaching on implementing in the hiring part of it. Um, so that's who I have at the moment and that's where, what I've invested in. And the reason I've invested in that, because I have. The other stuff I just shared with you all built out. So I'm in the phase of scaling the business. I'm not necessarily in that growth phase, which is again, the offer articulation, lead gen nurture [00:37:00] sales.

Then you get to a point where you're like, okay, I can scale. And what do I need to scale? And I was offered. I had a high, high ticket opportunity to join a mastermind that was a business strategist mastermind that would help me elevate my brand would help me, um, you know, potentially write a book to help me like really scale things.

But it was more from that business strategist perspective. And I decided not to hire that particular person because. I realized that the best return on investment in that moment for me would be to hire a team to get the support. So instead of paying somebody, you know, 20, 000 or 30, 000 for a high ticket mastermind.

Why wouldn't I take that money and hire a team to do that? So that's where my decision making process came into place because I knew I couldn't scale without team. And [00:38:00] so that would be the fifth sort of ingredient if you're in that phase of business right now, where you have your lead generations rocking, your sales are rocking.

And you've got no problems there. There's no bottlenecks there, or maybe there are bottlenecks within that. And you're wanting to hire a team to support you like me, hiring somebody to support me with sales calls, uh, is, is key and vital for me because there is a block there, right? I there's only so many hours in a day that I can take sales calls.

So it's being able to sort of identify then where the blocks are and what you need support with. And that's how I decided how I wanted to scale and where my best. Use of my investment and money would go and return on investment would be, would be to hire support within my business. And by support, I mean, implementation people that could actually do the work, uh, that I no longer potentially have the capacity for.

And so that's my thinking brain there, but I didn't want to add that particular [00:39:00] one in yet, um, because I really wanted to focus on the, you know, the offer articulation or offer alignment, lead gen, nurturing sales alignment, and then who to hire and how to get that support in your business, but then also that key ingredient, which to me is like, what to say, when to say, how to say it in that customer journey to move people down it.

And that to me is. Like, like I said, a must must ingredient without it, all you have is a shell or a strategy, um, and a system, but you have no way of communicating the value of what you do, but also creating demand for what you do, but also ensuring that the right people are coming into your experiences so that you're not in a position where.

You have a group coaching program with people that aren't aligned with you or are not able to get the best results from you. And that is a win win on both sides, right? It's a win win for the [00:40:00] person. Because if they potentially didn't do their due diligence and ask the questions and all the things, then you can say no to them.

And save them the headache and the frustration and the bitterness. But that's not happening in a lot of programs, right? Um, which is why a lot of us have experienced being in programs where like, I don't think I was ready for this. I remember the, the second investment I made was like, and my friend said the same thing.

She's like, we never should have been allowed in that program. We were not at the stage of our online business. where we could have benefited. So again, it's coming from also that place of non judgment, right? Like I wasn't looking at the person going, Oh, your stuff isn't valuable. Or this is. You know, complete crap.

It was that I couldn't actually get the best out of the program. I couldn't get the value out of the program because I wasn't at the right stage. And to me, that's on both of us, right? It's not just on the buyer to be totally a [00:41:00] hundred percent responsible. It's also on the seller to go, you're not qualified yet for the program, but here are some other things that will support you in getting there.

So with that. I'm going to love you and leave you. I really hope that this episode has supported you in self assessing where you're at and to also start to ask some of those questions of like, how do I want to generate leads in my business? What does that look like? Can I see myself? Reaching out to a hundred people in my DMS cold.

Can I see myself posting on other people's Facebook groups to promote what I do? Can I see myself teaching in other people's groups or leveraging other people's audiences? Can I see myself X, Y, and Z fill in the blank, whatever it is that you want to do. Can I see myself spending You know hours and hours and hours a day creating stories and content for social media [00:42:00] you get to decide What feels aligned with you and then obviously at all the other stages?

I won't go through them because I have already I really hope this has allowed you to sort of start to self reflect and have that Introspection so that you can then now look from within and go, okay This is exactly what I need and this is what I need to scale and grow. And these are the coaches I'm looking for because there is a lot of noise out there and I get there's a lot of things being sold and a lot of people going, this is what you need if you want X, Y, and Z and I get it.

But the more power that we can have in our own decision making process and the more power we can. You know, take and that intuitive guidance we can use to really make those decisions, the better off we'll be and the best return on investment will come from it because you will be in a place that is fully in alignment with you, but also ready for the work that's [00:43:00] required and that you will get the best value out of what's being taught.

So with that, I'm going to love you and Olivia, and I cannot wait for next week's episode. If you loved this episode. Please pop me a DM over on Insta or drop a comment on the post. When I share the episode that you loved it, what you loved about it, lessons. If you have any questions, please pop me questions over in my DMS.

Happy to answer those for you. Um, if you want clarity or clarification on anything that I shared, please do that. I love to hear from you all. And I hope you have a fab day. Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here. Next time. You can also find us on social media at creatively owned and online at creativelyowned.com until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.