In this Streamlined episode, Mary Cravets, Founder and CEO of Simply Get Clients by Mary Cravets, shares how to simplify client generation and boost income without burnout. If you struggle with overwhelm and inconsistent revenue, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What intentional choices align business with your freedom
– How to simplify strategies to focus on high-impact actions
– Why defining “working” prevents wasted effort on tactics
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the start, scale and succeed. Podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As a founder, I’m your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and there’s a problem I see all the time, especially for founders who’ve launched their business to create freedom and impact, but instead find themselves out of one job and into seven all get while getting paid a fraction of what they should. You’re juggling client, delivery, creating content, doing your own bookkeeping, the actual work itself, managing your calendar, writing proposals, and it just piles up and up and up. And somehow it seems to get worse every time you get a new client to the point where you just don’t know how you’re going to make it all happen. And the revenue comes in. We do all the work, but then it distracts us from bringing in more revenue, and it starts this vicious cycle that can trap even the most capable of entrepreneurs, and it happens in this startup entrepreneur stage and to help us wrestle down the alligator that is this cycle that wants to get the better of our revenue. Let’s because, let’s call it that is the one and only Mary Cravets, who is an award winning client generation expert and international speaker, who helps coaches grow their business without working nights and weekends, and she’s heard all the confusing and conflicting advice there is out there, and isn’t surprised that most coaches struggle to establish a sustainable business, but she’s here to change that, using her methods, the majority of Mary’s clients quickly increase their income by 50% or More. 50% or more clients range from the former CFO of Microsoft North America to coaches in their first few years of business. She’s here with us today. Mary, welcome to the show. So excited to have you here. Thanks for having me. Scott, fantastic. All right, so let’s get started with something that I bet a lot of founders watching, coaches, service providers founders just early in their journey, they’re working harder than they did in their last job. That’s just universally true. We have this idea from Instagram, I think is where it comes from, but it’s like starting a business is working four hours a week and then sipping two paint Nicoletta is one for each hand, singing Garth Brooks songs or something. But it’s just not the way it works. And so we’ll zoom in, particularly with your expertise. Here, you work with a lot of coaches, and these are smart, capable folks. Why do they seem to still get stuck in this do it all yourself, do everything all the time trap?
Mary Cravets
Well, you know what? First of all, they don’t even necessarily know what they should be doing at all, because coming from a corporate background coming from an academic background there. There’s no school for this. I work with people who have MBAs, who have marketing backgrounds and this entrepreneurial piece of, how do you do it? It’s just not really taught anywhere, not any traditional place that you would learn from, like universities and so forth, and so they come in. I think the biggest thing is that everyone thinks they should know how to do it. And why would they? You don’t beat yourself up if you don’t know how to knit, you know, it’s like you just don’t know how to do it. Go get the skills.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, absolutely. So let’s, let’s actually start there. Let’s, let’s try and as best we can, as a big question, but let’s answer that question for them. What do you need to know? Let’s start specifically with coaches, because it’s a little easier to define in a specific industry. But folks, I’m in this industry as well, and work with a lot of our coaches in the scale architects program. And one of the things that I found out pretty early is that coaching isn’t coaching, it’s it’s a whole lot of stuff other than coaching. I actually I was shocked when I started. And maybe this was your experience, or you’ve seen others. I did less coaching my first few months of coaching than I did when I was just coaching people, you know, for fun beforehand. So what is it, if you have a brand new coach, what do they need to do?
Mary Cravets
Yeah, the first thing they need to know is that they have to keep an eye on that vision of what they want to be doing and the impact they want to be making. But then they need to roll up their sleeves and get to work, and their number one job is enrolling clients. We get very distracted with this big picture of marketing and and sales and now social media, and we see social media everywhere. So obviously, that’s how people get clients right now. So where they need to focus the first system in the business. Like, the primary system is bring in business. And people tend to go to coaches. Tend to go to what they know. Like, instantly, I’ll ask them a question, like, Okay, what have you thought about growing your business? And you see them go, and they look over in this place in their mind where business development is, and it’s, there’s nothing there. And so they go over to where they’re they’re like, I was thinking of working on my accounting systems, because they know that, and it’s fascinating. So having they’ve got to first realize client generation is the first skill set. It’s not getting more certifications. It’s not necessarily even bringing in your past experiences. Client generation first skill set, and that is where you spend your time. And it’s probably, and actually the very, very first thing to do, probably, is to unlearn everything, all the assumptions that you know about sales and marketing. It’s just like, No, it’s not about being pushy. No, it’s about, not about convincing people to do things they don’t want to do. It’s none of those things. And I think that’s probably my biggest job, is like, show people you don’t have to be that, that picture of what they fear they have to become in order to grow a business.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, the you’re stepping on all of the, all the sacred cows here, but certifications, let’s talk about this. Because, again, this is something that I definitely see in the coach world, but I see it across professional services and and then I see that pattern happening in other environments. But one of the things that I see folks struggle with is like being an entrepreneur is hard. Hearing no is really hard. And, you know, trying to do this sales thing, and to whatever extent, it’s because you were clumsy, or to whatever extent, it’s just they weren’t ready, it’s not time. You got to know and it hurts, right? Because, especially in something like coaching, it’s kind of like they’re saying no to you, not your product. Oh, yeah. And it just cuts deep. So you get these folks that were and really are quite confident, but that confidence starts to take some knocks, yeah? And then I think this is where the certifications thing comes into play, because we try to get more confident by becoming more competent at whatever it is the trade that we do. But what I think needs to happen, and I think this is something that you do exceptionally well, they have to become more confident by having more reps just selling and closing what they do. Would you agree with that?
Mary Cravets
Yeah, absolutely. And again, it’s that comfort zone. People go back to what they know the certifications, and they come by it honestly, of course, because in a corporate career and an academic career, the more certified you are, the more knowledgeable you are. Usually that’s how you move up. So you know, with the best of intentions, these smart people, they end up going after a solution with with the wrong tools, and so the reps really important, and not just the reps, but the strategy behind it. I was talking to someone today, a prospective client, and she’s like, well, everything you’re talking about, you know, the relationships and getting your messaging, right? And doing those things, they all, I mean, like, I know how to do that, she said, But how exactly? So it’s this pairing. Like, what I have found gives you, gives coaches the reps, and then the confidence is getting the strategy so specific and also feeling so natural and genuine, and then the steps so small and well defined, they start taking those steps, and the confidence doesn’t really play as much of a role, because they’re just like, Oh, I’m gonna take some steps. Well, look, I got a positive response from someone. I didn’t die when I asked someone for a referral. That’s amazing. So they’re getting, they’re getting this positive feedback, which motivates them to keep going. So it’s the reps, but not you know, I hate hearing people say I’d be a no collector. I’m like, please don’t do that. That sounds like aiming for the wrong thing.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah. So, so one of the things that you said earlier was you have to forget everything you know about sales? So again, impossibly large question in an impossibly small format podcast, but what do we need to think about sales? What’s the right frame of mind to approach it as a coach or a professional services provider?
Mary Cravets
You know, I was very fortunate my very first trainer I ever heard. He defined sales for me, and I have taken this with me forever, and I I share it now. And that is, sales is helping someone make a decision they want to or have to make, and when you like the processes I teach, the processes I run before having a sales conversation. It’s about taking someone through a process so they can answer the question for themselves, should they move forward? Should they invest? Yeah, it’s a very small answer to a big question. But sales, of course, is the end of the process. Process, the sales is the end. Most people, most coaches, will tell me, if I get to talk to somebody, I can usually enroll them. That’s not the problem. It’s how do I get all the leads coming in? Yeah. So that’s where clicking in the process is even more it’s even more important.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So let’s go there, because there’s, there are. I mean, my inbox every day has folks that are talking about leads and appointments and you, if you spend any time on social media, there’s just just constant onslaught of the 92,000 things you need to do to bring in clients. Is it necessary? Do you have to have, you know, SEO and five social media funnels and lead magnets and all of that jazz. What do you actually need to to create the sales that you need to succeed?
Mary Cravets
I usually follow along the lines of the just follow the thread of what’s working. It’s very blunt. I had, in my second year of business, I had a total burnout, and so I had, like, four hours a week to run a business that was providing half of my household income. And so the only thing that could occur to me is I have to follow what’s working. I can’t waste time with all of these other things that are not getting me anywhere. Just out of pure crisis necessity, I had to pare it down. All right, how can I spend the least amount of time and get clients and starting with what’s working, I looked at, what are the words that are working, what are the audiences that are working? What are the tactics that are working? Like every single thing had to have a track record, either in my business or in the industry, in coaching, number one ways that way that coaches get clients through relationships. That is true of also most service based businesses through relationships. And by that I mean referrals, connections, getting to the cold market through your warm market. The problem is, what we see everywhere is social media, and nobody sees on my desk personal note cards and little Starbucks cards that I send as thank yous. And guess what? I make very good money on very simple things like this, yeah, but it’s what’s working you follow that thread and then systemize it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Here’s what I love about that most of the folks that I feel get the most confused and frustrated by the funnel world, if you will, are the ones that have absolutely no business doing it. It’s so far from how they would naturally behave, that the chances of them ever having success there are so low that even if they did it right, it still probably wouldn’t give them what they want. And so I love this idea of following the thread of what’s working. I’m wondering if you can clarify that a little bit, because I think your definition of what’s working might be a little different than the average coach sitting listening. So what do you mean? What’s working?
Mary Cravets
Yes, and actually this, this is a piece of advice I give to all coaches, because coaches tend to sit around with other coaches and bat around ideas of how to grow their business. And they say, oh. They say, Oh, you know what worked for me? And they will talk about it, and then they’ll all follow that rabbit. And so I’ve primed my audiences and my clients and everyone I can run into. I say, when someone says this is working for me, ask them to tell you what that means. What do you mean it’s working? Does that mean you closed a client, or does it mean you got 486 impressions on LinkedIn, like, what does it’s working? What does it look like to them? What is it actually and does that working mirror what you want to get? And if it isn’t, do not chase that rabbit.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yes, yes, absolutely.
Mary Cravets
Data. When I’m talking about what’s working, I’m talking about data,
Scott Ritzheimer
yeah, and and what’s what’s actually, enrolling clients, your number one job generating revenue, enrolling new clients in your business. And we’re picking on coaches a little bit here. There’s low hanging fruit. But again, this really is true for entrepreneurs in general. And I would say we could zoom and say, especially those for whom the work that they do is what’s really important to them, right? We see this in the nonprofit world as well, where, honestly, if you start a nonprofit, the number one thing you need to do is generate revenue. It’s exactly the same, but they’re even worse at it in the sense it’s like, no, we’re a nonprofit. We don’t talk about money. It’s like, well, you know, good good luck. So it really is something that goes so deep into the world of founders and entrepreneurs. And this idea of what’s working and defining that properly, I think, is so, so very important. Fantastic way of putting it. And, yeah. And sharing with other founders. Yeah, it’s just go back and listen to it. If you’re listening to this, and any of us just go back and listen to it again. I’m not gonna repeat it again. But Mary, there’s this question that I want to make sure we have time for, because I ask all my guests, I’m interested to see what you have to say. And the question is this, what is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish every founder watching or listening today knew?
Mary Cravets
What is the number one thing? You know what? I think it’s I’m not sure I’m going to say this, right, but it’s about when you engage in something in your business, make sure it’s doing the right job. We do things, we follow things. We habitually do things, and we don’t take the time to say, Is this doing the right job? People are blindly doing social media. Social media is great. Is it doing the right strategic job? You know, you’re getting up early. Is that for the right reasons? You know, we do this for ourselves, so both on the strategic and the personal side of things, you know, are you, is everything in your business doing the right job, and is it really? Are you owning it and valuing yourself in all of that? I think I answered like five things in there, but it all wraps together our identity and our time and our and our out outputs from what we get, just making sure that everything is doing the right job. And you know what? It’s about, intentionality. Yeah, like, the more intentional you are, the more you feel at home in your business, the more results you get. It’s worth taking the time for that intentionality of strategy and choices and values and everything in your business.
Scott Ritzheimer
Absolutely, absolutely. So Mary, if there’s a coach or consultant listening to this, and they’re in that. They’re they’re in the roller coaster, they’re in the thick of all of it, and they’d love someone to come and help show them what those steps are and and build a strategy for their sales and revenue. How can they find out more about the work that you do? Where can I connect with you directly?
Mary Cravets
Yeah, the very easiest way is to go to my website. Simplygetclients.com the entire front page is kind of like this big arrow that is pointing to a button that says, take the class. And every month, I take people through this process and the components and assess what you have in your business, as far as client generation, what needs help, and what is working well for you already. And from there you can you get a lot of insight into that intentionality that I’m talking about.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, fantastic. Well, Mary, this conversation could have gone on for a very long time, but we like to keep it short and sweet for our listeners, thanks so much for being on. It really was a privilege and honor having you here with us today. For those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Mary Cravets
Mary Cravets is an award-winning Client Generation Expert and International Speaker who helps coaches grow their businesses without working nights and weekends. She’s heard all the confusing and conflicting advice out there – so she isn’t surprised that most coaches struggle to establish a sustainable business. But she’s here to change that. Using her methods, the majority of Mary’s clients quickly increase their income by 50% or more. Clients range from the former CFO of Microsoft North America to coaches in their first few years of business.
Want to learn more about Mary Cravets’s work at Simply Get Clients by Mary Cravets? Check out her website at https://simplygetclients.com/