Laurie Cameron Full Interview Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
AJ: Welcome to Thriving Through. Laurie, I'm so delighted to have you as my guest today.
Laurie: Thank you. I'm really glad to be here.
AJ: And I'm going to launch right in. This is a question I ask every podcast guest: how long have you been self-employed?
Laurie: Since February of 1998.
AJ: So you are a seasoned coach and consultant.
Laurie: Late last millennium.
The Path to Self-Employment: Post-Divorce Discovery and a Brother's Question
AJ: Second question: what was your pathway to becoming self-employed? Why did you decide to become self-employed?
Laurie: That's such a great question. Thinking back on all these years, it was probably in the mid to late nineties, after a divorce, and figuring out what I wanted to do, how I wanted to rebuild. Who am I now? All those questions that are pretty typical for post-divorce. And I just remember my brother one time asking if you could do anything in the world, what would you do?
And I didn't know right away. But a couple days later the answer came to me, working out one Sunday morning: I want to get paid to talk to people.
And I didn't know where that came from and what to do with it. But eventually I started looking at being a professional speaker. I joined the local NSA chapter in Colorado. I was in Denver at the time.
Finding Coaching: A One-Evening Class That Changed Everything
Laurie: About a year into that, I took just a community or adult continuing ed class that a lot of communities have. I took one about becoming a coach, and it was just one evening, and by the end of that evening I went, "This is what I'm supposed to do."
And I got training, and at the time there were only three training programs for coaches in the world. Now there's thousands. But I picked one of them and went through training and just knew that it's what I came here to do. So it really felt a lot more like a calling or a purpose.
And I ended up quitting my day job before I met anybody that said, "Don't quit your day job before you start this." But I did, and there was a lot of trial and error, and stumbling, and challenges and fears and doubts and clarity and evolution on a variety of different levels. But that's really what got me started into professional coaching.
Early Business Challenge: Not Understanding Marketing
AJ: Thinking back, tell me a story about a challenge that you experienced early on as you started to develop your coaching business.
Laurie: For me, it was not having a clue how to market, and not knowing really what marketing was. The only thing that came to mind when I thought of marketing a business, because I'd never been a solo entrepreneur before, was selling. And I don't like to be sold to. Somebody needs to make a sale, and I didn't want to do that with others, and my original training really didn't have much marketing training in it, or how to do it, or why, or even how to create a message, or who my clients were. I just thought, "Okay, this is what I want to do as a coach. Now what?"
So the biggest challenge was really finding my way into a target market, a specialty and how I talk about it. That systematization of a marketing process.
The Foundations of Marketing: Target Market, Message, and Value Proposition
AJ: I call those the foundations, the target market, the message and your value proposition. Messaging. All of those are the foundations of marketing before you do anything else, and most of us flounder and flail our way through it.
Laurie: I did for many years. And then there was another coach training organization that I got involved with that really hits it well, and really talks about marketing, and I actually ended up becoming a trainer for the school. And I've been doing that for, let's see, almost 23 years. So September of 2002, I joined the faculty of that coach training school, and I've been training professional coaches ever since as well. So I've learned a lot by teaching it to others. That's been a great benefit for me.
Teaching Coaches: Business Development and Marketing Skills
AJ: So you have your own coaching business and you train other coaches. You train marketing to other coaches.
Laurie: Well, actually, the program is training coaching skills, how to coach people, how to build and market a coaching business. So it's the whole package in there.
The Single Most Important Marketing Advice: Get Clear on Your Target Market
AJ: And I know it's impossible to narrow this down, because marketing, that whole business development package that you teach. But what is the single most important piece of advice self-employed consultants need to know about marketing?
Laurie: Get clear on your target market. Who is the "who" that you want to fill your business with? And as a coach, this has actually been one of my challenges since 1998. I want to coach everybody, and that desire, that wish has not gone away. So for the last 27 and a half years now, it's been a constant reminder that I can coach everybody, but it doesn't make any sense to market to everybody, because I've tried that in the past, too, and it just was all over the place, and scattered results and all of that.
The Daily Struggle: Staying Focused Despite Wanting to Help Everyone
Laurie: So I still have a challenge with keeping that focus. And because I'll go, "Oh, I want to coach these people. Oh, I can train this, too, over here to that people." And it's still sometimes a daily struggle just to stay focused. But I know the importance of it.
AJ: And you said something important: you can have more than one target market or ideal client, but you can only market to one at a time.
Marketing to One While Serving Many
Laurie: Yeah. And this is what I tell my coaching students and what I remember for myself is, I know I can coach anybody that shows up and says, "Hey, I'm ready. Here's my credit card number. Let's get started." And yet for marketing, the more focused I am, the easier it is.
And I had to work through the "but I don't want to leave these people out. And what about those people? And I don't want to leave anybody out." And yet, it's just a really hard way to build a strong, sustainable business, being that scattered all the time.
AJ: I don't remember who it is, but somebody famous had a famous line often quoted: "When you market to everyone, you market to no one."
Laurie: Yeah, yeah.
Why Narrowing Your Focus Makes Marketing Easier
AJ: So why is it that you said it's easier when you narrow your focus and you're focused in on one ideal client? Why is it easier? I mean, that's kind of counterintuitive to new people.
Laurie: It is. And let's see, a wide variety of reasons is that it's easier if you know who they are. It's easier for me to figure out where they are. And when I can figure out where they are, I can get in front of them and start talking to them and get to know them. Because I also have the other challenge of staying in my own head about building a message, and what they want, and how this will help, and everything else with my training as well, because I'm transitioning more into training and out of coaching.
Getting to Know Your Target Market: Building Relationships and Listening
Laurie: But I need to talk to them. I need to get to know them. I need to build relationships with them and say, "Hey, what do you really want? What's getting in your way? What's your biggest vision, and what's your biggest dream?" And talk to them, and get to know them, and really, truly listen.
And then tailor the marketing message that I know will feel compelling to my potential clients, my target market, as well as in what I write in my marketing. If they feel seen and heard in what I write, then that connection is already there, and you can't consult, coach, train, really, without that connection with people.
Creating Marketing That Makes Clients Feel Understood
AJ: My Brendan Lucero, who teaches a course on messaging, he says that you want to understand your target market and hone your messaging so that it's so good that when you speak to them they say, "Wow, she's in my head. How does she know what I'm thinking? How does she know what I'm feeling? I've got to hire her because she understands me. She gets me."
Laurie: Yeah. That's really important. Because fundamentally, each one of us, we just want to be seen and heard. We want to know that we're not alone. We want to know that somebody out there understands, and it's like, "Oh, she understands, that feels so good."
AJ: Yes, she understands my problem, my pain points.
Laurie: Yeah. And she understands what I want.
The Challenge of Connection in the Digital Age
AJ: Yeah. And I think that is getting harder in the digital age. I think harder to get as a person because we're inundated with so many impersonal messages. Getting DMs the minute you get a new connection on LinkedIn. And then suddenly, you're getting a sales pitch from them. They don't know you from the man in the moon, and yet they're trying to sell you on something. They don't know you.
Laurie: Yeah, I have a tendency to resist that. My resistance comes up when that pops up in my messaging.
AJ: Yeah, I usually sometimes—
Laurie: Sorry to interrupt that. I don't want to do that to others, either.
Authentic Sales: Building Relationships Instead of Pushing
AJ: Exactly. And you mentioned earlier that early on you had this notion about what sales was, that you didn't like to be sold to. What we're doing as coaches and consultants is not pushy sales tactics. In fact, they wouldn't work for us. It's really, how have you honed? How would you characterize—because you are selling whether you like it or not, you're selling. So how have you, what kind of sales process do you use that feels really authentic and comfortable, and is effective?
Networking and the Shift to Collaboration
Laurie: Getting to know people, meeting people, doing either networking or even meeting people on LinkedIn and reaching out and just saying "I'd love to know more about what you do."
And in recent terms, and I think I mentioned this when we originally talked, I feel like I'm transitioning, evolving to looking more at collaboration. And I'm still playing with it. So this is a new challenge, because it's a new approach for me here, is to look for organizations, companies, entities that have a gap that what I do and what I'm good at can help them fill.
Working Out the Collaboration Strategy
Laurie: So in looking at that, the strategy for that I'm still working that out, but having some types of professions in mind that I might be able to collaborate with, and then keeping that on my radar. And when I'm networking locally at my local chamber here, or on LinkedIn or my professional organization with coaches, just looking for opportunities to say, "Hey, can we explore possibility of collaboration, and how we might work together to serve this target market at a higher level together?"
So it's one I've been tiptoeing into over the last few, probably just throughout this year so far. And now, being midway through, I'm still—I've gone from tiptoeing to confidently taking steps to reach out to people and have a more collaborative marketing model.
AJ: And how's it going so far?
From Interest to Revenue: Converting Collaboration Opportunities
Laurie: It's going well, a lot of interest. And I was reading a newsletter recently that said interest is great, but it's even better if it shows up on your bank account.
So still looking to move from interest to "yes, let's work together. Here's how. And here's what the collaborative compensation might look like." So still working on that, but making a lot more connections. And what helps me, too, and talking about target market is targeting specific types of industries that I think would be a good collaborative effort with me and what I do and what I offer. So it's still narrowing that down and getting clear on that. And at the same time, being open to any possibilities that might pop in and go, "Oh, I hadn't thought of that yet." But staying focused on the type of professions and companies that I really want to talk to and explore that with.
Making Collaboration Systematic: From Hope to Strategy
AJ: How do you make it systematic rather than just hoping good things happen? So you have a conversation with somebody in a company that you both serve the same target audience and collaborating might make sense. And they say, "Yeah, I think that's a great idea." But then there's no next steps. So how do you move it to the next step?
The Balance Between Follow-Up and Chasing
Laurie: Yeah. And that's a bit of the age-old dilemma. And I go through this with my coaching students as well is, how much do you, or when does follow-up turn into chasing? And because I don't want to chase, I want to attract. I want to allow. I want to be open.
So as far as a system goes, is being on LinkedIn and going to the chamber and connecting with people and scheduling follow-ups and having conversations and building that relationship. So the system really is about building relationships and how we normally do that is we start with "hi," and we move into commonalities and getting to know somebody and just continuing to move that relationship forward as well.
Current Business Evolution: Who Am I Now After 27 Years?
Laurie: That's the system I'm in right now. The other thing, too, that I've been evolving through is, who am I now? I want to, because there again, 27 years, there's been a lot that's going on. I've gotten 27 years older than when—
AJ: And wiser.
Laurie: Oh, thank you for that. I appreciate that. And looking at how I want to do it now, how I want to market, how I want to run my business, and how I want to serve clients and serve greater humanity with my work, because it's all wrapped up in that same package. And I feel like I'm at a place now where I don't want to be doing the drive, drive, 80-hour-a-week kind of thing and make it work, and the pushing and stuff. I'm really aware of creating a new way of me being in the world as well as me being in my business. So that's, as we say, it's a wonderful work in progress on that, and I think I may have veered off from the question, and I'm not sure.
Reinventing Without Losing Core Identity: The Chrysalis Process
AJ: That was a great segue, because I was going to ask you about when you're rebuilding, you're reinventing yourself, you're rebuilding your business model. And the question: how do you reinvent yourself without losing your core identity?
Laurie: Oh, what a great question! And for me it's been starting, and throughout this year, has been this process of—I liken it to being in a new, a chrysalis. Caterpillar, cocoon, chrysalis into the butterfly. And in the chrysalis things are just really messy. They're all goopy and everything like that, until things reform, and out comes a butterfly. And I think I'm still in that goopy chrysalis stage in there, and it starts for me. It starts with connecting with me.
Flipping the Question: Staying Authentic First, Then Building Business Around It
Laurie: Who am I now? What's important to me now? What are my priorities and my values? How do I want to spend my time? How do I want to generate revenue? How does all that fit together? But it really starts with—actually, I want to flip your question. And instead of "how to do business and stay authentic," it's how do I stay authentic and do business?
So it's the authenticity. And it's self-reflection. A lot of self-reflection, a lot of walks, a lot of hikes, a lot of sitting on my balcony with a cup of tea or a glass of wine in the evening. And really checking in. And because, frankly, I consider meditation to be a business procedure.
Meditation as a Business Practice
Laurie: Part of my business systems is meditating or going for a walk and just clearing things out to really stay connected with who I am and what I want now in my life.
And I will say one of the big challenges to that is being on LinkedIn, and seeing people I'm connected to, the people that are the super high drivers, "Let's go for 10 million dollars a year this year." And I have to remember I'm okay not being that. I'm really okay with finding what works for me and being true to that and really honoring that.
Resisting the Pull of Comparison on LinkedIn
Laurie: But it's so easy to get sucked into all the stuff that's going on. Like I said on LinkedIn going, "Oh, I have to do it that way. If they're successful, I have to do it that way. Oh, I have to do it like they do it." And I have to keep pulling myself back from that and going, "What can I take from that that will work for me now?" So it's that constant push-pull in there.
Trusting Intuition Over External Noise
AJ: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like the right answer will come when you're meditating or walking, and not when you're all caught up in LinkedIn, which is the external world telling you what to do. And you've got a wonderful practice of meditation and clearing your mind and making space so that that intuition, that intuitive thought, can come through. And I mean, it sounds like you've listened to your intuition all along.
Laurie: I'm getting better at it every day.
Messages from Meditation: Collaboration and "You Have to Ask"
Laurie: And one of those messages, I was sitting and the message came, and I got up and I wrote it on my whiteboard. And that's my business model: collaboration.
And now I'm in the process of deciding and strategizing what that looks like and how to create systems around it, and how to generate revenue from it, all of those things. But it came from that one message that I downloaded from wherever.
And the other one, here's another one that came up, and I actually have a sticky note on my wall above my monitor, and it says, "You have to ask."
AJ: Yeah.
Laurie: And I keep thinking if there's something I want or somebody I want to talk to, or somebody I want to connect with or collaborate with, or learn more about, I have to ask.
The Wisdom Beyond Our Thinking Mind
Laurie: And it was so simple. And yet it's in those quieter moments that there's a wisdom out there that's a lot smarter than this brain up here, and when I listen to it, I do a lot better, and I feel a lot better.
The Transition from Services to Products: Creating Asynchronous Revenue
AJ: Yeah. You, one of the, in addition to collaboration, you're also moving from selling services to selling products. So tell me more. That is a major transition from a marketing perspective. What's been the hardest part of that transition so far?
Laurie: Well, it came from, there again, being at this point in my life, and I want to create what I call asynchronous revenue. Some call it passive, it's not really passive. It still requires work. However, asynchronous revenue, so that I can generate revenue when I'm out on a hike, or wine tasting with friends, or volunteer work, whatever it is.
And it occurred to me I have 27 years of content: courses, workshops, articles, writing, thoughts. I've collected all of, just I have a body of thoughts for the last 27 years. And in looking at how to turn that into revenue has been the challenge here.
Rebuilding for a New Target Market: Email Lists and Content
Laurie: So online courses. And one of the challenges, too, is with a slightly different target market. Part of it is rebuilding essentially an email list. The connections that I can reach out to and say, "I've got this course." So I'm in the process of taking what I already know works and rebuilding that, having the freebie to get people onto my list, and not one freebie, a few freebies on there, and low cost or what I call budget-friendly small courses. And so in looking at how to rebuild this particular target market, it's a challenge. And I—because I just I want it to just be there right now. That would be so much easier. Wave a magic wand: here's 5,000 people that I can email.
So in this evolution or this iteration of my business, there's some things that I feel like I'm not necessarily restarting, but going back closer to the beginning and going, "Okay, I know how to do this. I know how it works, and just to do it." Take the steps to do that.
Maintaining Energy: Listening to Your Body and Honoring Your Rhythms
AJ: How do you keep your energy up? You know, I mean, because when I ran my own consulting business for over 35 years, and when I had a major client choose to take my project in-house, I didn't want to start over. I felt like, and it was at that time when digital marketing was becoming the way to do it. And I hadn't done it that way because I started in 1990, and I didn't have the energy or the motivation to do it. I just didn't, I just couldn't face it. So I closed my business. So how do you ever have those kinds of thoughts, and how do you overcome them?
Laurie: Of course I have those kinds of thoughts. It's all part of it. And it's part of the ebb and flow, and the ups and downs of not just being a human being, but being a business owner as well. And there again, it's intuitively listening to my body and saying when it says it's time to take a break, or it's time to take a walk, or it's time to dig in and stick with it for another hour, then I listen to that, and getting a lot better at that. And after over a quarter century being a, working from home, it still can be isolating.
The Importance of Community and Connection
Laurie: So it's been really important for me to make sure I have connections, community involvement to get me out of the house, or at least get me on the phone or on a Zoom. But really out of the house is always better, and knowing that that also feeds me. So that's important to make sure that I put into my not necessarily every day, but every week is being with like-minded people that are doing important work in the world. And that feeds me. That gives me energy. And then I'm ready to go back.
Maximizing Peak Productivity Hours
Laurie: It's also, too, as I think about your question, it's knowing myself and knowing that when I have the most energy to work and maximizing that. Because I love getting up in the morning and writing. And it's generally before I need to do emails or phone calls or anything like that. But when I'm laying in bed and can't sleep, but I have these ideas, because that's where a lot of my ideas come from or when they come, then I know when I'm most productive throughout the day.
And for the times that I'm less productive, I find things that are less mentally challenging, and things that are more fun. Like my brain gets to go out and play on Canva. And so I know that that's actually energizing for me, even though I can still get so in the zone with that kind of creation, the writing, the Canva, the product, all of that stuff.
Setting Boundaries: The 30-Minute Timer
Laurie: I set my watch for 30 minutes and I go, "Oh, I have to stand up," because if I didn't, I would just sit in this chair for two hours and think, "Oh, my gosh, I forgot to go to the restroom." So, but it's taking care of myself and paying attention to my body.
AJ: Yeah, yeah, so important.
At Retirement Age: What Keeps You Going?
AJ: I have one more question. I have many more questions that I would like to ask. But I think we're getting towards the end of our time. I like to keep these at around 30, 35 minutes. You're getting toward an age where, like I am, where most people are thinking retirement. Like I closed my consulting business right before I turned 65, and then I immediately decided I wanted to open a coaching business. So, and you're reinventing yourself in a similar way. What keeps you going?
Laurie: Oh, that's a really good question, because there are lots of days that I go, "Oh." And then what I remember is, I think it's what I'm here to do.
The Purpose That Drives Everything
Laurie: So whatever work I do, whether it's coaching, training coaches, or the training world that I wanted to get into away from one-on-one coaching—I still do that when it shows up, but I really want to move to training teams and leaders—and then the products as well.
But what keeps me going is knowing, or not just knowing, but really, truly believing that I'm here to make the world a better place, even if it's just a little teeny bit for one person. That's what I'm here to do. And I think coaching, I think what I train, helps people feel better about themselves, better about their work, better about communicating with each other.
A Calling, Not a Job: Service to Others
Laurie: And so I really see it more as, like I said, a calling, a service, and I just can't imagine retiring or to stop doing what I think helps people feel better about themselves and the world. And so this next iteration is about, how can I do it and have more time to play, at this age, play with the grandkids, go out and service projects. I volunteer a lot, and I definitely want to keep doing that.
But what keeps me going is remembering my big Why: Capital W, Capital H, Capital Y is why I'm here in this lifetime, in this existence. And how do I express that with friends, with family and with my work?
You Don't Retire from a Purpose
Laurie: So that's the thing that keeps me going: I don't want to—you don't retire from a purpose, and you don't retire from a calling. You just find a new way to do it.
AJ: And your why is so compelling, and you haven't finished yet.
Laurie: You know, it's okay to put those words in my mouth. That's fine. Because no. And I want to, I want to keep doing this because this work, and for me it's work with a capital W. And I want to keep doing it for as long as I can, and every way that I can stay connected with it and move forward with it. And the next person that I'm able to touch and they go, "Oh, I hadn't thought about it that way. Oh, I can see this, or Oh, yeah, I'm feeling better about this," then that's what keeps me going. And that's what keeps my energy and my motivation.
Personal Purpose as the Foundation of Business
Laurie: And so it's really, actually, if you look at the concept of a message, like we were talking about for a marketing message for a business, this is a purpose statement, the beneficiary statement, the what. The mission statement. But it's the what, not the selling point, the benefit statement. There's a lot for it, anyway. I created that for my life.
And this is why I'm here. This is my mission, my purpose, my value for being here. And this is how I want to show up every day. And this is who I want to serve with that. So it really starts with my big why and my own mission. And then how does work fit into that?
AJ: Got it. Yeah, and it starts with the why. I love it.
Laurie: My personal why.
Closing
AJ: Yes. And on that note it is a wrap on this. Oh, my gosh, it was delightful. Thank you, Laurie, for being my guest.
Laurie: Thank you.
