unclmarc

Helping tech career coaches scale their programs above $100K/m | Cybersecurity | Data | Cloud | GovTech | Immigrations

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

Yesterday I had a casual sit-out with an ed-tech career coach. (My first outdoor meeting in a while).

The first thing she said when she sat down was...

“Marc I had 23 sales calls last week.”

I said okay, how many closed?

She said two.

I didn’t say anything for about four seconds.

Because that is not a leads problem.

That is not a visibility problem either.

Nor is it an offer problem.

That is a qualification problem. 
And it is eating 21 calls worth of her calendar every single week.

I see this constantly with coaches doing 30K to 80K a month in cybersecurity, cloud, and network engineering.

The content works. 
The DMs come in. 
The calendar fills up.

Cool stuff, yeah?

But somehow they are still tired and not half as rich.

So I built her something on the spot.

A 4-page Pre-Call Qualification Filter.

With three things in it.

1. The 5 questions to add to your booking page that cut 60% of the wrong fits before they ever touch your calendar.

The first question alone is this: “What did your business generate last quarter, and what is your monthly figure right now?”

People who refuse to answer this never close. 
Remove them automatically.

2. The 3-message DM sequence that turns a warm LinkedIn comment into a qualified call without the endless back and forth.

3. The 12-minute discovery call structure that closes the right people without you ever saying the word “package.”

She implemented the booking page questions before she got home last night,

Normally, this  is something I’d package into a paid deliverable for clients. I call it the Discovery Call Audit Kit.

It normally sits inside a $1998 engagement file.

But today, I am pulling it out and sending it separately because I think too many education coaches are bleeding revenue on calls that should never have happened.

But I do not want just a “send” or “yes” in the comments.

Quick thing to do here;

📍Repost this post and ask a question about the problem you currently have and I’ll send you the free resource tailored to your situation. 

You can tell me your actual numbers if you're cool with it. 
Show-up rate. Close rate. How long does your average call run?

I will send the doc back with one specific change I would make first, based on what you told me, all for free TODAY.

Marc Otiora
UnclMarc...

PS. Felt good to finally step outside the home office for a while. We should do this more especially on weekends. How often do you do that as a remote worker?

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

I have been building things long enough to realize

what nobody told me when I started.

Now, here are the 13 truths I think about the most.

1. The people who show up in your inbox when things are going well are not the same as the people who show up when they are not. Learn which is which early.

2. A business that runs on your presence is a job you cannot quit.

3. The fastest way to scale is to document what you do before you hire someone to do it.

4. Relationship capital compounds slower than money and lasts longer.

5. A bad client does not just cost you money. They cost you the energy you would have spent on a good one.

6. Nobody is coming. Build the thing or do not build it.

7. The number on your paycheck/invoice tells you what you charged. It does not tell you what you were worth.

8. Most outreach fails not because it is too forward but because it is not specific enough to the person receiving it.

9. Your network is not the people who know your name. It is the people who would pick up if you called right now.

10. You do not need a bigger audience. You need a more specific one.

11. If you cannot explain what you do in one sentence a twelve year old understands, the problem is not the twelve year old.

12. Rest is not the opposite of productivity. Depletion is.

13. The business that survives a bad month is the one that was built properly during a good one.

That is not a complete list.
But they are the ones I come back to the most.

Now over to you reading...
What would you add?

Marc Otiora
UnclMarc...

SAVE and RETWEET if it resonates.

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

@Cathykingz Thank you, Cathy.
Have a great one ahead.

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

New week. Same mission.

Find the right people.
Say the right thing.
Build something that works without you.

Everything else is noise.

Let’s go!

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

@ChadAppDev That insanity is what actually drive the requisite action needed to get the result.

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

@pierreeliottlal @romanbuildsaas Cool stuff @pierreeliottlal
Well done!

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

Most people see the work.

Nobody sees the Saturday morning when you are not sure it is working.

Yes! This is that post.

I have probably been awake since, even before most people went to sleep last night.

Not because I had to be.

Because that is what building something from scratch actually looks like from the inside.

The calendar is clean.
Nobody is asking for anything.
But the brain does not get the memo.

You run through the conversations you had this week.

The ones that went well.
The ones that did not.

The prospect who read your message and went quiet.

The idea you thought was strong until you said it out loud and it landed flat.

Nobody posts about this part.

The Saturday morning audit where it is just you and the thing you are building and the honest question of whether you are doing enough.

Look! I am not writing this for sympathy.

I am writing it because if you are building something right now and this is your Saturday too, I want you to know the feeling is not a sign that you are failing.

It is a sign that you care enough to feel the weight of it.

The people who feel nothing on a Saturday morning are usually the ones who stopped caring somewhere along the way.

Or never started building anything real to begin with.
The weight means it matters.
Keep going.

UnclMarc…

PS. What does your Saturday morning actually look like? Let's do the honest version only, pleasssseeeee.

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

PS: What is the number in your business that you have been avoiding calculating?

PPS: Notice how a good outreach can turn a “Google sheet” into a “Cool shit” huh? LOL.

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

Is #TBT still a thing?

Anyhoo, let’s quick do a throwback of how I closed a $30,000 client with a Google Sheet.

Nope!
I didn’t use the regular pitch deck.

No sales call script either.
Just a spreadsheet that showed him a number he had never seen before.

See full gist>>>

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

People do not buy from pitches.
They buy from realisations.

Your job is not to convince them. Your job is to show them something true about their own business that they have been too busy to see.

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

@Leeroydotuk Great feat, Leeroy.
Well done!

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

The borrowed trust principle is the most underrated distribution strategy in the coaching space.

People spend months building their own audience from zero when five warm introductions from the right person would have done more in two weeks.

The math is not even close. One person who already has the trust of your ideal clients saying “you need to hear from this person” is worth more than six months of daily posting to a cold audience that does not know you yet.

Good morning…

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

Do you know your next five clients already follow someone you could be friends with?

Listen up… The fastest way to reach your power users is not more content.

It is borrowing trust from the people they already trust.

This is something most people building a tech-coaching business never think about.

The exact people you want as clients are already gathered in someone else’s audience.

=> A podcast host. 
=> A community owner. 
=> A slightly bigger creator in your niche. 
=> A person running a Slack group full of your ideal students.

You do not need to build an audience of 100,000 to reach your next five clients.

Start by getting in front of the right twelve people. And the fastest way to do that is through someone who already has their trust.

This is how I think about it.

I make a list of twelve people who already have the attention of my ideal clients.

Not competitors. 
Adjacent voices.

People serving the same audience in a different way.

Then I do not pitch them.

~ I make myself useful to them. 
~ I share their work genuinely. 
~ I add real value in their comments. 
~ I send them something helpful with no ask attached.

Over a few weeks, the relationship becomes warmer.

And real relationships lead to introductions, collaborations, shoutouts, and referrals that put me directly in front of the exact people I want, with borrowed trust already attached.

One warm introduction from the right person is worth more than a month of cold outreach.

UnclMarc…

PS: Who are the twelve people who already have the attention of your ideal clients? Have you ever made a list?

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

Do you know your next five clients already follow someone you could be friends with?

Listen up… The fastest way to reach your power users is not more content.

It is borrowing trust from the people they already trust.

This is something most people building a tech-coaching business never think about.

The exact people you want as clients are already gathered in someone else’s audience.

=> A podcast host. 
=> A community owner. 
=> A slightly bigger creator in your niche. 
=> A person running a Slack group full of your ideal students.

You do not need to build an audience of 100,000 to reach your next five clients.

Start by getting in front of the right twelve people. And the fastest way to do that is through someone who already has their trust.

This is how I think about it.

I make a list of twelve people who already have the attention of my ideal clients.

Not competitors. 
Adjacent voices.

People serving the same audience in a different way.

Then I do not pitch them.

~ I make myself useful to them. 
~ I share their work genuinely. 
~ I add real value in their comments. 
~ I send them something helpful with no ask attached.

Over a few weeks, the relationship becomes warmer.

And real relationships lead to introductions, collaborations, shoutouts, and referrals that put me directly in front of the exact people I want, with borrowed trust already attached.

One warm introduction from the right person is worth more than a month of cold outreach.

UnclMarc…

PS: Who are the twelve people who already have the attention of your ideal clients? Have you ever made a list?

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

@russellbrunson All of the above… each one at certain seasons of life.💯

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

@aditiitwt This took me off but u can totally relate 😂 AI got nothing on you 👌😂

[unclmarc @marcotiora]

@UgochukwuCFR I totally agree