You're listening to the Life Coaching Secrets Podcast, episode 201. Did you know that life coaches are needed now more than ever? I'm Frank Macri, founder of Thriving Coach Academy. I've trained over a thousand coaches and helped them launch their own successful coaching businesses. If you want to make an incredible income and impact as a coach and have a lot of fun doing it, I'll show you exactly how to get it done. This is Life Coaching Secrets.
What's up coaches? In this episode, I'm going to talk about the difference between a coach and an influencer. So if you've ever thought about becoming a coach, but you... felt like you needed to have this huge following or be super charismatic or constantly post on social media just to be successful, then this episode is for you because I'm going to break down the key differences between being a coach.
And being an influencer, not just in what they do, but also in how they make money, how they market themselves, how they show up in the world. A lot of people think that to thrive as a coach, you need to have this over the top. personality but that couldn't be any farther from the the truth and i'm going to break down all of those myths in this episode i'm going to go over
what coaching is and why it is not the same as being an online influencer. I'm going to share with you how real coaches create success without needing to chase followers or go. viral. So if you've ever been wondering, do I need to become this big personality influencer to be successful, we're going to set the record straight here. This is kind of like some of the other episodes I've done on this podcast where I talked about how coaching is different from therapy.
I think it's episode two. I have an episode on how coaching is different from consulting. And I have an episode on how coaching is different from friendship. So I thought it was time for another comparison. And this is one that I think could really dispel a lot of the concern that you might have if you are someone that's thinking of getting into coaching. So first of all, let's define what is an influencer.
An influencer is someone who builds a personal brand and engages with an audience, usually through social media. And they're... Intentions are to influence. Influence other people's opinions and behaviors and ultimately their purchasing decisions. So an influencer's primary goal is to capture people's attention, to grow their reach, and to monetize their audience through brand deals, through sponsorships, through ads, affiliate marketing. And in rare cases, selling their own products.
So ultimately what an influencer's job is, is they need to create engaging content online that's going to capture eyeballs. And their success is measured in how many followers they have, how many likes they're getting, how many comments they're getting. how many shares they're getting. They also make their money through partnering with other organizations. They're helping other organizations sell their products and services. Influencers need to...
follow trends in order to maintain high levels of engagement and visibility. So it's very important for an influencer to stay trend relevant. And a lot of an influencer's content is designed to be visually appealing. very relatable, aspirational, and entertaining. So an influencer is casting a very wide net to get as much attention as they can possibly get.
Now, a coach is very different from an influencer. A coach is a professional that helps people achieve their goals, helps people go from point A to point B, overcoming blocks and areas of life they feel stuck in.
and overall as a professional that helps to facilitate personal growth. So the primary goal of a coach is to support a client in transformation. And a coach is not someone that needs to... influence others and a coach is not someone that needs to also give advice to others so a coach is someone that's going to offer support to their clients through selling
one-on-one coaching or group coaching, but a coach can also have their own resources that they can provide to clients such as templates or journals or videos and create a more comprehensive coaching program. That's typically what coaches will offer. So some of the big picture differences. Firstly, what's the main goal of an influencer versus the main goal of a coach? And maybe if you've scrolled on social media, you've
probably had various influencers come across your screen and maybe they attracted your attention for better or worse. And ultimately they were looking. to sell you a product or service or get you interested in another brand's product or service. And this is not an episode to cast judgment on influencers. There's certainly an opportunity to create a good living for yourself as an influencer, but I want to create a distinction.
So that way, when you see influencers on social media, you don't think, oh, well, this is someone who's getting a lot of engagement and comments and following, and I need to become someone like this in order to be successful in social media. You do not need to have millions of followers. You don't need to have anything near that. You don't need to go viral. So this is really about separating just the
the two different career paths. So an influencer is their main goal is to build an audience and monetize the audience that they have. A coach is there to provide. content that's going to offer value. And ultimately, you're there to invite clients to work with you, but you don't need to have millions of eyeballs on you.
You don't need to have a certain personality. Your success as a coach really comes from you having great results with your clients, wonderful testimonials, the income that you also make through coaching. Whereas an influencer, their numbers, I call it the vanity metrics, that really matters to them. So they need to have a high following. They need to have a lot of likes and engagement because that's what shows other brands that they have.
a very engaged audience that they can put their products and services in front of when it comes to. running a coaching business, you actually don't need a large following at all. Most for all of the years that I've done social media. I've had under, even in the beginning years when I got started a decade ago, I had maybe a few hundred followers. And even to this day, maybe a few thousand followers.
I'm certainly nowhere near having tens of thousands of followers. It's slightly grown over time, but I've never made that a problem because I know that. What I'm looking to do is attract a very particular type of person. So when you have your own coaching business and you specialize as a coach. Your goal is to really dial in and provide content that's relevant to your ideal client. You're not trying to get as many people as possible to see what you have to share. That's not your goal.
If it was your goal, then you would follow the path of an influencer and you would follow the trends. You would do things that are going to get people to really stop and listen. And you don't have to do those things. So even though I don't have what's considered a large following, I've still been able to to build up a seven figure business.
without needing any of those big numbers that one might think that you may need if you're using social media now i also wanted to say as an overall disclaimer you don't even need to utilize social media to be successful as a coach social media is just one of the five organic ways to market yourself as a coach.
We have plenty of coaches in Thriving Coach Academy who simply are not interested in social media. So they market their business in other ways and that's completely fine. They start a podcast or they do live presentations or workshops or they build their business through networking. don't need to utilize social media that much if you want to be successful as a coach. Whereas with an influencer, social media is nowadays the main way that they get their...
their brand out into the world and connect them with the brands that they're partnered with. A lot of the focus that an influencer has on their content is on entertainment. It is on sometimes lifestyle branding. And as a coach, you can certainly entertain your audience, but your content that you're going to put out there is probably going to be more.
educational and inspiring. So whereas an influencer is typically going to have more entertaining content, your content is going to be more educational and inspiring. So it's a different flavor of content that you will put out there. And the way that you monetize your career is entirely different. So as I shared earlier.
an influencer, they typically don't have their own products or services. So they rely on the deals and the sponsorships that they have with various brands. So a brand will come up to them or they will reach out to a brand and they will come to an agreement. They'll come to some kind of deal for what it is they're going to get paid. With your coaching, you have your own product or service.
your product or service is aligned with your own brand. So sometimes an influencer, they might have to shape shift and, you know, Share enthusiasm about a product or service. That's what they're getting paid to do is have that personality where they're showing enthusiasm about a product or service, whether or not they really use it that much. Their ultimate goal is to help.
get the attention that the brands they're partnered with wants them to receive now with coaching you have your own product or service right so all of the income goes directly to you like you are selling your own thing Now, I think that if an influencer I think if maybe if you're listening to this and you are an influencer, if I were ever to have an influencer come to me and want business support, I would one of the easiest recommendations I would make.
is for you to develop your own product or service because then you don't have to rely on various brands and sponsorships and affiliates. You don't have to sell other people's stuff. You can have your own product or service. And you can, because you already are having lots of eyeballs on you and you already are making lots of content, you can just point people to go from your content to your product or your service.
So I think there's a tremendous opportunity for those that do have influencing careers to offer coaching services or coaching programs or their own products or services to their following. So there's a difference in how you end up earning a living for yourself when you partner with other brands. And the tricky thing too is when you are partnering with other brands is depending on...
just various circumstances in the world, certain products or services might not be as in need. So there's constantly needing to find some kind of product or service to partner with. Whereas with coaching, this is a service that will always be in demand. As long as people are willing to grow, people are willing to be coached and are willing to pay for coaching.
whether it be through coaching someone one-on-one or in a group or through a coaching course or program. So there's always going to be that need because people are always looking to grow in areas of their life, whether it be their health or their relationships or their career, their finances. So there's always opportunity for you to have tremendous income as a coach. Now, your relationship that you'll form with your audience as a coach is going to be very different.
than your relationship as an influencer. An influencer, it's casting a wider net. So it's a much broader audience. Whereas with coaching, you can actually develop a much more intimate and a much more engaged audience that may more appreciate that small like smaller following that they have and how they can connect with you through that so i've had a small what's considered a smaller following over many years but i've had people
that have found me through the various work I put out there and content and it's worked out really well. So you have a more intimate relationship because you probably will have a smaller much much much smaller following than a lot of influencers that have millions of followers and hundreds of people commenting on their posts at all times
So you might not have as close of a connection to your audience. Influencers do a great job, though, even though they have a huge following. I will say the most successful influencers that I've observed, they make you feel like. they are very connected to you, even though they have such a mass following. When it comes to personality types as well, generally a successful influencer, there is this personality that you...
you kind of need to have to be successful at it. You've got to be high energy. You've got to be very trend savvy. You've got to be charismatic and very well-spoken. You've got to basically do the selling on behalf of the brands that you partner with. And when it comes to coaching, there really is not a required personality for you to become successful. There's space for people of all walks of life to thrive.
in this path. Like some people are just, they naturally have that personality where they're very extroverted, high energy, charismatic. And if you, if you are that way, there's certainly space for you to thrive as a coach, but you don't have to be that way. A lot of people have told me that. They've been drawn to my work and content I put out there because of the more grounded, maybe the more relaxed type of tone that I might have in the material that I put out there.
possible for you as well. No matter what type of personality you have, if you're high energy or extroverted, or if you're someone that might be a little more empathetic and grounded or something in between. there are going to be people that will be drawn to you because of your personality. So there's people for you out there. That's why I say your clients really are waiting for you. You just got to trust that your personality and who you are is already enough.
It's just a matter of giving yourself permission to be seen, to be heard, and to connect with those clients that are already out there. And when it comes to just your overall longevity, you can see yourself having in either of these careers. With being an influencer, it really does depend on the trends that are happening. There's also dependency on just the algorithm and how that's always changing.
And also just overall engagement, because if your engagement drops, then that could be really devastating for your brand. You've got to figure out what you're going to do with your coaching business. I find that. after training coaches for many years now, your expertise really does build over time. Usually it starts out with that small little snowball and then it starts to accumulate and grow. So as you have...
more value that you put out into the world, that value accumulates and it becomes like a portfolio. Kind of like this podcast. When I started doing this podcast, there weren't immediate people that started to reach out. After the first few episodes, it took about a dozen or so episodes because that value started to accumulate and snowball before people began to reach out with interest in TCA. And I've also done...
a podcast previous to this before I was training coaches, same thing happened. Same thing goes true with social media. So you plant a lot of those seeds. You put a lot of value out into the world. And then over time, that value will accumulate. It becomes like your portfolio. I also see it as your life's work.
And this is what will lead to an increasing number of clients that will start to work with you over time. So you don't want to expect that the first handful of posts that you put out there are magically going to result in clients. They might.
We've had students within the first month of them utilizing our resources we give them to help them put themselves out there in social media. We've had students within their first month enroll several paying clients. It's absolutely possible. But what's more likely to happen is that...
Over time, your value is going to accumulate. Your audience is going to slightly grow. Even if it's a very niche audience, they're going to build a relationship with you. And those are going to be the people that reach out and start booking consultations with you. and hiring you so overall just to recap a coach is going to earn their income through their owned services, the sessions you're offering with your clients. It could also be workshops. You could sell a
presentations or workshops that you deliver, and you can have courses that you also offer. Some coaches also branch out into books or speaking engagements, but really the core income is directly tied to your coaching services that... you provide influencers are going to have those brand deals the affiliate marketing the the revenue that comes with all of that now i want to address some myths that you might have around utilizing social media because of maybe
the way you've observed influencers out there right now. One myth is that... you need to have a huge following to be successful. And the reality is you do not. You don't need to have thousands of followers at all. Your success is going to come from having a very deep, meaningful relationship. with a very specific targeted audience. You don't need a massive following. So when you are using social media.
and you see someone has millions of followers, hundreds of comments and likes and shares, you might think, oh my goodness, that's what it takes to be successful on social media. This is absolutely not true. There are so many little pockets of audiences on the internet. And just by tapping into one of those pockets, one of those niches or specializations.
this will really help you stand out and grow even with a very small audience. And in Thriving Coach Academy, we have an entire lesson on figuring out what that pocket will be for you, what will be your niche or your specialty. So we will help you figure all of that out.
You get lifetime business support and mentorship in our program. So we'll be able to help you every step of the way. Influencers rely on having that large audience. So when you see an influencer having those millions of followings, that's exactly what they need to do. Alright, so there's so much more importance on depth than reach.
All right. So an influencer focuses on how many people see them, whereas a coach focuses on how deeply they impact the few that they want to work with. I'll share that one more time. Influencers focus on how many people see them. Whereas coaches focus on how deeply they impact the few that they work with. So you really only need a handful of.
clients a year as well in order to have a thriving business. One of the ways that we teach business in TCA is by creating what we call a premium business model. And this involves you having a signature high ticket program that you can sell for 5 to 10K per client. And if you do the math, you only need a handful of clients, maybe a dozen clients to hit six figures.
just a couple of clients a month. If you sell a $5,000 program and you sell it to two clients, just two human beings on the entire planet in an entire month. that's $10,000 right there. If you've got five clients for a 5K program, that's $25,000 in just one month. So you can have an intimate number of clients and have a thriving business and not have thousands of followers. Again, I've been...
in this for over a decade and I don't have the thousands of followers and I've been able to create a seven figure business. And I'm really proud of that. And I want you to know that it's totally possible for you. You don't need to.
go viral in order to get high paying clients you certainly don't need to do that um so you remember you're going to thrive on those small deep connections with your clients not a huge audience now the other myth i want to talk about is this idea that you need to constantly be posting content because maybe you see certain influencers that are posting quite a bit and you think,
that you need to be posting like multiple times a day. If you're going to use social media, yes, there's definitely an importance to make sure you have a consistency and that you are sharing and making yourself visible. But you don't need to post daily. You don't need to have highly polished content to attract clients. You are able to share.
content periodically and remember i talked about earlier you don't even have to use social media at all i think honestly a lot of people now especially nowadays that a lot of people use social media for their own entertainment purposes you might think that If I want to be a coach and grow a coaching business, I need to be posting a lot on social media. No, you don't have to use social media at all. It's not required. And if you do use social media.
then you don't have to be posting every day. You can just have a few posts a day. If you're using a platform where it's short form content. then just having a handful of posts throughout a week is fine at the bare minimum. But if you're using a longer form platform like YouTube. then even just having one video per week is going to be sufficient. And we will help you put together all that and make sure that you have everything you need to confidently put yourself out there if you decide to do it.
Another myth that I've hit on a bit is that you need to have this highly charismatic or even a performative feeling personality. And you don't. You don't need to be overly extroverted. You don't need to have that at all.
Let the influencers out there do all that entertaining, cool stuff that makes them highly visible. Kudos to them. It's awesome to see. It's not bad if you have that. But just remember, you don't... need to have that personality as a requirement you can be a deeply curious and empathetic grounded
even introverted person and form deep connections with others through social media. So you don't have to be loud. You don't have to be funny. You don't have to be flashy. A lot of the best coaches out there are great listeners. They are just deeply curious. And they get a lot across in a few words. So if you're an introvert or you're someone that doesn't like being in the spotlight, you don't have to be and you can still be an incredibly successful coach.
So overall, I want you all to take away from this episode that you don't have to market yourself like an influencer. You will attract clients through the value that you put out to your ideal clients that you want to work with. And as long as that value accumulates over time, people are going to be knocking on your your figurative door and be wanting to work with you. You don't have to worry about chasing likes and also.
chasing trends and chasing algorithms. So focus on showing up authentically, focus on being consistent. in the right places towards the right people rather than trying to make yourself everywhere online. There's no need for you to compare yourself to other influencers. They have an entirely different business model. So let the influencers do their thing. and let the coaches do your thing. So you can succeed in this work as a coach.
And you could still stay true to yourself. So that's the difference between being a coach and being an influencer. Hopefully this has been helpful. If you're enjoying this podcast, please remember to leave a five-star review and one sentence about what you love most about the show. means the world to us when we see those reviews. And before you go, I'm going to include a snippet from an interview that I led with one of our coaches inside Thriving Coach Academy.
They're going to share with you some of their tips for how you can become successful as a coach. So enjoy their story and I will see you in the next episode. I'm David Cotton and I'm actually a TCA certified coach. I first discovered coaching. It was during COVID, I was seeking answers about myself, having recently come out as gay. So it was a lot of deep personal work focusing on my purpose, my direction, my bliss. The reason I got out of bed in the morning, my whole world had shifted.
I had come out as gay, divorced after almost 30 years. I had retired from the military from a very successful career. I had been in business and been successful. And I was looking for something to really help me. focus on who I was and coaching was doing that. Not only did coaching help me, but I realized that actually helped me understand and align my personal values and what my bliss or contribution to the world might be.
I had already completed the training from another highly regarded international coaching program. And it got down to the point of the certification process, and it just did not sit with me. Every time I asked a question on, well, how do you start your business? How do you get clients? How do I improve my skills? The answer was always, well, hire a coach to help you through it. I thought, well, I've been through the training. I want some more resources to actually help me move forward.
and found frank and thriving coach academy that's baked into the program now that i've completed the thriving coach academy certification i have no intent of looping back to complete the other it has exceeded my expectations on all the support that thriving coach academy is put together for the instruction piece to learn the skills, to practice the skills, to build camaraderie and partnership with other students.
And then all of the aspects of how do you build a business? How do you market yourself? How do you find clients? And how do you approach all of these decisions in your life with confidence to move forward without hesitation? When I think of my biggest win or success thus far, it makes me smile because after having a career of 40 plus years that are considered extremely successful, retired.
Air Force Brigadier General, Senior Executive of the Department of Defense, a corporate officer, and civilian companies. After all that experience, going through Thriving Coach Academy, I kid you not, I gained greater insight and confidence in myself. In the past, I would always understate my abilities, even though I'd end up being successful. I'd stress about it. I'm now more at peace and confident in my abilities, realizing while I may not have the answers and all the solutions for it today.
Over time, they'll come. I just need to remember what my goal and objective is and focus on that and move forward and make decisions because you don't move forward unless you make a decision and take the next step. If you're someone that's considering coaching and considering the academy.
I would say just take the leap. You could do the research yourself. I've done that already. Many of my peers have done that already. We all came to the same conclusion that Thriving Coach Academy does seem to have the beginning to the end that you need for the skills. and develop those skills to actually develop the business, how to sustain the business, how to market the business, how to present yourself as a coach to others, and then how to sustain that business to go forward and thrive.
And even if you decide not to pursue coaching, you'll find out that you're a better human being in the end to apply those skills and insights just into your daily life and activities. I am most surprised how much I grew as an individual. and how much more confident I feel in the world that I live in, engaging with friends and family and the unknown, and dealing with life's challenges and opportunities.
When you do get started, my advice for you to be successful is to start with an open mind and do not overthink. I joke that sometimes my nickname should be David the Overthinker. Just be an open mind. and accept what you're learning and understanding and realizing that there's another perspective to look at that and you'll actually grow and gain from that. Stay engaged with your peers in the program. They are the
a great source of information of how you're doing and also to see how they perform. You'll pick up tools and tricks by watching others. Be ready to dive right in, take on initial clients, even if you think you're not ready. Take on some pro bono, folks. Test it out. You know, see how it works. Do that in the first month you sign up. So therefore, when you're learning things, you can apply them.
in real time as you develop more skills and you have more to work with those pro bono clients, or if you get a paying client, help that as well. And then decide who you need to be in life. Not what you need to do, but who you want to be in life and use that as your focus and mindset as you move forward. That's the foundation for your decisions as you go entering your coaching endeavor.
Hey, would you like access to powerful coaching tools you can use on yourself and clients right away? For being a listener of the podcast, I'm giving you a VIP guest pass to get a sneak peek into my coach training program. I'll see you on the next one. inside.