Brand Dilution: Why Coaches and Speakers Lose Authority by Trying to Be Everything

John Ball (: 00:02

Angie.

Angie (: 00:03

Hey there, John.

John Ball (: 00:06

Angie, who are you?

Angie (: 00:09

Oh, the list. What do we mean? Who am I? Ah, yeah.

John Ball (: 00:11

As a brand, as a brand, and as a coaching brand, who are you? How

do you define your coaching brand?

Angie (: 00:21

Yeah and that's a tough one for a lot of people i mean thirty seconds of it is you know who am i you know i'm an executive coach and leader and trainer and speaker and all of those things.

John Ball (: 00:36

And a lot of us are trying to be all the things that all the people or just doing stuff that we don't even realize is weakening our brands. And we wanted to have a conversation with you about that today.

Angie (: 00:39

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, we've talked about branding before and it was more about, know, what's your intention? What's your vision? And there's always so much to, I think, in this space to talk about. ⁓ But we've talked about what we move toward and not necessarily and like all positive, right? Brand yourself. Who are you? What are you saying to people? But what are you actually doing? What's the what are the what are the things that we do or don't do?

that can really dilute our brand or maybe we don't even have one, which is a bigger issue.

John Ball (: 01:41

Well, it may be and I don't doubt that there's an argument to be made that you can some people can get by as a generalist in the coaching world, some people can. And there are some times where generalist coaching is helpful and does actually fit a need. But I think that tends to be more within coaching organizations or larger personal development organizations, I could be wrong, I could be wrong. I'd be interested if

Angie (: 02:07

Mmm.

John Ball (: 02:11

If anyone wants to correct me on that.

Angie (: 02:15

there's a correction I think it's a it's a it's a it's a potential right you and I both worked for a couple of other bigger ⁓ coaching companies where we kind of are associated with that and their brand right which is well then who are we outside of that and their brand

John Ball (: 02:41

Well, that's a really interesting point, Angie. I was watching a video on YouTube a few days ago that was about a particular person who talks and coaches in the financial space. And I'm not gonna I'm not gonna name names like people can figure out who he is. But he had a he had a one wealthy parent and one not wealthy parents see if you can figure it out from that. But but this is

Angie (: 03:08

Who is it?

John Ball (: 03:10

But the whole thing was really about some of the stuff behind the scenes and whether whether we should actually be listening to people like that as experts and, and some of the stuff that doesn't get so publicly known, especially behind somebody has one of the top selling personal finance books in the world in terms of the sort of personal development aspect of it.

So it was an interesting discussion, but then someone else came up in that video who I've worked with. And I think, ⁓ what they said about him. So I was like checking through their other videos and seeing, well, what have they said about this guy who I've worked for? ⁓ I couldn't find anything. I couldn't find anything. I'm thinking, well, I can imagine what those things would be. But what it did get me thinking about was that it does matter who you associate with or who you are associated with.

like who you spend time with does matter. is a kind of as much as there's guilt by association, there's also sometimes like, accreditation by association as well. People like we if we have a guest on our show, for example, this is a weaker example, perhaps, but if we have a guest on our show, it's because we trust them to bring them on the show as a credible expert, which has been the case with the guests that we have.

Angie (: 04:08

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Sure.

John Ball (: 04:35

And but we don't know, mean, that association in the long term may or may not pay off that then you've created an association if you, you and I working together, being co presenters on the show, that there's an association there, I trust you, trust me, we have a dynamic or rapport. People are going to work people who know the show are going to associate us together. So so that that that's, you have to say, well, are the associations you have reflecting well on you?

Angie (: 04:41

Mm-hmm.

Right? Yeah.

John Ball (: 05:05

or not? Are they potentially are they growing your brand helping you stand out as an expert or authority? Or are they damaging weakening your brand or making you ⁓ getting penned in with people in the marketplace who you actually might prefer not to be penned in with?

Angie (: 05:10

Right.

Hmm.

Well, and it's not always necessarily the person, right? Because to your point, yes, guilty by and positive negative. But it's also if somebody has a specific message and their vision and their what they do, right, if they're working in a specific space, and you are doing work or, you know, in some way, cross paths where people then go, ⁓ well, Angie was, you know,

In on that so she must be in that space and it may have nothing to do with my brand honestly so i think it's something that. Why are we are professional coaches we need to think about our branding and it's not just like what you said obviously the beginning of today who am i what do i do well what i do is actually who i am and it's to me it's an extension of.

what my belief system is it's you know we all know right we've talked about this it's much deeper for me i'm not just choosing things i feel like things are choosing me and it just happens but but i think it's really important for people to be aware of their associations and here's the thing taking that intentional step into the brand which again i know we've talked about that but

Are you doing anything? you participating in anything that isn't necessarily negative? Right? It's more like, is this at all diluting your brand and the intentionality that you're putting out there? for example, you know, I had a conversation with somebody recently who is a long time personal development coach and

You know they asked me just as you know kind of a friend hey what are your thoughts and the first thing that i said was well who are you associate with so many different you know other people it's not even one person like john and i we're working together john has his own podcast he does his own thing i'm working here together you all know us together but we're still independent of each other outside of this and our messages are clear.

they don't necessarily cross over. This person was doing so many different things with several different people over the long term and was wondering, why am I not gaining traction at this point? Ding, ding, ding. And I said to, this is what I said to the person. said, well, I don't know who you are. I know you, right? But I don't know who you are. If I didn't know you.

I wouldn't know who you are or what you stood for. Not a clue. And that was a big aha moment. Yeah.

John Ball (: 08:12

Yeah. I think we see this a lot. Yeah,

I think we see this a lot in the marketplace, Andrew. I think I see, I see it a lot. I probably have done some of it myself, if I'm honest, of not really being not really being fully committed to my path or not really being sure where I want to go. And sort of chopping and changing direction sometimes. And then wondering why nothing's happening is that well, you I could take I could take my other podcasts being an example of that.

Angie (: 08:23

Yes!

Hmm?

John Ball (: 08:40

like where I've changed, changed direction with it a few times. The this show as well started out as a different, different show before I knew before I even knew you. It was something very different around coaching, which I ended up not really feeling like the right direction to go in and change direction. Momentum starts again with every pivot.

you start you're not necessarily starting from zero, but you are starting from very, very much near the starting line. And so you have to build up momentum again. And this is really about picking up enough momentum with your big rock to be able to get it over the top of the hill so that momentum starts to naturally build up and roll with that. That takes a lot of momentum.

Angie (: 09:16

Mm-hmm.

So I actually made a couple of notes. feel like what you said just now makes so much sense when you are branding and you said earlier all things to all people and they're really never a good idea. You know, maybe when you're around for 40 years and you've, you know, done things like we've talked about other big names out there in the coaching world where they've gone from personal development to now I'm going to tell you how to do your finances. Nah, you know, but they didn't do that on their own.

they collaborated to get there. I feel like, A, trying to do too much too soon, like let me, before you've even got a brand, I feel like you, if you want to do this, if you want to collaborate and enhance your space, there's ways to do that. But I think out of the gate, if there's too many messages, it creates that message dilution, which then equates to, what?

Nobody really knows if I'm the person for this or for that or like who are you and and you're nobody really you can do like all things to all people really it just doesn't work and Again, I make the reference to what I said earlier because I don't want to say never Somebody's gonna come at me at some point on one of these shows and go you in that mouth You know, you don't know who I am and I would love to hear that

John Ball (: 10:52

might be me.

Angie (: 10:53

It might be John. It's always John, by the way. I just want you to know John is like, let me just tell you and I'm like, okay. No, I'm kidding. But more seriously, it really is if you bring on, if you try to collaborate too soon before you gain any traction and then are able to create momentum, collaboration really should be something that happens later unless, let's just say, let's just say,

John and Angie decide to start a coaching company. This is not a hint anybody don't go, are you doing that? But let's say we decided we wanted to start a coaching company. Well, we certainly maybe don't want to do the same thing. What would we do? How would we do it? But who are we outside of that collaboration? Because you have to think about timelines, too.

Neither of us would want to find ourselves later going well gee now who are we because we were an entity together Now who are we separate so you know what going on that? I just said, but really too many messages or ⁓ early collaboration with not a real goal Doesn't always make sense and it creates those restarts

John Ball (: 12:13

I,

yeah, I would put this again in, in using podcasting as an example, my podcasting experience as an example. This is more for my other show, because I do I do some podcast guesting on other people's shows. And when I do that, that's more about me and my topics and my speciality. I don't really do podcast guesting around this show. Not saying I've never mentioned this show, but

Angie (: 12:21

Mm.

Yeah.

Sure.

John Ball (: 12:40

know, the purpose,

the purpose for doing that is my brand is my stuff, my speaking, my coaching. And that relates to my brand. Now, I think early on, when I started doing podcasts, guesting, I would go on pretty much any kind of show that seemed vaguely relevant and was kind of interesting or pretty much anyone who would have me. So that's, that was fine for getting experience and getting up to a level but then when I really needed to differentiate, differentiate my

Angie (: 13:06

Sure.

John Ball (: 13:08

brand and had more clarity over that over time. I had to start getting more strategic. And that's a really important word because I think the reason why this often happens and becomes confusing with brand is a lack of strategy in terms of what is your brand and how are you going to grow that brand? What's going to support you in doing that? And it's not being ubiquitous. It's not being everywhere. It's not being on all the shows. I've been invited on the podcast that sound like there would be a lot of fun.

Angie (: 13:11

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, right.

John Ball (: 13:39

but could also damage my brand, because they're not really about what I would want to be talking about. And they probably don't even have the audience of maybe one or two people, but they don't really have the audience that's relevant to me. If I'm being strategic, I'm going on shows that are that have people in the audience who would be the kinds of clients that I want to have the sort of presence that I want to be associated and connected with.

Angie (: 13:42

Mmm.

Absolutely.

John Ball (: 14:06

and whose trust in having me on as a guest says more about me and people's ability to trust me being on that show as an expert and an authority. So I have to make that decision of is this show going to ⁓ boost my brand or hurt my brand or just not really move anything at all?

Angie (: 14:24

Yeah.

Is it yeah,

is it in alignment with with who I am and what I do? Is it really in alignment? mean, listen, I think you the truth is to that everything isn't going to always be exactly a perfect, you straight line. But I've been on I love guesting on podcasts, and I am careful. ⁓ One of the podcasts that I was on was really about becoming an entrepreneur. Now was it directly about

coaching and personal and professional development? No, but it was something that I could say, all right, I'm taking a copy of this and I am going to post it because I had no, I thought it would be helpful if people knew a bit about my story because I don't talk about me. I don't, even if you go to my website, it's like very, I don't talk about how I became and why I became an entrepreneur. So I thought this is actually something fun.

They can find it if they want it but it wasn't going to be a detriment it wasn't so far left of center that people would go what is she doing there however if somebody says hey we'd love you know we love your energy would love for you to come on our podcast and talk about you know puppies. No. You're laughing but can i talk about puppies i guess they're cute they smell good but.

It has no business being in my business space, so I wouldn't do it. So if you want me to talk about puppies, anybody out there the answer is no, thank you. But you see, I I exaggerated the point, but you understand what we're saying, obviously.

John Ball (: 15:58

right.

Ha ha ha.

I don't I don't think there's much harm in every now and again doing something that you just think you're going to enjoy, but don't expect that it's going to do anything positive for your business. But you still should ask yourself, could this actually weaken my brand if I do this? Because I think that's important. I think coming back to some of this, the strategy part is so critical here. Because I think a lot of us find ourselves just in the action thing.

of, I'm doing lots of things, I should be getting results. But if you're doing lots of things, but you're not being particularly strategic about that, and you're not actually building your authority and your brand in the space, you're just busy. And we don't want to fall into that busy, busy trap that's not really moving the needle is it really is getting strategic about what other activities actions, where the places who are the things that are going to help me boost my credibility and my authority.

Angie (: 16:50

Yeah.

John Ball (: 17:05

in the industry and get me in front of the right kinds of audiences and connections that will help me to grow.

Angie (: 17:15

So I think it's important for people to take that step, right? And to understand busy is not a strategy. We've all done it. John and I have done it up until, I don't know, last week. No, I'm joking. ⁓ But we do, we get caught up sometimes in content creation and is the website updated and is all of that stuff done? But in terms of strategizing, I think ⁓ the key always, always comes back to

John Ball (: 17:26

Not that long ago.

Angie (: 17:44

If I have a vision, if I already know my why, which we can talk about again in another recording, but ⁓ am I being true to that? Am ⁓ I really looking now to find the place where these people, I can reach more of them and have this conversation with them virtually so I can get their attention? Somebody posted, somebody that I follow posted recently and it was like,

You know what i don't have to have all the best answers in the best marketing the best best best but i just have to be up front enough and being people's faces so that they consistently see me and they know i'm out there and they know they're clear on what i stand for they know what it's about john and i on this podcast even start talking about puppies every week done nobody was in listen maybe but that's not the purpose.

this you do have to be clear in the purpose so that you can boost your audience connection and build that rapport with them very Intentionally not at all by accident and if you think of it that way then you can go backward and say okay little reverse engineering Where are those people where where can I have more of those conversations and build more of those connections? myself right myself

John Ball (: 18:41

Yeah.

Right.

And that has to be purposeful. if you don't really know who you're trying to target or help or problem solve for, who is your ideal kind of client? What kind of industry or area or results are you hoping to help them achieve and see in their life? If you can't answer that question, if you don't really have a niche figured out, you're not going to be able to figure out your brand either.

Angie (: 19:17

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

John Ball (: 19:34

So so I think this is why we do it. It's not that you can't still help other people out. So I'm like, I'm focusing in much more with with my coaching what I am doing privately as coach as a coach on helping speakers who are kind of stuck with like they they're speaking but they're not getting enough work. They're speaking but they're not getting enough fees and help them or help them get unstuck. That's where I'm helping them. Does that mean that's the only kind of people that I'm going to help?

Angie (: 19:55

Mm-hmm.

John Ball (: 20:00

No, I'm going to help people who are on a start my speaking business or people who may be even a bit further along, not struggling, but just want somebody there to, to help coach and be a sounding board. It's like, I'm not necessarily going to turn those people down either, but I have more potential to work with people than if I just say I work with everybody in that area. ⁓ I want to help people solve a specific pain point problem that they have in their life. That makes it much easier.

Angie (: 20:27

Mm-hmm.

John Ball (: 20:30

for them to say, I have that pain, I have that problem, I should come and work with somebody like you.

Angie (: 20:36

Yeah and again if you're listening right it always comes back to the focus right your why who is it are you speaking the right language are you branding yourself in the right way because you are hitting that pain point i hate to say it i mean i think sometime i actually have somebody say to me why do you always refer to it as a pain point i'm like because it is it's challenges are pain points for us it's very deliberate it's intentional and it's specific

So if you're, know, when you think about how people relate to you, you're not buying anything or paying attention to things that don't relate to you. You're just not. So that's why it's so important to find the audience and make sure that your messaging is clear and what the conversations actually sound like. And people just know who you are.

Right they know what you stand for it's again not in that space for i'm like on this rock going on woman hear me roar but you know they know people like who come to me and come to my site and talk to me they know what to expect. You know they absolutely know what to expect they they i know you do this but do you do this which is you know maybe it's a generation away from ⁓ something that i've been.

putting out there and I'm like yes of course it is ⁓ because we can't tell everybody every little nuance that we cover that's impossible.

John Ball (: 22:04

Sure. There are things I've done in the industry that I have done specifically for helping me to find my voice so that other people can recognize my voice as well so that I'm clear on what that voice is and what I stand for and what I stand against. Where I might be contrarian to common wisdom, for example. I want to know those things. And I've done put in a lot of work to do that.

Angie (: 22:13

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

John Ball (: 22:32

podcasting has helped me to do that, podcast guesting has helped me to do that. Writing newsletters and other articles helps me to do all of that. Coming on this show and talking with Miss Angie comes and helps me to figure all these things out. So, you know, there's a lot that I, lot of time and effort gets put into finding that voice and finding my position in that place. And then, right, well, when I have that, I can be much clearer about putting that out. If you don't have that, there might be some work ahead of you there.

Angie (: 22:40

Mm-hmm.

John Ball (: 23:01

And if you need a little guidance on that, please reach out to us. If you haven't got anyone else you think you can turn to that reach out to us. Let's have let's have that conversation. Let's see if we can help you get a bit more, a bit more clarity with this, because you need to know who you're serving and how you want to help people. I think I I kind of wondered the coaching wilderness for quite a few years when I got started. Not. That's what I'm gonna call it.

Angie (: 23:26

Is that what we're calling it now? I call it the jungle.

John Ball (: 23:30

That's what I'm going to call it. But yeah, it felt

like I was wondering and wondering in the wilderness, not really knowing where I was heading towards. I know there could have been signposts around that I may not paid attention to them because I didn't know where I wanted to head to. I didn't know who I wanted to help. I didn't know where to find the oasis of support and development that I really needed.

Angie (: 23:51

Yeah.

You know what's interesting, and this is just coming to me as we're having this conversation, is that when I think about the people that I coach, the professionals that I speak with, the colleagues and friends in the space that I have, what we're talking about today is probably about 70 % of why the businesses that they have are, I wouldn't say failing. I don't want to go that deep into it yet, but like not gaining traction and momentum.

And I think it's because they're just, they're not as clear as they believe themselves to be. And what do we do, right? When we feel like we're falling, we start grabbing onto anything that makes sense or that seems viable when it's really not. And we miss the cues, as John is saying, like I see myself falling down a tree and hitting every flippin' branch, right, of what feels like failure.

But it's really like desperation because when you put a certain amount of time in and I don't know what that time is for people, but at any point in your coaching business, especially in the beginning, the biggest challenge is definitely keeping the messaging clear. Because I think once you really like get a grasp on that, you can then, you know, go straight into momentum that John was talking about earlier is it's then about momentum and gaining more of that.

and grabbing things along the way that are going to enhance that momentum, not necessarily creating like robot blocks and speed bumps and branches that you're falling from the tree. But I'm sitting here just thinking to myself, gosh, I think every person that I've spoken to in business is exactly doing exactly this, grabbing onto the desperate measures because they feel like

⁓ I don't have control. It's not working. Panic starts to set in and we just start doing like, well, maybe I should try this and maybe I should try that. Or maybe I could, yeah, go ahead.

John Ball (: 25:58

Yeah, his, his

Here's a question for you, Angie. How do you feel about the people who slide into your LinkedIn direct messages or your email inbox to sell you a product or service and you've never heard of them before?

Angie (: 26:04

No.

drives me to distraction. is like, it is the worst sales tactic. It's that, you know what, you know what this is. You all have heard me, if you've been listening to John and I long enough, you know that I talk about selling here and there and the old days when somebody wanted to make you buy their perfume or their cologne in the old school malls and they just started chasing you and spritzing you and I was like, ⁓ I have perfume on, get away from me.

It is the same. Hey, I noticed your I love your message. I love when people tell me they love what I stand for. And I've never even laid eyes on them or had a conversation. you know, I know my messaging is good, but it's not that good. So how do I feel? Do you hear it? Do you hear the tone of my voice?

John Ball (: 27:12

I guess, I guess, I guess there must be some people who don't feel that way. Because the practice is so common, that it must have some level of efficacy. It must. But I'm unaware of what that actually is. I think it must be, I think it must be pretty low. Or just like occasionally, you get really lucky or someone's in a panic over something, and then your message comes through and they are divine providence.

Angie (: 27:12

I'm running.

Yeah.

John Ball (: 27:40

This is just what I need. they go and do it. But the main reason why I think one of the main reasons why we don't firstly, it's uninvited. That's definitely a big thing. You didn't ask somebody to come into your DMs or your inbox to try and sell you a product or service. But the other thing is, you don't know them, you don't trust them. You may not even you know, you don't know anything about them. You don't like them. You have no brand awareness of them. They're just a chance. They might they might be fantastic at what they do.

Angie (: 27:40

Sure.

John Ball (: 28:07

and using a horrible sales strategy. And they are, in your eyes, at least, damaging their brand incredibly by doing that. Now, maybe there's not much of a brand to damage in many of the cases, but perhaps there is. Perhaps they're just badly advised on the right kind of strategy to promote their products and services and stuck in a loop of doing something that is a bit sleazy for most people.

Angie (: 28:07

Mm-hmm.

Well, mean, so that whole style of selling is just a numbers game, right? They know that, and I'm gonna use probably old statistics here, know, 100 to one, getting, you know, 100 outreach, know, 100 people to outreach to, and get one response maybe, and then maybe converting that, and that becomes like a 1%, you know, it just gets less and less and less.

⁓ Again, I'm sure my statistics are a little outdated because I think that number is higher in terms of how many people you need to touch now before you get a response. Interestingly, I'm going to say this, there is somebody that I've seen come across in multiple ways. I've seen them on LinkedIn coming to me. They showed up in my email. ⁓ Obviously, all my information is out there. So it's not like, my goodness, how did they find me? Like, hello, here I am.

And they've been sending me messages and I've never spammed it. It's always about, and it's really about ⁓ helping a coaching business to get in front of the right people like marketing. And finally, they did say something within this quick, the second sentence finally that struck me and I actually scheduled an appointment with this person. Unfortunately, they were unable to sell. I even said to the person, you're too new, your concept is too new.

I could probably retrain you on a couple of ways to approach this to help you, but it was just too embryotic for me. I wasn't interested, but they got me because they did things a little bit differently. So anyway, it's not an impossibility, but I don't know, they've probably been messaging me for a year and, ⁓ and I said no, right. And it's okay that I said no, at least they even had a conversation with me that goes into their conversions, but

You don't want

John Ball (: 30:29

But you have an opinion

of them as a brand right now.

Angie (: 30:33

Well, now I realize they're not a brand sounded so much better right on the exterior right before I knew and then when I got on the call, unfortunately, the person was very like, well, you know, it's only been this amount of time and I don't want to put them down because I do believe they probably can have some successes. I don't know for how long I don't know longevity. just wasn't for me. It was like I felt like I was on shark tank. Let me show you.

a better way to approach this because you have a great concept, but it's just not for me right now. ⁓ But anyway, but it wasn't, I think the difference between this company's strategy and promoting themselves was very to the point. And a lot of companies are like, what if I could give you, what would you do if I gave you 50 appointments a month? I'm sure I'd be hearing more about you.

I'm sure that you'd be a bigger name. And ⁓ this person, this company didn't do it that way. It was a little different approach. ⁓ my gosh, it's no cost to you. It is very costly. anyway, ⁓ I do think that yes, none of us wants to be, we want to, I think making people aware of things that we do is much more important than trying to sell them anything.

John Ball (: 31:32

Right. Yeah.

big, big promises. Yeah.

Angie (: 31:57

And I think that's the big mistake that, you know, lot of coaching companies, coaches are, they're making the mistake. Let me tell you why I'm fabulous. Well, your messaging lost me already.

John Ball (: 32:10

I let me let me say this, think, first of all, this, I mean, anyone who has been listening to our show for more than a few episodes, hopefully already has some some level of confidence and trust and liking for us and for what we're doing here. And ⁓ I hope so, right. And I said that for my other show as well as like building building brand building trust building what they call their pro pro social relationships.

Angie (: 32:26

I hope so!

John Ball (: 32:39

what the word right word is, but where where you kind of feel like you have a relationship with someone you've never really met, but but you're used to hearing their their voice. And I wish I could remember that, but if that is the right word or not, but parasocial, that's it parasocial relationships. And but you are developing trust, you're building brand, you're building credibility all that time, you're creating relationship with those people. So if we were then to go to someone who's in our audience in some way, or form,

Angie (: 32:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Ball (: 33:08

we're not going to them cold, they have a sense of who we are, there's a level of trust that they may, still not be interested in what we're offering. But they're at least going to say, all right, well, if I was interested in that, yeah, sure, it would probably work with someone like you guys, because know you and like you and trust you, hopefully. And I think these are really important, really important elements to have. And if we don't have that, like, likeability, trustability, knowability,

Angie (: 33:16

Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

John Ball (: 33:35

it's much harder to make a decision. I see this with now I often help people with their websites and, I find particularly with coaches, more than speakers, perhaps, but maybe with both to some degree, that when there's a particular product or service for sale, they do what in the newspaper business called burying the lead of like, it's kind of buried amongst stuff, it's not really clear what not really clear what you're there for, there's there's too much other nonsense around that. And people are sort of

Angie (: 33:55

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

John Ball (: 34:05

packing the pages, rather than getting to the point. But then some people go the other way, like one client had not that long ago. The first thing you see on his page is him selling something. And I was like, you need to you need to change that you have no relationship with the people who are coming onto your page. They don't know who you are, they don't know what you're about. And you're trying to sell them something on the basis of I want that product is like, there's no there's no trust for them to buy it. They have no

sense that they can trust that this is going to be legit. It's like, it would be like buying something off of Temu, right? You you don't, you just, you can't guarantee you're going to get the product that you actually ordered, ⁓ or that it's going to be, you this is going to last more than five minutes or anything like that, you know, if it arrives at all.

Angie (: 34:41

my goodness.

Well, think so this is a great I love this because I you're kind of bringing ⁓ definition to the idea that when we are talking and selling to people, we're only selling to them in the way that we want them to respond. And what do I and what I mean by that is we essentially need to let people we need to be transparent and direct enough.

that people can then decide, is Angie's coaching the right coaching for me? It's not just about, ⁓ I know I'm the coach. Stop being so overly assumptive that it should feel like a no-brainer, because that affects our approach to it. But if you're just looking to be the brand, show and illustrate,

who you are in your messaging, in this association that you're trying to make, give people that option of, like I just said about this guy, not for me. Angie's not the kind of coach I want to work with. I think John would be a better coach for me. They both offer great things, but I just think, because I've given them enough insight into my brand, who I am and what I do, to let them choose.

That's the bottom line. Give people that space where don't try and treat people like they're dumb because they're not. There's too much more information out there now. But if you just give them like, this is who I am and this is what I do, and you do that consistently in the right places, right? Where your people sit, right? Obviously you have to know that. Then you're kind of leaving it open. You're generating ideas and concepts and letting them

John Ball (: 36:49

Mm-hmm.

Angie (: 36:49

deduce

their own like outcomes from that it's that the pushing this the i can give you this stop it give them the option to say this is really not for me or it's not for me right now that is much more valuable.

John Ball (: 37:06

you know, in, in being a podcast host for my for my other show, some advice I get from podcast coaches, people who guide podcasters on growing their shows, and like, so is to not have guests on who are direct competitors, who are doing exactly what you do. And I explained why that's relevant in a moment. But the reason I ignore that I ignore that I have people on my show who are direct competitors.

Angie (: 37:22

Hmm.

John Ball (: 37:35

who sell products very, very similar to mine. Because there's enough space in the market for all of us. And if someone listening to if someone listening to my show thinks I'd rather work with them than John, go and work with them. It's like that that's part of why I bring them there's like I might not be the right coach for you might not come and work with me anyway, but someone else comes on the show and says, Oh, right. Yeah, I like what they're doing or how they're doing it more than they go and work with them.

Angie (: 37:43

Right.

Yes, yes.

Bye.

Right.

John Ball (: 38:04

or like one of the guests I've got coming up is like, she's in a price bracket for what she does that is far above what I would be charging my clients is like, well, most of the people who listening to my show are not going to be able to afford to work with her anyway. So, so you know, it's like, but I'm very much with the rising tide raises all ships kind of philosophy is I don't worry about them being direct competitors if they have value to share with my audience. I'd much rather have that.

Angie (: 38:14

Yes.

Right, right, right. And it could come down to that.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

John Ball (: 38:33

This is, this is the thing about it. think it grows by brand in terms. think so anyway, in terms of I'm unafraid to have them and I'm placing myself amongst industry leaders who are on a similar level or often higher than where I am. I think that does a lot more from my brand than saying, you know what, I'm not going to have you on the show because your product is very similar to mine. You're a, you're a direct competitor. To me that, to me, that would be crazy.

Angie (: 38:49

Yeah.

All right, exactly.

It's very fear-based and it is definitely not going to, is not going to help. But I do think at the end of the day, definitely brand yourself, definitely associate yourself with people, things, products that are going to enhance that. And if you're not gaining traction, if you've been doing, if you've been,

in this business for i don't know i'd say i'm about a year and you're not really gaining traction and you're not really near momentum you definitely need to before you give up right talk to somebody about the business strategy of coaching it's not just you know you need to be able to attract the people to do what you do ⁓ and have the conversation around that in a in a

Non-competitive kind of way, you know, just if you really want people to know who you are and know what you do There's a way to have that conversation and it doesn't it's not about selling it. It's not spraying them down with the damn cologne and perfume You know just it's just not

John Ball (: 40:07

And

if some if somehow you're not yet convinced that brand is really that important, I don't know how you could get to the how could you get to this point. But if you're still not convinced, just know that branding brand management, reputation management is multi million, very billion dollar industry in itself. This is that that's how big it is, and should give some sense of how important

Angie (: 40:15

If you're at that point right now, 40 minutes in, yeah.

Sure.

John Ball (: 40:33

this is and we should at the very least was it was it's not everything about your business, it's going to be a huge part of why people will choose to work with you or not choose to work with you. And so ⁓ you have thoughts on this or questions about it, reach out and we'd love to hear from you.

Angie (: 40:35

Right.

Right.

We'd love to hear your challenges. We'd also really, I really would love to hear success stories. I want to hear from people who have been in the coaching business up to, I want to say maybe 18 months in, want to hear about your challenges and your successes.

John Ball (: 40:56

Yes.

That would be awesome too. All right, let's wrap it up there, but we'll see you again next time.