Expectations vs Reality in Coaching and Entrepreneurship

In this episode, Em and Lex reflect on their own personal business journeys and talk through “expectations vs reality” in coaching and entrepreneurship. Hear how your hosts navigated the ebbs and flows of entrepreneurship and the coaching industry, and their best tips learned along the way. 

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

• Their individual expectations going into entrepreneurship and the realities that hit them on their journeys into coaching
• How inflated expectations are often unrealistic in the first year of business - and what one should actually expect
• The realities of having high months and low months when running a coaching business - and how to plan accordingly
• How to manage having an emotional response when coaching clients
• How getting neutral is essential for maintaining relationships (and how to achieve such)
• Giving yourself grace in your business practice 
• 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

 Expectations vs Reality in Coaching and Entrepreneurship -Podcast Transcript

Lexie Smith  

It’s been a day. It's what it's been.

Emily Merrell  

How was your day? Not so. That's a good

Lexie Smith  

day, guys. You know, we have those days in today's one of those days where I feel like I'm running around with a like a chicken with my head cut off. So you know, just keeping it real over here. How are you Emily?

Emily Merrell  

You're so good. You're so polite. I'm good. You're my last call today. So I'm going to go do all the things I didn't do earlier today and I'm going to go for a rock climb later tonight

Lexie Smith  

actually was wonderful and lovely.

Emily Merrell  

Not walking rocking rock climb.

Lexie Smith  

Oh, that's right. Your new hobby? We haven't talked about that on the show. How are we?

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, what are your hobbies?

Lexie Smith  

Okay, what are my hobbies? Guys, are you it's redefining right. So I'm six months into motherhood and I could tell you what I did prior to having a child. Now my hobbies are maintaining a healthy work life balance and hanging out with my daughter it feels my daughter is my hobby. Before my daughter liked reading a lot love reading big into painting. Honestly, binging Netflix, that's probably not a proud hobby. make wonderful love hiking on weekends and traveling if we can consider that a hobby used to play sports realistically don't anymore.

Emily Merrell  

What sports did you play? Year round

Lexie Smith  

competitive basketball and then seasonal soccer were like my main ones. I mean, as a kid, I did all the things but into high school and college. My main number one sport was basketball.

Emily Merrell  

And I saw your basketball. Your Best Basketball Moves in action when he came to visit it which I really loved.

Lexie Smith  

That's right, we did for like a hot second. Oh, and then it was lightning. Okay, guys, we're about to play a horse game of horse. So if you have no idea what I'm talking about, we're paying playing pigs. Same thing. It's like one person takes a shot at the basket. And if they make it the person after them, it's their turn they have to make the same shot. If not, they get a letter first person to either horse or pig loses. And,

Emily Merrell  

or

Lexie Smith  

very quickly. Yes, you and Emily and I were about to play with her husband Greg and I was super amped and then we were in Denver, the clouds opened up the world the God was angry and decided to start raining down on us and lightning and thundering and kind of really big time burst my bubble and we had to sprint home

Emily Merrell  

remember, do you remember and I just bought Jackson a basketball hoop for his birthday so he's going to take you in forests next time you see him

Lexie Smith  

awesome and you know what about that horse game is just so relevant.

Emily Merrell  

Your cubs your

Lexie Smith  

coach guys, you know there are expectations in life of how certain things are gonna go like plane you know, I expected to go and ooh and Og Greg and Emily and Jackson with my killer B ball skills but then there was the reality of what happened. Thunderstorm lightning, rain, sprint tiene que today we're talking about realities or expectations versus realities. And terms are when it comes to entrepreneurship, but especially in coaching. Oh, what a

Emily Merrell  

beautiful transition like always miss Lexie Smith. next life you can be a transition. Transition are things really bad? I don't know what I'm saying. i Okay, so I think expectations versus realities is such an incredible thing to be talking about. Especially, we all know with social media, we know we've seen filters Hello, I've filtered myself today on a on one of the Instagram stories. And I was like I understand why people are so messed up. up psychologically, I looked awesome first and foremost, like the way that that just transforms your body or your face into this like fake reality. We're living in these fake realities and Instagram, Tik Tok and all of this, she's doing this and he's doing that. expectations can make you want to just rock back and forth in a ball and give up on life with in with all the things that are happening out in the world.

Lexie Smith  

It's so true. I mean, we literally did an Instagram live together today. And I accidentally picked a filter that turned me gray and blue. So when you're listening to this, feel free to insist on instant, instant stock. And then you know, I was committed, so I didn't want to unfilter the filter mid. Anyways, so let's Emily, what's one of the first things I'd love to know, when you got into entrepreneurship? One thing that you were expecting, that you were hitting the face with as a reality?

Emily Merrell  

Um, well, I have a roadmap from when I first started my my business with my very lofty expectations, I was pretty positive, I would make like 500k within the first year, like I was actually convinced of it. And I didn't I wasn't even close to that number. But there's this inflated reality of what you think or inflated expectation of what you think is possible with entrepreneurship. And I want to say it is possible. I want to say that it is it realistic, necessarily in the first year of business. Most likely not. This was a fun learning that I had, I had started six degrees society, before I left my corporate job, and I was charging people $25 For tickets. And then I quit my job, and it became my only job. And so I wanted to make money. So I raised all the tickets from $25 to $60. And what do you think happened to LAX? What do you think law just came in droves?

Lexie Smith  

I mean, they'll do it. And they come, right.

Emily Merrell  

Obviously, my attendance declined significantly, because people didn't want to pay $60 for something that they had been paying $25 For before. So my expectation that yeah, they liked No, they liked no new like to know didn't trust my product, doesn't mean that when I give them an unexpected price increase that everyone's gonna be happy about that and show up.

Lexie Smith  

Okay, so one thing I'm hearing to kind of summarize is that since it was your business, you could just make changes willy nilly, and then everyone else would be okay with it.

Emily Merrell  

100% What about you, Lex, what's something that you had an expectation about, and in reality, it was not.

Lexie Smith  

So if you guys had listened to one of our first episodes on, Emily, nice, unique entrances into the world of entrepreneurship and coaching, you will have heard that mine specifically was very intentional. So I went into entrepreneurship from the get go, knowing I wanted to be a coach. So why that's relevant is I expected. Once I knew, look, I knew it was going to take a little bit of runway to get going. But I thought once I got going, I was going, meaning you hear a lot about those coveted five figure months than 10 figure months, and, you know, 20k months, etc. And I thought once I hit that, I was going to routinely hit that. I didn't realize that income wise, especially with the coaching business model, there was going to be big months and low months. And that was a huge wake up call. I don't know if you've seen that at all, are my preaching to empty choirs? I know your

Emily Merrell  

choir is very much packed right now. Yeah, the big months. And when the big months happen, your confidence is inflated, you feel like you can take on the world, your coaching comes out that much clearer. And like literally give me a soapbox, because I want to stand on it. And then you get a low month and you get no clients coming out of the woodwork or you have people saying that they don't have the money to invest in coaching right now or they're wanting free advice and you're feeling more scarcity and you're not and then you feel their scarcity and then you feel scarcity. And the low months happen and you start looking@indeed.com To see if you should just to be a dog cage cleaner or something like that. Do you feel like shit?

Lexie Smith  

No, but in seriousness and this is where this becomes very specific to coaches. Think about the business model. Okay, so depending on if you're doing group coaching, or one on one coaching, you have to understand that inherently like you're going to have waves of income if you only learn On a group program, for example, like Ready Set coach a few times a year, then while that program is running, unless you have other revenue streams set up in your business, you could have no revenue. But then in launch month, you have, you know, 75k come in all at once, that's a big difference to go from maybe like $500, one month to 75k. That's, that's hard to even comprehend from an emotional standpoint, but a low cash flow. So what I want you guys to know and expect the reality of coaching is you're gonna have ebbs and flows with most traditional coaching business models.

Emily Merrell  

And I think this is a great reminder to to, while you want to do one product really well, it's okay to have different revenue streams. So I'll give mine as an example. And we've talked, talked about this before in past past podcasts, but I have membership through six degrees society, I have one on one coaching, I have my mastermind, I have Ready Set coach and all of those come in at different times. Some are ongoing and more SAS focused. I mean, SAS is a system Yeah, ongoing subscription. Some are more one off where it's a pan full, and you get that large chunk summer payment plans that are extended over the months. So each one is unique, but lacks, you nailed it in saying that, like the emotions of the months can definitely hit you hard, especially the first time it happens. So you have to emotionally and financially prepare your business for those ebbs and flows.

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 ReadySet. Coach,

Emily Merrell  

do you feel called to create change, help others and 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 or 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. Yep, another big one that I had, I was just reflecting on this in a call earlier today. So if you guys know the show, you know that my background predominantly is in public relations and marketing. I built my career there promoting other people's products and services. While when you are a coach, all of a sudden you become your product and service. Right. And I was not prepared for all of the mindset hurdles that came up in relation to that. All of a sudden, I was so much more fearful of putting myself out there, I was more attached to outcomes. I was more hurt if someone you know, didn't pick up what I was putting down. And it became a lot more personal. And I didn't see that coming. What about you? Um,

Emily Merrell  

oh my gosh, yes, I think you you said that a lot nicer than I probably would have said that. I think you realize that. You realize how sensitive you are. I've reread emails from the first year of business. And I remember being like this event partners and Aspell oh my gosh, what is she thinking? Like, I can't believe she has this expectation. And then I'll reread it literally a year later and be like, Oh, she was asking a question. There. She was being direct. But I was so defensive. Because my brand was my baby and my baby was me and everything was all so interconnected with one another that I would get worked up. And so as you navigate relationships, I think a big lesson that I've learned is to give myself time before I respond. And I don't know Lex if you had any of these learnings but I've read responded many times before versus like sleeping on it for a night or two and then responding or even if you if it's an urgent response that's rendered you can always give yourself 30 minutes walk around the block, come back and be like, okay, clear head ready to rock and roll.

Lexie Smith  

Emily What am I holding up right now to the camera?

Emily Merrell  

Get neutral. It is Lexi's post it note that she puts right in front of her computer.

Lexie Smith  

Yep, so that's a huge one. For me. I am an emotionally reactive person by by nature, when I'm when I care about something, and obviously, when it's your business you care. And so I certainly learned that the hard way, not even as much with blowing it by sending something rash, but by the emotional toll it takes on me by allowing myself to experience those mood swings. And that's what I really want to point out is you hear about the highs and lows of entrepreneurship all the time. But it's very different thing to live through them. One of the things to aside from revenue that I don't know, maybe in theory I could have predicted, but once again, until you're living, it's one of those expectations, verse realities, is no matter how hard you try, inevitably, it's very likely in your coaching journey, you will come across great clients. And so clients,

Emily Merrell  

you said the word you said it

Lexie Smith  

was debating it, I was debating it, and I went for it, I committed, you went

Emily Merrell  

for it. And I think sometimes asked for clients look like great clients. And I think this is one of the biggest learnings that I've ever made in my entire coaching career. And I'm still learning is you see a client and Lex and I both believe in working with people that we know we can give them the results that they desire. And so it's hard because they also have to do the work, they also have to put in the work to get the results that we desire for them and that they tubers that desire. So if time is a obstacle for them or money scarcity is an obstacle, there's a lot of mindset that needs to be done simultaneously, that might take a little bit longer for them to get the results that were initially imagined for this particular client. And a lot of times when scarcity especially is this, this buggered, that gets in the way, the blame can be put on you or you know the outcome of what they've got with their time together, even though you delivered on everything you said they deliver you deliver on, maybe they didn't get that that number of clients that they wanted, or they weren't able to charge the amount that they wanted. And that outcome is ultimately going to land on your shoulder. And it is one of the hardest outcomes to carry into burden. Because you're I think, especially for Alexa and I because we're people who like never want to dissatisfied client, we want people to be happy, happier than happy and leave singing from the rooftops how awesome we were. So when you hear that one client who's out of the woodwork comes out, and it's like, well, I thought I was gonna get X number of clients and I didn't even though everything else happened, it will rock your effing world.

Lexie Smith  

It will and it's gonna be normal to and I in 2021, I think this was one of the hardest things I had to overcome is being attached to your clients outcomes and taking their failures as your own. Here's the very real reality, once again, of what a coach is, and what a coach isn't guys, you can lead a water to horse, but you can't force them to drink. If you are giving your client all the tools in the world. But at the end of the day, they're not implementing or they're there on the ones who have they have to write they're on the frontlines executing. It's not your failure to carry the burden on we want to write because we care about our clients, but it's not your they're not hiring you as a consultant to go do it for them. They're hiring you as a leader as a coach as a guide. And that's all you are responsible for. So again, it comes back to the emotions of it all and US attaching ourselves to the outcomes of our clients. And of course, we want everyone to have success, but due to the nature of this type of business, it is to everyone's benefit to try to remember the role of a coach. Truly,

Emily Merrell  

it brings me back to what we were talking about at the beginning the sports like imagine if you're playing basketball and your basketball coach is telling you to run drills and to practice dribbling in a particular way or shooting in a particular way. And then you did none of it. And you didn't get better. Shocking. What if you did all of it and you didn't get better? Maybe you weren't supposed to be a basketball player. Or maybe you needed to practice harder than the other basketball players. Sometimes we will come easily to some individuals and sometimes they'll take a look little bit of extra time. And I think one of my favorite things that I've recognized two of the businesses that could do go a little further, the coaches that go a little further. And I feel like this is my broken record that I talked about, but it's people who really did a great job of managing their community and building their community before they launched the thing. In my experience, not everyone, but I think having this community that's excited for them. So anyways, that's, that's a whole different,

Lexie Smith  

what we really want you guys to prepare for and know is normal is for you to have moments where you feel like your clients failures are your failures, you can't get so attached, when you're on the frontlines executing, right, go back to getting neutral, be very clear on the service that you're delivering, and have boundaries with yourself, or you're just going to drive yourself crazy.

Emily Merrell  

100% I think that's that's a great reminder, and know that entrepreneurship, while the expectations might look like you're going to be on a private jet flying to Greece doing 100 million dollar client calls, the realities are, it's, it might take a little bit longer than you anticipated, and it's also a roller coaster ride, you're gonna feel a bevy of emotions pop up along the way, and know that they're normal that most of us have felt these feelings before. These feelings of, of scarcity, these feelings of desire these feelings of Jubilate jubilation, like you'll feel all of the feelings that are out there that my biggest takeaway is, or advice to people who are just starting and are getting bogged down by expectations are to stay the course,

Lexie Smith  

stay the course, one story that I wanted to share really quick. It was actually at a six degree society that I connected with someone who I'm sorry for not remembering your name, lovely human, if you listen to the show, I'm sorry. But basically, she told me she was at either Stanford or Harvard is an Ivy League, Ivy League school of sorts, and Tyra Banks was about to give a lecture to the student body. And whatever this gals role was enabled her to be backstage with Tyra Banks. And before the show, or before the show, before Tyra Banks went on stage, she was telling her oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm about to step on the stage and speak to the students. It's so crazy. I'm nervous. And it was wild to this girl because Tyra Banks is a multi multi millionaire, she has her own talk show, she has her own shows like, no matter what stage of business you're in, it is a very human emotion, to feel highs and lows, I was told by a former coach once like are reminded rather that the basic human humans are wired into fight or flight, right? It's, it's in our DNA to go into survival mode, you want to be safe. So when we do something that's not safe, that steps outside of our comfort zone, it's scary, and we can start down and that's for start shutting down. So I think the soapbox we're both on today is that it's normal. It's expected, it's human to feel these things.

Emily Merrell  

And you're gonna feel a lot of unknowns in your life. I love reflecting back in my journals, going back and thinking, reading the brain of a 24 year old, 25 year old, and all the things that I wish I had the answers to, and I wish I knew what the future would hold. But trust the journey, and you did chose to be a coach or you trust or you chose to start your business for a reason. So on the days that it feels really, really, really challenging, go back to your why and revisit why you decided to take this lunch or this leap into whatever it is that you're building. And really, really, really connect with that. Why.

Lexie Smith  

And I think this week's homework is going to be one of the simplest, but most important we can ever get you. Your homework this week is to give yourself grace. Oh, I

Emily Merrell  

love that. I think that's great. On that note, thank you for joining me on today's episode of ReadySet. Coach the podcast. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. 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