How Being Boring Saved My Coaching Business with Christie Mims

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on fire the only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we'll be breaking down how being boring saved my coaching business. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Christy Mims in the Eagle Fire Studios. The founder of Coach Pony and Chief Sweatpants Wear, Christy has helped over 30 ,000 coaches learn the business skills they need to get paid to coach. In today's foundation, we'll talk about how to be boring and why to focus on it. We'll talk about the number one lesson learned from that experience, what Christy wishes she had done differently, and her best piece of advice for an entrepreneur struggling right now and oh so much more.

0:39And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Christy and ours. Sponsors. Have you ever said to yourself, one day I will write a book? If yes, then I have an opportunity for you. Author 100 is a 100-day program where I will personally guide you one-on-one to create, write, publish, and market your book. I will provide daily guidance and mentorship every step of the way. Head over to author100.com to sign up for a free call with me to chat about the details. author100.com. Christy, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:20I'm not sure if most people disagree, but for me, becoming successful means you need to do much less than you think. Just do it better. Just do it better, Fire Nation. And if you were a little intrigued by the title today, how being boring saved my coaching business, well, we're going to be breaking it down right now because you weren't always boring. I mean, Chrissy, I interviewed you back on September 8th, 2014, and you were not boring. But then something happened to your business that made you focus on boring. Tell us more. Yeah, so absolutely. What happened happened in 2021, And John, you may remember this, but or maybe not actually because of the way your business runs.

2:03But in that time, all the privacy laws started to be implemented from in Europe. And then, of course, that rippled across the rest of us on all of the major ad platforms. And what happened in my business was that all of a sudden we were no longer profitable at all. Our cost per acquisition went from like more than doubled. we went from like$800 to like$2 ,200 to acquire a client. And if you have a$2 ,000 product, that's not sustainable. So it was this huge seismic change in the industry that impacted us in such a huge way because all of a sudden it was like, well, this business doesn't work anymore.

2:48And so we had a few options. One was to just quit and do something different. One was to just try to eke it out and keep doing what we were doing and hope that we could figure something out around the margins. And one was to adapt and view it as an opportunity. Well, you decided to view it as an opportunity. So what did you do exactly? Well, at the time, because of the seismic changes like on Google ads and Facebook ads, especially over at Meta, people were suggesting all sorts of things. that you could do. And there was all sorts of ideas and craziness and chaos. And what we decided to do was just two things.

3:27And it was basically to be as boring as possible in two ways. And the first way is we were like, okay, we're going to adapt the program and we're just going to focus on what works and we're going to ignore all the other noise. And we're going to figure out what is the simplest way we can improve this program to make it more valuable so that we can raise the price and also get better results for our clients. Like we're not going to try to do anything crazy. We're not going to pivot. We're not going to introduce any new hacks or techniques or tactics. We're just going to focus on what are the incremental changes we can make that would make this significantly more valuable in multiple ways.

4:02So that was the first thing that we did. And then the second thing we did was we were like, okay, with our marketing, given that there's all this stuff going on, like people are like, oh, you need to be on TikTok and buying ads there, just going viral there and like Instagram ads and all this other stuff. We were just like, forget all of that. Like what, how do our clients find us in terms of our sales funnel? Like how do they enter that sales funnel? And then how quickly do they buy? Right. And we always review this information, but we took a deeper dive at this time and we were like, well, it's pretty much still the same as it's always been.

4:34We have evergreen sales funnels for this program that I'm talking about. It's called build a real business. If anyone's curious and you can buy it any day of the year. But we also have sort of live sales funnels. And so what we found is that people who come into our evergreen sales funnels from our marketing efforts, you know, a chunk of them buy right away and then a bigger chunk buy over time, usually the second or third time they get an offer for the program, which is usually something like a live launch. And so we were like, all right, we're not going to invest in most of the ad platforms.

5:04We're not going to try to do anything new in terms of marketing. All we're going to do is the most boring thing possible. which is we're going to focus on getting people into that first sales funnel. And then we're just going to sell them again, like a few months later and give them a second chance at the program. And that's it. We're going to spend the entire year just doing those two things. And we're not going to try anything else. We're just going to like, that works. We're going to keep the costs. We were able to manage the costs that way. And just keep our focus on, on delivering great work and just this really simple marketing funnel.

5:36and we're just going to stick with it. And it worked. You just used one of my favorite words, which is focus. It's an acronym, follow one course until success. I've always struggled just scaling for scaling sake because when you find something that works, why not just keep hitting that hammer on the head or that nail on the head with that hammer until it stops working or, you know, make a little tweak here, a little tweak there, improve it. You know, for us, that was Podcasters Paradise back in 2013. I was just doing a live webinar every single week and people would hear about it. They'd refer people to it.

6:10They would read my book on Amazon about it. We had a little mini free course that led to it. And I just did a live webinar every single week. Like that was my focus. And it sold like bananas for a long, long, long time. And I just kept doing it until it didn't work. And it eventually did slow down and then peter out and then stopped working. And then we stopped and we moved on to something else. And like, to me, that focus just allowed me to maximize that opportunity at the time. I could have tried to do a million different things while I was doing that. And I never would have been able to get every squeeze out of that lemon that was just right there, that was ripe, that was ready to go.

6:45And you decided to not look for the latest trends or cool tech, which you've kind of already talked a little bit about, but let's really dive into why and how that worked out. Well, two things like, first off, trends are that word. It's trends are trends for a reason. They come and they go, right? like do you guys do you I don't know if everyone listening this is gonna age me but do we all remember Facebook fans oh yeah like that was a big thing does anyone else remember like Vine for a hot second that was a thing or I mean Clubhouse even more recently like I mean things come and go and so I don't want to spend a lot of time on something that's just gonna come and go um it's not lasting I want to do stuff that lasts and also for me like I know myself I'm super long-winded.

7:26I don't like social media. Um, and there's just certain things I'm like, I'm really good on long form content, like writing, podcasting, teaching, but so I just need to like double down on what works with that. So our Google ad funnels builds around long form content. And, um, so I was just like, all right, I just need to focus on what works for me knowing myself. And I also want to do stuff that's focused on more lasting, sustainable content versus a trend where I'm going to invest a ton of time. And then it's just going to blow up or explode or just vaporize, you know, over time. So that was my thinking.

7:57Fire Nation, I like her thinking. I hope her thinking is maybe giving you a little bit of a deep sigh of relief that you don't have to do everything at all times, juggling all the balls in the air. In fact, that could be counterproductive. And we'll be talking a lot more about this when we get back from thanking our sponsors. One of the most impactful things I've done on my entrepreneurial journey is publish a book. It's a way to package up my knowledge and experience and share it with a worldwide audience in a meaningful way. It also serves as an evergreen marketing tool to help grow my business for years to come.

8:31I believe that everyone has a book inside of them. So if you're ready to publish a book with maximum impact, then I've got exciting news. I'm launching a brand new mentorship program called Author 100, where you have the opportunity to work with me one-on-one for 100 days. Author 100 will include weekly one-on-one calls and daily guidance from me to help you every step of the way from drafting to writing to publishing and even marketing your book. Over the past 12 years, I've self-published five books, including one of the top five publishing campaigns of all time on Kickstarter, the Freedom Journal.

9:05I've also traditionally published with HarperCollins, so I know a lot about the book publishing world and where most authors go wrong. I created Author 100 to share my experience and the lessons I've learned along the way, and I can't wait to share it with you. If you're interested in learning more, head over to author100.com and sign up for a free call with me. That's author100.com. Chrissy, we're back, and I want to know what's not the number two, but the number one lesson you learned from this experience is. Oh gosh, I can't give two. I think it's always focus on what works and then do more of that.

9:45Okay, give two. Okay, and the second one is for me, it's always the more our clients succeed, the more we succeed. So it's never wrong to focus on just a better experience, improving the program, whatever it might be to make sure that people are getting what they want out of what you're offering. So give us a real world example of this. Like walk us through something where that actually happens, where you made a client happy, why that worked out. Like give us that whole process. Back before 2021 in that time, our program was Builder Real Business was a 10-week program for new coaches learning how to get paid to coach, right?

10:24but I always worried about that because building a business takes more than 10 weeks like I wish it didn't you know but it's just it does and everyone wants fast results and they want quick and easy etc etc and so for a long time I like the US Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that 20 % of all businesses are going to fail in the first year and I really wanted to be there for coaches in the first year because it's such a critical time so I had in the back of my mind had been like, how can we do that? But it's in a way that's both sustainable for our team because we have a small team, but also profitable.

10:58And it's not going to require these coaches to make enormous cash investments, which their businesses can't afford because they're new. Right. So it was all these things. And so what one of the like small things that we did, well, we expanded the program to be a year. That was like one of the bigger things we did, which was part of the price raise. But one of the small things that we did to improve was we just started doing an advanced call just for students who had already finished the first phase of the program, who had set up everything they needed to set up. And we're just looking to get feedback and tweak everything that they had set up and talk to each other, talk to people at their level.

11:34So it was almost like an advanced mastermind within our program. And it was, it was, it's 90 minutes of my time every month. I personally lead the call because it's really important to me. And, um, we just, we get everyone together and we go deep on their numbers and their metrics and we help them understand what's going on in their business and give them the time and space to work on the business versus being in it. And so this is just like, like we didn't have to do this. A lot of other people in my industry in particular would charge extra for this. It would be a lot of money extra actually to kind of join.

12:08Usually these are packaged up as like 10 ,000 or$20 ,000 masterminds. We just included in part of the program because it's not a lot of time for me, but I know that if these students can get The help they need is they get into this more advanced phase and they're introduced to new teaching and a new way of thinking. They're going to be more successful, right? And that's awesome. Then they're going to help more people and they're going to change lives, which is wonderful. And they're going to have better results in our program, which is wonderful. It's like a win, win, win, win, win. So just like a really not time consuming thing that we did that has a big impact.

12:39So that was definitely not too deep in the weeds. I think it's going to be very helpful for our listeners to understand what an actual process and actual real life looks like. But I do want to know in hindsight, if anything, what do you wish you had done differently? Oh, well, in 2021 specifically, I wish I had panicked less. So just, I don't know if this is fun for people to know some backstory, but like personal backstory, but I, my business was very successful. My husband joined me in the business in April of 2021, right? As all of the changes were implemented. like literally two weeks after he joined the company full-time, like Apple flipped everything and Google flipped it, you know, it was just like, Oh my God.

13:20Um, so I was panicking a little bit because it was such a big change to the company, but also big change, big change personally to be working with my husband full-time. Um, and so I think like, if I could go, like, I'm a real big believer in the philosophy of stoicism. I love that. And I wish if I could go back, I had focused more about what was in my control and, you know, not let myself panic quite so much, because it felt like all the sands were shifting a lot. But, you know, as an entrepreneur, there's so much you can control, especially in terms of your mindset, right? You can look at something as a problem or you can look at it as an opportunity.

13:56You can look at it as a negative or as a chance to grow personally or professionally. There's a lot of different ways we can frame things. It's part of being, you know, just the journey that we're all on as entrepreneurs. So yeah, if I could go back in time, I'd be like, you know, I'd like stop panicking. It's going to be okay. You know, what can you control here in this moment? And how can this actually be an opportunity for you? Because it was a wonderful opportunity in hindsight because we created a much better program. And we also like let go of trying to, we just let go of trying to be follow anything of what anyone else was doing.

14:30Like we just divorced ourselves from all of the traditional strategy and just focused on what we knew worked for us. And so it was a real gift. And, you know, when I look back at it now, even though it was stressful at the time. Now, there are a lot of people listening and they're struggling. They're struggling for any number of reasons in any number of ways, shapes and form. What is your best piece of advice for that listener, somebody in Fire Nation who's struggling right now with their strategy? I have two things I'd like to offer if I can. Um, the first one, when you're struggling with strategy, I think it's really important to look at your numbers, um, you know, in multiple ways and use the data to guide you.

15:10So look at, you know, where your leads are coming from, um, how many of them are converting, you know, is there a really good lead source? Like what is your marketing doing? How are your calls to action working? All of this other stuff. And just, so you really understand what is working. Cause I think a lot of us, and I'll speak more for coaches. I know you've got a ton of different entrepreneurs on this podcast, but, um, you know, and we're not always people who are drawn to numbers as an industry. Uh, we're drawn to like how things feel. Um, but the numbers don't lie and they can really show you what's working and what's not working in your business and allow you to make informed decisions about strategy and understand that that thing you thought that was doing well, maybe isn't.

15:48And the thing that you thought wasn't doing well actually is where you're spending way more time than you thought on something and it's not paying off. So it's, It's easy to make those decisions if you're working with real data. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is don't be distracted by sparkly objects. Always focus on what works for you as an individual and entrepreneur, because like what works for me, again, I'm long winded and don't like social media, might not work for someone else who's great with Instagram reels and video imagery and all sorts of stuff. We all have different skill sets and affinities.

16:19And so lean into what you love, especially in terms of marketing and sales, because you're much more likely to be consistent and better at it if you already like it or you already have an affinity for it, if that makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. And Fire Nation, I hope you enjoyed today's episode where we talked about a lot of things, but mostly what it comes down to is, what are your strengths? Simplify them and just keep doing them. Be consistent. And if they're working, keep doing it. If they're not, minor tweaks could be the first step you take and then just keep the process going. So Christy, if Fire Nation is really fired up by what they're hearing from you and they want to connect and learn more, what is your call to action for our listeners today?

17:00That's a great question. Come on over to coachpony.com. My business is Coach Pony, super easy to remember, cartoon ponies, and learn how to get paid to coach. We've got a free guide for you on the homepage. And if you really want to learn more about my marketing approach and marketing for coaches, go to coachpony.com forward slash marketing for an awesome free 14 minute class. Just all about how to market for coaches. So either of those resources will be helpful. Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with CM and JLD today. So keep up the heat.

17:32For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Christy, C-H-R-I-S-T-I-E in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. And by the way, September 8th, 2014, we did an episode. it'll come up as well. So check that one out. It'd be cool to see what we were up to 10 plus years ago. And Chrissy, I want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks, John. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Chrissy for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, do you want to master productivity, discipline and focus in just 100 days?

18:09If so, visit themasteryjournal.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Have you ever said to yourself, one day I will write a book? If yes, then I have an opportunity for you. Author 100 is a 100-day program where I will personally guide you one-on-one to create, write, publish, and market your book. I will provide daily guidance and mentorship every step of the way. Head over to Author100.com to sign up for a free call with me to chat about the details.

18:45Thank you.