Bootstrapped Web

Jordan Gal: 00:09

This is Bootstrap Web episode number 76. Today, we have our good buddy, Tim Conley, on with us, and we're gonna talk about the subject of coaching. What it is, who it's good for, and other aspects that Tim could help us out on. I haven't been here in a while. It's nice to be back, Brian.

Jordan Gal: 00:29

Of course, I'm Jordan as always.

Brian Casel: 00:30

Yeah, Jordan. Good to have you back. Brian here and, Tim, you know, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3: 00:35

Hey. Thanks for having me, guys.

Brian Casel: 00:37

You know, Tim, you know, I I think we've both been fans of your stuff for a while, you know, tuning in your podcast and and always enjoyed that. It was great to actually meet you in person at at out in MicroConf a couple weeks ago.

Speaker 3: 00:46

Yeah. It was fun.

Brian Casel: 00:47

Yeah. So, you know, today, I know that lately well, not just lately, but, you know, for a long time, you've been doing coaching, working with entrepreneurs and and doing that. So we thought it would be a really interesting topic of conversation here today to just get our minds around, like, what what is coaching and why is it valuable or or how is it done right, how is it not done right? Because this is actually something that I've been thinking about, lately in two ways. I mean, I'm for a while, I've been interested in finding a coach and I'm not really sure where to go with that or how to go about it, but I've also been doing a little bit of coaching, with, with with students in the productized course.

Brian Casel: 01:23

So I'm always kind of looking to learn best practices of what goes into to being a good coach for someone. So why don't we just kinda get started with, you know, well, what what are you kinda up to right now? Give us an update on on on what you're doing these days.

Speaker 3: 01:36

Okay. So I still call my coaching consulting. I do a lot of management consulting while kind of holding people's hands along the way. I think that's where the coaching side of it comes in. I'm a believer that business success is about 90% mental and only 10% execution?

Speaker 3: 02:00

Because I've worked with so many people over the years, and the things that's always holding them back are their own thoughts about what it is that they're doing or wanting to do, and not the actual thing itself. That's the one benefit. We'll kick off the show with that's the one benefit of coaching, is when it allows you to get over your own mental hurdles, the things that you should already know to do, but you're not doing them, and you need some outside stimuli that takes you just takes you right over it. And and that's the benefit of coaching.

Brian Casel: 02:35

In in your work, you know, consulting with with other entrepreneurs, do you try to focus on working with one type of entrepreneur or or CEO and someone who's at a certain stage?

Speaker 3: 02:47

I've tried, but I get so bored. If I'm working on the exact same problem over and over again, I completely tune out. And that's why I've enjoyed being a consultant and lately being called a coach, is that I get to work with a variety of problems. Problems are fundamentally the same, but the way they're the way those problems show up in an individual's life is different. And so then we work through how to how to fix their operations in their company, how to fix their marketing, how to fix sales, all those different elements of their business from the perspective of the entrepreneur's desires and goals and achievements that they want.

Speaker 3: 03:33

Whereas if you went to somebody like McKinsey and everything, they've got specific management structures that they do, and it's more about the rigid structure, corporate structure that they would instill in a business and not so much about what the actual entrepreneur wants for themselves.

Jordan Gal: 03:51

This what I think is the the fascinating and kind of infuriating part of of the whole, like, coach consultant. I assume, correct me if I'm wrong, that the people you work with, they already know what to do. It's it's not so much knowledge transfer. It's almost like confidence building in a way and and, like, decluttering whatever obstacles they put up themselves in their mind that get in their way. It's one of these things we all have experienced.

Jordan Gal: 04:19

We have friends that ask us about their businesses, and to us, things seem black and white.

Speaker 3: 04:24

Oh, of

Jordan Gal: 04:24

course, you should raise prices. Of course, you should do this. If I were you, I would do it this way because it's much easier from the outside. The the funny thing is that you're not necessarily wrong when you look at it from the outside and it looks black and white to you. Oftentimes, that's actually more right than the person who's in it who has all these obstacles and spider webs in their way.

Jordan Gal: 04:46

I don't know how much experience you know, Brian, you do some of it with your students too. I've done some of it. I recently just hired someone to help me with my marketing site, and it turned into, like, a coaching relationship. They're, like, guiding me through my own thoughts.

Brian Casel: 05:00

Like Right.

Jordan Gal: 05:01

They're just kinda there to, like, bounce things off of and put little checks in place, but there's no reason I couldn't have done it without them. It's just that I end up doing it with them much faster and more efficiently, and I make the decisions instead of, like, procrastinating. So I'm I'm assuming that's that's a lot of what you find when you work with individual entrepreneurs.

Speaker 3: 05:22

Yes. Definitely. I I wasn't sure if that was directed at Brian or me. So just go ahead and Well, go

Brian Casel: 05:29

you know, I I think it I think it is it's interesting and this is kind of a question that I have in my mind too is like, what is the difference between a consultant and a coach? Or or you might also throw in like mentor in there like like, mentor, coach, and consultant. I think they're a lot of times, these things get mixed and matched, but there there are different benefits and different, kind of relationships there. Like, I I I would think that a consultant is is really hired to to help you form the right strategy and and give you, like, tactical advice or in some cases actually implement it. Whereas a coach is really more about listening and helping you and helping to, like, guide your own thoughts and ask the right questions to get to get you, the the coaching student or or whoever, to to come up with the right direction on your own, but but to guide them through the right asking the right questions.

Brian Casel: 06:20

And then, like, the mentor, I I would think is more of, let me share like, you're lesser experienced. I'm more experienced. Let me share what I've learned and and see how you can apply that.

Speaker 3: 06:30

Right. I wrote an article about six months ago on how to really find a mentor, because it's a question that I've always been asked for years now. People would ask me to mentor them, and I've always said no. Everyone who's ever asked, I've always said no to. I have mentored people, but I approached them.

Speaker 3: 06:52

They showed me that they were someone who was going to do what I told them. And then I approached the topic of, hey, if you want, you can call me whenever you want. And give them the guidance that they needed to grow and build their company. I also think that there's a lot of people out there who charge for being a mentor. That there, I would call a coach or a consultant and not an actual mentor.

Speaker 3: 07:19

I I think if someone is truly your mentor, they're doing it just to pay just to pay it forward. And and for someone who is getting paid to do something for you, you know, they now they've got something that's not an altruistic reason to be talking to you. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm I'm a capitalist. I get paid I get paid to do what I do.

Speaker 3: 07:43

So I would say that if someone's gonna be your mentor that and then they ask you for money or a piece of your company, then it's not then it's not mentorship.

Brian Casel: 07:53

Yeah. I I agree with that. And I like the way that you put it there because I I think this whole idea of mentorship has always been a very gray area. At least it has been for me. It's like like what is a mentor?

Brian Casel: 08:04

What constitutes a relationship with a mentor? And I guess do agree with what you're saying in that it's it's more of an informal well, it can be structured, guess, but it's more of of like a it starts with like a friendship kind of relationship and then and then grows out of that and it's like kind of mutually beneficial. Whereas coaching does seem more like a service.

Speaker 3: 08:25

Yeah. Vince Lombardi got paid to coach. Right? Right. And and he I like using him as an example.

Speaker 3: 08:32

If you if anyone goes back and reads the way he coached, it was always all about the fundamentals of the game, and that's how I focus. And that's why I still call it consulting because we spend so much time on the actual fundamentals of business because everybody wants to jump to more sales, growth hacking. They want they wanna jump to the the fancy fun stuff, the the things that get them excited, the stuff they read on TechCrunch, and not the stuff that actually builds a real company. So always take them back down to the very fundamentals of things. And then once you do that, then they go, oh, this is not as hard as I thought it was gonna be.

Jordan Gal: 09:11

What are those fundamentals that keep coming up over and over again that people tend to gloss over and and and wanna jump past?

Speaker 3: 09:19

Oh gosh, there's a few. On the main side of it is actually making a sale, getting money from a customer. A lot of people skip over that. When they go to start their company, even when they're running their company, they kind of forget the fact that if they don't bring money in, then the business doesn't exist. Someone has to put money into the company for it to exist, and the best place for that to come from is actually customers, not from your own bank account, not from someone else's bank account.

Speaker 3: 09:50

It's better that it comes directly from a customer because then you know for a fact that you're providing value into the world. That's the first fundamental of business is that you actually have to sell something.

Brian Casel: 10:02

So you're kinda talking about like validating and doing customer development early on and and there are a lot of entrepreneurs out there who maybe whether they're forming a company and putting together an early product or, you know, filing for an LLC, like these are all actions you can take early on, but they're not necessarily putting you in business until you have a paying customer. Correct.

Speaker 3: 10:23

Yeah. You're not actually in business until a customer gives you money for the thing that you have or or the thing that you're making. That that's that's the other side is that sometimes you can get to the paying customer before you actually have something to sell them. Yep. As long as you do that legally.

Brian Casel: 10:41

You know, something else that I'm wondering about is in terms of coaching, are there stages that an entrepreneur would would reach where coaching makes more or less sense for them, or are there stages where it just doesn't make sense to seek out a coach?

Speaker 3: 10:55

Yeah. I think, because I've had experience with The Foolish Adventure Show, and a lot of the people that came to that were newbies, as it was the show was originally designed to attract new people to business, and so I got to see a lot of people that wanted coaching, but it was more like hand holding, please make decisions for me kind of thing. And that's a stage where you shouldn't have a coach. I I don't think I don't think someone in the startup world should be getting coached. They they need to get something off the ground first to get to get coaching.

Speaker 3: 11:34

I liken it back to sports is that when you're when you're growing up learning how to play a particular sport. Mine, I loved basketball. Unfortunately, I was too short and too slow to actually be any good at it, but I loved it, and I practiced all the time. And then when I went to actually play the game, that's when there was a coach. When I I had already developed a fundamental skills on the playground, when I went to go play the game, that's when the the coach gets you prepared to really, you know, to to go out there and compete against another team.

Speaker 3: 12:10

And and so I see that with business is that if you're if you're brand new and you're going to spend money on a coach, that's money you could spend on getting a customer.

Brian Casel: 12:20

Right.

Speaker 3: 12:21

And I I would rather I would rather someone brand new go out and fall flat on their face and spend money trying to get a customer than to spend money on a coach that's gonna tell them, well, you should go out and fall flat on your face and and learn in in the real world.

Brian Casel: 12:37

Yeah. And I I really like that distinction because I I think somebody who who is a complete newbie, and I think we've all found ourselves in this in this place at one point. I mean nothing beats going out there and doing it and talking to customers and getting your hands dirty and and actually taking action but at that point if you're gonna if you're seeking a coach or if you're thinking about seeking a coach I think that time and money is is much better spent on things like like courses or books or or listening to podcasts or or blogs just to start to learn the fundamentals of of of what it means to to become a a business owner based on whatever you're doing, and then and then start taking action. And then once you get a a few steps ahead and start to, gain some momentum or or move on to to, like, the next phase of whatever you're doing, you're really into the game of of business. And that's actually kind of where I feel like I'm I'm finding myself right now where I I look at a lot of courses out there.

Brian Casel: 13:33

I'll buy a course here and there, but I, a lot of times, I just feel like most educational material and even a lot of books, like business books these days, are they're they're either too generic and and and broad to be actionable or they're geared towards newbies. And once you get a few steps ahead, that's that's where coaching could really help. Masterminds really, have played a big role for me. You know, things like that, really make a difference at you know, once you get a few steps ahead.

Speaker 3: 14:02

Right. Yeah. You you have to have something to play off of. If you if you don't have anything, then you don't have a skill, you don't have anything that is is operational, then no advice is gonna be able to help you. You you actually have to have something to get advice on.

Speaker 3: 14:20

And and a lot of people that go go after a coach or or a consultant too soon are I think are looking for permission to do what they wanna do as opposed to actually going out and do it themselves, standing on their own two feet, and earning their spot in the world. They're hoping someone else will get them there, and they don't ever have to fail. Know, they want they want to go out and buy a lottery ticket and know that it's a winning one. And I I think that's the that's the wrong approach to getting into business. But once you're in business, there's a huge amount of value going out and bringing in the right expert for what you need at that time.

Jordan Gal: 15:01

Let's let's assume someone is past that first stage. They have their business up and running, and it's starting to dawn on them that they don't actually know how to do everything, and they could probably use some help with certain things. Okay? So they're coming around to the fact that they need more information. They need other people's point of view, maybe a coach, maybe a mess around, whatever it is.

Jordan Gal: 15:25

The the the tricky thing that I've always found with coaching is, first, you don't know how much you're supposed to spend, and you have no idea how much you're supposed to get back. Right? It's not like a marketing campaign where you say, I'm gonna spend $5,000 on this and hope to get, you know, $20,000 back and that will be worth it and then I can continue with that. I've seen people online offer, like, I'll coach you for $500 a month. I know there are things like EMYTH out there that are a few thousand dollars a month.

Jordan Gal: 15:54

And then I know there are super high end guys that come in for, you know, six months and it's $50 a month. And so, obviously, there's a huge range. What should somebody expect not only to pay, but also what to kind of expect to get for it? It's it's not this quantifiable ROI, but what what what should people expect in the in the transaction, in the relationship?

Speaker 3: 16:18

Oh, okay. So we gotta define coaching here because a business coaching should actually have a defined ROI. It should return a significant ROI. With me, I turn away people that I don't think I can get at least a 10 x return on their investment in me because there's a multiplier effect. If you are at one and you get somebody in who can give you a 10 x return, you're at 10.

Speaker 3: 16:49

Well but if you're at 1,000,000 and someone gives you a 10 x return, you're at 10,000,000. It's a it's a huge, huge difference. So you gotta look at where you're at and and what that multiplier really is going to be. A lot of a lot of people who are still really early, they they probably just need some guidance that that a book or a course or even even going to your local community college and taking an accounting class would handle for them if they're in the early stages. A lot of that will take care of that sort of thing.

Speaker 3: 17:25

It's like go pick up Drucker, you'll learn a lot about management. But if you're at a stage where you feel like you're doing the right things but you're not getting the right results, that's when you will probably need a consultant to come in. Or if you're fairly certain about how to do something, but you feel that it's more of a mental block or you're just not dialing into a particular vision, then a business coach can come in and help you find that. And so sometimes a business coaching relationship is going to be really short, where that person can only give you just a small multiple, or you're going to find a business coach that is going to be there for years because they're always adding value to you. And and for some like, for some of my clients, they've outgrown me in a year.

Speaker 3: 18:21

And then some of my other clients, they're still getting huge returns on me several years later after being, still working with me.

Brian Casel: 18:29

Tim, can you give us, like, some kind of example of of a way that that you've provided, like, a return on on a coaching investment? Like, obviously, not sharing names or anything, but, what what's the problem that that someone came to you with and over time you've helped them work it out to a point where they actually see a quantifiable return?

Speaker 3: 18:50

So I'll stay away from marketing because that's an easy one. Right? Because my whole background for sixteen ish years has been in marketing, and those are easy returns. Somebody has a marketing problem, a sales problem, those are easy ones because you make a tweak, there's more money. But let's go to something a little harder, like in operations.

Speaker 3: 19:15

So one of my clients, they were having issues with their project manager. And what we found out was that they weren't actually treating the project manager as a full on project manager. They they were treating this person as a lead technician. The person had, the authority of a lead technician, but all the responsibility of a project manager. And things were falling apart.

Speaker 3: 19:40

And I and so we went in. We analyzed that particular person. That person wasn't actually a good fit for the job. We got a new project manager in, and I told him, you got six months before this person's going to be truly effective. But we figured out how to craft that job so that it removed a lot of the stress that was happening to the management.

Speaker 3: 20:04

Because management was coming in, the two owners of the company were always needing to fix the things that their lead technician, quote unquote project manager, was screwing up. And then once we redefined that job, it took a lot of hours off of their hands, which was able to free up their time. If you quantified their time in some conservative way, we figured it came out to about $20,000 a month in in savings. But we wouldn't get added productivity from this new person, this new project manager, for at least six months. But after six months, we could see that this person would be effective enough that they could handle almost twice as many clients, which is huge.

Speaker 3: 20:52

And so you get a return that year, but how many years into the future is that added productivity going to compound? That's huge.

Brian Casel: 21:02

You know, once they get that that revelation and and restructure things between the project manager and and then freeing up the founders, once that learning happens and you see that returned in the first year, that multiplies in year two, year three when they can replicate it and and kinda move forward.

Speaker 3: 21:19

Right. Right. And and so they're they're now at a stage where they're gonna have to put in a second project manager because they're getting to this person's capacity. And once you get near capacity, then you've got to bring somebody on before you go overcapacity. And then because then stuff will start breaking and you'll start losing customers.

Brian Casel: 21:38

Yeah. So can we talk a little bit about the actual nuts and bolts of coaching? Like Okay. Do do you have a a process that you go through maybe, like, early on with with new, coaching clients? And then also, like, logistically, like, are we talking, like, once a month or weekly?

Brian Casel: 21:57

Or does it vary? Or how does that go down?

Speaker 3: 22:00

Yeah. What what does that

Jordan Gal: 22:01

look like? Are you just on call at all times? Or

Speaker 3: 22:04

Not not at all. Not not at all. You you have to have very strict guidelines in how you work with your clients as a coach or a consultant. Otherwise, you will never have a life. And I know this for a fact because at one point, I didn't have a life because I was always available to my clients.

Speaker 3: 22:25

So I have a method of my own, but as Jordan was saying, coaching is all over the place. You have the $500 a month one, and that person is available to you at all hours of the day. And then you've got people that charge 50,000 in a month, and you only get to talk to them once. You know, whatever it is. You know, it could just be everywhere.

Speaker 3: 22:51

My structure is I work with my clients. We work really heavy in the early early days of of our work together. I require a six month commitment, a minimum, from from a new client because even though we can make giant strides in the first couple of months, the real long term impact doesn't start kicking in. Like, their their mental shift doesn't start kicking in until after typically after five, six, or more months. And once they get to that stage, then they're just eager to continue working because it keeps compounding.

Speaker 3: 23:29

So first I require that commitment because I also have to give a commitment to that person because I'm helping build a company that I don't get a piece of. I don't take a piece. I'm probably going to start doing that just because I'm at a stage in my life where I'm starting to question building someone else's business and not getting a share of the rewards. I also don't need the money, so I feel I'm semi altruistic in what I do. So I'm at that stage where I come in, we work together.

Speaker 3: 24:09

In the early days, we're putting in three, four hour sessions at a time. And we do about two sessions a month with a lot of homework because I I found that if I used to do weekly, and so and sometimes I used to do multiple times in a single week, and people just couldn't they couldn't get enough done for them to get as much out of it. Even though it costs me money to not be working frequently, I I've cut it back to just twice a month that we work together, and we do that over a six month period.

Brian Casel: 24:45

So that that's really interesting to me. So you know, because I I've never really worked with a coach before and I mean it sounds pretty intense like three four hour sessions twice a month. Yes. For someone who's a little bit farther along what maybe they're in in the beginning phases of a new business or they've been working in their business for a couple of years, they're super busy. And before they start working with you, they probably have a ton of initiatives and projects that they're in right in the middle of of doing.

Brian Casel: 25:14

Right? And even that they probably have, like, mid and long term goals that they're working towards as well. When they start working with you, like, that very first month, the first couple of sessions, three, four hours, a session with with some homework and things like that, what happens there? Are you basically coming in and and helping them rethink everything and put everything kind of on pause and, like, let's reprioritize things? And, like, how does how does that transition in the very beginning look like for the for the founder entrepreneur?

Speaker 3: 25:43

Okay. So I work with people who have been in business for a few years and typically have sales revenues of at least 500,000 or up. My average client has about 1 and a half million in revenue. And they're coming to me because they're hitting a plateau. They're they're still working startup hours, eighty hour weeks and stuff.

Speaker 3: 26:06

They're still and they still work like a startup. And they're wondering why they were able to build this company with their start up initiative, and they got it to this stage. Why isn't those same things taking them to the next level? And so that they come to me, and I break them of their start up habits and and groom them into professional managers. Groom them into being CEOs of their company as opposed to a founder of their company.

Speaker 3: 26:34

So those are the kind of people I work with. So when they're coming in, I have to break them of all those initiatives. It's a bad habit by that time. And they're addicted they're addicted to that bad habit.

Brian Casel: 26:48

So you're just like taking on projects. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 26:50

Yeah. I gotta have this. I gotta have that. So I I just started with a new client yesterday. And so the the call went two hours and fifty minutes.

Speaker 3: 27:00

And one of the first things he told me and he knew it. He's like, oh, I I knew this. I was doing it right before our call, and it took me a half an hour, and it was some form of administrative task. And he does it every single month for three or four different customers that pay him a lot of money, so he figures, well, it's worth it for me to do this administrative task. And he's like, I know Tim's gonna yell at me.

Speaker 3: 27:26

I know for a fact he's gonna do it. But here I am doing this thing. And so one of the so the very first thing we worked on was I told him, we're not gonna do it in this call because it'd be a waste of the call, but I want you as your homework, I want you to write down all the administrative tasks that you have. That because you should not be doing any administrative work when you're the CEO of your company. You should not be doing it because that is preventing you from doing something very important in your company.

Speaker 3: 27:57

And and we're gonna define what that very important thing is, but, but before we can do that, we've gotta free up your life so that you can actually do it.

Jordan Gal: 28:07

The truth is that if you're making a $100,000 a year, you're you're a lot closer to the person who's just starting out. Right? If you have Yeah. $5,000, you don't spend $5,000 on a coach. Spend it on marketing and advertising and sales and get your revenues up and grow your business.

Jordan Gal: 28:25

But it's when you have the capital to think a little longer term And you get to the point where you say, I can't do this forever, and I'm not gonna get to 10,000,000 in revenue from where I am right now doing the same things. When you can think, I'm gonna invest this money over the next year and expect a return from it not next month, but next year, then you start to sound like you're in a position where coaching and and that type of mindset change and organization and restructuring and that's where the value really is.

Speaker 3: 29:02

Yes. You you do have to have resources. That's that's why I work with the people I work with. Because if they don't have enough resources, then they don't get a big enough multiplier effect from hiring me. Even though I know I help.

Speaker 3: 29:22

Even somebody who's just starting up, they don't have any money, I know I can help them, but they won't get the multiplier effect, and I have to be choosy. I only have so much time in a day, so I want to work with people who have the resources that they can get huge returns off of my effort. Because part of it is fun, Right? With one of my clients, we finally got one of the marketing systems to work really well, and it's adding about $200,000 in annual revenue each month. And where they were previously at a pretty much plateaued 75,000 monthly run rate.

Speaker 3: 30:10

And now each month, we're adding at least twelve months worth of revenue every month, just hitting them. And so they're pretty excited. But if they didn't have the resources to do the things that we needed to do, they they would have just had incremental growth over over the time we've been working together.

Brian Casel: 30:32

So on that, like, maybe within that example, if if part of the the coaching service for that client has to do with, like, sales and marketing, Is that still a mental block? Like they they're experienced in in in marketing and all sorts of channels and things and they've tried certain things but maybe not others. Is it a matter of like getting over trying a certain channel or just getting their head around a certain strategy or like what's the mental block that that coaching can help with when it comes to marketing?

Speaker 3: 31:00

Well, see, that that's why I still call what I do consulting because I can go in and do tactical stuff. I can fix things Because I have enough experience actually making marketing campaigns, I can tell when when one's broken, and and I can fix it. So that that's that's why that that's why I'm I'm in this kinda schizophrenic world of I'm a consultant and a coach, but you pay for one in the same.

Brian Casel: 31:27

Gotcha. Gotcha.

Speaker 3: 31:28

Cool. So I don't know if I can answer that properly for you.

Jordan Gal: 31:31

So what's what's an example of that? That's like, okay. You're running your Facebook ads to this type of offer, whereas you should really run it to a lower end offer and then work your way up to the higher end? Is that type of tactical fix?

Speaker 3: 31:46

Sometimes. It's really situational, so that that's kinda hard to answer. But for for this particular client, they had they had an idea, and they executed on it poorly. And and I can't go into too much of the details, but they they had an idea, and I thought it was a brilliant idea. Most people in their industry not doing it, and and I knew it worked in other industries, but they just didn't execute fully.

Speaker 3: 32:15

And then I kept hammering them for months. Execute on this. Execute on this. Just keep going, and you you're gonna have to run through multiple channels, advertising channels, to find out which one's going to be the hit. And so we're gonna have to test quite a few things.

Speaker 3: 32:31

So this was that was the mental model is that they had never tested multiple channels frequently. That's the that's the thing that they had never done before. They they would do a channel, and that's it. And then they would months later, they would do another channel, but usually stopping the one that they had previously been making money off of. So so that was a mental block for them, which is also a tactical thing.

Speaker 3: 32:57

Well, why'd you stop the thing that was working? You add new channels. You don't take away channels unless it stops making you money. That so so it was a combination of both a mental block that was preventing them from executing, but also some knowledge that they had never done the kind of multichannel advertising testing before in in their careers. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 33:24

So they they they didn't know how to do that. And so I had to get them to do it, but then they also had to come overcome the fear of putting money into five different channels at one time.

Brian Casel: 33:36

Yeah. And it was pretty scary. Right? Maybe one to to actually hit.

Speaker 3: 33:40

Yeah. And one yeah. One might make them money. Yeah.

Brian Casel: 33:43

Right? So for those listening and I I think we have people who are who who are really in in all sorts of different stages. I I don't know that our audience is really mostly the beginners. I I think we have, you know, we get emails from people saying like they're a little bit farther along and and whatnot. So how how does someone go about finding a coach?

Brian Casel: 34:02

And this is something that I've I've thought about myself as well because on the one hand, I I wanna I I would wanna work with someone who maybe I know them personally, maybe maybe I don't, but at least I know of them and I know what their experience is and I've seen what they've done, versus working with a perfect stranger who just says, hey. I I do coaching and and and I can bring all this experience, but you've never heard of me, which they might have a a ton of great experience and they might be a fantastic coach, but how do you evaluate that and how do you get started on on the search if if you feel like you're in that position to to find a coach for, you know, for for anyone. You know, maybe there's a different answer depending on on which stage you're at, but

Speaker 3: 34:45

Right. One one is, do you need a coach versus a consultant? That is definitely a question you have to try to figure out. So if it's more strategic and so you have a vision for your company, but you know you don't have the people in your company with that skill set to accomplish it, Whether you need someone from Bain and Company or McKinsey or something to come in and create the capabilities inside your company versus you need guidance because you have the people, you just don't know exactly what you need them working on, and you just need some guidance on that. Or you are kind of fuzzy on your vision, and you need somebody to come in and work.

Speaker 3: 35:34

So if you know what you're trying to accomplish, or if you're completely confused, don't hire a consultant. Right? Because there's a good chance that you're going to take advantage of the fact that you're completely confused in your business. That would be a time to go get a coach to get that confusion straightened out before you hire consultants to put the capabilities into your company. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3: 36:03

You're figuring out like where you actually are?

Brian Casel: 36:06

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think at a certain stage, maybe earlier on, it makes a little bit more sense just, know, like we said earlier, you know, maybe you're not ready for a coach, but you are you would very much benefit from having a mastermind group or at least, you know, attending conferences and meetups and and and forming these relationships with other other people doing things. I mean, I mean, for me, I was working on my businesses for like four or five years before I really started to get involved in communities and and start to get to know people who are doing some of those similar things. And in in these last two or three years of of really getting involved with other people, I mean, it's just been super, helpful to to run ideas back and forth.

Brian Casel: 36:48

So any way that

Speaker 3: 36:49

Right.

Brian Casel: 36:49

You could do that early on, you know.

Speaker 3: 36:51

Well, I I would also I wanna add, to make sure it's clear for everyone listening is that a coach is not a substitute for a mastermind. A mastermind is your peers, people who are hustling just as hard as you are, if not harder. If if the people that you're in your in the mastermind with you are not hustling as hard as you are, or or they haven't they haven't achieved at least your level or slightly above. It's it's always better to be the the the weakest guy in in the mastermind because you're the one you're gonna get a huge amount of benefit. But it's but you don't you don't wanna be the top guy in a mastermind because then you're not gonna get as much out of it.

Speaker 3: 37:34

So so there's a little bit of dynamics that go into it, but a coach does not replace a mastermind.

Brian Casel: 37:40

Yeah. I I mean, I I totally agree with that. Like Yeah. You know? A 100%

Jordan Gal: 37:43

from our own experience.

Brian Casel: 37:45

Yeah. Yeah. And and I think I think mastermind groups really help, especially early on, but definitely, you know, a few steps ahead as well. But, yeah, I I think the coaching, it would be like a different type of of benefit and and value. It sounds like it would be a much more strategic and intense, kind of, you know, next step.

Brian Casel: 38:04

But, I mean, the question is, like, what are the outlets? Like, how do you go about finding that person? You know, I I there there's, you know, Clarity FM. You can look to see kinda Yeah. That seems like a like a hub for for coaches these days.

Brian Casel: 38:16

But then again, you know

Speaker 3: 38:17

Yeah.

Brian Casel: 38:17

Starting point. There's like the signal versus noise ratio in there. You know, you're not really sure what Right. Who you're talking to.

Jordan Gal: 38:23

For me, the big difference is when you when you're in a mastermind group and you're talking to a peer, they're giving you some of their experience prior to what they're doing. But most of the experience comes from what they're doing right now, which is helpful. But for me, when I think of a coach, I want someone who has seen a whole range of scenarios and can look at and learn about my scenario and start to find analogies throughout the other experiences they have. Right? Because when I hear you talk about a marketing campaign and you helping a client, you know, add on 200 k in annual revenue every month, that's exciting, but it's only valuable if it's if it's applicable.

Jordan Gal: 39:03

It doesn't have to be exactly the same type of software company that I do in the market that I sell into. Right. Because you've seen that happen, you can take that kind of playbook and rewrite it for my situation if if it's applicable. So I think that's that's what the coach thing can do as opposed to a peer.

Speaker 3: 39:21

Well, that's that's how I've made my whole career as the consultant is that I've worked in so many different industries that I look like a genius when I takes, when I steal something from one industry and put it into another industry that's never done it. I look super smart, even though I didn't make it. Going back to the idea that need to know what you want before you even go looking for a coach or a consultant or a mentor. You need to know what it is that I what do you want out of this deal? And then you can start looking for it.

Speaker 3: 39:57

You're looking for a coach, I would say they do need a broad range of experience. Because if you're in a mastermind, you'll end up in a bit of an echo chamber after a while. So so if you go looking for a coach, they need to have a broader experience to be able to break the echo chamber. Because most likely, you know what to do, but you're having some sort of block that's preventing you from really getting exponential value out of what you already know. And and if you're stuck in an echo chamber, then then you're not gonna you're not gonna grow either.

Speaker 3: 40:31

So broad range, I agree with that. I agree with Jordan, but I'm kinda biased because that's my background of having such a a wide range. But I I have seen some coaches that who have been who have been very effective. They only work in a particular industry, and that's it. And they're very good at that.

Speaker 3: 40:49

But then I would say that they get very close to being a consultant, where they're like a scalpel. They can come in, and they can get a fine cut into what is necessary. But then they may not be able to give you any breakthroughs beyond that narrow scope. And so there's a trade off in both directions. Someone who has a general background like like a Peter Drucker versus someone who is a specialist in in one thing that can coach you on that.

Speaker 3: 41:25

So there there is a trade off, but you're not gonna unfortunately, you're not going to know until you get into that relationship.

Brian Casel: 41:33

I think we should, you know, kinda wrap it up here. That that was, you know, really really insightful, Tim. You know, thank you so much for for coming on today. It's great to catch up with you.

Speaker 3: 41:42

Yeah. Thanks.

Brian Casel: 41:43

So so you've got the foolish adventure podcast. Where where can folks kinda reach out to you?

Speaker 3: 41:47

Oh, the the best place to find me is over at timconley.coor.net. It just it'll forward to .co. One of these days, I'll get that .com, damn it. Yeah. Get after the other 10 Connelly.

Speaker 3: 42:00

Right? Yes. Yes. I I may have to just hire a hitman or something, and I'll I'll get that domain. I'll buy it from his estate.

Speaker 3: 42:11

Gotta be a coach for that. So they can find me at Tim Conley. That's t I m c o n l e y dot c o, and that's also my Twitter handle at Tim Conley. Just message me if you wanna chat about anything in business.

Brian Casel: 42:27

Very cool, Tim. Well, thanks again for coming on, and we'll we'll talk soon.

Speaker 3: 42:31

Thanks for having me, guys. You, Tim.

Jordan Gal: 42:33

Alright. Cheers.