Are you a coach that gets people amazing results… but few people know about you? How can you be more known and trusted without spending lots of ad money? How do you build your following? These are all questions that we answer in our interview with the man who coaches the coaches, Marc Mawhinney!
Join Cash Flow Expert, Chris Miles, and his guest, Marc Mawhinney, as they discuss how coaches can increase their following, make lots of money, and do it with little cost! Tune in to find out how!
Marc Mawhinney Bio:
Marc Mawhinney is a lifelong entrepreneur who’s on a mission to help coaches build successful businesses! He achieves this with his coaching programs; his podcast, Natural Born Coaches; his Facebook group The Coaching Jungle, and his exclusive print newsletter – Secret Coach Club (www.SecretCoachClub.com). He frequently makes media appearances and is a contributor for Entrepreneur.com.
You can learn more about Marc at: www.naturalborncoaches.com
Chris Miles Bio:
Chris Miles, the “Cash Flow Expert,” is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host that has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, Entrepreneur on Fire, and has spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results.
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Listen to the podcast here
Build Your Coaching Biz With A Dental Floss Budget With Marc Mawhinney
We’ve got a great show for you. As you well know, I don’t bring on guests that often. This is a very special treat for sure. As a reminder, be sure to check our website, www.MoneyRipples.com. We’ve got blogs, events coming up, and things of that nature. If you’re looking at ways to free up cash, there are definitely plenty of resources there for you. I’ve got Marc Mawhinney. He’s the coach of all coaches. I actually first met Marc a few years ago. It was actually through your podcasts. Is that true, Marc, or was that through Facebook first?
You were a guest on the show, and then we’ve done webinars and all that fun stuff together.
It’s been a couple of years. I saw some of our Facebook anniversary things pop up. One thing I love about Marc is he’s got amazing Facebook groups. If you’re a coach or someone who’s looking for someone that can help you build your coaching business, Marc is that guy. Marc is amazing in the sense that he’s the guy who’s built a massive following on his Coaching Jungle. That’s something I’m a part of. I invite you to check out The Coaching Jungle on Facebook and participate in that as well as other things.
Now he’s a successful podcaster. He’s been successful with coaching programs and everything else. He’s got some show, Natural Born Coaches, that he does, but the guy has been interviewed by other people too. He’s been on Entrepreneur On Fire that John Lee Dumas does. Many of you guys have been following me because of John’s show. You guys might have even heard Marc on his show too.
He’s also been in other things. He’s been featured in print. He’s in the Secret Coach Club and all over the place. All kinds of media appearances on Entrepreneur, DotCom, and everything else. The very few guests I bring on, I do not bring on posers, fakes, and that aren’t actually doing it. This is the person that you want to learn from, especially we want to get your coaching business doing something different, something that looks bigger and better than it ever has been. Marc is your guy to help you start shining. That’s exactly what we’re interviewing him about. Marc, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Chris. I didn’t realize that you had so few guests on, so it’s no pressure, though. We’re good.
I bring it on at least a few a year, so you’re one of the few of the crowd.
I’m happy to be here. I love the work that you’re doing. I mention your name a lot, not in a creepy or stalky way, but through conversation with coaches. I’m good to go.
Tell us a little bit more about yourself. How did you get on this journey towards where you are now?
Work with realistic people, the ones willing to put the work in and then get the results from it. Click To TweetIt wasn’t planned by any means. I’d like to say it wasn’t in the grand master plan. When I became an adult, I knew I was going to be a coach. To make a long story short, I became a coach through rising from the ashes of business closure and going through a very challenging time in real estate after a decade. Throughout my whole twenties, I built up a real estate business, got to 100 employees, a couple of office locations, and all that fun stuff, and then everything came crashing down in 2009.
A lot of people reading went through hiccups around there with the Great Recession of 2008 and the following years. That’s what hit me with real estate. I was helped by several coaches and mentors. I eventually got into becoming a coach myself a few years after that had happened. That’s how I got into the whole coaching thing.
Your story reminds me a lot of mine as well, around the same period of time. It reminds me of a coach I had at that time where he’s joking, but there’s a lot of truth to it. He says, “The ambition of your 20s will catch up to you in your 30s.”
They call it the dirty 30s for a reason. The start of my 30s wasn’t very good. Luckily, I have bounced back and I’ve had fun the rest of my 30s, but for a while, I thought, “This is why they call it the dirty 30s,” because I was 31 when all that happened and the crap hit the fan. It’s funny you find this too. We’re years past that business closure. Obviously, I still remember it. There are powerful emotions there, but it’s not the same way it was before.
A couple of years after that happened, that was on my mind. It was weighing me down. Now that I look back, I can appreciate the lessons learned from it. It was a positive thing. I wouldn’t be talking with you and met all these great coaches, clients, and stuff had that not happened. At that time, it feels like the end of the world. For anyone reading that’s going through their own hell at the moment, don’t give up. Keep going, as Winston Churchill said you’re supposed to do when you’re going through hell, because it will get better.
I learned never to say it can never get worse because it can always get worse. By that, it’s very important to remember too that you have the hope that things can always be better and things will get better, so you have to keep pushing forward. Most people give up before they ever give it a chance. That’s the thing like when you give up, that’s as much more than ruining somebody financially. That ruins you spiritually and emotionally always. Tell us a little bit more as you’re telling the audience. What’s your focus when you work with coaches?
It runs across the board. It’s around the business-building side of coaching. I don’t work so much with coaches on the craft of coaching. A lot of the people I work with get that already through the certifications they’re going through and the training programs. Unfortunately, a lot of them going through that come out of whatever certification got their paperwork and ready to go, but then they don’t know how to get clients through the door.
I’m working more on the business side of coaching. Essentially it’s business coaching, but it’s designed around getting clients and getting your message out there. No offense to Tim Ferriss or some great stuff in The 4-Hour Workweek. I am not a four-hour workweek type of guy that’s going to promise people sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows for work in a few minutes a week.
They can make seven figures in their first month with a magic funnel or some ninja hack thing. I’m very much like, “You’re going to have to grind that out. You’re going to have to put a lot of work in,” especially the first couple of years. I’m not going to sugarcoat it and blow smoke and tell them that they’re going to make seven figures here in a short period of time. It’s going to take work. I found that’s a much better way. I tend not to work well with the get-rich-quick people that want to do that. I work with people who are realistic, willing to put the work in, and then get the results coming from it.
Your path is similar to where mine was, where you definitely spent the first few years building. I definitely spent many hours a week, 40-plus hour weeks easily, at the beginning. Granted, I’ve gotten below that, but it took some time to build it to a point where I was able to get it to where I can relax and not have to build it so hard.
In my first year of coaching, my pay compared to the number of hours was third-world wages. That’s being honest, especially the first six months. The advantage I had was going through the real estate experience, I started real estate when I was 21, it’s the exact same thing. For the first six months, I worked my tail off and didn’t make much in fruition, and then it started to catch up. In real estate, it was in years 2 and 3 that I started to take off. I found the same thing in coaching. It was year two where I said, “I’m happy with this,” then year three blew up. In year four, I’m shooting higher and higher.
A lot of people nowadays get started and then when they’re not making millions of dollars in the first month, they think, “What’s wrong with me? I’m seeing all these other people posting on social media about making all this money and all those clients.” We know what those people are full of, but they may not realize that where they’re new to the game. It can be frustrating for them if they compare what’s that saying. Steve Furtick says, “Don’t compare your behind the scenes to someone else’s highlight reel.”
There was a coach I worked with whose goal was hitting $1 million, but it was his first full year in business. He started his business in 2015 and 2016 was his first full year. He’s like, “I’m going to hit $1 million.” About halfway through the year, I say, “What if you guys don’t hit $1 million?” He was on track for $150,000 to $200,000 maybe. “What if you don’t hit that $1 million? What if you hit $300,000?”
I remember his wife saying, “That would be horrible. That’s not acceptable.” “Why? What’s an issue? You’re in your twenties. That’s awesome. If you hit $300,000 in your first full year, that’s amazing. Don’t poo-poo all over that.” They never hit $1 million. It’s like, “Now I go through all those mental trash thinking that you’re sucking and everything else,” when in reality, you actually did an amazing job.
I’m all for shooting big. That’s great that they’re setting big goals and targets. I remember that happened one year in real estate. I had a small team at that time. We shot for $1 million in gross commission, and we had been $450,000 or something the year before. It was more than doubling it. We ended up around $800,000, but I was thinking. I thought, “If I set a goal of $500,000 or $600,000, I might end it off with $500,000.” By shooting high, I ended up very happy with where I was, even though I hit 80% of my goal.
It is definitely nothing to beat yourself up over. That’s amazing. You talk about one thing that fascinates me. I love it and I think it goes along with what my show teaches. You talk about how to build your coaching business without fancy funnels, ads, or things that. Tell us more about that.
When I got my coaching business started, I joked around. I say, “It wasn’t a shoestring budget. It was a dental floss budget.” I didn’t have loads of cash to throw towards Facebook ads, marketing blitzes, and stuff that. What I had to do was make up for the lack of war chest by putting in the effort and doing a lot of organic stuff with content creation.
You mentioned my podcast, Natural Born Coaches. I was doing a daily show at that time in the first couple of hundred episodes. Now, I’ve scaled it back to a weekly show, which is where it’ll stay. I was very active on Facebook. Facebook is my playground. I’m on LinkedIn, Twitter, and stuff, but Facebook is where I get a lot of business, and that’s carried over even now.
You're better off being yourself than trying to copy someone else. Click To TweetI’m turning out lots of content. You have to be out front and center of people all the time, and the coaching world, online coaching world, or any online business isn’t a place where you can say, “I’m going to do a post a week or two a week, and that’s enough to do it.” Even with my email list, I’m doing daily emails, which sounds crazy. Some people say it’s too much, but it’s been working great. It chases away the people who would never buy from me or hire me and keeps the people on.
It builds a strong relationship with those who resonate with my message and want to hear from me. I’m a big fan of daily emails as well. You have to pick at least 1 or 2 things that you’re good at and be consistent with them. Whatever you’re doing, you’re going to have to 10X the amount of effort and things you’re putting out there. It’s not enough to be putting up one post a day on whatever social media network. You have to do 10, for example.
It’s certainly not something we can play around with. My followers will likely get an email from me once a month. That’s one thing I respect about what you do. A lot of times, I put a lot of my focus on the show and then realized I could use my email, which I used to do weekly and then I backed off. It’s the same reason you said. Every once in a while, you see the minority of people say, “I’m getting too many emails,” which, in hindsight, I realize, “There wasn’t necessarily meant too many for me. They could be getting too many emails in general.” This went through and said, “I don’t remember this guy.” Now they are welcome to unsubscribe.
There’s a right way to do it. When I say email daily, I don’t mean it’s a hard sales pitch. I technically sell in every one of my emails. It’s a call-to-action at the end of it. It doesn’t sound like an infomercial or something that’s high pressure. In the internet marketing world, false scarcity and act now only. It could be an information product where there are no quantity limits or anything like that, but we only have four left even though it’s something digital.
For mine, there’s always a call-to-action, but it’s not that type of call-to-action. I tell stories and I say it’s infotainment. I give value, but I’m not doing heavy teaching and not sending thousand-word emails. It’s 300 words max. I’m keeping them fun and interesting. That’s the second part of it, besides the consistency of a daily email.
The reason I’ve been able to do a lot of revenue through my email list is because I’ve been talking in my own voice. It hasn’t been canned or scripted or copied and pasted like you see a lot of them out there. I’ve got a corny Canadian quirky sense of humor. I like to tell jokes, puns and stuff that makes my son roll his eyes at times. That’s me. You’re better off being yourself than trying to copy someone else.
I’ve seen way more success being who I am and being comfortable with that rather than trying to imitate some other person’s success, whether it be anyone for that matter.
You saw me after Tony Robbins’ documentary came out on Netflix. Anyone who’s seen that I Am Not Your Guru knows that Tony drops the F-bomb every second word in that documentary. He was going from Guinness World Record with that. What happened immediately following the week or two after that documentary was released on Netflix, all these coaches that I knew and I’d followed their stuff who didn’t usually swear, all of a sudden it’s, “F this. F-in pieces of crap. If you don’t want to go for your dreams, you’re an F.”
Don’t get me wrong. I use some salty language and stuff, but if I started dropping the F-bomb every second word, it wouldn’t look real. It’s almost in vogue not to drop the F-bomb every second word because everyone’s like, “I’m going to be Tony. I’m going to curse like a sailor.” That’s Tony Robbins. He’s earned it over how many years in doing so much business. You’re Joe Smith who just became a coach. It may not be the best approach for you. Be yourself. There’s no sense constructing some different image in a different voice.
You mentioned that because it’s the trend. I noticed the trend was already going up with Gary Vaynerchuk and guys like that. After the Tony Robbins Netflix movie, you’re like, “Now, it’s apparently the in-vogue thing to do.” How much can they polarize people and tick them off to the point where they all unfriend me or unsubscribe to my stuff, then I’m left with a few key people that were able to withstand the storms of my wrath? That’s fine.
I agree with you. If it’s authentic to who you were before and it works, great, but if you’re forcing that stuff, it actually creates a new response. Either you trust the people you don’t want to work with in the first place or get a lot of people who mistrust you because they can tell that you don’t seem aligned with who you are. This seemed like you’re a phony.
Anyone who was on my list then follows my stuff. My social media stuff knows that I’m not dropping F-bombs, but as I said, it’s salty sometimes. I don’t worry if I lose somebody. I would rather lose them due to that salty language. Let’s say I start working with them, and then they get offended because I say the word bullcrap or BS or something, which has actually happened.
I had a coach email me once that said, “Marc, I love your stuff. Energetically, we’re not on the same energy plane because you said crap in an email. If you could clean up your language, I’d appreciate it.” I’m like, “Give me a break. I don’t filter it.” I wouldn’t want to work with her because that’s extremely touchy. If you’re not in the F-bombs every second word, that’s one thing.
If somebody says crap and you have a big issue with that, then you’re not my client. There’s someone out there that you can work with. One of my main goals is chasing people off my front lawn who I don’t want to work with. I’m like Clint Eastwood in the movie Gran Torino who’s got the rifle on the front lawn. That’s how I am. I want to polarize and chase them away from me because I don’t want to work with them. It’s not going to be a good match. I’m a young Clint Eastwood with the gun.
As you said, you are polarized but don’t have to take people off the polarize them. Naturally, be who you are. If there’s a lot of you who you are that people don’t like, they move on, which is great.
There are way too many coaches who are stuck in the mushy middle, and they don’t risk-offending people. We joked around about the Tony Robbins F-bomb. I don’t care about those people out there, but the vast majority of coaches actually talk like a canned robotic-type speech like everybody else. That may have worked years ago, but now, there’s so much information out there to stand out from the crowd.
If you’re doing boring, canned stuff that’s on millions of blogs people have seen, heard, and read before, then that’s not going to do it. You got to infuse some personality with it. You got to be able to stand up above the crowd and get your head over to the crowd to be seen. I don’t think enough coaches are doing that because they’re worried about risking offending people.
I had somebody unsubscribe from my email list once. To make a long story short, I sent an email out. I said that coaches who try to cobble together their business by getting a bunch of free advice from twenty calls, people who go through free calls and then try to pull together, I compared it before the Wright Brothers achieved flight.
Something may not be the best approach for you, so just be yourself. There's no sense in constructing some different image in a different voice. Click To TweetThere were all these people have these crazy flight contraptions. They have bicycles with wings taped to them and all those weird, crazy stuff. A bunch of people died, went crashing into the ground, and stuff. I said, “That’s what it’s like with coaching businesses trying to cobble together free advice from twenty calls instead of investing in someone good like yourself or me and learning the right way.” I had someone unsubscribe and say, “I found that totally rude and offensive, and I’m dropping off your list.” I don’t want that person on my list anyways. If you’re going to get offended, but the shock and horror of, “You have to actually invest to be successful in business,” then I don’t want them on there.
It’s funny because, from my perspective, I’m one of those people that like to create relationships. I love to create friendships and things like that. It’s always funny because whenever I get people that are very influential people, they’ll see me, and they’re like, “You’re an average ordinary guy, like Joe Walsh almost. You’re a normal guy. You’re not pretentious or a big guru head or anything like that.” I’m like, “No, I’m just me.” I naturally want to attract people and bring people together. That’s more my thing. As time went on, I realized, “I’m paying a lot for this mailing list that I have. I want people to unsubscribe. They’ll bump me down at least $20 or $50 a month. Let them unsubscribe.”
You can’t worry if you’re about to hit send to your email list. If you’re worried, “What is Joe from Boise, Idaho going to think? I hurt his feelings a couple of months ago. Maybe I’ll clean this up a little or I’ll be careful what I stay there.” You can’t be afraid to your list or sell to your list, but you can’t be afraid to put out your strong, natural opinion. I’m not saying you want to go out there with real strong, crazy political beliefs or talking about abortion or religion and stuff like that. If you want to, go for it. That being said, you still can’t be afraid to give a strong opinion.
I have several people following me that are coaches of different sorts, whether it be health and wellness, along the mental or psychological realms, or whatever it might be. What would be your advice for someone who’s maybe good at their craft but not great at getting their word out or crafting themselves? What would you say?
They’re going to have to get good at it. I’d like to be able to say that you don’t have to sell to be a good coach or have a successful business, but you’ve got to sell the help. You can be the best coach in the world, but if you can’t market yourself properly or you can’t get clients through the door, you’re not going to be able to remain a coach. You’re not going to be making any money, and that’s not good either.
My recommendation is get past that fear of self-promotion. You’ve got to blow your own horn. There are certain ways to do it. I don’t mean that you’re one of these corny people. Have you ever seen people take a picture of a cheque or something or $100 bills on their bed? They post that all over social media. They’re standing in front of a rented mansion, rented yacht, or something like that. I’m not saying that you have to be like that.
I have one client in particular who is doing well. I know that she’s getting a lot of clients. I’ve been working with her and I know her situation. I noticed something that I brought it up in one of our sessions. I said, “I’d never seen you basically brag about your success or talk about your success at all. If I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t know that you had any clients and you’re getting testimonials, which you’re afraid to put up. You’re not doing anything like that.” She said, “You’re right. I’m afraid to do it. I don’t want to look like a braggart.”
I said, “That’s your homework for this week. I want you to blow your own horn and start doing that and see how it feels.” It actually felt good, and she got more business from it because she started to do that and get the lesson through her head. That’s how a lot of coaches are afraid of looking like a braggart. They don’t want to do it, and then they’re hurting themselves, their business, and a lot of other people they could have helped. They don’t know about them.
I remember one of my early mentors from years ago that I hired. In any place or business, specifically, the coaches, he would say, “You’re not in the coaching business. You’re not in the health and wellness business or whatever businesses that you do.” I have chiropractors that follow me and I say, “You’re not in the chiropractic business. That’s not it at all. You’re in the business of marketing, which is your coaching business.”
He’s like, “It’s all about marketing. You’re not in your business of being a coach. You’re in a business of marketing that coaching business.” If people don’t know who you are, how can they benefit from what you have? You might be the most amazing person in your field, but if nobody knows about you, you make no difference in people’s lives. You’re not blessing people to the degree that you possibly could be.
Most new coaches come in expecting that they’re going to be coaching 80% to 90% of the time. The other 10% or 20% of the time, they’re going to be doing a little bit of marketing and tidying up the paperwork and the backend stuff. When in reality, it’s flipped the other way. You’re doing maybe 10% to 20% max of your time spent actually coaching and then you got an 80% of time finding those clients and doing the other stuff. The sooner you can realize that and get your head wrapped around it, the better.
Especially early on, you’ve got to do that. Once you get a reputation, you get that out there, and you have people referring you, great. Until you get to that point, you better be expecting that you’re going to spend more time on marketing. You will be actually coaching. If you get one last piece of advice, what would that be, Marc?
That’s always tricky because I want to talk for about five hours about some of the things that are constantly popping up. In a nutshell, I’d encourage anybody out there, if you’re a coach, please don’t offer your services for free or deep discounts. It sounds like common sense, but way too many coaches are doing it. The sooner that you’re charging what you’re worth, the better.
You’re not doing the client any favors either if you’re giving them free coaching. They’re not going to take it seriously if they don’t have any skin in the game. It seems to be a thing nowadays that people are saying, “I’m doing these free coaching sessions, contact me and we’ll talk for 2, 3, or 8 hours.” The thought is, “I’ll pour my heart and soul in it, and i’ll knock their socks off. They’ll be so impressed with this whole coaching thing that they’re going to hire me and refer all their friends to me.”
I’ve worked with a number of coaches who came from that school of thinking and they’re burnt out. They’re frustrated, bitter, resentful, and starving. There’s a saying I always remember, “You can’t light up the world if you can’t pay your light bill.” That’s what happens when you don’t charge what you’re worth. That’s my personal recommendation. There’ll be as many people saying that you should do this, but in my honest opinion, don’t do free coaching. Charge what you’re worth. That is valuable and you deserve to be paid for it.
Who’s your favorite coach that you like to work with? Describe them a little bit.
I’ve got a couple of main criteria I like to work with. I work with coaches across the board with all sorts of nations, but I like to work with coaches with who I’d like to have fun. Life is too short if you’re not having fun, so I like to joke around. This business is serious, but you’ve got to have fun. I want to work with people who do the work. They don’t expect me to pick up the slack and I like to be paid in full and on time. I’m in business, so that’s a very important thing as well.
They should definitely uphold their word and be willing to actually do it. Everybody, if you feel you resonate with Marc, I definitely recommend you reach out to him and start to follow him. Get to know his stuff. Marc, what’s the easiest way for them to follow you?
NaturalBornCoaches.com is the central hub. You mentioned that you’re in the Facebook group. We’d love to have them there. They can find the Facebook group there. The Coaching Jungle is TheCoachingJungle.com or the new print newsletter that actually launched for coaches is SecretCoachClub.com. Any of those places will get me.
Marc, this is amazing stuff. I wish everybody would read this and maybe read it 2 or 3 times to make sure they get it, understand it, and figure out how they personalize themselves. I appreciate your time.
Thanks, Chris.
Everybody else out there, Ripplers, I want to see you make a massive ripple effect out there, especially if you’re a coach. Let’s see if we can make that happen because the big ripple effect that I can create can also ripple into your life. That ripple can also go out into other people’s lives. That’s when we’re making a difference in the world. That’s where we become the very world that we’re trying to create here. It comes from people like us. Make sure we get out there and work together to be able to create massive change in the world. Thanks for tuning in. Have a great prosperous week, and we’ll see you later.
Important Links
- Marc Mawhinney
- The Coaching Jungle
- Natural Born Coaches Podcast
- Entrepreneur On Fire – Marc Mawhinney Guesting
- The 4-Hour Workweek
- LinkedIn – Marc Mawhinney
- Twitter – Marc Mawhinney
- SecretCoachClub.com