Will Linssen has trained over 4000 executive coaches and coached thousands of executives worldwide. He is a Master Certified Coach (ICF), and has been named #1 Leadership Coach by Global Gurus and #1 Coach Trainer by Thinkers50.  Will is the CEO of Global Coach Group.

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This is the transcript for this episode:

Mark Shriner [0:01]

Welcome to the grow fast podcast where we talk with leading sales, marketing and personal growth experts about how companies can accelerate sales, optimize marketing, and grow their businesses fast. Let's go, everybody. Welcome to The Grow Fast Podcast today we're gonna be talking with Will Linssen who's the CEO of the global coach group. Will is a master certified coach, and he's also the number one coach trainer by thinkers 50, and he has been detailed or listed as the number one leadership coach by global gurus. Will has trained literally 1000s of coaches all around the world, and he has coached and mentored 1000s of executives all around the world. He has a tremendous amount of experience, and he's in a very unique position in terms of he's both coached, trained and he's sold coaching services, and he's also trained many of his trainees on how to sell their services. Today, we're going to be talking to will about how executive coaches and trainers can go out and sell their services in the market. This is something a little bit different. I think a lot of people are comfortable selling, you know, B to B services. It tends to be a little less personal. You're selling, you know, somebody else's product or service. But when you are the product or the service and you're selling kind of yourself, or you're packaging yourself as part of that sales process, sometimes it can feel a little bit different, maybe a little bit awkward. We're going to talk about that and talk about some of the best ways that executive coaches can go out and build their practices, accelerate their sales and grow their business. Here we go. Hey, Will. How are you today?

Will Linssen [1:41]

Yes, Mark, thank you. It's all good.

Mark Shriner [1:44] 

Good, good. And where do we find you today? I never know. With you, alright, yeah!

Will Linssen [1:49] 

I happen to be in Europe this week. Yeah, we just did a pic. Just came back from the Middle East. Some great experiences there. And next week is the UK. And then after that, Asia, and then we'll see.

Mark Shriner [2:05] 

I've never asked you how many miles you put up, but I know that you are a very active traveler for you have coaching engagements all around the world all times of the year. So it's pretty impressive. I want to talk to you about, you know, some of the nuances related to selling coaches, coaching services or executive mentoring services. But before we do that, maybe you can talk a little bit about the global coach group, which you know you're the CEO of, and you know what it is that you guys do, and how you do it? 

Will Linssen [2:36] 

So basically, we do, we do two main things, so we train and certify coaches so that they can coach their clients, and we work with large companies and coach leaders in their organization. And we do that with the coaches that are in our network, that we train ourselves, so that we have a high quality service offering across the geography that a client is on, and is organized. So these are the two things we do, and we also build software that supports the coaches in delivering that coaching, as well as our own coaches who work with the clients.

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Mark Shriner [3:16] 

Excellent. And before we jump out of the sales topic, maybe you can talk a little bit about the first part of that, in terms of how you train or develop coaches, and then we'll talk about how you engage with larger organizations. 

Will Linssen [3:31] 

I think that that's very useful. So we have a very specific way in how we think about coaching and how we deliver coaching, and it's called the triple win leadership coaching, better leaders, better teams and better results. And we have a 95% satisfaction rate of co workers with leaders being coached, where they feel that, yeah, the leader is going to, they see that the leader has been getting better. They see that their team has been getting better, and they see that also the results have been getting better. So it's a very streamlined approach in order to create better leaders, better teams and better results. 

Mark Shriner [4:10] 

Okay, and how long does it take to go through and become certified?

Will Linssen [4:14] 

The certification process is about between 120 and 150 hours, and it takes place over six to nine months on the training program. And I mean, basically, you learn intellectually how it works, right? And then you can apply it in a number of coaching labs that we do where you as a coach, coach somebody else, and they coach you, and then you can see and feel how that whole coaching process feels and looks like.

Mark Shriner [4:40] 

Okay, and then I assume, because I, you know, I've been through some, some coaching programs before, some that you've you've run, and I really enjoyed and benefited from that, with many coaches they, they get through the program, and they're certified. And then the next step is, hey, I. Got to go out and find clients. And you mentioned the second part of the global coach group, where, you know, sometimes organizations reach out to you and say, Hey, we're looking for coaches. And so that could be one part of the equation. I want to talk about that. But then the second part of the equation is, you know, you have to go and build your own business as well. So let's talk about the first part. You know, if I go through and get certified as part of the global coach group. You know, engagements come through global coach groups and filter down to the member coaches.

Will Linssen [5:30] 

So as a leadership coaching organization, we are the largest British coach organization in the world. We certified and trained more than four and a half 1000 coaches around the world, literally around the world and our focus really is to empower coaches to go out themselves and sell their coaching services. 95% of the coaching that we get, or our coaches get, is all referral based. Right? People need to kind of know you and trust you, and then they kind of step into you doing that coaching journey together. So we go to two ways we help coaches to get more business themselves. That's a very successful process to do that. And yes, we, as we get large coaching agents from clients, we go back to our own coaches and bring them on to those projects, awesome.

Mark Shriner [6:29] 

And then the third part of the equation, I guess, that you kind of touched on, is you provide software that helps to kind of manage those coaching engagements, communicate with the customers, organizations, with these other stakeholders, I'm assuming.

Will Linssen [6:43] 

Yeah. So the key to success in getting to the 95% coworker satisfaction of better leaders, better teams and better results, is to have a specific focus of what the leader is working on, let's say better decision making and better execution. Then have the help of the co-workers around the leader to provide them with suggestions on what the leader needs to do to get better and how they can better. Can get better together. It's about co creation of change with co workers, and then measure how that, how that process is is going and the software really helps to facilitate that whole interaction between coach, leader and co workers, and that then contributes tremendously, not only to the efficiency of the process, but also to the effectiveness and impact that you get. If a coach is coaching a leader without involving co workers, then the chance that co workers see that the leader got better is 18% one eight right after nine or 12 months of coaching. If you involve co workers in the coaching process, that success rate goes up to 95% so you get based on five times better results by involving co workers and using the coaching tools to involve them and CO create that change so and then the investment, it doesn't take more time. It just takes, takes the effort of using the tools and involving the co workers. 

Mark Shriner [8:17] 

Is that an analogy. What's the thing, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there to hear it fall, did it fall? And if a coach, if a leader, is being coached, and nobody's aware of it, are people going to observe the results? So now I'd like to kind of drill into the sales side, actually, before we do that, maybe for people who aren't that familiar with executive coaching. Could you talk about some typical engagements? What level of people? Is it just individuals? Is it groups, small groups and so on?

Will Linssen [8:50] 

So let's talk about leadership coaching. So executive coaching is basically kind of a more, higher level, expensive version of leadership coaching, and so let's talk about leadership coaching. So typically, leadership coaching is done with people leaders, so that can be team managers and up in the organization, up to CEOs of Fortune 50 companies, right? So it's that whole group of people, leaders throughout the organization, and leadership coaching, very much focuses on improving leadership skills, right? And these are things like decision making, execution, empowerment, delegation, all these typical things.

Mark Shriner [9:33] 

Excellent. Okay, so now I'm a coach. I've gone through the Global coach group certification process, and occasionally I get a call from will or one of your colleagues saying, hey, there is an organization. They're looking for a coach, and maybe I go follow up with them. But the other part of the equation is I have to go out and build my own brand and do my own outreach. What do you know, what advice and what do you see that works well and and what are some some lessons learned in terms of what you shouldn't do if you want to build your coaching business

Will Linssen [10:09] 

Yeah. So let's talk about when you are talking to a potential client, right? You have the whole marketing and branding piece, but then the other piece is converting that prospect into a client, right? So let's talk about that shortly. First, coaching is a service, right? And it's really a kind of a value add service. And we work. Some of our clients are big IT firms that provide IT services to clients, and for them, it's very much a needs based value proposition and needs based signals. And interestingly, the way we sell coaching, coaching is exactly the way these organizations sell their services. So what does that mean? You really need to understand what the client's problem is, yeah, and obviously you can do that through a conversation. And we actually train our coaches how to have these conversations. And basically it's, it's the conversation where you, where you talk with the leader and understand what their challenges are for themselves and for their team in the organization. And they come up with things like, yeah, you know, we are challenged in collaborating across functions within our team, or we need to be faster in decision making or more disciplined in our execution. So they bring up the areas where they see that leadership is lacking, either for themselves or with their teams, and then you need to build a business case with them around that. And typically the value that they get out of coaching needs to be about 20x of what your coaching fees are. Then you have a good value proposition. So that is an important aspect that you need to have with the client to have that, what we call needs based value proposition discussion with them in the sales conversations.

Mark Shriner [12:15] 

Can you walk me through a use case or just a simple scenario where you're able to kind of monetize the benefits of, you know, what the coach would receive and how that's going to benefit the organization. I mean, how do you quantify that? 

Will Linssen [12:31] 

Yeah, that's, that's a really good question, and that's exactly what clients ask too, right? So, let's say, in that needs based conversation, the client says, you know, decision making and execution is really important to us, because I can see that kind of needs improvement and lacking in our management team, right? And then you can, very straightforward, ask them the question, so as you would do that, right, as you would get better at decision making and and execution, what are the benefits that you would get from that as an executive, right? And, yeah, they come up with very splash or Yeah, splash benefits that they would get. Things like, you know, we are more focused as an organization. We're going to be more effective. I'm going to be seen as a better leader, right? I'm more ready for succession. It's stepping into my boss's role, etc. So we make a good list of that. We also make a good list of what are the benefits that your team will get out of this, right? So this is more better collaboration within the team. People are more decisive. People have better communication. So you kind of outline that, yeah. And then, of course, the question is, okay, thinking about all that and talking about that, what does that mean in terms of bottom line or top line in the organization? Are they going to move the needle on performance? Right? Could be results like, I mean, I had one CEO when we had this conversation, it says, yeah, that's going to have at least $200 million more bottom line profit just in the first year alone. I can totally see that coming. And I'm thinking, Yeah, that's a great business case, because my coaching fees have now been relegated to peanuts, right?

Mark Shriner [14:16] 

I was just going to say, That's good to hear, because now I can double my coaching fees because it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter, right?

Will Linssen [14:24] 

Yeah, so that is one thing, but also things like engagement of people in the team, or retention, or lower attrition, because people understand what it takes to rehire people. Oh, sorry, not rehire, but hire new people and train new people. What is the cost of all that is? Because that's already a cost in their P, L, somewhere, right? So you need to, so at the end of the day, you come out with an overview that that is a number that the client understands, because it's their number. You. Um, and a number of qualitative factors that they realize, yeah, these are important qualitative factors, and that together, business case.

Mark Shriner [15:07] 

Yeah, yeah, it was. So what I'm hearing is, you know, your first job as a coach is to go in and understand what their challenges are, listen, ask smart, you know, kind of probing questions and then, and then help them, help them to put together a business case to justify the investment in the coaching services. And I like the one that you brought up about retention versus recruit, because that's something that's very easy to quantify. I mean, we all, you know, recruitment costs, but it's not just that. It's that onboarding, that that, you know, six months before somebody gets their sea legs and becomes effective in a new role. What is that cost to an organization, right? And just that alone, I think would justify most coaching engagements. But then you throw on all those other things that you talked about, super important. One thing that I've seen is that there are some amazing coaches out there, and they're probably pretty good salespeople when they're selling a different product or service. But the thing with what they're selling coaching, it's also selling part of what you know, who they are, and it's tied in with their identity. And you know, if you're in Asia, for example, there's this, you know, over, generally speaking, a culture of humility. And so maybe I don't want to go into Guns of Blazing and tell you how great I am, and and then, even in the States, you know, maybe people are reluctant because they don't want to come off as seeming boastful. They have trouble, I would say, promoting walking the fine line between promoting themselves but also selling themselves. So I mean, what have you seen and what advice would you give?

‍Will Linssen [16:49] 

So as a coach, you want to make sure that your value and your brand and your status doesn't depend on you, all right, like in my particular case, right? As you know, I'm ranked as the number one leadership coach in the world by noble gurus. I'm the number one coach trainer by thinkers 50, and I'm one of the top voice on LinkedIn for executive coaching, and a Master's certified coach in ICF. So that's all great stuff, but that is not that alone is not useful. Then you have only one leg to stand on. So you basically want to create more kinds of legs to stand on in your value proposition. So your personal brand, fantastic. So these are your coaching credentials, your professional experience that you have. As you know, I've been running, running a number of companies. I have a lot of management experience. So people, obviously clients like that. So that personal branding, great. Then secondly, you want to be affiliated with a coaching certification and network that has brands. So now you're part of a bigger group, right? It's sort of like when you're a consultant. You can be a great, smart consultant. But if you are a consultant who is part of McKinsey or Accenture or one of these big consulting firms, and all of a sudden you become a much better consultant just by that brand affiliation. So that's important, then thirdly, having a process that works so that you also can say, Okay, this is how the coaching process is going to unfold, and our coaching process is easy to describe, plus clients understand or see that our coaching process is very similar to some of the process they use in their own organization for, like maybe supply chain management or product development or safety management, which also have co creation of change with co workers, so they kind of realize I get that. And then last but not least, results, right? We guarantee results, we measure results, or even guarantee results, and then clients feel like, Yeah, that's cool, right? I kind of trust you. I trust the brand, I trust the process, I trust the results. So now you have four trust factors that then become a 4x strength, rather than you relying on your own. So if you don't want to Blow Your Own Horn too much about all your achievements, you can rely on other things..

‍Mark Shriner [19:10]
Including

Will Linssen [19:13]

And some coaches. Is very simple, right? You can go to your client and say, hey, you know, I work with a global coach group. I have this certification. It works like this, and we measure results, and by the way, I get the same results as the number one coach in the world with Lindsey, I just charge a little less, right? So if you don't know your own horn, you can use an affiliation process, right? 

Mark Shriner [19:33] 

I like that, and I mean, you and I have collaborated on some coaching engagements in the past that I felt were quite successful, and it's funny, because we were able to get our foot in the door because of brand, and we were able to stay in the door because of the process, I feel and the process was the key differentiator, and in that couple few engagements that I'm talking about you. Really the process was the one that kind of allowed us to demonstrate our value, and then that guarantee. I think it's super nice to have. I don't know if anybody once they bought into the process, if they even gave a second, second thought to the guarantee, but it is nice to be able to say that in the beginning, I did face some situations, and I've heard of situations where you want to talk process, but the the buyer of the coach services. And I want to talk to you in a second about the different personas. I mean, who are buying these services, right? Because sometimes it's the executive themselves, oftentimes it's other people in the organization. But I, you know, have experienced, or the the buyer, the person in charge, was really concerned about the coach, Coach e fit and and I found that to be a double edged sword, because if the fit is too nice, you know, maybe we're not gonna be able to have some of those uncomfortable conversations. But what, you know, what are your thoughts, and what have you seen, and how would you navigate around that? 

Will Linssen [21:02]

Yeah, so, yeah, that coach, coachee. Fit is important. It's sort of like how you select your doctor. I think that's good for your doctor. You want them to be professional and to have the right expertise. But you probably don't want your doctor. Don't need to be the doctor, your next best friend, right? So there's no so it needs to be professional, and you need to have that connection now. So let's look from a client perspective, right? The way the client selects a coach, they're thinking, I need to have a coach who understands me and my business environment, right? Like I'm in a high tech firm, things move quickly. You know, I have a lot of PhDs who work with me, so I need to have a coach who really understands that environment, so that this industry environment, the culture of my organization, whether that is that maybe Japanese or international, or British or American or a mix of all that stuff, so that that organizational culture aspect, and then my functional background, I'm the CFO of the organization, so I need to have a coach who understands, you know, what a CFO does, and why, why and how numbers matter, and also functional level in the organization, right? So I'm a Business Unit Director. I manage a number of countries, so I have a number of factories, so I need to have a coach that’s going to get that. And that is maybe a little bit daunting for a coach at the beginning, but you know, that's how a coachee is looking at the fit. Yeah. And as a coach, you need to understand that these are the answers the coachee, the coachee is looking for. So you need to be able to say, Hey, can I play that role? Can I play that partner for the client, even though these things are not necessary, not necessarily necessary, right? You don't have to be a CFO as a coach to coach a CFO, but the point is, that's how the client is looking at things. You need to be prepared for that.

Mark Shriner [23:15] 

So, you know, I somewhat familiar with your background, and I also, and I know that you coach in a variety of industries that are different from where you know you were back when you were an executive, but I'm wondering if most of the coaches tend to focus in the industries that they have you know that first hand frontline experience with.

Will Linssen [23:38] 

Well, so if you're Your experience as a coach when you start out is defined by your background and when you start out. And it's very smart to kind of start out in that vein, where you where you're familiar with because you can position yourself as an expert there and then, as you then coach other people, you can broaden that, right? I have a very, very much of a, kind of a marketing and managing companies background, also industrial background. But I have coached CFOs and people who are heads of R and D. So as your, as your career progresses, you have coached more people, and then you can also bring that into the conversation. I have coached ministers in various countries who obviously done managing a large part of the country. Maybe, was it a provincial head of state? So the head of the state, as part of a country, or a minister part of a country, right? So then you can also put these aspects in your experience. So it takes a little time, and everybody you coach is an additional founder on your cap.

Mark Shriner [24:57] 

Absolutely, it makes a lot of sense. Um. From where you sit again, you travel all around the world, or you're, you know, you're coaching a variety of different organizations, and then you're running the global coach group. So you see all the engagements that you're many of the engagements that your member coaches participate in. Do you see any particular industries or regions where coaching people, where the people in those regions or industries are becoming more aware of the importance of coaching, or executive coaching. And the reason I ask this is that when we, you know, cooperated, I was in Japan at the time, and amongst Japanese organizations at the time, coaching was a relatively new concept. We were working with foreign multinationals in Japan, and they were the leaders there, were very much aware of coaching and could see the benefit. But you know, what are you seeing in terms of regions or industries?

Will Linssen [25:53] 

So I actually, I will look more at an industry level rather than a regional level, because by now, coaching is well accepted in most countries. Right now, let's talk about the top 50 economies in the world, right because it is also about being industrially developed, that coaching has relevance. And you know, organizations who are looking for coaching are the ones who feel like people are really important, and we need more leaders, better, faster, right? Because if you don't need people, you don't need to coach, right? It's sort of like a sports team, right? If you're if you're okay with where you are. You don't need to coach and improve yourself. But if you want to become the champion, or you want to go to a league up in your sports, then yeah, you want to step up. So the organizations right for the industries who are excited about coaching have three characteristics. They grow fast because they need more leaders, because that's where you can grow. People are an important part of their production, right? So if you look at consulting as an example, or fast moving consumer goods, people are an important part of their business. If you look at the airline industry, then investments in equipment is more important than people, right, just as an example. So growth people are the important production factor in the organization, and then profitability, right? Because if an obligation is profitable, they have money to invest in people, and if they're not profitable, they don't have money to invest in people. It's very simple. So profitable industries, and that is basically a Google search, which industries are more profitable than others? But financial services, pharma, consumer goods, are just a few examples of very profitable industries, and also these industries grow fast and people are important, so they invest in coaching, and some others, they don't. Government organizations are tend to be more let's call it reserved on investing in coaching services.

Mark Shriner [28:22] 

Makes a lot of sense. So, okay, I'm a coach. I want to grow my business, and I draw a circle around all the fast growing industries, you know, some of the ones that you mentioned there. And then I, and then I draw another circle around the ones that were, you know, it's people focused, or people dependent, resource dependent. And then I say, Okay, now I've got a subset here. These are the companies and industries that I want to target to, you know, expand my coaching business. What advice would you give me in terms of prospecting to these organizations? 

Will Linssen [28:57]

Yeah, so let's move a little to that part, right? So now we're looking at marketing and prospecting for yourself, and I'll explain to you how we do it, and everybody needs them to kind of see what their version of that is. So we're, we are very much results focused, right? So we're really talking to prospects and telling them, yeah, if you really want to be measured better and be recognized for that in your organization. Then let's talk about coaching. Yeah, because we think, or I think, that if I get coached as a leader, and I think I get better as a leader, but other people don't see that, then it doesn't really exist, right? So you're not seeing the results, or other people don't see the results, which is even more important, right? So then the value of what you're doing is not very high, plus your competitive edge as a coach is not very high. So you need to talk to people who really want to get better. And be able to to be seen as getting better, right? So it's not what I think I got better, it's what other people thought or think I got better. That's the point. Yeah. So you need to in your marketing, you need to also focus on what you're selling, right? So the way we do that is we have a number of of case studies that we put out there, which are very results based where we show, hey, these, these clients work like this and this, and these are the results they got coaching, and 95% of the leaders got better, and 95 and co workers are satisfied with their team being more effective, and the results that they improved, right? So, these are things. We have a list of frequently selected leadership growth areas that clients are working on. So then we can easily demonstrate, okay, these are the 100 different themes that we have been working on with clients. So if you, as a leader, have any of these themes that you want to get better at, we can help you with a 95% success rate. So you need to be clear in your marketing of what you're doing, right? It's sort of like fishing, right? A great fisherman, but you know, if you want to catch a certain type of fish, you need to use a certain type of pigs.

Mark Shriner [31:19] 

Totally agree. And then once you have that, I mean, because what you're really talking about is kind of defining your value proposition and then, and then taking that, hopefully aligning that with the market that you're going after. But once you have that, you know, what are the effective ways to outreach? Because these days, I mean, it used to be you could call then now nobody calls anybody you can go to events. Events might be good. There's social channels, but what are you seeing? Is it? What are some of the more effective ways for people to outreach?

Will Linssen [31:52]

So leadership coaching, right, is either paid by the organization, in our case, that's most of the time the case, or by the leader themselves, which happens many times, but that's not really our clientele typically. So therefore LinkedIn is your channel, right? That's the platform where professionals meet, and that's where you need to be. Now on LinkedIn, you can easily see that the type of professionals you are targeting at probably 1/3 of those people are active on LinkedIn, and the other two thirds are not active on LinkedIn. So it is what it is, right? You can only reach the people that are on LinkedIn and who are active on LinkedIn, and they care about being active on social media, and these are the people you can start to get in touch.

Mark Shriner [32:45]

And what are the typical buyer personas, and these larger…

Will Linssen [32:50]

And then maybe, how do you go after those people right now? How do you get in touch with those people? So you have the HR, people are important people to that. They know you, right? They don't have the power to say yes, but they have the power to say no. Okay, so these are the qualifiers, right? So you need to have, they're the timer in front of the cage, right? So you need to first have them on your site. So simple, right through LinkedIn, connect to those people right as far as they can want to connect, and then clear that. And then the people who get the benefit from coaching are the people who are leaders of a business, right, or leaders of a team of people because they have a P and L right, and people are on their P and L, so better people give better results, so they're benefited by that, right? So HR people, they are the guardians of people's process, but they don't have the people's cost on their P and L, right? They don't have a budget on how they pay people. So the leaders are the ones who say so, the business leaders, they're the ones who say yes, and you need to be in touch with them too. So you need to, it's like playing the piano, right? You have to go both those directions in order to get in touch with the right clients.

Mark Shriner [34:19]

How important are referrals, and if they are important, how to ask for them?

Will Linssen [34:25]

Yeah. So that is, while you're coaching people right, yeah, they're super important, yeah. And actually, to ask for them is actually very straightforward. Once you're coaching somebody right in the second or third session, you can say, well, if I do a good job in coaching, you, would you be okay to provide me with a recommendation by the time we're done, right? And most people would say, Yeah, I lost it. No problem at all. Right? And then do a good job, you know? Yeah, and then in the last in the one what last session, you then bring it back up and say, hey, that's what we discussed back then. So would you be so kind as to do that? And how can I help you to particularly, that recommendation, so you can talk a little bit in the coaching session about the experience they had, and then they know exactly how they would like to recommend you. What did you learn? What was the benefit of what we did together? Right? How did my coaching approach help you? How did me as a coach help you, right? So these answers to these questions basically form the recommendation and then make sure you get those the best days to get those recommendations through LinkedIn, right? So I have about close to 500 recommendations on LinkedIn, right? And that's just, yeah, it's very valuable, right? And these are all things that I did over the years, and people are okay with that, right? They're they're happy to be named as an individual in being coached or having been part of coaching one way or another.

Mark Shriner [36:09]

Yeah, I find that oftentimes people it doesn't matter what they're selling, but I'm talking b to b, b to c, whatever, oftentimes people are reluctant, or they forget to ask for referrals, and I say, always ask after you've delivered value. Just say, Hey, do you know anybody else that might benefit from this type of service? Or do you know anybody else that I should be talking to? And if you just make it as part of your regular process, and don't like, get all nervous about it, like, oh my god, I'm gonna ask for a referral or an introduction. Just Just make it, you know, it's just part of your process. And it's amazing how willing people are to help you out, because they do see the benefit and the value there, and they want to help you, kind of, you know, expand your business as well. Now there are coaches that all they want to do is coach, and then there are coaches who want to build their practice beyond their personal ability to engage. So for example, if I was going to sell to a large organization and I wanted to sell multiple engagements, it might be challenging, because there's only one mark, right, and I've got limited number of hours a day, but there could be larger engagements, what I where I'd need to bring in other coaches. But then again, then I go from a coaching role to kind of a management rule, what are your, you know, thoughts in terms of best practices related to that? Should coaches do it? Shouldn't they do it? Why? Why not?

Will Linssen [37:29]

Yeah. So here is my advice there, right? So if you're selling coaching as a coach, I would definitely recommend you to to team up with two or three other coaches who are different than yourself, because sometimes the client is looking for a specific profile, right, and sometimes that is gender or or ethnicity or educational background, whatever the case may be, right? So, then you can also provide your client with a few profiles that they can choose from. That is one thing. And then the second thing is, yeah, if you are starting to manage coaching games that are bigger than yourself, then you easily run into the challenge that you want to have the same quality of service across the coaching engagements that you're doing with clients. And so in our case, we have the coaches in our network who come back to us and say, hey, you know, I have this big client, and they want to do coaching for 10 or 100 or or 500 leaders around the world, and I can't do that. So then we do that together, because we can run these coaching engagements very effectively. And as a coach, then you're still part of the account management team, so it's great, right? You look good as a coach. And obviously there is also a financial benefit involved doing that, so that makes it easy. So either do it yourself, make your own team and expand from there, which is quite a challenge. I've been doing this now for 20 years, and it is quite a challenge, or be able to team up with an organization like us, where you can easily globalize and create a happy client anywhere where they are.

Mark Shriner [39:13]

Yeah, I totally agree with what you're saying, and in my experience, I really benefited from having a network of complementary coaches who provided similar, but different flavors of, you know, executive coaches services. And it's because a lot of times you go in there, and, you know, we have this process, but they're looking for, as you said, something slightly different. And you know, if you spend an hour or two hours talking with somebody and you walk away empty handed, that's kind of, you know, it's an experience, but it would also be a nice day. Hey, you know what, what I do is this. It's not exactly what you're looking for, but I have a colleague, or, you know, a friend, or whatever it is that does exactly what you're looking for. Is it okay if I make an introduction, and 99% of the time you'd be like, Yes, please do it. So I think that's it. Some awesome advice. There are just, I guess, a couple more questions here. Who should consider, like, Okay, if I, if I'm gonna go and I'm thinking sitting on the fence, I might be going down the path to become an executive coach. What are some of the factors that I should consider whether or not I should do that? Yes. 

Will Linssen [40:23]

To become a leadership coach, executive coach? So it's important to understand, first of all, you need to be an entrepreneur, right? There's a lot of people who go into executive coaching who are either, uh, kind of retired professionals right in their 40s or 50s or 60s, whatever they have the opportunity to retire, who then go out and help other leaders to benefit from their experience, or people who are trainers, leadership trainer, and then move from there into an additional service offering called coaching. I think the key to be, the key thing to consider as a coach is to to get a service proposition as a coach that you really feel like, yeah, I can deliver that. Yeah, I have like, 15 or so different certifications. And one of the things I've been seeing as a challenge is that, yeah, to learn a bunch of tools is great, but that's not the same as a service. You need to be able to have a, what we call defined service proposition when you talk to a client. So I think that's important. And then, as a coach, it's like starting any business you need to be willing to to also sell yourself, right, to be active in selling. And, yeah, that is an important aspect to make, uh, sort of important decision to make.

Mark Shriner [41:55]

Awesome. And last question then on that sales fraud, because you mentioned you need to be entrepreneurial. And you know, the general theme of this conversation has all been about selling. And, you know, developing your coaching practice. Where do you go in terms of continual learning opportunities about sales and marketing and new ideas about growing your business? So,

Will Linssen [42:19]

so we have really refined that needs based sales approach very well. So part of that is just practicing that and and then we also have been experimenting with using a number of coaching tools in sales, because many times coaches are not good salespeople for although a lot of people are not good salespeople, but coaches also sometimes in that camp. So we also develop a number of coaching tools that you can use in the sales process, because coaches are great coaches, and if you can use that a coaching tool to sell your coaching, then you can show to your client that coaching is valuable, that you're a great coach, and they see the value of coaching, so you're kind of selling intrinsically at the same time. So I think that that's super important. So if you're specifically looking for how to be better in sales and marketing, then yeah, definitely. So social media, so be good at social media marketing. So I think that's something to kind of educate yourself at, yeah and yes. So sales techniques, if, if that's what you want to do. But then I would suggest having a look at some good needs based sales, organizations or programs.

Mark Shriner [43:47]

Yeah, ask questions, find out what their challenges are. That goes back to the very beginning of our conversation, yeah, and then, and then, hopefully, put together a program that aligns with what they're looking for. So it makes a lot of sense. Well, then, well, hey, well, value your friendship, appreciate your time. Thank you so much for coming on The Grow Fast Podcast.

Will Linssen [44:06]

You're welcome. Was great to Yeah, joy and honor to be here today, and I hope that it was a value to your listeners and questions around this and happy to engage with them as well. Thank you!

Mark Shriner [44:18]

Awesome. Thank you.

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