So What? Do I need a business coach?

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In this week’s episode of So What? we focus on hiring a business coach. We discuss the function of a business coach, the pros and cons of hiring a business coach and how to make the most of your time with a business coach. Catch the replay here:

So What? Do I need a business coach?

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In this episode you’ll learn:

The function of a business coach
The pros and cons of hiring a business coach
How to make the most of your time with a business coach

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Katie Robbert 0:07
Well, hey everyone, Happy Thursday. Welcome to so what the marketing analytics and insights live show, I am joined by John Wall and a very special guest who is replacing Chris Penn permanently. Just kidding, welcome back. Thanks.

Gini Dietrich 0:24
I do like my semi permanent role here.

Katie Robbert 0:27
We’re excited to have and we felt like so Chris is traveling this week, Chris, I think is somewhere over the Atlantic right now.

Unknown Speaker 0:33
Complaining about British Airways.

John Wall 0:35
Just talking about rich people problems. Chris has like these tiny,

Unknown Speaker 0:39
these seats. This, this is like US airlines, the seats suck. I was like, oh boy,

Katie Robbert 0:46
are like, yes. Tell us about the tiny seats

Unknown Speaker 0:49
in business class in business.

Katie Robbert 0:52
Well, so Chris isn’t here. He’s traveling. So Jenny has offered to sit in and it’s fortuitous that you were able to join us this week, Jenny, because we’re talking about coaching. And we’re talking about business coaching specifically. But I think that there’s definitely some parallels with other kinds of coaching that we can draw. So let’s just go ahead and get into it. So we want to talk about do I need a business coach, and we have ways that we want to evaluate it. But before we get into that, since you yourself are a coach, Jenny, do you want to just sort of give a rundown of like, what the heck it is, I think there’s a big misunderstanding of what business coaching really means.

Gini Dietrich 1:30
Well, there are certain people who will go unnamed, and Ken Jacobs, who like to differentiate coach versus consultant versus advisor. A coach, if we’re thinking about it technically is certified. So they go through a big certification process they they have, there is a process that they use. And they are really specific about how they help you. They ask, they, they, I would sort of really talk to them or relate them to sort of a therapist, they ask you lots of questions, they help you get to the answer yourself. consultant or an advisor is more what I do, I’m not certified. But I have experience, right. So I have experienced growing an agency I haven’t experienced growing up an E commerce business. And then of course, I have client experience. So I am able to work with other agency owners to help them understand things that they might be missing. I don’t always act like a therapist, they sometimes give advice, because I’m like, All right, let’s stop complaining about this, actually do something. I honestly don’t have the patience that a therapist has or a business coach has. And I think you learn some of that when you go through the certification. So I would say that they’re two different things. A business coach is more focused on helping you come to the answers yourself, and they are certified. And then you know, a business advisor or consultant is somebody who has the experience that you’re looking for, and can help you sort of move the roadblocks that are in your way.

Katie Robbert 3:09
You know, it’s interesting, because I didn’t, I personally didn’t realize that, you know, when people are looking for a coach, this is someone who should probably be certified as a coach. And I think that that means that that there’s a lot of bad business coaches out there. Have you ever used a business coach? John, you’re pretty certifiable.

John Wall 3:29
Yeah, not you know, I’ve never been to a licensed professional for any business. But I did early in my career, I had career counseling, you know, I went to a basically a coach that helped me with the job hunt process and taught me a lot of things that were worthwhile about how you find positions, you know, and that was worth doing. I mean, this was, like, 20 years ago, and I still paid like four grand, you know, to work with this guy for like, wow, yeah. And it was huge. But this was the time to where, you know, the internet hadn’t completely dominated and torn this space apart. Like, there were still, you know, networks, were still a thing. And, and the huge learning of that was you have to find the hidden network, you know, it’s not enough to just be applying for things, the people that get the great jobs, know, who to talk to, and where to go. And so, and I see that theme over and over again, of gatekeepers, you know, coaches and counselors and advisors as gatekeepers to get you into other things that you normally couldn’t get into by yourself. There’s a best selling author that we’ve done work with, and I’ve done a lot of stuff with, who has a coach who is his public speaking coach, and he’s basically made him the public speaker. I mean, he came to me with a map of like, okay, here’s, you know, you need to have a book on this kind of stuff. You need to be doing this on this day. And then we’re going to introduce you to this network here and get you into to be speaking. And that kind of coaching mentoring is huge. I mean, it’s made his whole career. Right. And the thing with that, that’s, again, going back to the hidden network thing is, that guy can only create, you know, one person in a niche. And so, you know, He’s not taking any referrals, like just because you know, that’s out there and you want that you can’t even get it. You know, they’re like, we’re not going to refer anybody to him. Because, you know, he’s already got somebody doing that thing in that space.

Gini Dietrich 5:10
Interesting. And you can also charge whatever he wants. So that’s a good way to specialize. Right?

John Wall 5:16
Yeah. Especially because once he gets to the point where if he gets the book to hit, and it’s recurring revenue, he’s literally just sitting there collecting paychecks every year. Yeah, it sounds. And he has probably a dozen verticals that he’s done it. It’s a

Katie Robbert 5:27
great business model. Yeah. So I want to get into how to evaluate, you know, if you need a coach and what you get out of it. But before we do, I asked this question last week in our free slack group analytics for marketers, about their feelings on a business coach. And it was interesting. And a little bit unsurprising, we have a lot of strong personalities. But a lot of people said, I’m too stubborn to work with a coach, or I don’t need a coach, or I couldn’t take advice from someone else. So I guess. So, Ginny, I know that you’ve run up against a lot of obstacles in your career. How? What kind of response do you have when someone says, you know, I’m too stubborn to work with an advisor or a coach, or I don’t think I need one?

Gini Dietrich 6:14
Well, first of all, they’re not a good fit for me, we’ll start there. But also their Michael Jordan is arguably one of the best basketball players of all time, LeBron James is probably up there as well. They have coaches, they did not get there by themselves, you cannot get where you want to go by yourself, if you want to stay where you are, and not have a coach. So be it. But like the the best professionals, the people who are elites in their fields, all have coaches, every one of them, not just athletes, business leaders, therapists, scientists, engineers, they

Unknown Speaker 6:52
all have coaches, all of them.

Katie Robbert 6:55
I think one of them, I think there’s a misunderstanding that if you hire an advisor or a coach that you don’t know what you’re doing. And I don’t think that that’s the case at all. I don’t believe that any one person can see 360 All the time can know everything going on all the time. And it’s not, it’s not a knock at your intelligence, it’s not a knock at your skill set to have that person on your team to have that person working with you. It’s really actually a sign of high emotional intelligence that you recognize. You can’t be everywhere at once.

John Wall 7:30
Yeah, how does that work, though? Have you guys seen that in practice, then? Because it because I see this? There’s the two things right? There’s conscious, conscious, incompetent, where everybody’s like, yeah, this CEO can’t do public speaking. Like, we need to get him a coach to get him straight. But then there’s unconscious, incompetent, where, you know, maybe nobody knows that this person is a bad negotiator. And they need help. I mean, is it basically does somebody just have to have the guts and love them enough to just say, you need some help with this, like, you need to go take care of this? Or, you know, is there any other way that that comes around?

Gini Dietrich 8:02
Yeah, I mean, probably they probably on the unconscious side, I would imagine, yes, in most cases, you have to have somebody either on your team or a family member or close friend who says, hey, it might be worth it to check out an advisor or coach on to help you with this, like, a really good example is when I started my business, you know, I came from the big global PR firm world. And so I thought that that’s how I had to run my business with lots of process and lots of procedure and memos from the CEO and sort of that distant relationship with the CEO with the with the team. And because of that I wasn’t a great leader. And I, our churn was really high. When I first started the business, I couldn’t figure out why. And I remember sitting with a friend, and he said, Maybe you should talk to a leadership coach. And what I learned from the leadership coach was astonishing, like, I was terrible. I thought I was good. I was not good at all. It was a

Unknown Speaker 8:57
terrible leader. And because of that, I also was a terrible communicator. I

Gini Dietrich 9:01
mean, this is something that I do for a living as communications, but because I wasn’t able to translate my communications expertise to leadership, I was it was, it was bad. And he was really good. He was very frustrating, but he was really good in for in the perspective of me saying, Okay, this is my challenge, and he’d go, so what do you think you should do? And I’d be like, well, that’s why I’m asking you, I hate that. But that’s what that’s what coaches do. Right? They have to help you get to the answer yourself. Because if they give you the answer, and I’m guilty of this, like, I’ll give the answer, and my clients will say, No, I’m not going to do that. So you sort of have to get them to the answer themselves so that they a think it’s their own idea and be are ready to invest in that idea in that change.

Katie Robbert 9:45
Yeah, I find nothing more frustrating than was super frustrating. I mean, so I have a coach and advisor and she frustrates the hell out of me because she says that to me, all the time, Gini Dietrich and Sophie Those of you don’t know Ginni is one of the advisors at Trust Insights and someone who, you know, I turned to with a lot of questions. Because when we started Trust Insights, I had zero experience running a company, I’ve run teams, I’ve built teams. And so I knew that I had a lot of the skill sets, but I hadn’t quite figured out how to translate that into something bigger. And you know, Ginny, you were able to, and still do guide us, because a lot of times our ideas are too big, or, you know, they’re sort of, you know, Trust Insights is moving down this road, and I’m like, over here in the woods, like skipping through the trees, and I’m like, I think we should do this thing over here. And you’re like, cool. So nobody’s driving the car, you gotta get back in the car. And I’m like, Well, why do I do that? And you’ll say, Why do you think you should do that? I mean, is that

Gini Dietrich 10:51
pretty accurate? That is pretty accurate.

Katie Robbert 10:55
But we recognized very quickly that, you know, we all collectively had a lot of experience, but not enough of the right experience, which is why we thought it made sense to bring in someone who had the right experience. And it’s been incredibly invaluable for us. And for me to have the right kind of advisor we actually, this is we interviewed I interviewed a lot of different advisors before Jenny and I had a chance to meet and for it wasn’t until Jenny I met that I was like, I don’t need advisor. I don’t need these people. I don’t want to talk to these people. Nope, nope, nope, nope. And then Ginny, and I met and I’m like, Yep, okay, that person. And it really is, it’s about chemistry. It’s about the right fit. All of those. And all of those are important. And so when we think about evaluating, do I need a business coach, I always love and excuse to bring out the five p framework. So the five P’s are purpose people process, platform and performance. We also love alliteration, because we’re all marketers. It’s very nice.

Unknown Speaker 11:58
I’m teaching Addie, that right now. alliteration. Like, I’ll

Gini Dietrich 12:00
have her say, Okay, today is Thursday. So what should we say? She’ll be like, it’s a terrific trying Thursday, like, she’ll come up with three T’s. And then she’ll go literacy. And I’m like, oh, alliteration. alliteration. Literacy. So close.

Katie Robbert 12:17
So close? Well, I need to make sure that the alliteration wasn’t something that like was start to be like a stutter, or that could be lispy, either. So with this one, you get to like spit on people a little bit. Purpose people? Yeah, you do be right. We’re having a good. Alright, so we start with the purpose. So you know, I’m sure and you both work in enterprise size companies, how often does someone say You know what, let’s just hire an advisor, let’s just hire a coach, without any real forethought into what this person is going to do? Or how are you going to measure success?

John Wall 12:54
I almost never in like, corporate fortune 500, you know, because that’s the domain of, you know, hey, we’re upper level managers who managing mid level managers, like we will never admit weakness on anything, because someone will make our office tomorrow. So you you’ve got to find there’s two areas. One is, if you actually are in a normal culture, more like a midsize organization where people realize you need to have ongoing education, you need some help. Or one thing that we see all the time is there’s some weird, either new technology or new market or something that’s just the company doesn’t have any experience in and they know that, you know, so like with AI and marketing, you’re like, yes, we need to go find somebody to come in here and talk to us about this. Because nobody in house has this experience, because it’s either brand new, or it’s you know, some crazy thing that you need experience that you just can’t get normally. But yeah, that’s that’s kind of the angle for it. It’s, it’s a tough sell. And it’s another thing that’s always network bound to, you know, people show up with already coaches that they’ve used in the past, are they like, it’s not a matter of like, Hey, we’ve got a problem. Let’s go just randomly send out an RFP for five coaches. Like that’s just Yeah, asking for a circus.

Gini Dietrich 14:04
Yeah, I agree with you, John. And one of the things that I see on from my side is huge companies will hire me specifically to come in and teach their their teams, their comms teams, something specific, like the PESO model. But it’s a one time thing, right? It’s not, there’s not the coaching. It’s just the, we need this quick, like, very macro level education on what this is. And then we’ll take it in internally, and we’ll run with it. So it’s usually a one or two day workshop kind of thing versus an annual. I’m meeting with you every week trying to help you implement this internally.

John Wall 14:42
How many times have you been horrified by that? Have you gone in and like done peso training, and then come back two years later, and like there’s all these weird peso offshoots? They don’t

Gini Dietrich 14:50
they don’t normally do it. Like they’ll take one or two things because they don’t. at a macro level, it’s really hard to say, Oh, great, great, yes, we can implement that and you know, I have to deal with all the silos and all of the stuff right internally. So usually they do one or two things. And you’ll see them do that really well. And they call it the PESO model, but it’s not. Yeah.

Katie Robbert 15:14
Amateurs.

Gini Dietrich 15:17
It’s hard, like I understand I’ve, you know, I’ve spent the last three years working inside organizations, I, it’s hard, I get it.

Katie Robbert 15:23
Well, so on the, on the vein of, you know, trying to figure out why you would want to bring in an advisor, you know, we start with the first P, which is purpose. And with that, you create a user story. And this user story deconstructed tells you everything you need to know about the other four P’s. And so, you know, we can use the PESO model as an example. So as a comms director, I want to hire Ginni so that I can teach my team, you know, the proper way to execute peso. And so, as you start to go through the user story, you have the Persona The want to and the so that the persona is the people that you need from the five P’s, the want to is the process and the platform. And the so that is the performance measure. And I think this is where a lot of people get hiring a coach and advisor wrong, is there’s no clear cut outcome. There’s no deliverable. There’s nothing to measure. They’re just like, Okay, so our CEO, he’s flailing, let’s get him an executive coach. And then how do you know he’s no longer flailing? What are those tactical, measurable points? What are those milestones? And I think that a lot of those conversations just don’t happen. It has that been your experience? Ginni?

Gini Dietrich 16:40
Yeah, I think it depends. For sure. It depends on to your point earlier, whether or not they’re willing to work with somebody, right. But, you know, I, I’ve been doing a lot of work in the last probably 12 to 15 months on communication skills for executives, because, you know, we were told don’t talk about values, don’t talk about your mission, don’t talk about anything that’s going to ostracize customers. And most executives, CEOs have been told that their entire careers, and then the last three years of turn that on their heads, right, where they’ve now we’re saying, you should absolutely stand up for gun safety, and you should stand up for social justice, and you should like you should be doing these things. And these exec executives are going but wait, I’ve been told for 50 years, I’m not supposed to do that. And now you’re telling me I showed I don’t know how to do that. And, and so some try on their own and fail. And then that’s the reason for them to bring in a communications expert. Right. So that’s where we see a lot of it is they’ve tried it, and they have failed miserably. And their internal teams are like, Yeah, let’s not do that, again, let’s find somebody who can help you mess with messaging and presentation and the right words to use.

Katie Robbert 17:51
So with, with those engagements, as you’re, you know, advising executives through communication, do you set up a deliverable schedule? Some milestones like we’re gonna meet this often, or, you know, this is how many drafts we want to go through and sort of really sort of put those guardrails and set those expectations?

Gini Dietrich 18:09
Yeah, it certainly depends on the situation. But usually, it’s at least you meet at least twice a month. And there’s very specific goals, right? We’re we’re trying to help you help you be ready for the next thing. So this is a terrible example, just in terms of society in general. But the Nashville shooting just a couple of days ago, right? That there, there was an article in CNN this morning that talked about how corporate America has gone silent on gun safety, and that’s not okay. So, you you in that instance, we would help an exec be prepared for the next time this happens, so that they’re not silent, so that they are doing the right things, and they know exactly what to say. So we can’t really control when that’s going to happen. But we can control them being ready, then being ready to be able to talk about this. These are our values. And this is our stance, and this is this is what we’re doing to help make change instead of sending thoughts and prayers.

John Wall 19:07
Yeah, how do you slice that? How do you you know, get them to take the stand that they want to take, but at the same time, keep that aligned with their business? I mean, or is that the majority of what you’re doing? You’re trying to figure out the alignment between what that’s how it goes? Yeah, that’s right.

Gini Dietrich 19:21
Yeah, yeah. So things like gun safety is a really great example of that. Like it, we have one client who has brick and mortar locations in communities that are plagued with gun violence. So one of the things that we’ve recommended is that they start investing in the communities to help with education, and, you know, after school activities and things like that to kick get kids off of the streets. And that’s completely aligned, because they don’t want guns coming into their location. And they’re in these communities that are plagued by gun violence. So if they’re investing time and money into those communities, they can actually make a real difference. So those are the kinds of things that we do is help them align and their stance, their values with what the business is doing.

Katie Robbert 20:04
So I can see for someone who’s not sure how that, you know, thinking came about using the five P’s and a user story could help start to bring out those details. And so, you know, in that instance, you have the, you know, as the you no business owner, I want to ensure that the guns won’t come into my brick and mortar so that we can ensure the safety of our customers. And so you’re like, Okay, I can start to deconstruct this. And so I know what my purpose is, I know why I want to do this. And then you can say, Alright, how do I start to prevent some of these things from happening, that becomes your people in your process? And then with the platform that might be how do I get the message out? Or how do I demonstrate that these things are happening? And then your overall performance is that the thing that you don’t want to happen doesn’t happen? Yep. And I think it’s a really just succinct way to think about why am I bringing in an advisor? Or why am I you know, looking to do some executive coaching or communications coaching, there’s got to be really tactical reasons why you want these things to happen, because it’s not an inexpensive endeavor, either, right? You know, if you’re asking someone to come in, and basically tell you how to do something, or teach you to do something you have to imagine, especially as the stakes get higher, when you have human lives at risk, or, you know, whatever the situation is going to be really expensive.

Gini Dietrich 21:29
Yes, not inexpensive.

Katie Robbert 21:33
I have a client, one of my clients on a much smaller scale. Her challenge is to, you know, effectively communicate. But she’s not someone who has a lot of authority, but she’s asked to give a lot of really hard communications across multiple teams, and her enterprise sized company tends to be pretty siloed. So a lot of times people don’t know who she is, or why she’s asking certain things. And that’s something I’ve been sort of coaching her through as well. And a lot of times her default stance is, well, can you just write it for me, and then I’ll just change the name. And, you know, for the sake of time, sometimes we do that, but my hope is that she’s learning some of the calculation. But as we’re talking, I’m realizing that’s exactly the wrong approach. Because she’s not then learning it for herself. She’s relying on a crutch of someone else could do it. So in terms of advising and coaching, like, where do you draw the line of let me just do it for you. It’s just faster.

Gini Dietrich 22:33
I never do that. Ever. All right. And like I said, like I said, earlier, I might say to you, this is the this is the recommendation I make, and I may give you like the path to go down. But I never ever do the work. A because usually they’re not I’m not paid to do that. But also, you’re never gonna learn how to do it if if I’m doing it for you.

John Wall 22:58
Yeah, well, and that’s an interesting setup to that we’re tying it to because like, in one situation, you’re coming in, and you’re just saying, Hey, I am the coach. And so this is how that works, and the way it goes, but then there’s this other thing we see all the time where you come in as the service provider, you know, some kind of mentor, coaching your your customers, because you have, whether it’s more knowledge or whatever, but you start to, you know, build that coaching relationship. How does that can continue to go? I mean, you can never make it a formal coaching thing, because you can’t get away from the actual client work that needs to be done. Or is there some other way to spin that? Yeah, I

Gini Dietrich 23:35
think I mean, it depends, of course. But we have a client relationship right now, where we were brought in to do the work. And, and as the relationship has evolved, we’ve started we’ve helped them build their team. So it started with one person on the comms team. And now we’re up to five. And so we’ve started to take a step back in terms of actually doing the work. But the the team that they’ve hired is pretty young and inexperienced. So we continue to provide input and like, today, I got an I got an article that one of them had written, wanting feedback, and I was like, okay. But let’s, so I have to actually, instead of rewriting it, or, you know, providing Track Changes, what I’m doing is taking it and saying, Okay, I want you to think about it strategically like this, and outline it this way so that they’re still doing the work. I’m just reframing, helping them refrain in their minds how it’s the strategic direction of it.

Katie Robbert 24:38
That’s really the ideal way to work. What I run up against with some of my clients is are those time constraints or the sense of urgency or the crisis? And, you know, how do you best balance and I’m going to think about how to answer this question as well. But how do you best balance the we need to take the time and have the patience for you to learn it and teach it versus things just need to get done? Yesterday,

Gini Dietrich 25:00
I think it depends on the relationship. I mean, if you’re hired to John’s point, if you’re hired as a service provider, then just do the work. But if you’re hired to like this one client, specifically, we are our relationship has evolved into where you’re coaching the team, we’re not doing the work. So while it would be much easier for Travis on my team, and I just rewrite it, like a lot easier, and a lot less time, and it would be good and like, but that’s not, that’s not what we’re doing. That’s not what the relationship is right now. So yeah, if you’re the service provider, and you’re part of the the team and the arms and legs, then get it done. But if you’re there to coach and train and provide professional development, to take the time,

John Wall 25:45
no substitute for the discussion.

Katie Robbert 25:48
You know, and I can pick on him a little bit, because he’s not here. But that’s one of the things that Chris struggles with, especially when we ran the team at our old agency was, before he brought me in, he acknowledges he’s the first to admit he doesn’t have the patience to stop and teach someone. For him. It’s just let me just do it, it’s faster. And then the challenges of the team is never learning. In the sense of the agency, the issue that we run into is that as we’re billing the clients, hourly, they also didn’t want to pay for our team to be learning how to do the thing. So it becomes a sticking point. I said, feel like now we’re talking about professional development, but it’s all related. It becomes a sticking point of when do you find the time? When do you make the time, if people are just running a million miles a minute, trying to charge hourly, they need to learn the thing, but they don’t have time to learn the thing. And so people get stuck in this place. Do you ever recommend someone look outside of their job to find a coach, like do it on their own time so that they can learn the thing? It’s yeah,

Gini Dietrich 26:53
I mean, I think in that instance, it’s probably more valuable to do online courses or, or go back to school or whatever it happens to be, because that’s probably more affordable. And something that you can do on your own time. If you’re if if your organization doesn’t provide the professional development, development, you need to learn new skill sets, or whatever it happens to be, then you’re in the wrong place. You can’t Every organization should never expect your team anyone on their team to do professional development development on their own time in order to do their jobs.

Katie Robbert 27:26
I don’t think I agree with that. So as we’re starting to wind down the conversation, the last side of do I need a business coach that I want to cover is red flags to look for. And so we’ve all had, we’ve all been swindled at one point or another by people who’ve told us that they know something and don’t, but sometimes you don’t know that the person you’re talking to doesn’t really know what they’re talking to, until you sort of get into it, you know, they put on a good show, they, you know, have all the right credentials. But what are some of in your experience, both John engineered the red flags to look for, when going down this route of maybe hiring an advisor or a coach or someone of that, John? I thought,

John Wall 28:11
Oh, this is good. You know, with so the weirdest thing is with so many marketing programs, you know, and I finally have gotten to the core of some of that stuff, is if you don’t have the right alignment of your company’s purpose and mission, then vendors are always going to struggle, whether it’s a coach or somebody writing copy or doing stuff for you. If you you know, it just has to be part of your model that like, Hey, we’re gonna bring on three people, and probably two are not going to be able to do this and one will you just have to throw money around and experiment. And I guess that’s where having a network becomes incredibly valuable. That’s right, people that have had track record of success and are willing to introduce you which and is also a huge problem in marketing. You know, it’s one thing for career stuff, everybody will share a great career coach. But if you’re running LinkedIn ads, and you’ve got somebody you’re like, No, I’m not. I’m not telling you. Go look on Fiverr for that definitely Fiverr you you’re not going to let it go. So I’ve had plenty of failed I think on the PR comm site I had pitching just to guest on other podcasts. I’ve done that with a number of companies and I’ve had some that it was basically flushing the money down the toilet, you know, they totally get nothing. The worst is when you get other shows coming back complaining that saying, hey, this person pitched me and they were a jerk like what that was, you know, I

Unknown Speaker 29:36
think I sent you one of those dishes. I think I did several years ago where I was like, Oh, John,

John Wall 29:43
this person is not accurately reflecting your brand.

Unknown Speaker 29:48
I’d really rather just hear from you. which I know doesn’t help but

John Wall 29:54
know that that’s the week. Yeah, that’s tough goes it’s yeah, you just have to take the beatings with this. You know, I haven’t found any other way around that.

Gini Dietrich 30:02
Yeah, I agree. I also, you said something really important, John, which is the networking piece of it. And it’s asking, you know, in my personal life where I’m going through a process right now, where I’m finding, I’m working to find professionals for certain things. And in many cases, I just don’t know. Right? So I don’t know what questions to ask, I don’t know what to expect. I don’t, there’s a lot, I don’t know. So I’m relying on my network to say, we’ve worked with so and so and so and so. So give them a call. And then what I’m doing is I’m paying really close attention to how they’re spending time with me. When when we’re having the conversation. First of all, it’s chemistry for sure. Like, do I like them? Because these are people that are going to be in my home, so I have to like them. Second of all, is it? Are they educating me? Or are they condescending, and talking down to me? And in many cases, if I say, you know, I’m a novice in some of this stuff, so I’ll say, Well, tell me about this. And if they are really condescending, then I’m like, No, I’m so it’s that kind of stuff that I’m paying attention to. But I think, John, you’re right, it’s really about Who does your network, recommend? And then, you know, you have to assume that if, like Katie or John, if I said to you, hey, I’m looking for a web designer, and you refer to, to, to me, I would assume that both of them are good, and that you have a good experience working with them. Right. So then I can pay attention to? Do we have any chemistry? Is this somebody I want to show up to a weekly call with? Get? Are they going to meet their deadlines? That kind of stuff?

Katie Robbert 31:30
Yeah, I think that that’s incredibly important. I always ask my network first for anything. You know, before, it’s so hard to just, you know, go go out cold and try to find someone you just never know, what you’re gonna get. And so, you know, finding communities to be a part of finding, you know, groups local, you know, look at your friends, look at your family, a great community is analytics marketers, that’s our free slack group, you can find it at Trust Insights, or AI slash analytics marketers. Again, we found that quite we asked a question last week, and people are constantly asking for referrals for, you know, social media people, for experts in LinkedIn ads, for a variety of things. And it’s a group of trusted people now, that we felt that, you know, if someone gives a recommendation, they know that it’s that person’s reputation, but also their own personal reputation to say, well, you refer this person to me, and they, you know, they shut the bed.

Gini Dietrich 32:29
And that happens, too.

Katie Robbert 32:34
So with that, you know, sort of the big takeaways for Do I need a business coach is, if you’re not sure, use the five fee structure to start to start to suss out whether or not you think you might need one, why you need one, a really simple way to start that is with a user story. So as a, you know, executive, I need an advisor so that I can run my business better. Okay, that’s a great place to start. Can you drill it down to something a little bit more concrete? Because the thing that people often forget is there should be some kind of deliverable something measurable. You know, it’s not just do I run my business better? It’s, can I increase my revenue by 10%? Can I bring in five more clients this year? Something very, you know, concrete that you can say yes, check the box. I did that. Any other final thoughts, John, or Jenny?

John Wall 33:26
If you are not sure you definitely do.

Gini Dietrich 33:30
And stop being stubborn because everybody can use a coach, everyone. It’s true music

Katie Robbert 33:35
coach. That’s true. I will. Thanks everyone. And hopefully I do not screw up this closing.

Christopher Penn 33:45
Thanks for watching today. Be sure to subscribe to our show wherever you’re watching it. For more resources. And to learn more, check out the Trust Insights podcast at trust insights.ai/t I podcast, and a weekly email newsletter at trust insights.ai/newsletter Got questions about what you saw in today’s episode. Join our free analytics for markers slack group at trust insights.ai/analytics for marketers, see you next time.

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