How to Collaborate in the Coaching Industry to Fast Track Business Growth

In this episode, Emily Merrell and Lexie Smith talk about how to collaborate in the coaching industry to fast-track business growth. Reviewing the benefits of collaboration, Em & Lex share some of their favorite communities and give plenty of real-life collaboration examples sure to inspire and spark ideas for listeners. 

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

• Tips on how to create the best collaboration for yourself and your brand
• The powerful mindset shift regarding competition vs collaboration 
• Real-life examples of coaches working together
• A few of their favorite online communities they are a part of
• How to collaborate with communities strategically
• How Em and Lex got their start as co-coaches and collaborations
• The benefit of inviting guest coaches on their cohort calls
• Homework on how you can create your next coaching collaboration to fast-track your business growth
• And More!

Follow Em & Lex on Instagram at @readysetcoachprogram

Learn more about the Ready Set Coach Program at Readysetcoachprogram.com

Learn more about Six Degrees Society and THEPRBAR inc.

Transcript

How to Collaborate in the Coaching Industry to Fast Track Business Growth - Podcast Transcript

Lexie Smith  

Hey, how's it going?

Emily Merrell  

I almost don't think I recorded I actually I can't believe I messed up on a recording last week. This is the first ever find it never found it. I had like a disappearing recording thing, which is really heartbreaking.

Lexie Smith  

Oh, well. Hi guys. So speaking of recording other other than recording video, we want to talk a little bit about photo shoots because Emily and I just booked a photoshoot. So you guys if your regular listeners know that I visited Emily in Denver with Ashlynn this summer. Now Emily is coming to me in just a few weeks and I'm so excited and we just booked a photo shoot. It'll be our second photo shoot so let's talk about photo shoots.

Emily Merrell  

I was gonna say Lex also, I have no high maintenance SNESs to me, like you don't have to take an outside of your house or anything.

Lexie Smith  

Okay, I'm sorry that I will die if we want to call that high maintenance then fine. No cheese, remember? Okay. Okay. For anyone who doesn't know I'm definitely allergic to nuts. So I'm sorry that that makes me high maintenance. blame my DNA. Second. The no dairy thing when I went to Emily was a requirement from my doctor while breastfeeding. So again, not a choice. These are not choices, Emily that I'm making. These are like health things. So you're an ass I'm sorry. But my one choice that was high maintenance is I'm not a seafood fan. So like we're dwindling down and like can't have nuts. Love dairy can't have dairy. Not a super fit. See? It was really fun.

Emily Merrell  

I was like, Do you want to go to dinner? Oh, you don't you can't eat anything here is here's like a bowl of cereal. Best of luck to you.

Lexie Smith  

I know but even cereal sometimes are made in factories manufactured with nuts, guys, if you have not allergy know what I'm talking about?

Emily Merrell  

Do I empathize a lot. But anyways, back to the photoshoot back to the photoshoot. We're very excited about this photoshoot. And Alexei would say is more particular about photoshoots. And I am

Lexie Smith  

very, I mean, it's what I have a career history in PR. And if you've listened to this show, or you know me, you also know my personality. When it comes to it's funny when it comes to work. I'm very particular, socially, if you like, look at my house, my office is a mess. But I don't know. It's like I put all my anal retentiveness into business. And then I'm lackadaisical outside. But yes, I want us to have a venue that is on theme. I want us to have outfits that are coordinated and match our color schemes. So these are things I care about.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah. And it's, and I'm very grateful for that. Because otherwise, I probably would have been like, what do you think of this red dress? And I would have ruined our entire Instagram feed and whole website.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, exactly. So you're welcome for me being anal and apparently high maintenance?

Emily Merrell  

Yes, very much. So. So what are your hacks for a good photo shoot, or what? What defines a good photo shoot for you?

Lexie Smith  

I mean, actually, guys, I'm really awkward behind the camera. I think that, again, I like to pick and think about venues that have the right colors in the right vibe for what the intention of the photos are. And really going into a photo shoot with a understanding of the types of photos you need to get out and the use for the photos. So are you doing it for branding, right? So you need some photos for social media? Maybe some for what banners, web images on your website, going in with a plan, I think makes it a much more effective photoshoot. But you Emily? No, I

Emily Merrell  

completely agree. And I think what was great about our last photo shoot we did we went and we we reviewed all of the assets that we did need to walk away with so as most of you know, Lex and I had only met once briefly, and we never had a photo together. So all of the photos we had taken together were virtual screen grabs, or Lex superimposing me hanging out next to her essentially so we had nothing with us side by side. So it was really important. For us to get certain shots, especially as we were submitting headshots for, for various events and whatnot. I think in terms of venue, that was a challenge, but we were able to scout a bunch of venues before we decided on a venue. And that made it really helpful. We we ended up shooting our first shoot at this place in Denver called happy camper. So if you're from Denver, or if you've been to Denver, this is like a quintessential millennial Gen Z hotspot, like it's so Instagrammable in there. And it really had little moments within the space for us to take the whole shoot and not have to go to various venues. And also be playful along the way. Yeah,

Lexie Smith  

it was fun, because we're fun, don't you think we're fun, I think we're fun. All of us. Speaking of, you know, coming together for a photoshoot really speaks to the power of the collaboration of our partnership. And today, we're going to be talking about specifically the power of collaborations in communities in coaching.

Emily Merrell  

Beautiful, I think that was the best transition I've ever seen you make. So

Lexie Smith  

thank you. Thank you. Okay, so where do we want to kick off here? Cool, I

Emily Merrell  

think I think I'll start a little bit just telling you a story about having community and a story. When I started six degrees society, people came to me when the wing came out, do you remember the wing? Do you ever go to the wing, but never went, but I know it never to the wing, surprised? People would come to me and they're like, Oh, my God, the wind came out, you're probably gonna go out of business, because the wing has all this celebrity power around it, and aren't you scared that they're gonna take your customers. And I wasn't, and I wasn't for many reasons. While we might share the same customers, we served them differently. While I was more of a an event experience, they were a location, they were a venue, they were a destination for co working. So the point I'm trying to make is, you can be similar in so many different ways. But you can also be an asset to one another, and you can be a collaboration partner. So the wing I would meet amazing clients there, I had friends that remembers that the wing, it was it served to six degrees, and I think six degrees society served the wing. So moving forward, in terms of coaching and in life and and community. I think if anything, we're so much stronger together. And I know that's so generic and that so like 2016, I really believe it.

Lexie Smith  

So 2016 No, I think that was a beautiful story to demonstrate a really, really powerful mindset shift that we encourage everyone to make. And that is that to Ed's point, we're better together. And there's enough room, there's enough room for us all, we've met individuals who hold their cards very closely and really operate from a place of scarcity and feel like Oh, I'm, you know, every other business coach out there is my enemy, Emily, and I don't believe that whatsoever. We feel like there's room for us all. And actually, we can rise up together through the power of collaboration. And we're going to share some real life examples today of how we do that, and how we've seen others, amazing women that we have worked with do that too. So I'd actually I'd love to start with calling out some of our favorite communities that we have collaborated with. So you want to kick us off?

Emily Merrell  

Yes. And I want to also add one quick note. So having started a community, I always felt felt self conscious joining other communities. I don't know why. But I felt like oh, I don't want to intrude on on them like they should be I can support them I can I can share out their stuff. But I always felt weird being in community myself. I think it I have no idea honestly, where this like insecurity came from. But over the last three years, I've joined so many communities in a more serious way, rather than like being on the fringe benefits of a community. I've committed to the communities engaged in the communities. So a few of my favorites that I'm a part of, and that we collectively are a part of, include Hey, Mama. So Mama was a community. Let me guess what it's for. It's for moms. And it's for and I always admired the founders, I used to sit next to him in a co working space I belong to in New York. And I was eager for the day when I could finally hit the like join community. So hey, Mama has been such an incredible community in terms of being able to promote our events there, learn from other individuals, collaborate with people, attend events, and network and grow personally, I would be remiss not to include six degrees in here. Six Degrees has been just so fundamental in terms of growing as an individual and also expanding my network and growing word of mouth and for ReadySet. Coach. We've gotten a lot of our cohort through six degrees. likes you to tell us the next one.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, so another company unity that were intentionally a part of his ladies get paid. And Emily started to dip into. Okay, so once you join this community, how is this benefiting your coaching practice? Well, one through basic showing up and networking is great. But also some of these platforms have opportunities to collaborate. So please get paid, we have collaborated in hosting events for their community. And these have been wildly successful for for both parties for for the community and the value that we're delivering, but also for us in a form of introducing us to potential clients. So ladies get paid has been great. We want to give a shout out to the bra network, the business relationship Alliance led by Carrie Marie. We're both in that as well love it. And I'll give one I'll give two more quick shout outs. We have dreamers and doers. Another Another favorite of ours led by geisha. All these have unique components. And there's similar people, as you can see, and in multiple of these communities. But they all offer something slightly different dreamers and doers is really great for press opportunities. Emily and I have gotten press opportunities for ReadySet. Coach through d&d. And then finally, forward female forward female has a special place in my heart because they were the first community I ever partnered with for my individual business, and I threw my launch party there. But what's been cool is I've watched them grow as we've grown, and we just continue to be brand champions for each other, which is great.

Emily Merrell  

And again, I think all these communities serve and might have overlap in terms of members, but they they have something special, they have their own special sauce. I'm going to shout out a few more communities that I'm a part of that I love the entrepreneurs to league by Stephanie. Stephanie and Courtney was the other one. Misha moms, again, another moms community, but it's a whatsapp platform. And it's all moms matched based on the due date of your child. And these are really successful, ambitious women. But we're coming together with a shared interest of figuring out how it'd be a mom. And yeah, those are 208 and a few more two pretty naked she Amanda who's actually in our cohort, she is the founder of the pretty naked which is a wellness community. And another cohort member Amy Chrisman has the fierce collective, which is an incredible self care community and platform, honestly hosting some of the best events there. And then a big shout out to our friend and kind of the reason we met Lex

Lexie Smith  

really though. Yes, Tara? Yeah, district bliss.

Emily Merrell  

She's the one who invited me to the conference where I met Lex. And that's an awesome, awesome community to see.

Lexie Smith  

If you're an ambitious professional, consultant, or business owner, who is feeling called to do more, be more or make more, we'd like to invite you to learn more about Ready Set coach,

Emily Merrell  

do you feel called to create change, help others do something outside of your day to day that generates true impact.

Lexie Smith  

While you may or may not be content with your day job or existing business? Do you feel called to dip your toes into something more? Whether it's tapping into another zone of genius for the side hustle is calling your name? Are you ready to explore what being more would look like?

Emily Merrell  

Do you feel like your business or career is leaving money on the table or you're looking to launch a new revenue stream or side hustle?

Lexie Smith  

Turning your expertise into a coaching revenue stream or side hustle is rewarding, impactful, and a great business model. It's the triple threat, multibillion dollar industry that Perhaps you've been looking for this full time.

Emily Merrell  

If you want to explore more on how to add a coaching revenue stream into your life. We invite you to explore our website. Ready Set, coach program.com

Lexie Smith  

applications are now open for our 2023 cohort. So those are just some of the phenomenal communities that we love. And we're a part of you guys are part of other communities, shoot us a DM we'd love to shout them out. So that's kind of one side of the coin. Another thing we wanted to talk about is collaborating with other individuals and even other coaches. Let's pull up let's call out one right here, me and m we are a co coach collaboration Ready Set coach is a collaboration. Emily gets full credit for circa 2020. When we were you know in situations where people potential clients were budding as both instead of feeling competitive, she saw it as an opportunity to collaborate. And thank God for her and her abundance mindset because look at this baby that was born. It's beautiful.

Emily Merrell  

It's so beautiful. Oh, she must be talking and walking at this point, right?

Lexie Smith  

She's skinny. She's growing up so fast and through her we've seen other beautiful collaborations become birthed. Do you want to share some of our favorite? Yeah,

Emily Merrell  

so one of my favorites that happened recently is teen. If you know why am I blanking on everyone's last name right now teen saying There we go. Teen just did a collaboration with a one on one client, Stephanie tasca. And then another Ready Set coach client Tanisha Tanisha beans and she they did something called the circle. Now it was so wonderful to see all of these women holding space for other individuals and really developing and creating something together. So look out for more information on the circle. They're always they're always I think re launching this quarterly or so right now. And then some other of my favorites, Amanda has, like been so gracious with her platform and hosted so many of the cohort individuals as speakers and leaders on the platform or her podcast, and she's collaborated with Antoinette Belson, who is amazing. And Amy Christman. Those are a few of my favorites that come to mind.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, and Mackenzie of Kinder with Mackenzie that's another one that Amanda has collaborated with. Amy Chrisman also has her own community. The fierce collective and similarly has invited other members of the cohorts to host events and share their knowledge with her community. So again, Kenzie, I know Daniela may from our first cohort. You Emily, too. Yeah. Julius and Tucci as well. Another partnership that's happening more behind the scenes is we have someone in our current cohort Tiffany, who's developing a program and partnering with with Colin, a former again OG member of our cohort who is a lawyer and a business coach. So it's also really cool to see the cross pollination between the cohorts, not just within the active ones,

Emily Merrell  

yeah, 100%. I see them reaching out to one another and learning from one another. And a lot of Instagram, Instagram lives are happening too, which is super cool to see. But lacks, I feel like in addition to the collaboration that's happening, you We also, as you mentioned, we collaborate with a lot of other coaches. So we're going to shout out some guest coaches that we've had on Ready, Set coach so far, we've had

Lexie Smith  

real quick for you do let me tell you guys why we do this. There's two benefits here. We invite guest coaches to coach in our cohort, one for added value to our students, right, they get to learn from another coach whose zone of genius is outside of Emily and my own. The benefit for the coach coming in is they're getting to share their expertise in front of a very curated intentional group of women and we have had members in our group hire guest coaches we bring in so that's just to give you a little bit more color of why we do that now. Um, yes. Do you want to give some shout outs?

Emily Merrell  

Oh, I love that. The last one with Candace that we had with Candice is last name. D'Angelo. Candice Angelou. She talked about sales. And after her presentation, holy smokes. We had the we have a Slack channel for everyone in the cohort. People were like literally closing sales. I kid you not like 10 minutes after the presentation ended. And that was the coolest thing. They took the learnings and they were able to apply it pretty much immediately.

Lexie Smith  

Literally, there was a screenshot screenshot of someone within 10 minutes of that guests workshop using one of the tactics and closing the lead that then kind of hanging on for a while

Emily Merrell  

so and I think the other thing too, so with with ReadySet. Coach, we talk about money mindset management and messaging, and Alyssa Blackwell crushed it with both mindset and money. She was talking about like money mindset and just up leveling your money mindset. And there's so much you could see their eyes just lighting up with dropping the bombs of knowledge that she did. Or I wasn't at Jasmine's but Jasmine, we can talk about that one.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, we've had multiple branding experts in our group and Jasmine gave a wonderful presentation on really having your stand your brand stand out as a coach specifically which was so so helpful. In a past cohort to we invited Hillary Hartline to speak and she talked about really finding and articulating your brand's love language, which was really, really powerful. Another one we had was Alice Hugh, who talked about money mindset, which Boy, that is an ongoing thing we can all use. She was incredible as

Emily Merrell  

well. And then I also love the fact that we can pull from past cohorts. We've got all of these experts in our past cohorts and we like to recycle them. Basically, we would like to bring them forth into our new cohort. So we have one graduate Kayla Kleinman, who is just a social media whiz and she talked about social media and mindset and best strategies. And I think that's basically I feel like we're in an award show right now. And there's a lot of people we want to thank. But high level, the power of collaboration and asking for help is so important. And it's so easy to do it on your own and feel like you were a martyr and you are, you have to do the struggle, but you could also grow so much faster if you were strategically collaborating with other people.

Lexie Smith  

And can I highlight one more thing that I think is so cool, some people might feel like it's counterintuitive or competitive to join a program like ReadySet coach where you're literally in a room with other coaches, right? We've had people ask us that, like when I'm not shooting myself in the foot, I don't want to show them how I'm doing it. They're my competition. Fast forward, Emily and I have even hired people within our groups for their specialties. We've hired Colin for her legal services. I just hired a gal in our recent cohort, Cory whittlin, who is an executive functioning coach to help me be a better coach and, and coach people through overwhelm. So really open your mind to any new room is an opportunity to grow as a human but also grow your business. Oh, yeah,

Emily Merrell  

I just, I just put Amy Chrisman has a new program out for the end of the year. And basically like holding space for the end of the year. I was like, Hello, yes, please, I would love to be held. I do a lot of holding of other people. I would love just to be in someone else's program. It's like going to a spa and someone else massaging you versus being massaged. So I'm really, really looking forward to that. And I love the fact that we've got so many smart women in this room like it's a shame not to take advantage of them.

Lexie Smith  

Internet two has both helped. Both of us basically come into our cohort and

Emily Merrell  

you will make your return investment in us. Oh my gosh, Daniela, me sells oils. I bought all her oils, basically. So now I'm like an oil convert. So it's fascinating to see how much we learned. Kinzie has Kinder with Mackenzie and I'm just waiting for my son to be a little older until I invest with her. And I'm like, how the heck do you navigate kindergarten teach me

Lexie Smith  

teach my wife shot her info to so many of my friends now too. So what we really want you to gather from this episode is the concept that there is enough room, there is enough room. And in fact, one of the smartest ways to escalate or accelerate the success in your business is to not only be open to but pursue communities in collaborations. So your homework, we want you to sit down, I have two parts here for you. Number one, identify one new community that you can play in. Okay, it can be sixth degree society, it can be a, you know, another one that we mentioned on the day, feel free to tap back. So part one, find one new community you can play in part two, I want you to look at who you know now, who is in your existing network that you could team up with. Now this could be as simple as collaborating on an Instagram Live. Or it can be as intricate as launching a whole new program like we did, right? The sky's the limit.

Emily Merrell  

I love that. I think that's wonderful homework and a great place to start. And it's time for you not to do it alone anymore. Like you can ask for help. You can partner with other individuals you can. You can grow faster with others.

Lexie Smith  

Yep. So that's our soapbox for this week. We hope you enjoyed listening. Until next time on the ReadySet. Coach,

Emily Merrell  

podcast. Wow, I'm sorry podcast. We'll see later. If you're enjoying the ReadySet coach podcast. Please leave a review wherever you are listening. For more information about ReadySet coach, visit ReadySet coach program.com