Ep 75 Transcript: Building a Multi-Million Dollar Coaching Business Without Burnout with Amanda Kaufman
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.
Shauna Lynn Simon (00:02)
Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today's guest is Amanda Kaufman. And she is the founder of The Coaches Plaza host of The Amanda Kaufman Show. Amanda has generated over $2 million in revenue through her coaching and her courses. But what makes her story really so valuable is her willingness to share the real journey, which includes the challenges that even successful entrepreneurs face.
So with over 18 years of business consulting experience, Amanda has made the leap from corporate to coaching, building her business from just eight names, eight names, and quitting her job in four months. She's incredibly passionate about helping coaches to build authentic and profitable businesses without the social media overwhelm that so many of us struggle with. So I cannot say how excited I am to have you on the show, Amanda. Thank you so much for joining us.
I'm so excited to be here. So we had some off-camera conversations and we could not be more aligned in some of our thought processes and some of our journeys for that matter because there are so many similarities I think to the entrepreneurial journey but not everyone always talks about them. So let's start off with, okay, you built a successful coaching business from eight names. Let's talk about this for a moment.
Can you share what this journey looked like for you? have eight names on the list. Are these friends and family? Are they eight actual people who signed up for a newsletter? Like, where did you get these eight names from and how did you turn that into this thriving business in like four months?
Yeah, it was a crazy time. So I would say that if you want to achieve big goals, you need to have big necessity. You need to be like really tapped into why it matters to move now. And every business that I can think of that that is actually successful and real. Usually the entrepreneur started with the contacts that they already had. And so for me, the eight names were after scrolling through the LinkedIn, scrolling through the Facebook, scrolling through the contacts.
And these were like the eight names of people that were not friends and family that I felt that I could be vulnerable enough to share. I want to be a coach full time because at that time, like I had 10 years of experience in a corporate consulting position. So I like made it and then I made it and I made it like it was. I was making, frankly, a lot of money and I had really good benefits and like it was a it was a good situation. It was pretty awesome.
And people kind of knew that I coached, but it was always like, that's like a nice side thing that she does. Sure. So it came to like being an entrepreneur and like risking entrepreneurship and risking being in business for myself, ⁓ lot of people in my life are like, are you OK? Like, did you bump your head? Are you crazy? Like, what's going on here? And so those eight names are actually people that I felt safe.
⁓ reaching out to and saying, so I'd like to give you a complimentary coaching session. And also by the way, I think I'm to build whole business around this, you know? And, and like, that's, that's where I started with the eight. And funnily enough, the only reason why I found those eight is because I was doing a coaching certification that at the time said you have to have 10 complimentary sessions with not, with not family. And I was like, ⁓ no. ⁓
90 minutes of combing through my Rolodex to come up with eight safe people. Right. And for building a coaching business, that is a very standard practice. But there might be people listening to this who are building a non coaching business who are like, I can't just give away my services for free. But I like what you're talking about, though, in terms of direct outreach. So maybe you can't give it away for free, but who can you reach out to and explain that, you you're starting this business and and you want there's and you want to show them what you can do.
in some way, or maybe they can connect you to people that can help you. One of things that I have found on direct outreach ⁓ that works really well and actually is not intended necessarily to be a sales ploy, but I mean, it is, don't get me wrong, but I'll reach out to people that I think might know the people that I wanna work with and say like, hey, do you know someone who might fit this bill? And that has been incredibly successful for me because when you can describe a certain person,
A lot of times they're like, yeah, you know, I do know someone and sometimes it's even them as well. So you just never know, but it feels a little less salesy when you're not saying I want to sell to you, but do you, or I don't want to sell to you. I'm not trying to sell to you, but do know someone who might be interested in this that I could help? And the thing is like, we're offering a service that's going to help people. So I don't know why we always feel so icky around selling the term thing. That's facts. And I mean, for me, those first eight were so important because
I would argue if you're really actually starting from scratch, you probably should get comfortable with a certain amount of giving it away. ⁓ Not because you're devaluing yourself, but because you need to build some reputation with what you do. So if you can give people a chance to experience or sample, or at least get a demonstration of what it is you would do if you were getting paid, I think that that's pretty universal for especially services-based businesses. know sometimes we're doing things with products, but even then,
you know, getting those early customers and saying like, I'll let you have it at cost if they won't, if they won't get it at cost, then I mean, like, what are you even doing? But, ⁓ yeah, I agree. I think there's so much stigma and fear around selling. And the truth is that you're selling something, you know, all the time. So you're, you be selling that you're meek. You can be selling that you don't believe in what you're doing. You could be selling, you know, like we don't, you don't realize until you really start getting
deep into selling and getting experience with it. We're selling something all the time. Absolutely. And it's funny that you mentioned that too, because I think that people also confuse sales with marketing and visibility and engagement and likes and followers and all these things. Sales is what puts money in your pocket. And then the second part of that is
Is that a profitable sale? So as you say, like if you're giving away your products at cost, you're not making money on it. What are you making? You're building reputation. You're potentially getting a solid testimonial from someone. You're getting reviews. You're getting exposure. Like there are things and don't get wrong, you can't pay your bills with exposure. We talk about this all the time, but there is definitely some value to being able to get that product out there. But if your entire marketing strategy or your promotion strategy is to just give away everything for free and not actually make any sales,
Well, you're operating in a deficit now. this is the other thing, like, you know, we mentioned that you've generated over $2 million in revenue. Well, that's a top line number, but that only matters, of course, if your bottom line number is, well, for starters, lower than $2 million or like, or sorry, like your expenses are lower than $2 million and your bottom line number is a positive number. Yes. That's what, yeah. So the challenges I think we often get so caught up in the revenues.
And, you know, I, I've told this story before on this podcast, I believe, but I, I worked at a company where I worked as a cost analyst. So I actually have a math background. I have a bachelor of mathematics degree, worked as an analyst for several years. And so I was working for this company as their cost analyst. And my responsibility was to quote, especially the large projects. And so we had this, this client that wanted to buy, let's call it a million widgets that they wanted to buy. And I priced these widgets out and they were going to cost us something like 74 cents to produce.
and the client only wanted to pay like 66 cents. And so my boss is like, well, we have to match that number. like, okay, but that's less than what it costs us to produce it. Like, I don't understand how we're going to do that. And he's like, well, it's cashflow. Sure. And there are times where negative cashflow actually is a good strategy, especially for a company that's going through some difficult times and knows that they're going to have positive cashflow in a few months and just needs to kind of
buy themselves a little bit of time. But negative cashflow as a general strategy is not a good idea because you're always in the negative. So you have to actually be profitable. And I go through this exercise with clients all the time where we run their numbers and realize if we actually break it down on a per project basis or per service or per item, they're actually not profitable once you factor in your overhead and everything else. So going back to you've generated over $2 million in revenue.
What are you doing to ensure that that top line number is in alignment with the bottom line? Yeah, such a great question. And I didn't always get this right. And as an entrepreneur, sometimes, and you said something so interesting. were like, some companies are just going to have hard times and they need cash flow. And my immediate thought as you said that was,
⁓ the beginning of a business is always hard. It's always tough, right? Because you're, having to build the, you're building reputation. You're investing in new experience and knowledge that you didn't have before. You're getting on the map, which always costs money because you've got to, you know, even, even if you're doing something that's a hundred percent services based, you still have to be known. And even if you are not spending a dime on your marketing, you're going to have to make up for it in sweat equity and time.
And so when it comes to cash flowing, there are the two levers. And one of them is revenue. I would say for like, I specialize in working with beginner coaches and experts. The thing they screw up the most is they take for freaking ever to make the first sale.
They just they keep fixing to and getting ready and thinking that it's like, you know, like your NASA getting ready for this like launch to Mars in 10 years. And it's like, no, like that's not required. What's required is the right conversation with the right person, right on time and being a genuine service. You know, my my thought around sales is like, well, what is the difference between sales and marketing? Well, sales is the is it's the moment of commitment.
And it's all about gaining that clarity that commitment can take place. And sometimes you're wasting your time talking to people that can never make the commitment because they don't have the disposable income or they don't have the urgency to work on the goal that you help with, or they don't even believe in coaching or whatever that that service is that you've got. Their belief system is so far away from being qualified to be able to buy from you. The sale is like a non-starter. So I think that the biggest mistake on top line is just
over complicating. The conversation is with a qualified human and it's clarifying that decision that they can make the commitment and inviting them to do so. And once they make the invitation, you you make that invitation, they accept that invitation, Roger that, let's get to work, deliver value as soon as possible. And that requires speed. So I love to say like money loves speed, success loves speed, right? loves speed.
Wealth loves time. And you can get rich without being wealthy. And so when I think about wealth liking time, what that means is that we're very deliberate about the dollars that come in. And strategy is the decision making that we make about the resources that we have. That's the time, the money, the energy, right? The resources that we have to get the best possible outcome.
So it could be that there's this entrepreneurial situation where, yes, we're gonna give it away at cost or we're gonna give it away at 66 cents a unit because we know that that client is gonna stick around and we're gonna get upside margin on something else. It's called a loss leader. When you do that on purpose, but if you're not on purpose with it that you've measured in advance, okay, I'm playing chess, everybody else is playing tic-tac-toe, I'm gonna do this thing that is going to get me a
better deal in the long run, that's wealth thinking, right? And that takes time to like slow down and really calculate that move and also calculate ⁓ your risk profile with making that move that if it doesn't work out, you're okay. I love this because you're talking about strategies that are not new. This is my favorite part about this. Like talking with the loss leader, for example. So I used to work as a teenager, I worked at Walmart and we had the cheapest coffee.
of anywhere. You could not buy coffee any cheaper than Walmart had it. And I remember my parents asking like, how can they sell it so cheap? Like it's like double everywhere else. like, they don't make money on it. It's called a loss leader. Like I've been taking my economics class and everything. And I talked to some managers at Walmart, because even I was kind of shocked by this whole thing. And it had some strategy conversations with some of the managers. And our coffee at Walmart was our loss leader. The idea is what are the chances that someone's going to go to Walmart and just buy coffee?
So the idea is that you get them in the door and then you sell them on other things. But I love what you're talking about too, about not having it all completely figured out before you're launching, before you get in that sale. I have never, ever figured out a course before selling it. Every course I've done, every program I've done, I have sold it before I had it completely figured out. Sure, you want some general parameters figured out, obviously.
but work with those initial people that you get in there to refine it. Instead of worrying about trying to perfect it, you can't perfect it without an actual client, without an actual sale. You need those in order to continue to refine things. Any manufacturer will tell you about this. Sarah Blakely will tell you about how many configurations Spanx went through as she was refining things. It's not just this simple, it, put it all together, make sure it's all.
perfectly packaged and I think women especially were just such perfectionists when it comes to this that we just want everything just so. But meanwhile, none of that matters if you're not making any money.
Exactly, exactly. It's like, think, we could go into like a whole patriarchal deep dive on that. ⁓ And it is so true. mean, like, there's this fantasy of what you're building in your mind of what it's going to look like. And then there's this really rude disruptor on any project that you that you do, which is reality.
You know, and whenever you're building something, you have to make certain assumptions. Like I said, you're playing chess when you're letting everybody else play tic-tac-toe. So I love like thoughtfulness, genuine thoughtfulness, not rumination where you're just like cycling over and over and over again in your mind, but really like driving towards decision, driving towards a conclusion. And I do the same thing with my courses. I'm like, okay.
I know we want to land here. This is the North Star that like everybody cares about. I can put that into the GPS. And I think we can all agree we're starting here. Right. And so when I'm designing a course, a curriculum, program, even a speech, I think like, well, what are the five big moves that are going to take me from where everybody, you know, largely is to where everybody largely wants to go?
And to your point, by the time you get to step two, you realize, ⁓ I got to speed up in some places. I got to slow down in other places. And also there's some construction over here I didn't know about and I've got to reroute. you know, being able to have that, luxury of being able to be flexible and do that quick iterating feedback loop. So much of that comes from charging appropriately and having enough visibility and personal brand equity that people will forgive your mistakes.
Right. They want to grow with you and they literally will root for you if you have those things in play. So true. And I think especially, you know, if you're just starting out and you're a solopreneur at this point, this is the time to take the detours and take the pivots, because it is a lot easier to steer a tiny boat than it is to steer a massive ship. So when you are driving hundreds of people on your staff and all of sudden you're going to try to make a massive pivot,
it's going to take a lot longer for you to get everyone on board and steer that ship. But if you're the only one on this tiny little boat, you can just zip in and out. You're good. You can turn where you need to. You can maneuver as you need to. And I think that, again, we get so caught up sometimes in that initial launching. And don't get wrong. Yes, you want to have some ducks in a row. OK? Sometimes they're a little scattered around, and one gets a little out of line, and one gets a little curious over there. But for the most part, have those ducks in a row. Have the basics covered.
but don't get too caught up in the weeds of these things. Go out there and make some money. And so on that, also would love to, let's go back to the marketing versus sales, because the other thing that we've talked about ⁓ pre-hitting record here was about in terms of like the difference between marketing and sales and how they align with each other. What I often see entrepreneurs doing is ramping up their marketing when all of a sudden they feel like they need some sales.
And then when things are flowing and they've got, you know, it's like turning the tap on and off, basically, they don't do any marketing for months at a time because, I have enough clients, I don't need to do any marketing. And then all of a sudden that pipeline dries up. Like, oh shoot, let's turn that tap back on. And now they're frantically trying to promote something and discount things and do all these other things. So what's sort of the secret to you staying on top of the social media or, you you actually talk about what to do when social media isn't working.
Why don't we start with that and talk about, let's dive into that a little bit. What is the biggest mistake that coaches are making when it comes to their visibility strategy or entrepreneurs in general? I'm sure. Well, in general, you know, I think especially coaches, you know, with coaches, your best bet is probably going to be a personal brand. Even if you have like an externalized brand, you know, my brand is the coaches Plaza. And that allows me and my team to anchor to an entity that's not just Amanda Kaufman. But I am the ambassador of
coaches plaza. So when people are doing business with the coaches plaza, they're building also relationship with me as a major, you know, as the key ambassador of the brand. So I think like the biggest mistake is ⁓ not realizing that role that you have, that you are an ambassador for your coaching, for your coaching methodology, for the belief system, the philosophies that drive how you show up, ⁓ not owning your differentiation.
not owning that there is a value proposition in what you're doing. Because I mean, you really are the first customer. You're the one that's really buying in. Like, do you think that your coaching is valuable? My very first sale was to my best friend for $10 an hour. And when I think about that, it's so funny because in corporate, I was doing $10 million contracts. So like, wow, there's something happening in here between my ears, right?
And I think what was happening was I just had so much doubt that others would perceive of the value of what I did that I couldn't bring myself at the time to like utter the words that I want you to pay me more. And so I think you have to, you know, first of all, be sold yourself that working with you is an excellent idea, that working with you is a safe
and smart investment that working with you sooner is always better than later. Like you have to be sold in your own psychology on those things because if you're not, it's just going to show up everywhere. It's going to show up every time you go to do a podcast interview, every time you stand in a networking event, every time that you that you post and people don't realize that like your courage.
is what you have to activate. It's not your confidence because frankly, when you're starting, you have no confidence. You don't have any experience. like, I don't know, you know, like you could go one way or another way. But if you don't if you don't sit through like thinking about how how you think it's going to turn out and really like building the case, like literally be a lawyer in your own mind and critically think about it. Like, would you place a bet on you? Because if you would place a bet on you.
You're golden. You're in a really good place. You could literally make the worst tweets, the baddest reels, the most nonsensical blog posts, and you're going to be way ahead of someone who's still operating from that insecure place. So I'd say like, that's the very first thing. The second thing, and the reason why you see all that chop, you know, where people are like, they get busy and then they turn off the marketing nozzle and then they're like, no, and they have to go and you know, scramble to get a client.
Look, I haven't met a business owner that's asked me for help that wasn't already feeling financial pressure. So here's, here's, you asked me way earlier. You were like, how, how do I make sure I'm profitable? You know, with all that money coming in, what do you do? The answer is you understand that you're building an entity that cash flows over time. So I'm not in this business to make $10,000 in 30 days. I'm not in this business to do six figures in 90 days. I'm in this business.
to make this my personal brand over the long term. So again, this kind of gives you a chance to play chess when everybody else is playing tic-tac-toe, right? You can take every dollar, or let's just say for ease, $100 comes into your business, right? You can decide ahead of time that say $25, that's going to your marketing budget. Rain or shine, you're spending $25.
That's where that marketing budget goes. And maybe there's 35 bucks that goes to you. Maybe there's 15 bucks that this I am making up numbers, not giving you financial advice. I'm just saying like the way to think about it is like I already spent the money. I've already spent 25 % of whatever I earn on marketing rain or shine. And when it's sunny, you still spend the budget. And when it's raining, you definitely spend the budget.
And I think it's a good idea to also always have an eye towards innovation. So I like doing 80 % of what you're doing, do what you know and do what works, but challenge what you know, because what you think you know, you don't know. Cause if you knew you would be Tony Robbins, right? In the coaching space, if you knew you would be Brendan Burchard, he would be degre… if you knew, if you actually knew, you would be operating at that level, not the level you're at.
That being said, allow yourself to have the stability of that 80 % of doing the same thing that's worked for you so far, but challenge it with testing in 20 % of your budget. Take 20 % of your budget and do the wild and crazy stuff. The stuff everybody talks about is being like the successful thing. And you might just find you replace what you're doing as your normal standard because you keep testing and challenging what you already know. I mean, you're preaching to the choir.
I've definitely taken more than my fair share of risks and I don't know if risk is quite the right word, ⁓ challenges over the years. Do they all pan out? No. Do I regret any of them? No. I mean, I think this is the thing that we're often so afraid of having regrets, but if you actually look back on your life, you probably have fewer regrets than you actually thought you were going to. And if you're avoiding doing too many things,
You're like you're not taking those chances. And I don't want to say like you want to gamble. I'm not talking about gambling, but I love what you're saying about like take 20 percent and essentially gamble with it. It's the same thing if you're to go to the casino, you're going to take with you throw away money, right? This is money that you have already earmarked. This is going to the casino. I'm not coming home with it. You're not going to the casino saying that I am going to make bank tonight. Like that's just not that's not how you need to approach it. And if 20 percent is too much for you, then start off smaller.
but make sure that you are giving yourself that slack to be able to do it. But I loved everything that you were saying there though about trying to keep that consistency, ensuring that we're confident and we're courageous in the things that we're doing and that we're creating that brand. also one thing that you talked about was the time associated with it. And I think this is huge as well. Timing never quite feels right for things for us, for the people that we're going to be potentially selling to.
But I have never had a client ever in any of my businesses ever say, I really wish that I had waited to work with you. Like, it's just not a thing. Yeah, yeah. Right? So I mean. You know, I actually have had somebody say that to me. the only time I've, yeah, I've had it happen twice. And in both cases, they maybe misrepresented what their capacity was to invest.
So they got onto like a payment plan and they didn't have a good strategy for that. So I wanted to offer that up just in case you've heard it and you're like, what? It can happen, right? People can say, wish it was later, but it's probably not going to be you. It's probably going to be the circumstances surrounding the thing that would cause them to say that. But yeah, great to hear that it hasn't happened for you.
No, definitely not. mean, if anything, it's often the, didn't I meet you sooner, of phrasing, which timing is everything. And it's never, mean, what the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. So you can't live with these ideas of, I wish I had done this, or it's too late to do that. ⁓ But I think that what you're saying, though, is creating that consistent plan.
allows you to live a little bit more freely where you're not constantly thinking about like, did I forget to do this or should I have done that? Or what if I held off a little longer in doing this? Like it gives you that flexibility to be able to ensure that things are continuing to move forward. And the momentum is going to be different at different times, whether your business is more seasonal or what the economy is doing. Like there is a ton of factors that affect every business every single day, but we never want to actually turn things off necessarily. So.
We're going to take a very quick break and we're going to come back and talk a little bit more about that.
All right, welcome back to the Real Women Real Business podcast where we're speaking with Amanda Kaufman. And let's talk, let's go back to the profitability aspect of it. Okay, so they're spending some money on marketing. They've already earmarked this money for marketing, but what if they're saying, like, listen, I just don't have any money for marketing. I'm gonna be putting in that sweat equity that you were talking about. What are some strategies to maintain that profitability, that sustainability while still maintaining that visibility? What's some of your best?
tips for getting that the name out there. Yeah, yeah. So I really believe in investing in in SME 500, right? So even if you cannot afford to have team members or you can't afford the software, you're bootstrapping like crazy. And even if it's even if it's free, spend some time on YouTube, man, like learn how to workflow this stuff, because you can build so much.
The way you build the business overall is you want to leverage. So leverage being like the amount of effort that I put in is less than the amount of benefit that I'm getting out. And what a lot of people will say is like, ⁓ I don't have time for this. And it's like, cool, if you're not prioritizing a business, own it. Like own it, stop dabbling, right? Decide that you're going to do the thing and that that is going to require something of you. And it's going to require
⁓ You know, Tom Billy always says goals make demands and I love that I think that that's like absolutely true if your goal is to have visibility on social media consistently that grows and pulls people toward you then the demand that that goal is going to have is that you are going to learn how to have great messaging, you know, you're gonna learn how to build clear messaging. You're gonna learn how to change what you've been doing.
to work better than what you were doing before to work better. That's the demand the goal is going to have of you. So I think ⁓ something that I'm including here in this show is we have a brand new free assessment on is my coaching message clear? Notice it's free. It's completely free. And I'm giving it away because it gives you four different areas that you can identify to work on in your messaging.
Posting to social media is actually really easy. You open your phone, you open the app, you hit post here and bada bing, bada boom, ya made a post. Now is it a good post? Hmm, now, okay, maybe, maybe not. Maybe we don't have our value proposition in there. Maybe we're not speaking to the pain points and the desires of our client. Maybe it's unclear how we actually help and there's no expert positioning. So, you know, there's these opportunities that we have beyond the actual posting.
And I would say the other thing, you you asked me about what's the number one mistake, just failing to workflow it. You know, so I think a lot of people ⁓ expect that because they have an addictive behavior with social media as a consumer, meaning like you're checking your phone all the time, they think they can just do that and market their business. It's like, no, no. Creating takes a little bit of intention. And I would sort of think of it like a newsletter or a magazine.
and you're filling in these slots with interesting articles and perspectives and point of view and questions and photos, it's just like you're kind of filling in this magazine layout. It's just that you're putting it through apps instead of publishing a literal magazine. But if you kind of think about the thoughtfulness that would go into a magazine layout or the thoughtfulness that would go into a read worthy newsletter, then you should expect a similar amount of dedication and focus when it comes to your social media strategy.
Well, and even just thinking about what is it that captures your attention when you're on social media? Because ⁓ there are plenty of posts and reels that you are just scrolling by and not giving any interest to. And there are ones that are stopping you. And those are ones that you find interesting. Maybe they're teaching you something. Maybe they're exploring ⁓ a point of view that you hadn't considered before. ⁓ In some way, they've captured your attention. So what is it that's captured your attention? Now, of course, you may not be your actual ideal client.
So that's to be taken into consideration. But if you were your ideal client, like you want them basically putting up their hand and saying, my gosh, it's like they know me. They're speaking right to me. And then creating your messaging. So I love that you've got that scorecard assessment that they can get. So we'll make sure that we have the link to that in the show notes for anyone who wants to check it out. Because I think that until you get your messaging figured out, you will burn yourself out just trying to post 16 times a day.
and saying like, oh, nothing's working. And of course, you're probably doing the website and the social media and the lunch and learns and the networking and all the things. But if you're still saying the wrong things, if you don't get that messaging nailed down, you will find yourself just spinning your wheels and not actually getting any traction in your business. And that is, think, where most people fall flat. They're like, but I have this thing and people are going to want to buy the thing. So I'm just going to put the thing out there. And when I started my company, my first company back in 2008,
built this beautiful website all by myself. was kind of a big deal, it was 2008. And I can remember when I hit You were coding, right? I mean, honestly, there was a little bit of coding going on. I do have bit of a computer science background. So yeah, like it's, you needed to know these a little bit of HTML. It was in a website builder, but like a very early website builder. So it still required a little bit of tech savviness. And like, I thought it looked pretty darn good. I looked at other websites. I'm like, yeah, look, I'm looking great here. And I, I so many people actually, I will say.
that often were commenting on how great it looked once they actually found me. But the catch was that when I went to publish this website, I hit publish and I was like, I was just going to look at the phone like it was going to start ringing like, ta-da, I'm here. I did the same thing, same thing. I got the certification. I'm like, great, I'm going to put my shingle on the internet with my website and the end, I'm going to be a millionaire. And it's like, oh baby, you know, like there's some prerequisite things that must take place.
You know, I think that what's missing for most people is education, honestly. It's just like taking the time to do the education, you know, because a lot of times people will finally like work up the courage to, ⁓ to post and they, they may even work up the discipline to be able to post frequently, ⁓ to your point, but what they're missing is a feedback loop. They're not paying attention to like, well, which content is resonating more or less, which content is bringing me my ideal client versus just noise.
You know, and I think there's a lot of focus right now on virality and trying to, you know, to go viral, which is, you know, increasingly harder and harder to do, but also not necessary. know, like you can do it, though, like if you want to like you can also sign up for an Iron Man. No judgment. But you don't have to do that to get into shape. Right. Yes, exactly. And talk about the virality. I feel like I've had this conversation.
so frequently lately because I have had some videos that have gone what I would call micro viral as in like they're not hitting seven figures but they're definitely far outperforming my other reels or posts or whatever. There is zero value to those ones for me. The ones that are really valuable is where I get three really good comments where this really landed for three specific people. I don't need hundreds or thousands of people to see my post. I just need the right people to see it. So to me, so
going back to vanity metrics we were talking about earlier, your revenue is your vanity metric, your profitability is reality. When it comes to social media, it's easier for us to take a look at how many followers does this person have. As someone who hosts a podcast, I get a lot of podcast applications as I'm sure you do as well. People come in and say, I have 100,000 followers and I want to be a guest on your podcast. I start looking down their Instagram account, I'm like, okay, you've got 100,000 followers.
Your last six posts got like three likes on them. So are those real followers? Are they really your ideal client? They might be real followers, but are they really your ideal client? So, for example, I had a video that went somewhat, again, micro viral on TikTok. What's great about that is that now if you visit my TikTok account, I've got thousands of followers. It looks great. None of them are my clients. So it doesn't sell, allow me to sell anything, but it makes me look good when someone lands there. It gives me a little bit more credibility and authority. So there's
There's value to it, sure, but I can't use that to make a sale necessarily. still have to figure out, what, so I might do something trendy to boost up my followers, but I'm going to do something a bit more directed in order to get the right followers. And I'd rather get 10 good followers than thousands of followers who aren't engaging with my content anyway. So there's something to be said for those vanity metrics as well on social media that I think we get a little bit too caught up in sometimes. Totally. and, you know,
We could do a whole episode on vanity metrics because. Tell me more. And here's the thing. I have a little bit of a contrarian take because like there's a lot of there's a lot of people that are like, oh, you know, it's it's vanity metrics. The thing is, is that people do judge you by them. Right. So so they do judge you by your presence. Like, are you present?
Are you omnipresent on a couple of different channels? Have you been consistently posting? Do you have something to say? Do other people also agree with what you're saying? Like that, that social proof element is real. ⁓ but, but, it's not, it's not necessarily the needle moving factor that you think it might be. And like similarly, something like revenue, I think sometimes people can be really dismissive of the size of the revenue as like that doesn't matter. And I'm like, actually it really does. Because if,
If you, for example, have a six-figure business that is profitable, right, and you've got both of those things going for you, you're doing better than somebody who made $10,000 and was also the same amount profitable because you have more money, right? And it gives you like, you just do. So then you end up with more capacity, which allows you more freedom to make decisions than you would if you stayed super small. And so, you know, I think sometimes when people get a little frustrated,
I'm not saying you, I'm saying like just in general, we can assign that term vanity metric. But I think it's deeper than that. think for a metric to become a real metric, we have to assign like, well, what does it mean? What does it mean to be profitable? You know, is that good? I think so. But why? Well, it's good because I have an emergency savings fund that if the market shifts, I've got months of operation capital set aside.
⁓ you know, profitability, could, could be good if you have a debt that you're servicing, right? And you're, keeping up with it. So like, what, what does the metric actually mean? And I got to tell you, like anybody who's listening, if it's a zero, it's a zero baby, right? Like, don't, get all how ity-toity and high and mighty calling it a vanity metric. If, if you're just like using that to throw mud instead of doing the work. Okay.
So, and thank you for all of that. Let's go back to, because you brought up something that was really important too, I think. If you're making $10,000 versus say a million dollars or $100,000, you know, and I know that if you're the one who's making $10,000 right now, you're like the thought of making $100,000 or a million dollars. When I'm already working this hard, I can't work any harder. And this is the thing that we hear often. But the reality is that it is actually easier to make more money.
than it is to make less money. It's kind of like, I don't have kids of my own, but I speak to people with kids all the time who like the person who has one kid, maybe two kids often are struggling. Whereas the person who has six kids, they're they're smooth sailing. Like, no, we got a system in place. And that's the thing. That's the difference. It's not to say that if you are very busy with one or two kids, that that is not valid, just to be clear. This is not tossing any shade here or anything. What I'm saying though is that,
In order for you to scale your family to more kids, you have to figure out better ways of doing things than the way that you're doing them right now. And the same thing applies in business. This is not me giving parenting advice either, just for the record. ⁓ I don't even touch that. But the way that we scale our business is different if we're just trying to play small. And I think that so many women often almost choose to play small because we think that growing is too hard.
So let's talk about this for a moment. going back to the sustainability aspect of it, what's the best way for someone to grow their business in a sustainable way? I mean, that's kind of a broad question, but let's start there. Yeah. I think I would say this all starts with a decision to do so. And I'm going to just give you a hint. When you make that decision, you are making a different decision than most people.
Right. Because most people, they go into business real fast. Most people, they don't operate at that higher level. Most people don't make that demand of themselves. And so it does start with just like, Hey, I love all the people at my starting line at this marathon. They are wonderful people. I wish them all the best, but I am running my race. And then that just means that the crowd is going to thin around you. So your first priority is to get into community with people who think at the level that you think.
so that you get out of that weird lonely feeling as soon as possible. if I see you like one reason why people play small, it's because they don't want to be rejected. They get a lot of permission from their friends to break with those standards. They get a lot of permission from their friends that's like, it's OK. It's not a big deal. Yeah, well, if it's on your heart, that's not OK. It is a big deal. And if you're listening this deep into this show, you probably care a lot.
That permission to let them have different goals, that permission to let them have different priorities, right? And that permission to let yourself hold yourself to a different standard. ⁓ So I think the other thing that kind of sucks and I'll just warn you about ahead of time is when you decide to break from the pack, ⁓ you are going to probably be running alone for a while, you know, and it's not because, it's not because of any reason except
you haven't earned your spot at the next seat, right, at the next table necessarily because you just left the other party, right? So give yourself permission to like keep showing up, have faith that you will be invited up to that next table and like don't make it so personal because that's the whole reason why everybody stays at the bottom is that they make everything about themselves, right? It's like, I'm not, I'm being rejected. I'm, I'm, I'm don't want to make a fool of myself.
Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. And it's like, really the next level is really about having a mission that's way bigger than you. And like for me, I've got team, you know, I've got team. I do have kids and a family and you know, like there are minimum standards that I need to uphold if I am, if I am to do this and not something else that is not necessarily my dream or my goal. Like then that means that I have to, I have to run and sometimes I run.
kind of feeling a little lonely sometimes and it sucks. does. it doesn't have to stay that way. You got to keep meeting people. got to keep putting yourself out there. And that, by the way, is one of the reasons why I help coaches so much, because a coach is someone you can literally pay to care. This is so true. So true. If there's no one else out there that you find or in your corner, then find the person that is going to help to get you to that next level and help you to get that seat at the table.
When you leave that behind, when you leave that old party behind, when you leave those runners at the starting line, you're open now to being able to receive what's coming next. And while you're waiting for those gaps to fill in, you can fill yourself or fill your circle with things like this, podcasts, books. mean, it is...
Anytime I work with my clients, they're often amazed at how quickly I can rattle off like six different books that might help them with a particular situation that they're dealing with. ⁓ my gosh, read more, read more. And I am someone I love reading. My mom is a retired librarian. I was that kid in a corner with her nose in a book all the time. And when I started my business, I will admit it was challenging for me. I just don't feel like I have time to just read for leisure or just read for even for learning things.
because I was just filling my head with so many things, or not so much filling my head, filling my eyes, my eyes were on so many things in a day. So I switched to audiobooks long before it was cool. I think before Audible even existed, I switched to audiobooks. Game changing. It completely changed my life being able to consume an audiobook. And don't get me wrong, if you're like, but I really love the paper copy, I get it, so do I. But, and if you have the time, have at it. But if you are finding that you are not able to consume enough books or
podcast or whatever like then get your audio get the books on audiobooks and then increase the speed that they're that they're reading them at I don't listen to any book less than 1.25 and whoever narrates it needs to know that I'm just gonna speed it up anyway but there are ways to consume knowledge quicker sure I'm gonna go back and reread some of those books or re-listen to some of those books but the idea is that I am gathering knowledge even for topics that I don't think I need to know anything about because you just never know
where you're going to get that next juicy little bit of information. So I mean, keep putting yourself out there, keep surrounding yourself with other people at that higher level. They're gonna have tips and tricks and things that you've never heard of. if someone is saying a term that you've never heard of, go look it up and figure out what you need to know all about what that term is. Like when I talk about a pipeline, a lot of my clients are creative entrepreneurs. I'm like, yeah, so we wanna fill up your pipeline. My what now? Your sales pipeline. Like, you know, it's a...
Pipeline, it's full of the sales that are coming to you. Like, no, you haven't heard of it? Okay, go do some looking up on that, because I'm not going to teach you what a sales pipeline is. No disrespect. It's not that I can't. It's that you're paying me for my expertise, and it's probably not super valuable for me to spend 15 minutes trying to explain what a sales pipeline is. Go get that knowledge and come back to me. We'll figure it out. It's not to say that I'm that harsh of a coach, but the point is, though, that if you're finding there's gaps in your knowledge, go fill the gaps. That's it.
When we're young, we have school, even you might have university or post-secondary or some certification to qualify you into a job. And that is certainly a path that is great. I mean, you build skills, you make money, woo, everybody wins. But when you decide that you want to break from the pack and you want to be that entrepreneur and you want to chart your own course, part of that is owning your curriculum and owning your personal and professional development.
And I'll add to the books thing, like if you know you need to get better at sales, buy a sales course, right? If you can afford it, get into a group coaching program so that you get the community and the camaraderie as you're learning that skill. Like I'm a huge fan of alternative learning. Like I think that ⁓ especially in our current day, it's it's essential if you want to be able to upskill and really enjoy your life or.
You can just keep scrolling. It's up to you. I could not agree more. ⁓ I appreciate you having this sort of real conversation about everything too and just talking about the real challenges that entrepreneurs are facing nowadays. And I think this is the thing that like, let's all be real about it because you can watch all those gurus that you mentioned earlier. You can watch them all on Instagram and all the great things that they're doing. First of all, it's not all rainbows and butterflies. They are still having difficult days.
it just might look a little different than what your difficult days look like. So don't be fooled by all the jets and big events and everything else and all the excitement that they're showing you. But aside from that, though, if you want to get to that level, what do you need to do to get to that level? Like, don't just look at it as like, well, you know, like they're doing all these other things. Like, what is it? What's your path going to be? How are you going to chart your path and do it in a way that's going to be true to your brand, true to you and profitable?
so that you can actually sustain that business as well. So with that, we covered a lot of different ground here from cashflow and profitability to marketing tactics and sustainability and wellness and all the things in between confidence, courage, consuming ⁓ knowledge and alternative learning. mean, we kind of ran the gamut today. If listeners were to take one thing away,
from today's show, what would you like that to be for them? One action to take or one just cool bit of knowledge for them to take on with them in the day? Yeah, do what matters. You're the only person that gets to decide what your value system is. You are the one that is literally the closest to your life, your opportunities, your vision. And you're the one with your capabilities, your network, your resources, all the things.
And so at the end of the day, I would say that your real power comes from owning that and from choosing to not just be something, but to pull it into the level of action and really do what matters according to you. Because you're the only one that's going to be living with whether you did it or not. So well said. I appreciate that. So just a reminder that for anyone who's interested in getting Amanda's
coaching message, assessment scorecard. We're going to have the link for that in the show notes for you as well, but it's score.thecoachesplaza.com. All the resources, of course, that we mentioned are always posted in our show notes for you. Amanda, thank you so much for joining me today. I love this whole conversation. I know that our listeners are to get a lot out of this as well. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
And if you're listening to this episode and you're loving what we're saying, you're jiving with all of it, don't forget to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform. Leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. And as always, the best way to really not only show your support for us, but for your fellow community is to share this episode with someone that you know can really benefit from it. Until next time, keep thriving.