Mastering Reputation Building Strategies for Success in the Coaching Industry

This week’s episode is focused on starting and building your reputation in the coaching industry. Em and Lex break down their reputation-building strategies to establish authority and sign clients. 

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

• How Em and Lex got their start building their business reputations
• The importance of being aware of how you interact with people and clients
• Reputation-building strategies when you’re just starting out
• The different steps of building your reputation 
• How your client’s success can directly impact your reputation
• And more!

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Follow Em & Lex on Instagram at @readysetcoachcommunity

Join the Ready Set Coach Community: https://www.readysetcoachcommunity.com

Learn more about Six Degrees Society and THEPRBAR inc.

Transcript

Lexie Smith  

in between. So are you ready, Lex? I'm set and let's coach. Well, Hi, Emily, Merrill, the Merrill the Merrill, Merrill, Merrill Hill,

Emily Merrell  

the Merrill Hill, I know isn't a sure I changed my name to hill.

Lexie Smith  

It makes Christmas card season confusing a bit because I don't know whether to say like to the Hill family or to the Merrill Hill family or to Merrill. So for that reason, you can say

Emily Merrell  

the hill family it's it's fine. Or what I do, and I've confused everyone, I'll say the mayor hills. And people just assume at this point that I have like hyphenated my Name, which I have not. But I thought, oh,

Lexie Smith  

shout out to one of our friends and clients, Cory Whitman, who basically invented her last name by putting you knew this. She told us this. You did do this. Yes, she has. We knew this quarry. But she took her partner's last name and her last name, and they made a new last name. So that makes me think of Mayor Hill. Yeah,

Emily Merrell  

I know. And I think it goes back to my fear of paperwork. And the idea of getting a new passport stressed me out enough, like back five years ago when I got my last passport. So we'll we'll cross that bridge and 2025 and

Lexie Smith  

going to have a magical moment. I think this is a really great example where where you're using something as an excuse when maybe maybe there's different reasons, because I'll just throw this out there. I think you've lived a lot of your life and you've spent a lot of time building the reputation under your last name of Merrill.

Emily Merrell  

You therapist session complete.

Lexie Smith  

Which I resonate with I miss my maiden name was Olson and it was really annoying from an SEO perspective, when I changed. What I'm debating doing is having four names and being Alexandria Christine Olson Smith, at one point, not hyphenated, but just sticking it in there. Because it's been five years since I've been married. And I still miss it. Yeah, like the myth. I just missed the fact that however many years of my life I spent as an Olsen

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, it's a it's a part of your identity. And I, we were a family of girls. So the the name dies after us basically. So there's also that kind of, there's a

Lexie Smith  

lot of pressure might I mean, talk about the Smiths being a fourth generation family owned company at this point, meaning if I don't produce a, an air bale air, then that dies with me, you know, just like 100 Plus history,

Emily Merrell  

it's fine. No pressure Alexei you, you've got to really study that one. Your next baby's gonna be built.

Lexie Smith  

Built. Oh, yeah. So this episode, we're talking about the constructs of feminism and the patriarchy.

Emily Merrell  

I think that's like the end of the relationship, or the end of the episode. My brain just melted. I wouldn't even know how to navigate that conversation. I'd

Lexie Smith  

say go watch Barbie.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, I really liked it, which was very controversial. I found it so funny how? Well, you know, we've talked about this before, but just how controversial a movie.

Lexie Smith  

I'm not surprised. It's controversial, but I loved it. I completely understand. Looking at Wow, we're getting political here. Right. And then we're not going to go there today. Lexi

Emily Merrell  

and I had the pleasure of seeing Barbie together though. And I have to say it was the first time in my first first movie I think I've seen since 2019. And probably my first movie in my adult life that I've seen with alcohol where we had a bottle of wine between the two of us. In the movie theaters. I was like, this is fun. This is how I laughed

Lexie Smith  

and we cried and we looked at each other. Yes, it was wonderful. I tried to steal someone else's seats.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, that was that was a weird thing. Guys, when people reserved seats like they actually reserved seats, but Lexie had this assumption. Well, we were there early, we should just park ourselves in these seats and play dumb when they arrive. I was like, I'm such a rule follower. I'm such a rule follower in such a not a rule follower all at the same time, which I think is really entertaining. Like, don't get me started with TSA, pre TSA in general. I'm like, it's three bags. They're going to all fit fine and I will be very angry when they question my authority on that one. But I also don't want to go to jail so I will follow the rules and I will make them all fit perfectly. So

Lexie Smith  

think I felt more safe, trying to potentially steal someone's seats in the cover of night, because I didn't think it would hurt my reputation as a human. Which brings us to the transition. Today we're going to talk about how you, what are we going to talk about how you establish and build a strong reputation in the coaching industry.

Emily Merrell  

Speaking of reputation, I feel like Taylor Swift is really good at building reputations. And I know we had a whole Taylor Swift episode, but I just want to say surely, following the the whole like relationship that she has now yeah,

Lexie Smith  

very, very closely, because it's like a master school and PR and marketing too. It really

Emily Merrell  

is. And it's incredible to see that I have no idea who this person is. I also am not a sports person. I'm like, what is the chief feminine? Sure. Sorry, football. Few people out there,

Lexie Smith  

but it seems CJ off.

Emily Merrell  

But seriously, it's like one of those things where people now are tuning in to I'm sure the viewership has been massive female

Lexie Smith  

viewership increased by 65%. And it's completely affected the game. What do they call it like the game broadcasters prime light know the prime game time. That's why CJ got mad. The Chiefs played. I don't know the matchup for whatever last Sunday's like prime game was like purely a publicity stunt. And it made him mad. He's like, this isn't a good matchup. This isn't like the game that should be on primetime. They're only doing this because of Taylor Swift. I'm like, which is smart. I'm like, you know, the whole point of football is to make money. Anyways, I digress. Let's bring it back in goes in for Taylor Swift episode, which actually is, is a little bit related to what we're talking about today. But we really, you know, a quick, quick bit of context, I was interviewed recently, and this question got brought up to me, they asked how did you start and build a reputation in your industry?

What industry, what industry and start,

Lexie Smith  

I had to sit down and think and like, kind of track it. And then Emily and I did that and milk kind of we had similar paths. And we really agree on this. So I think it's worth sharing the lobby.

Emily Merrell  

I don't know, I'm delusional guys. I've COVID. So I just want to let you know, I'm a little, let's put an asterix to everything I say. And my brain is somewhere in a bubble. So Lexie, you bring up a good point, you had a great reputation, or you you built a reputation. So what tips and advice do you have for people when building their reputation?

Lexie Smith  

Well, first, I'd like to think that both you and I have pretty okay, relationships, reputation, right? So, reputation can go either way. So the context of this whole conversation is building a strong one or a positive one or a credible one. Just saying because you build the reputation the other way. So I just felt like it was worth pointing out. Okay. So the very first thing that I did, and I believe you did the same, but I'll ask you in a second is I showed up anywhere and everywhere, whether that be a call a workshop, a community and talk for free, if I could get on a podcast, I don't care how big it was, I would get on it. If someone wanted to pick my brain for 30 minutes, I'd let them if there was a community who wanted me to speak for free, I would, I went everywhere I blitzed the market with my knowledge. And while there was impact, that was also, there wasn't strategy to that, because that enabled me to get out in front of masses. In the early days of my business, a lot of people are preaching and coaching. And it's something we preach to to hold steady with your boundary and be selective with your time. Personally, I will just reflect I wasn't early on and benefiting me majorly? What about you, um, well,

Emily Merrell  

I have this visual of us like a human whack a mole, where it's like, she's here. She's here, we found her place. And it is true. I'm just backing up a bit. When I'm at LAX, I met her in real life at a conference. And then quickly, the next month of her relationship, the pandemic happened. And so our communities and our world started bleeding together. And I do think that the virtual acceptance, the acceptance that life was happening virtually made it a lot easier to do that. So I just want to acknowledge, like the time and place in which you came into into business was really Yes.

Lexie Smith  

And can I real quick to because I think it's important to I also did not have children. I think that's a huge thing. And I had the privilege of having saved up and having an income that allowed me to be generous with my time. So I don't want to, to say that without being mindful of the things I had going for

Emily Merrell  

me. Yes, and but I'm 1,000% at work here when I started my business, and you all know I didn't launch with coaching right out of the gate, it was a six degrees. So I took every meeting that was requested of me. And typically this was back in 2016. It usually happened in in real life. Sometimes it would happen in the same place. I got strategic after a few years. But oftentimes, there's different coffee shops. So I would be my biggest expense was schlepping to different coffee shops and drinking a lot of coffee I buy like my 10th Coffee of the day, I was practically like, speed running to every meeting. But the thing that I did really well was I offered value to those people. So oftentimes, I was coaching people. And I didn't know that I was coaching people. I was making strategic introductions, I was just being really generous. And it was, we've talked about this, this model before about putting basically depositing money into the bank, and being able to help others. And so what happened is when then a door opened, and I saw that mutual connection with that person I was generous to, if they did their due diligence, and they talked to that mutual connection, the reputation that came out of it was, Oh, my God, Emily is the best, like she's always going above and beyond and helping. And so I'm connecting. So I really, really, really established myself as being known as something positive, which I wanted to be known for, which was a connector. Yeah,

Lexie Smith  

a connector. And so I think both of us did a really good job in our respective fields, different times we entered you entered before me. But we didn't start out the gate with just selling hard people didn't get to know us just as someone who had something to sell, thus making them maybe more wary to talk to us. We were known as givers as people who were generous with our time. And we also were able to showcase our knowledge in niche spaces, but big spaces, too. And I think that's what's when I reflect back in that interview, I'm so grateful I did, because while yes, today, you know, I have to be more selective with my time. People know that it's not like I haven't always been this way. Right? Like they know that I, I'm overly generous with my time and my knowledge still when I can be. So I think the first basically, the first nail we want to hammer in is starting the first thing and establishing and building a reputation. And in our opinion, at least our reputation similar to ours has been starting with generosity. Yeah,

Emily Merrell  

and I liked what you said earlier lacks, too about saying yes to all the invitations, you were given, this wasn't your time to be selective, you were able to be in communities that were 1,000%, the right fit for you and communities that probably never will talk to you again. And it's a great way for you to also assess who your right person is, and cultivate those relationships further. And guys being in community of other peoples and being invited into other people's community, it's also an opportunity to then shift them over into your world to get them into your newsletter, have them following on your Instagram, and cultivate a relationship from there. So I've also

Lexie Smith  

found if you have a reputation as a giver, people are a lot more willing to give back in return and spread word of mouth, because they're not afraid. They're going to intro you to one of their friends, and you're just going to hard sell, right? It gives people like a feeling of safety that makes them want to talk about you. Yeah,

Emily Merrell  

and we will do a whole nother episode, which I think we have on boundaries. So this is not the episode where we're going to share with you how to filter through that or how to preserve your energy. This is about reputation. So, you know, LAX, we know that generosity has been generous of time, intros, giving away things for free. Gosh, I remember, I remember our first relationship to like our cultivating of our friendship, and just how generous you were even at six degrees events shouting out after an event, like the speaker that you had just seen, or you would make an intro to someone in real time like you were Oh, are giving people resources. So do you have any tips for people to have like generous things right on the ready?

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, I mean, I think if you're just starting out, this is going to depend on what type of coach you are. But the most readily available thing you have is your time and knowledge and I know that's what we're selling and coaching. But hear me loud and clear. You can still be generous with your time and now knowledge and build a monetary business, because ultimately, not everyone you educate is meant to be your client. That being said, if you get in rooms where other people can hear you, and you start spreading word of mouth that could lead you to a client. So I think the big mistake there that we both have seen is when people become protective, too early on, of their expertise in their time, they're kind of shooting themselves in the foot and missing the key component or the opportunity to build build a relationship. Do you have any tips before we move on to the next thing

Emily Merrell  

I do? I think having something that's an easy give in your back pocket. And we've talked about this previously, but like, again, I host events. And so for me to send an invite to someone and give a free ticket is there's no skin off my back. And then it's an opportunity for them to get to know me more. They feel special. Typically, when I invite them as a VIP, they feel more VIP, and they feel like they're coming into to something with that much more like affinity for the organization. I think then, yeah, go ahead. Sorry. No, no, no, I was gonna say, I think the one thing just separate or one thing to like be cognizant of is to not have expectation of person of a person like just because you gave them a free ticket to come to an event. Don't hold that expectation or don't be disappointed if they don't become a paying client overnight. Or if they don't become you know, a member of six of your of your organization or if they don't buy in, a lot of times, generosity is very much a long game. And it again, I don't want to say it in a disingenuous way. But one of my favorite stories from clients is like I've been nurturing and pushing them and tugging them for years before they then are ready to accept me as their coach and hire me. Like I have four examples in my brain right off the bat that I literally like fed into for so long before they were financially at a place and they were they were themselves at a place where they could recognize like, I want you fully in my corner in a paid capacity. Hey, everyone,

Lexie Smith  

Lex here, and M. And if you haven't heard, we did something pretty darn cool.

Emily Merrell  

We sure did. We launched a completely free community built specifically for coaches. Say

Lexie Smith  

it again, for the people in the back. We launched a

Emily Merrell  

free community for coaches. Tell them quickly who it's for and what we're doing inside Lex. Sure

Lexie Smith  

thing. So it's for anyone from the coaching curious to side hustlers to coaches ready to scale. And through the virtual platform that we've built. We've created a safe and fun space that we learn, launch, grow, connect ideas, collaborate, fit, and evolve together.

Emily Merrell  

You nailed it, Lex. Now while it's free, you must apply in order to gain a free membership. You know, so we can make sure everyone is inside is awesome. Like us.

Lexie Smith  

Apply today at Ready Set Coach community.com. Yeah, so not every generous action needs to immediately lead to a sale, you need to like let that go. I wanted to say too, is we're talking about being generous and not working and showing up. I think another really, really key thing is how you interact and how you respect others through those opportunities. Meaning if you agree to come to an event, show up don't know show. If you have a 30 minute discovery call booked show up respect their time, like base. I know it sounds crazy, but like basic things like don't cancel on people last minute unless it's an emergency, if you say you're going to be somewhere, be there, like accountability and follow through and how you interact with your generosity I also think is really, really important.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, yes, I think that that is you want to leave a good taste in everyone's mouth where they want more of you. So Lex, you know, thinking about thinking about like, the next step of generosity. What do you recommend people do? So they're generous, they've shown up, they're brand new, they're, they're everywhere that they can be? How do they find these opportunities? Yeah,

Lexie Smith  

well, so the next step of reputation building beyond generosity, in our opinion, is once you do get your client, even if it's beta, so even if it's not paid, really, really really putting all your energy and attention to that client, making sure they have an exceptional experience with you. There is something in coaching we need to be reminded of and I want to bring this up right now. We can't control the end outcome of our clients in the sense that you can lead a horse to water but you can't force them to drink. So this isn't me saying you have to guarantee they're gonna get rich old's. But what you can do is that you guarantee you show up and do your part, and that you're communicative and that they have the experience above and beyond what they signed up for. Because that those, especially those early clients are walking, talking billboards of view and your practice forevermore. Yeah,

Emily Merrell  

they really are. And it's, it's funny, I think, I think back to certain clients that are like, can you connect me to a past client for to do my due diligence, and oftentimes, I connect to them back to my very, very first clients, who are forever my superfans, and forever the people to talk about the, the transformation, so the results that they got working with me. So I love that I think that's a really, really great one that even if it's a beta client, give them the onboarding gift, give them the full suite of experience.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, I actually, I want to dig into that for a second. Because I have another perspective on past clients that I experienced and became a lesson learned. Some people choose, a lot of people will come and ask to speak to past clients and coaching, you have a right to decide how you want to handle these situations. The one experience that made me change how I handled this, because I used to connect current clients with past clients, the ones that were willing, I then had a actually a mutual contact of ours monopolize a hour and a half of the past clients time. And I ended up deciding for me and this isn't to say one or one or the other is wrong. It's just a considering Shana lesson learned. You can also respect your clients by not allowing future business that doesn't benefit them to monopolize their time. So you can read the room a little bit here. But again, it's it's a I had to change. So I no longer connect past with current and that is lost me business. But I did that because for me, because I lived the worst case scenario, I decided to turn that off.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, now that's a that's a really good insight. I haven't been asked that in a very long time. I feel like it's a very, usually when someone asked that it's they're very anxious as their money and they're very nervous to invest their money. So they feel like they're looking for exit strategies. No way. So by speaking to past clients, I don't know what they're hoping to get out of it. But if they're, you know, hoping to be told not to work with you, but I think your reputation usually stands for itself that you don't need to pre sell that to someone. Got it.

Lexie Smith  

Um, okay, so really focusing heavily on client service, especially in the beginning is super, super key to building a strong reputation. Anything else? And? Ah,

Emily Merrell  

no, I think together Oh, you know, I think one of the things that is great for us and you, we've talked about this off line, as well as like, we love reinvesting in our clients. And so if that means that they have a store, we've ordered stuff from their stores before I've ordered, I've probably ordered from ordered, attended a workshop, a paid workshop, or participated in some sort of clients experience as much as possible. I've bought courses, I've been in programs, I've tried to think of what else we bought merchandise, but we love supporting our clients and repping our clients fully. So I think our reputation also isn't just like, Yay, we got you as a client peace out. We love being able to reinvest our our money and energy into that person.

Lexie Smith  

I don't know, yes, that's cosign. And then I would say early on to I became a really great client, meaning I didn't barter even though it would have been very tempting to go there. That's a complete lie. There was a few situations where they approached me with partners, and I took them let me just be fully transparent there. I remember the first person who started my podcast was barter. Anywho. The point being, I chose to come to the market as an entrepreneur, with money to invest in others and what they've built. And that didn't mean that that person was always my client. But I think a great example here is like community, investing in a community paying for that community showing up to that community proving that I'm not someone who's just taking and asking, I'm someone that equally is investing back into the entrepreneur economy at large. I think that was really key to to reputation, because people talk even if it's not direct client, like if you see someone spending their dollar and not just being a techie, or taking something like there are certain people who just want to tick tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and that quickly Because sometimes known and then there's also entrepreneurs in the female entrepreneur and coaching space, it's smaller world than you realize that become known for actually these people are willing to invest in others, too. They aren't just asking for money. Yeah,

Emily Merrell  

I think that's good. lakhs, I want to ask, what are we talking about? If there's a bad reputation, what do we do if someone doesn't have the most ideal experience?

Lexie Smith  

Be like, that's a whole nother episode, Emily Yuliana reputation. So we will, we'll do another episode on that sometime. But the great, the best thing you can do right now, if you're listening, is start from today and try intentionally to do something to cultivate a positive one going forward in terms of reputation. I hope you're not listening to this. And you're in a dire situation. Actually, I'll point you to another podcast, Jaime Ratterman, who has been a guest coach for the ReadySet coach community, she had me on her show is for a show called the Jimmy Rata limitless. And our whole episode was talking about this navigating bad reputation. So there's a great episode on that. But we're hoping you're hearing this at a point where you don't have a bad one today, and you have the opportunity to create a positive one going forward. And

Emily Merrell  

I would also add, add to that you want to create a reputation where you're known for something so if I'm at a cocktail party, and someone has a problem that they're telling me that I'm like, Oh my God, you know what you need, you need really great PR, you should meet Lexi, or Oh, my goodness, you need. It sounds like you're really stressed out. You need to be reorganized and mindful and neat. Christine, read the team, what whatever it may be like you're able to, to point people in the right direction and have a reputation that precedes you positively.

Lexie Smith  

Love it. So here's your homework. Again, people listening are at all different stages here. But our homework for you is kind of like a challenge. We want to challenge you to do one thing, generous and the upcoming week. Generous means generous with your time generous with the resource generous with your knowledge, something without expectation for sale.

Emily Merrell  

I like that. So it's kind of like the Pay It Forward movie do something positive in the world. But in fact, I was inspired by the Payette forward movie to create six degrees. It was like a big inspiration for me. idea. The idea that we can all do a little bit something generous every time we meet someone and it could change the world. Oh,

Lexie Smith  

I mean, Mike drop on that now. Ready set up coach podcast, but

Emily Merrell  

by now. If you're enjoying the ReadySet coach podcast, please leave a review wherever you are listening. For more information about Ready Set, coach, Visit Ready Set coach program.com