Gill Moakes 0:00
Welcome to the heads gift pod cause Yes, the correct amount of jazzy for today. Welcome to another week. Happy Monday. I hope you've had a brilliant weekend. I am always so amazed at how much I look forward to Mondays now. And it's like, it's so ingrained in us, like when we have a corporate job that you're going to dread Mondays, right? It's like the Monday feeling. But now that I don't have that anymore, and I just cannot wait for Monday's to come round. I know. That's an exaggeration. That's not true, because I really love my weekends as well. But I am often really dying for Monday to come round, because I know what exciting plans I've got for the week and whatnot. It's just such a stark contrast, isn't it? It's one of the reasons why however hard building a business gets, it will never for me, be as hard as not enjoying my life to the fullest is or dreading Mondays, or just wishing I was anywhere other than on a train commuting to the office, you know, it's a completely different feeling. Anyway, just acknowledge that start the week with a little bit of gratitude for how much I love Mondays now, this week's episode, I want to talk a bit about something that's come up in the last couple of weeks. I think you know, by now my thoughts around how noisy and overwhelming the whole online arena can be for business owners. And something that's come up a lot is around how on earth do you know who to trust to help you build your business? How do you know who to pick for support, because let's face it, no one can do it on their own. It's impossible. If you have genuinely ambitious plans for your business, there is no way you are going to be able to get a home run all the way around on your own, you're going to need support and support can look different at different stages of building your business. But it's going to be there, the need for that support is going to be there. So how do you decide who's right for you to work with, whether it's a business coach like I am or consultant or a mentor, or whether it's a service provider? You know, if copywriting is not your thing, who do you go for copy? Is it branding helped build your brand? Who do you pick when there are so many choices? How do you make the right decision? And that's what I'm going to be going into on today's episode. So let's dive in. Welcome, welcome to the heads together Podcast. I'm Gill Moakes. And I am obsessed with cutting through the noise when it comes to growing your business each week via intimate coaching conversations and inspirational stories. I share what it really takes to get the results you want in a way that feels right to you. I am all about attracting higher ticket opportunities, building authentic relationships, and creating the abundant full fat version of your dream business. I mean, how many of us have even away creating a light version of what we really want? The thing is, I honestly believe when you're outstanding at what you do, there is no limit to what you can achieve. So are you ready to put our heads together and make it happen? Let's go.
Gill Moakes 3:55
Okay, so
Gill Moakes 3:56
first of all, one thing I don't want to do is scare monger you into thinking that everyone online is out to scam you because that's not true. That is not true. There are a lot of really decent people running very good solid businesses providing excellent services. Ok. The problem is there are also loads of very mediocre people offering very mediocre services. And there are absolutely dishonest, unethical people running businesses that I wouldn't want to touch with a bargepole. So I get it, I get that it's an issue around. Well, who do I trust? How do I tell which is which. So there's a few things I want to talk about today really, in terms of how you can validate your choices when you're picking someone that you want to work with, on building your business. And I think the first one and this really goes back to an previous episode actually around, learning to trust your intuition, I'll link to that one in the show notes. But I think the most important thing is your gut, gut feel, you know, when you start reading, copy on a website, when you start listening to a video, or a webinar, or you start consuming someone's social media content, or you attend an event that they're leading, right, you know, in your gut, if they are saying things that are too good to be true, in other words, that they're trying to dupe you into working with them, right? Like, if I said to you, Click here and find out how to make $100,000, in your first week of your new business, what's your gut gonna tell you about that statement? Right, you're gonna feel like, that's, it's very generous. That's a rash promise, who could really keep that promise, who could keep a promise to show you how to make $100,000 in the first week of starting a business, I'm not saying that no one's ever done that before. But for me, that kind of messaging is a red flag. It's an absolute clickbait tacky marketing strategy. And the sad thing is that it could be that the person behind that messaging is genuinely great at what they do, they've just listened to some bad advice along the way around marketing their business. But the truth is that generally speaking, if you are seeing flashy branding, and messaging, sometimes quite literally flashing dollar signs, pound signs around the text, there's gonna be something you can't put your finger on, but your short gut feel it feels off. And I would say, always listen to that, that gut feel that intuition, it's so rarely wrong, you know, when something feels right for you, and you know, when something doesn't feel right for you. So that's the first thing, I think the second thing is around, really getting to know someone. Last week, I was talking about that cliche of know, like, and trust, but it is so true. And I think anyone, any expert, any coach, any consultant who asks you to invest heavily into working with them, when you know nothing about them, is, at best, a little unrealistic, at worst could be shady. It's not how this thing works, this game of relationship building, this is why relationship building is so important. As a business owner, it's so important to build relationships with prospective clients and with your peers and collaborators and other people in your industry, because that is what builds up the trust. Trust develops as you get to know each other. So when you're looking for someone to help you build your business to help you grow your business, you need to invest the time into getting to know them. And they need to do the same with you. Right? It's no different between online business relationships, as it would be for offline networking type relationships, right. So just think about that, before you fall for the next shiny webinar or bootcamp, whatever it is, just think to yourself, Okay, so how well, do I know this person? And do they know me? Are they offering the exact thing that I'm looking for? Have they bothered to find out what I'm looking for? Am I the right fit for them? And are they the right fit for me? And that takes time. And that is why particularly when it comes to you know, really investing for some serious help him growing your business, if the person you're considering working with is rushing you is putting pressure on you to give an answer straight away, when you've just met them and you've just have made maybe a first call with them. That's another red flag for me. I want to take my time to make a decision to invest in the right person to help me and that's nothing to do with procrastination. It's nothing to do with a scarcity mindset in me, I am absolutely all for investing. And I have invested in growing my business over the years. And any coach or consultant or service provider who really puts you under pressure to make a very quick decision. That's a red flag. We've only just met slow down. Another thing that I think is a huge red flag. And these again, this is a little bit aligned with that first one around the Trust the gut feel the intuition. And that is where they're promising, or guaranteeing even worse, some will do this, they're guaranteeing a huge return on a tiny investment. You've got to look into this deeply, you've got to be careful here. So needs to be clear here, the huge return might come from a tiny investment of money. But it could be like a really significant investment of time and effort. And that could add up to a great opportunity. Right? Here's where I think the red flag is, it's when the opportunity as positioned as like money for old rope, one of those make $10,000 per month working just 10 minutes a day offers, okay, those are red flags. And you know that, you know that your gut knows that. Just be really mindful about promises and guarantees, because at the end of the day, anyone you choose to work with you cannot guarantee you any kind of outcome, because there's one very big thing that they can't control. And that's you, the person you choose to work with, cannot control the amount of effort you're going to make, to bring to life, this big vision for your business that's out of their hands. So promising and guaranteeing is really a little bit smoke and mirrors. If you think about it, you may know absolutely that you are committed to doing everything you need to do to work with them and get the absolute best, most transformational result. But they don't know that. So honestly, any promises and guarantees have a red flag. Let's look for real talk, let's look for truth telling about the amount of work that's needed, the investment that's needed. Let's look for transparency around all of that. Let's not look for smoke and mirrors and Wizard of Oz type messaging. Next thing I want to talk about is does this person deliver on their promises? And if they are ethical marketers, then they're going to be very transparent and honest about what they're offering. And quite often you can expect to really sample a bit of that before investing with them. Are they offering something for free? So you can get that taste of what it's like to work with them? If they're not? Why not? Why wouldn't they? And I think that's an important one to think about is that at the end of the day, you do want some evidence before you invest in working with someone you want evidence that they deliver on what they say they can do. So I think that's a really important one. Think about what evidence would be meaningful for you? Would it be simply a conversation with them to get a feel for who they really are behind the flashy social media messaging and the beautifully styled website? Do you need to be able to have a zoom call? So you can really talk to them one to one before you invest? I would say so. I wouldn't consider hiring someone if I hadn't at least done that. But also more than that, it's what are other people saying? Are they showing testimonials of clients who have had the similar transformation, the successful result from them to the one that you want to what you're looking for? Is there evidence of that having happened, because that's what we're looking for. We're looking for that trust to be really validated and reinforced with evidence. Because we don't live in a make believe we're all too sophisticated. Now we know that what we read on the internet, written by the person who is marketing themselves isn't necessarily the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We know that people can present themselves any way they like using really smart positioning and messaging. And that's a really important part of marketing. Don't get me wrong, it's a massively important part of your brand is to position yourself and get your messaging right to attract the right clients. But then you need to also provide evidence that what you do delivers on those promises. Before clients come work with me, I will often give them with permission, of course for my clients, but a couple of clients to reach out to reach out to these clients, have a chat with them, ask them what it's like to work with me. Ask them what kind of results they get from working with me. Ask them how their business is moving forward. As a result of working with me, I really encourage new clients to do that. So I think that's something to really think about. There's nothing wrong with asking too Do that before hiring someone to help you grow your business. The one caveat I would say around that evidence piece is just remember that online reviews, I'm always a little bit, they're a much less reliable source of information. Because they're really subjective. We're obviously all reviews are subjective, but I might love something about a particular online educator or coach or consultant, I might love their quirky style, or whatever. Whereas you might find them really, really annoying, and not be able to bet be on the same zoom screen as them. Online reviews are often very hot or cold. And I think we know Don't worry that people will often leave spiteful and mean comments for the fun of it. And conversely, the rave reviews could all be from family and friends. So online reviews May. Not so much. But in terms of actual testimonials from past clients, that's what we're looking for, we want real evidence of real transformation, real results. I hope that's been helpful, because I know it is something that people wrestle with, particularly when you're at that stage in your business where you've done a lot of the work yourself, you've got the business to a point where you've really taken it as far as you can on your own, you're now stepping into that not knowing what you don't know area of scaling or growing the business, taking it to the next level. And I think when you're at that point of needing to invest in help and support is really quite overwhelming because of the number of choices you've got out there. So my intention today, it's not to like make you feel like everyone's out to get you. They're really not. But I do think that running anyone that you consider working with through these kinds of filters that we've gone over today, it's just going to help you make a more considered an informed decision. And it will then allow you because you're gonna be entering into the relationship with the coach or consultant or service provider, whatever, you're going to be entering into it feeling very confident, feeling very validated in your choice, then you're going to already be primed to get the best result from working with them.
Gill Moakes 17:24
Right, you're going to go into it feeling very confident, very enthusiastic, I genuinely believe that start to a working relationship together is what sets the tone for the results and the transformation that you're going to get longer term. Okay, listen, everyone have a really good week, and I will see you again this time next week. Bye for now. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that getting our heads together this week has filled your mind with what's possible. If you love the show, would you do me a massive favour please? Would you leave a five star rating on Apple podcasts? It would really help you put more heads together, reach more ears and expand more minds. Until next week. Bye for now.
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