22 facilitators and trainers answer: What I wish I'd known before starting my business (Episode 120)
This my friends, is the episode I wanted to listen to, when I dropped out of corporate life on 4 February 2019.
For this special episode, I sent out a request to a number of my Learning and Development business owner friends. I asked them, “What’s the one thing you wish you knew when you started your facilitation business?”
Their incredibly helpful and thoughtful responses have been pieced together in Episode 120 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, or if you prefer reading their tips (and cutting out my running commentary!), you can scroll down the page to read the “wish list” transcript.
Today’s guests (in order of appearance on the show)
Dr Annette Koy and Cameron Fee
Twitter: @CoretexGroup
Instagram: @CoretexGroup
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coretex-group/
Website: https://coretexgroup.com.au/
Jane Anderson
Twitter: @jane_anderson__
Instagram: @the_jane_anderson_
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janeandersonpersonalbranding/
Website: https://janeandersonspeaks.com/
Tom Scantlebury
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomscantlebury/
Website: https://www.skybluecxs.com.au/
Nadja Petranovskaja
Twitter: @petranovskaja
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petranovskaja/
Website: https://petranovskaja.com/
Chris Huet
Twitter: @comms_coach
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishuet/
Website: https://www.understood.net.au/
Murray Guest
Twitter: @inspiredenergyM
Instagram: @murrayguest
Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/murrayguest
Website: http://inspiremybusiness.com.au/
Kirsty Lewis
Twitter: @SOFfacilitation
Instagram:@schooloffacilitation
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsty-schooloffacilitation/
Website: https://www.schooloffacilitation.com/
Mel Kettle
Twitter: @melkettle
Instagram: @melkettle
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melkettle/
Website: https://www.melkettle.com/
Michael Bungay Stanier
Twitter: @mbs_works
Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/michaelbungaystanier
Instagram: @mbs_works
Website: https://www.mbs.works/
Jason Knight
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonknightdesign/
Website: https://movedbydesign.com.au/
Ingrid Thompson
Twitter: @IngridLouiseT
Instagram: @healthynumbers.com.au
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ingridthompson/
Website: https://www.healthynumbers.com.au/
Sarah McVanel
Twitter: @SarahMcVanel
Instagram: @SarahMcVanel
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-mcvanel-msc-csp-pcc-chrl-csodp-7804387/
Website: https://greatnessmagnified.com/
Rachel Ben Hamou
Twitter: @peoplestorming
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeopleStorming
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/peoplestorming/
Website: https://www.peoplestorming.com/
Bill Jarrad
Twitter: @Bill_Jarrard
LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/billjarrard
Website: https://mindwerx.com/
Petra Zink
Twitter: @petra_zink
Instagram: @impaccct
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petrazink/
Website: https://www.impaccct.com/
Jenny Blake
Twitter: @jenny_blake
Instagram: @jennyblakenyc
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyblake/
Website: http://www.pivotmethod.com/
Nikki Mcmurray
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikki-mcmurray-8b07736/
Website: https://www.corporatelearningpartners.com.au/
Angela Henderson
Instagram: @angelahendersonconsulting
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-henderson-378aab106/
Website: https://www.angelahenderson.com.au/
Dr Michael J Consuelos
Twitter: @MJConsuelos
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mjconsuelos/
Website: https://www.mjc.solutions/
Christine Burych
Twitter: @StarlingBrook
Instagram: @christineburych
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-burych-33531318/
Website: https://www.starlingbrook.com/
Myriam Hadness
Twitter: @myriamHadnes
Instagram: @myriamhadnes
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/myriam-hadnes/
Website: https://workshops.work/
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Episode transcript:
Dr Annette Koy and Cameron Fee from Coretex Group: We wish we knew when we started our business - enjoy the small wins. You see we spent a lot of time chasing the big winds, yet everyday we have these small wins. And looking back it was really the small wins that gave us the biggest momentum and biggest sense of progress.
Jane Anderson from janeandersonspeaks.com: The thing that I wish I had learnt or I had known when starting my practice was that, to remember that it is your practice, it is your business. I think it's really easy to get caught up or fall into the challenge of comparisonitis. When we feel like we’re not moving quick enough, not being fast enough, not as good as this person. It's really easy I think to go into beating yourself up and falling into this situation where you really compare yourself and your progress to where others are at. The problem with that is, it doesn't help with your self talk, it doesn't help with your mindset. The reality is that you're only seeing that other person's practice or business at a stage or one of the chapters in their book. So it can look like they started at the same time as you but they actually didn't. They've been building their business for ten years. So it's your own ways, stop worrying about everybody else and just play it your way.
Tom Scantlebury from Skyblue Customer Experience Services: When I founded my business four years ago, the one thing I would've liked to have known then is how important the mindset shift is from somebody who owns her own business to somebody who had been an employee. So the early days it's really exciting and a lot of adrenaline. But you are carrying that whole business and all of its future in your head, on your shoulders 24/7. So that can lead to a fair bit of anxiety and burn out, and certainly it feels like you're not living the dream and you wake up in the middle of the night thinking about your business. What I've learned is that, it's really important to have some rituals in place to distinguish between business and work time and the other parts of your life. So I may have quite a few little things in place which makes sure that I don't start working until I meant to start work. And I celebrate the achievements of the day and do a few things before I kind of step into the personal compartment of my life. So I think it's important to compartmentalise and really prepare and think about what the impacts on your whole life is when you set out to start a business. So I would not have it any other way. Some people who have had the chance to run business and have not made it really work, their worst nightmare. Other people think it's a dream life until the reality comes to eat up. But I definitely would not have any other way.
Nadja Petranovskaja from More Shiny Eyes: I'm the creator of Wonder Cards. When I started my facilitation business in 1997 I wish I knew how important it is not to take myself so seriously.
Chris Huet from Understood:. When I started my communications, coaching business, I wish I was prepared for the roller coaster ride I had signed up for and that I knew that even though there'll be down days and when it looks like you're about to run out of money, they're more than made up for the good days when people are approaching you and asking you to do new things. And then if you just keep doing the right work, satisfying your customers, and reaching out to new ones, then on the whole, it's going to be an upward ride and to take those down days for the up days and be prepared for them. I wish I knew that.
Murray Guest from Inspire my Business: When I started my facilitation business five years ago. I wish I had known how important mindset and attitude are for a business success. Over the years I've invested in my money mindset and my attitudes and that certainly driven my business success.
Kirsty Lewis from the School of Facilitation: When I started SOF I really I wish I had known how to set up my finances so that I had a really clear picture of what money was available to me to invest in the business to pay myself and also to report myself with the profit that I was making. And I have achieved that now because I have read a brilliant book called Profit First. Go read it.
Mel Kettle, Communications Strategist and podcast host of This Connected Life: When I started consulting about fourteen years ago, I really wish I'd known a lot more about managing cash flow and the importance of knowing my numbers. In terms of sales, my bank account and especially how much I needed to give aside to pay the tax bill. I also wish I sought advice from an accountant who understood small business.
Michael Bungay Stanier of mbs.works and author of The Coaching Habit and the Advice Trap (among others): What do I wish I really knew, really understood when I started my business 20 years ago? Well I really wish I understood money, because you can be a great facilitator, you can be a great teacher, you can be a great writer, but unless you're comfortable asking for what you are worth, you are always gonna struggle. So, you need to understand marketing, you have to understand sales, but you need to understand how to price yourself. And the breakthrough for me was reading the book by Alan Weiss called Million Dollar Consulting. He was the first person who explained to me the concept of value pricing rather than this is my cost per hour or per half day or per day, it's about value pricing. Understand that and you'll never go hungry again.
Jason Knight from Moved by Design: What I wish I'd known 15 years ago with my consultancy, design consultancy, would have been two things. One is about how to do value based pricing rather than ally and the idea that feeling I guess worthy at the end of a design project. That book Win without Pitching by Blair Enns. The other would be markups and changes on client work and that would have been fall stage or markup. It's about client based programs, where clients can put comments or annotations on the actual designs and that took a lot of frustration away from the design process.
Ingrid Thompson from Healthy Numbers and author and host of the "So you want to start a business?' podcast: The one thing that I wish I knew when I started my consulting, coaching, mentoring business was to choose a niche. One key area of speciality as a focus for what I offer to the world. One day three of my biggest fans said to me separately "Ingrid we just don't understand what you do and who you work with. We cannot support you or help you or refer for you and of course and off course we'd love to." This was such a wake up call for me. Starting out I know this is challenging, and for various reasons we can do more than just what we say and we wanted to do more than just whatever this focus is. And this makes for a fussy fussy message. So I picked a line and I'm so grateful I did because now I support health and well-being professionals who are highly skilled at what they do with their clients. I help them create, build, and grow their practices, their studios, their businesses so they can do more of what they love doing.
Sarah McVanel, Recognition Expert at Greatness Magnified: Most of what I do is speaking and so I guess what I wish I had known when I first started my business was that there was an association for that - Canadian association of Professional Speakers. Because the folks that I have met in the community have been instrumental in referrals, support in helping me grow my business. Related to that as well is being an expert. It's a lot easier for people to refer to you and for you to be able to charge what you are worth when you claim your space. And if it could be just less exhausting by not having to keep up on so much research. The technology tip I'd share is there's a really cool CRM, mailing list, LMS system called ketra and that's what I would pick if I had to do it all over again.
Rachel Ben Hamou, Chief Facilitator at PeopleStorming:. I wish I'd known that it was okay to be opinionated. When I first started out making training in schools, I knew I had to create content that was informative, and educational and useful. But I was always nervous to give my opinion. Because I thought you know this will alienate some of my potential clients. Over time I realised it was exactly my opinion and my experience my clients pay me for. I finally internalised that not everyone will agree with me and not everything I say will resonate with everyone. But if I could reach one person, and I can connect with them deeply, then I've done something meaningful. And that's what I wish I had known from the start.
Bill Jarrad from Mind Works International: When we started Mindworks in about 1999. One of the things I wish I had known more about was the balance between marketing and actual work. So often you get busy and you forget about the marketing aspect and you tend to have a bit of a roller coaster ride in the way in which the business runs. So I wish I had spent more time thinking about that and managing the process overall.
Petra Zink, founder of ImpaCCCT and The360Talentco: The one thing I wish I had known before I started my first coaching business ImpaCCCt was simply building a product and putting it out there is the wrong way to go. It's about validating the idea and pre-sell the product before you put all your resources , time and energy in it. The one thing I would give you as an advice is to slow things down before you can speed things up. Good luck with everything.
Jenny Blake, author of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters is Your Next One and host of the Pivot podcast: I've been self-employed running a speaking, coaching, and consulting business for nine plus years now and the one thing I wish I had started on the consulting side was licensing sooner than I did. In the beginning I was designing this bespoke training for different companies, I was so grateful to have a client, any client, especially big fancy brands and companies that I would work with and design the most customised bespoke solution, only to realise, the more clients I got, the more work I was creating for myself.
Instead as I started to transition towards licensing, I realised that If I came up with a really solid training with a beautiful presentation and matching workbook then I could offer that to companies on a licensing basis and it's even easier for them, it's even more turnkey.
You can see examples of this at pivotmethod.com/companies and the workbook at pivotmethod.com/workbook in case you want to get an idea on how you may apply this and start building this, even if you have a several year vision in mind for how it unfolds. Because I found it really to be a game changer. The other thing I'll say is that bespoke isn't bad, just make sure you maintain the IP and then every time somebody hires you, let's say it's to do a video series, that you own the rights to distribute, edit and use that in the future as well. In that way every time you do custom work for a client, it's a win-win. They get the content, they get to distribute it, and you get to keep leveraging that moving forward in your business as well.
Nikki McMurray from Corporate Learning Partners: When I started my facilitation business 14 years ago, I wish I knew how important it was to invest in myself and my own professional development. Whether it be marketing or accounting, or even sitting in on another professional facilitator. Chewing the facts, getting ideas, being inspired and also remembering what it's like to be a participant on the other side. The other thing I'd like to comment on is connecting with other professional facilitators who've been through the journey that you're embarking on. In those days there was no first time facilitator podcast or the Flipchart facebook or even LinkedIn. So I wish you all the very best in your journey.
Angela Henderson from Angela Henderson Consulting: Now I'm currently in my role as a business consultant at Angela Henderson Consulting but I've also run Australia's leading toy stores over the last decade. So when I think back to first starting on a business I wish I knew how important it was to pay to play. That's right, pay to play. Now what I mean by that is investing in yourself and learning from people who already have the skills and tools you need to move your business forward. But also when you pay to play you're not only getting the strategy you need to move your business forward but you're also being held accountable and more than you get access to that individual's persons network, their community. And when you have community you have connections, when you have connections, you have conversations, and when you have conversations, you have conversions. So my advice to you out there is pay to play in your business.
Michael J Consuelos, Principal at MJC Solutions: It’s so hard to narrow it down to just the one thing since I've learnt so much in the past year. It's also a great chance I think to reflect, and my instinct was to find the one thing that may be a surprise to me and helpful to your audience. So here it goes... You don't have to do it all yourself. As I started my journey I put a lot of pressure on myself to do everything and get everything just right. And then I realised I had so many people around me that could be helpful in so many different ways. They were able to help me with my writing, my podcasting, my website, I mean I don't really know what SEO was, I mean in theory I knew there was. So I reached out to my friend Jef, who I cycle with, and he does this for a living. And I just tapped into his knowledge and we went on a bike ride and he just did a great download on my brain, and we went back to my house to fix my website and it was great. It was fun, it was exciting and in the end I think it was better than if I did this all by myself. So once again my one bit of advice to you and your audience has been, you don't have to do it all yourself.
Christine Burych from StarlingBrook Leadership Consulting. When I started my facilitation business, I wish I knew how important it was to collaborate with other people. I had this thought I could go and do it alone and needed to prove to myself I could build this business, and what I realised is I really need the help of others. And so collaboration is absolutely key.
Myriam Hadnes, host of the Workshops Work podcast: Looking back to when I started my facilitation business, I wish I knew how my own energy impact the group. My impatience and judgement had an impact on the group dynamics. Today instead, I can step back, be present and trust the process and trust the group. I don't need to fix them. They will find the solutions that will work for them.
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