Latest / The Life-First Solopreneur / 210. New Clients, Steady Paychecks, and Enjoying the Ride: One Coach’s Daily Formula

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210. New Clients, Steady Paychecks, and Enjoying the Ride: One Coach’s Daily Formula · The Life-First Solopreneur

• 0:00
  Carly Ries: You don't need an MBA to build a business that supports your life. You just need systems that work. In this episode, we're joined by Stan Ward, founder of The Profitable Coach, who shares how he turned five years of financial trial and error into a system that now helps other coaches stress less about business. We dive into the exact structures he uses to manage cash flow, pay himself consistently, and avoid burnout, all while living the solopreneur lifestyle on his terms. If your finances feel like a roller coaster or you're tired of winging it, this is the episode to continue listening to.
• 0:33
  You're listening to the Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about taking that step into the world of solo entrepreneurship. My name is Carly Ries, and my cohost, Joe Rando, and I are your guides to navigating this crazy but awesome journey as a company of one. We take pride in being part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all aspects of solopreneur ship that has empowered and educated countless solopreneurs looking to build a business that resonates with their life's ambitions. We help people work to live, not live to work. And if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the show for you.
• 1:12
  So if you're eager to gain valuable insights from industry experts on running a business the right way the first time around or want to learn from the missteps of solopreneurs who've paved the way before you, then stick around. We've got your back because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. Stan, we are so excited to have you on today. Even just talking to you offline for like the past few minutes, I'm like, this is a good guy. I'm excited to get into it with him.
• 1:38
  But before we do, we wanna ask an icebreaker question, and that is, what do you wish you had known before becoming a solopreneur?
• 1:45
  Stan Ward: That you don't have to have an MBA. I think I had a lot of assumptions about myself because I had I'd spent a lot of time in education and even before that, I'd done work in ministry. So a lot of time in a non profit space, higher education as well as secondary education. In fact, education these days almost feels like anti profit. So I went in with this mindset that gosh, I'm lacking basic tools.
• 2:10
  I don't know what I'm doing. And looking back, I mean, yes, I didn't know what I was doing. But it wasn't as hard as I thought it was gonna be in my head.
• 2:22
  Carly Ries: You're the second person in two days to say that running a solopreneur business isn't as hard as you thought. I'm like, we need to have what they're having for breakfast Joe, and we need to hang out with them.
• 2:34
  Joe Rando: I'm telling you, it took 200 episodes with nobody ever saying that, and now 200 and out of what are we, four now? Five?
• 2:41
  Carly Ries: 204 something.
• 2:42
  Joe Rando: We got two post 200. So maybe The Aspiring Solopreneur podcast is having an impact on the world. I don't know. I claim that.
• 2:55
  Stan Ward: Well, now let me qualify that just a little bit. Yes, it's hard. I had a great conversation with a guy the other day that was, we're sharing stories about our coaching business. And he's like, man, why is it just so hard? I'm like, because it just is.
• 3:07
  It's not that you're doing anything wrong. It's not that I'm doing anything wrong. It's just work. But it's not as difficult as what I made up in my head.
• 3:17
  Carly Ries: Okay. That I can get on board with. And that I agree with.
• 3:20
  Stan Ward: Okay.
• 3:21
  Carly Ries: You seem like the guy to talk about running a successful business, especially as it comes to finances. So I wanna know, with the profitable coach, you said that it took you five years to figure out what you now teach in just sixty days, which I'm so excited What to like were some of your biggest lessons from that journey, and kind of explain that that approach?
• 3:44
  Stan Ward: Yeah. Well, in summary, it's about putting sustainable structures in place, and what I call that is I basically say, look, I can't help you create a stressless business, but I can help you stress less about business. And what's interesting is looking back, there are seasons where I've had more clients, more income, but my financial situation was less stable because I didn't have the systems in place. So part of what the experience has been for me is discovering that once you put some systems in place and things begin to kinda take care of themselves, oh my goodness, it can create margin in life, which is just so nice to have.
• 4:25
  Carly Ries: Were you saying that it wasn't sustainable because of like, you were facing burnout? Because you had so many clients, you were making more because I've had that feeling of like having the most clients and making more than I've ever made in my life, but couldn't hang out with my husband, couldn't see my friends because it was just I was working around the clock.
• 4:43
  Stan Ward: Yeah. And thanks for bringing up burnout. So my main gig actually is coaching leaders around stress management, burnout prevention, conflict resolution. So yeah, all too aware of that space. And yes, some of it was that I was working at a pace that was not sustainable as far as just that self development or what I would call self maintenance that's required to keep lifting day after day as a solopreneur.
• 5:06
  Carly Ries: So what are the biggest lessons you've learned from the Profitable Coach journey?
• 5:12
  Stan Ward: Yeah, it's not as complex as I thought it was gonna be. And what I mean by that is again, I guess in my head, I thought I had to be an MBA and and be able to, you know, speak to my accountant in a knowledgeable way, in order to get through the day. And that's just not the case.
• 5:29
  Joe Rando: I Have an MBA. And I don't speak to my accountant in a knowledgeable way.
• 5:32
  Stan Ward: Okay. There you go.
• 5:33
  Joe Rando: Yeah. Fair. You were fine. You were fine.
• 5:39
  Stan Ward: I don't know what your MBA stands for, Joe? Maybe I'm thinking of a different kind of MBA,
• 5:42
  Joe Rando: Oh, no. No. I got the good old fashioned finance management. But anyway, I have a question that you said, you used the word structures. And I just wanna know if you can explain a little bit about how you define that term.
• 5:56
  Are you talking about like standard operating procedures? Are you talking about policies or all of those?
• 6:02
  Stan Ward: Thanks. I think that's what Carly is trying to get me to. So I'm glad you're pushing that direction. Yeah, a lot of it is standard operating procedures and I'll just give you the deal. So I had to spend five years reading different sources, trying different experiments.
• 6:17
  And yes, thankfully I did find a good accountant who's very patient with me, as I kind of bumbled about. But now I'm at a place where I know, okay, I have a system. It's like a grain elevator. It's just this, I have one business bank account, it's my operations account. And because I'm a coach LLC, I'm low 6 figures gross, right?
• 6:40
  So all that operating money goes into that grain silo and it sits there and then it's dispersed through different channels, right? And so if you're familiar with Profit First, Mike Michalowicz, right? Kind of adapted his system, simplified it to work for me. And so kind of what that has looked like is, all this money goes in the operations account. It sits there.
• 7:02
  That's influenced coaching my business. And then a percentage of that, I put into a tax account to hold for Uncle Sam and I treat it like it's not mine. Now we'll say some years, I put in more than I need. And when I have that conversation with my accountant, I'm like, yay, that goes to my retirement plan. Another piece of this then is I pay myself, just depending on what our season is between 50 to 60% average.
• 7:29
  We'll talk about paycheck here in a minute. But I kind of budget that in my head is gonna be where I'm shooting for. And then that gives me about 30% as an operating expense account. So now I have some goals for my expenses and I can answer the question, can I afford that or not? Well just because there's money in the account doesn't mean I can really afford that.
• 7:48
  And then of course the last 5% can go to either my emergency fund, which I've got in a high interest savings account or my ASAP IRA, right, my retirement account. And so just setting that up alone and then getting that stuff to flow, has just, it's just nice. Because now I've been doing this long enough, I kind of have a sense of what those averages are gonna be. And so I can put myself on a twice a month paycheck, get paid on the last day of the month. Just so all the money's there right before the bills hit on the first day of the month.
• 8:19
  And I get paid and I pay myself on the fifteenth to handle the second half of the month bills. And so as income may go up, and certainly the last couple months, just to be honest, it's been really slow for me. And actually that's what's convinced me the system works. Because there was grain in the elevator and because it was coming out in a steady amount, I can still assign those dollars where I normally would.
• 8:45
  Joe Rando: Yep. No, that's cool.
• 8:46
  Carly Ries: Why do you think it's so hard for solopreneurs to focus on the business side of their business? I mean obviously, they got into it because they wanna be coaches or they wanna help people. But they don't get into it because they're like, I like planning for my quarterly payments. and doing that whole side of things.
• 9:04
  I mean, why do so many people struggle? And what happens if they kinda put it on the back burner and focus on the main part of their business and don't think about everything you just talked about.
• 9:14
  Stan Ward: So my hunch, Carly, is probably in this show, and Joe, I bet you're familiar with this one, The E Myth Revisited.
• 9:21
  Are you guys familiar with that one?
• 9:22
  Joe Rando: Well, think it's the number one book that's brought up on this podcast. I'm pretty sure.
• 9:26
  Stan Ward: Yeah, because it's so relevant to the kind of things we do, right? There's the person who loves the service side of the business, then there's a person that needs to be the manager of the business, and then there's the person that kinda needs to be the executive who's going out there and growing the business. And those are three different pieces of ourselves that we have to be able to engage with. And I've got a system for that later I'd love to share with you on how I do that. And so because we tend to become solopreneurs because we love being on the service side of it, yeah, we naturally put our energy into that, right?
• 9:59
  We get energy back. You could talk about that as the idea of a strength, right? How do you know something's a strength? Well, it gives you reliable results and tends to energize you. And the problem is, it's kind of like if I only do curls and I never extend my tricep, guess what's gonna happen?
• 10:14
  I'm gonna end up looking like this, right? Because the only way my arm can fully extend, it's not that my bicep relaxes, it's that the tricep engages. And so the service person can only do the service thing and the way you're gonna be able to straighten your business out is to have those other personalities put some tension on you to keep you on track.
• 10:36
  Carly Ries: So I do wanna hear your system that you put in place. But also like how can you get those triceps to kick in?
• 10:46
  Stan Ward: Oh yeah. Well, sometimes it's just school of hard knocks. You know, I left a, well, I don't wanna say cushy job, I left a good job where there was good money and good benefits and I have a family. And boy, was a shock to the system when all these things that were done behind the scenes for me, suddenly now I had to figure out, right? You Know, when you're part of a larger organization.
• 11:17
  So that's one piece of it. I think just like, I recently started working with a personal trainer. I'm somewhere in my 50s and I tell you, I feel ten years younger. It's been great for me. And I say that to say, yeah, you will need to partner with someone or a system that will create the discipline to make sure you're doing those tricep exercises.
• 11:37
  That's the only way it's going to happen. Because just if we're left to our whimsy, we'll just do what we wanna do and what feels good. And for most of us, that's not gonna be managing the business and it's not gonna be growing the business.
• 11:51
  Carly Ries: Okay. So going back to the basics. You were saying that you figure out what to pay yourself. You have extra money on any given month. You put that into retirement.
• 12:00
  Well, from a basic level, solopreneurs have a really hard time pricing their services to begin with. So how do you coach them in pricing what they're worth? And if they've already gone down the path of pricing the wrong serve or pricing their services poorly, how can they fix it?
• 12:17
  Stan Ward: Yeah, great question. And so, you know, getting paid what you're worth is difficult, right? Because most of us are providing services that have more value than what the market's gonna pay us dollar for dollar, Or we do squishy things coaching, right? And sometimes it's hard to say, okay, this has the x dollar value.
• 12:39
  So what I do, when I work with coaches, say look, coaching is a lifestyle business for most of us. We're doing this because there's a certain way we want to work in the world, certain number of hours we wanna work. So rather than starting with what I think the market will pay or what I think a person can afford, and I'm gonna charge that. Let's start with what you need in order to have the life that you wanna have. And that becomes an anchor.
• 13:07
  Doesn't mean you're gonna get that, but that is always the goal. And then especially with coaches, because we tend to do other things like speaking, maybe workshops, possibly plenary type stuff, facilitation. Then once you kinda have that base number in place, there are some formulas where you can play with that number and then that starts telling you what you need to be, if not charging now, what you need to be working toward. And for those who are not charging enough, then it's gonna be a journey. All right, we're gonna figure out how to get you there.
• 13:45
  If you've got a lot of long term clients, then slowly you're gonna have to adjust those rates if you wanna keep them. But certainly I've encouraged them, any new clients you're taking on, charge the new rates. And you can do that if you don't have on your website, this is what I charge.
• 14:01
  Joe Rando: Yeah. going back to kind of I don't know if you know who Marcus Sheridan is, but he wrote they ask you answer, and he's a proponent of putting your pricing or the best you can do in terms of helping people understand pricing for your services on your website. Don't make them engage, people who don't wanna engage anymore. And I do think that if you are charging now let's just use some round numbers. Let's say you're charging a $100 an hour, and you really should be charging a 150, but you've got a bunch of grandfather clients in, and you put a 150 on your website, they're not gonna complain.
• 14:35
  They'll be perfectly fine with that. You know? It's like so keep you know, if you if you're a 150 now, put it on your website, 150 dollars a session or whatever it is, and they're not gonna argue. And eventually, when you do kinda hit them up for a price increase, they're gonna be like, oh, you want a 120? Well, it's less than what's on your website.
• 14:50
  So I just think that's important
• 14:55
  Stan Ward: Yeah, good perspective. I also wanna say for a lot of us too, pricing per hour can be tricky. So I tend to think in terms of client facing interaction time, And how many hours a week do I wanna be face to face with clients doing some kind of work? Okay, that then starts telling me where I start creating my anchor, if you will.
• 15:20
  I'll just use the term anchor here. So it's what do I need to make in order to take care of my financial obligations? And okay, from that, then how many hours a week do I wanna work? How many weeks a year do I wanna work? Okay, do some division, right?
• 15:36
  And then that comes out to client facing hours, what I need to charge. And because I tend to sell packages rather than just individual hours, that then helps me when I go to build my package, or when I go to build my speaking portfolio, that kind of thing.
• 15:52
  Carly Ries: Yeah. That's so helpful. But you said something a little earlier in the interview that I thought was so interesting. so let's say they set their prices, they're getting paid, they can they can kinda predict what they're gonna get every month like you were saying.
• 16:06
  But then you're saying you pay yourself twice a month. And that seems so, I don't wanna say corporate, but it seems so structured for a solopreneur to be like, oh, well the first and the fourteenth of every month, I'm gonna get the paycheck. Why that mindset? Why do you mind explaining why you have that thought process of sticking with that pattern?
• 16:26
  Stan Ward: Yeah. Well, you know, for those who have access to video, maybe just because I'm a big nerd. But besides that, what I have found is, and it's really interesting that when I would pay myself just once a month, something about that cash flow just didn't work quite as well with matching up with bills and things like that, right? And so part of this is saying, okay, I make sure there's a certain amount of money in my account in order to take care of a certain amount of bills, but I'm not gonna take more out of that account than I have to take out, knowing that it's gonna be doing this all the time. And so rather than taking out large chunks, rather than just paying those quarterly taxes once every quarter and taking this huge chunk of change out of my business account and going, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do?
• 17:17
  That grain is just flowing out slow and steady. I can watch slowly but steady, just these waves in what's in that account. And it doesn't panic me. You know, think about if you're watching your stock account and one day it's here and then the next day the equivalent of quarterly taxes are being paid and wham it goes down here. What do people do?
• 17:39
  They panic.
• 17:40
  Joe Rando: But you know, I just think it's really smart the way that you're doing this in a kind of an organized and disciplined fashion that keeps you comfortable with the organization and discipline because, you know, it can be tempting when you're the only boss. I remember my dad, he was in the restaurant business and I was a kid and he was talking about somebody that was really irresponsible with their restaurant. And I said, what does that mean? And he said, oh, like, he'll just go to the cash register and grab a few $100 and go to the racetrack. And I'm like, really?
• 18:11
  And, it would stun me, but the people sometimes, you know, that's an extreme example. But, you know,
• 18:16
  you close a big deal, you get some cash in, in the bank,
• 18:20
  and you're like, oh, cool. You know? Now all of a sudden, it's time to whatever, take the trip to Vegas for the long weekend or something. And it's just that discipline is really smart. I respect that a lot.
• 18:33
  I think it's really smart.
• 18:35
  Stan Ward: Yeah. And you really are investing in yourself and investing in the business that way. Because again, 5% of that every, every month is going toward some sort of investment account, whether it's a high interest savings or IRA. And so that's money going to work to make money for me, right? And then again, when I have those seasons where things are great, I don't get greedy because I know there'll be seasons when things are slow.
• 19:04
  And I want to be able to enjoy life just as much when things are slow as I'm able to enjoy it when things are great.
• 19:09
  Carly Ries: That's so great. Well, you're saying to keep money in your account for those expenses for your business. What are some expenses that often get overlooked by solopreneurs or overdone or any thoughts there?
• 19:25
  Stan Ward: Yeah. And so I'll speak to kind of the coaching industry in particular since that's what I'm most familiar with. Right? So it's really easy as coaches to get excited about continuing education and get trained on all sorts of systems and assessments and not have a plan for how we're gonna sell those things. And you can spend a lot of money and not really get in, yeah, I feel like I'm building my business, but really educating myself.
• 19:52
  I'm just spending money. And so actually that goes to this system. Do you mind if I pivot a little bit to talk about kind of the daily habits? Yeah. We'll call it the ABCDs, okay?
• 20:03
  So I just came to have this mental ABCD I go through every day to check myself to make sure I'm covering my bases. So A is author content, right? As a coach, I wanna make sure I'm creating, whether it's curriculums, I'm creating maybe social media, creating talks, whatever. But every day I'm contributing in some way to some content, some intellectual property that I'm working on. Then B is build business.
• 20:28
  Building business means new people or new money. A new product is not building business. Building business is new people or new money. And so I make sure that daily I'm doing something that's either connecting me with new people. It may be connecting me to a centered influence, Somebody who connects with the kind of people that I wanna coach and just building that relationship.
• 20:50
  It may be building business, getting money in the sense of I'm sending out invoices or I'm sending out a proposal. But it's easy for me to procrastinate. And so I have found by making sure that when I look at my checklist, I've got a B on there somewhere. Okay, I'm taking care of things. C then is my client relationships.
• 21:09
  Those are so important. That's what's gonna keep you in business. And so sometimes it's following up on my calendar and saying, oh, so and so, it's been a month and they haven't rescheduled. So I need to go check on them and see what's going on. It could be it's somebody's birthday, so I reach out or something like that.
• 21:24
  Hey, I saw this great thing on social media. Congratulations, looks like you're having fun. D is develop self. So that goes out to the burnout piece, right? Self development can include professional development, but it also includes the things you have to do just to maintain yourself because there is a psychology to being an entrepreneur.
• 21:46
  Yes, it is hard. And yes, it can be so overwhelming when you look at the tasks and the challenges and try to figure out the market and just all that stuff. So we have to be intentional about disciplines that help help us be strong from the inside out. And then I like to say on the days where I have ABCD in place, then E, I just enjoy.
• 22:11
  Carly Ries: I love that. you seem very process oriented, which I obviously think is good, one, as a coach, but also now that you're talking about, finances with coaches, it's also a good thing. So I'm curious, what is it as it relates to building that business, what's one small but like a high impact action a coach can take like right now or this week? To start becoming more profitable.
• 22:37
  Stan Ward: So I went through this with someone who's going through my profitable coach business this morning. So that client, we sat down and we ran some numbers, looked at some things. He was in a place where his expenses were not gonna allow him to pay the kind of steady paycheck we've already talked about. But we did realize, you know what, you can put aside an average of 5% into a high interest savings or that retirement plan. And then that's a little bit of money that goes to work making more money.
• 23:06
  I think if you can just start doing that, you'll be pleased with what you see a year from now.
• 23:12
  Carly Ries: I think this is such an important reminder for Mid year, when people are kind of reflecting on the past six months, they they have half the year to go and they're kind of rethinking not only their business but their finances. I just think this episode cannot have been recorded at a better time. And so, Stan, you help people not only find success financially, but avoiding burnout and everything. So we have to ask you, what is your favorite quote about success?
• 23:38
  Stan Ward: On both counts, both the burnout piece and financially, you have to define success for yourself. Because you'll exhaust yourself if you're chasing someone else's dream. That's just something I try to tell people all the time, whether it's clients, or even myself. You know, whose dream am I chasing?
• 24:01
  Joe Rando: Yep. That's very good advice.
• 24:04
  Carly Ries: Stan, where can people find out more about you if they want to learn more?
• 24:08
  Stan Ward: Yeah. So I would encourage you take a look at my LinkedIn, Stanley j Ward. Great place to connect with me or my coaching website, which is coachingforinfluence.com. A lot of letters, That's why I say Stanley J Ward on LinkedIn a whole lot easier.
• 24:31
  Carly Ries: I was like, let's turn the spelling into a song. All of that will in be our show notes as well.
• 24:38
  Stan Ward: Oh, good. Yeah and in fact, if we do have show notes, then I'd love to add a link to a quiz that I use for folks. It's a self assessment that'll let you know what percentage of this system you've already got in place, and it'll give you a sense of what you need to do next.
• 24:52
  Carly Ries: Awesome. Yep. Send that our way and we will be sure to include them. But Stan, thank you so so much for coming on today.
• 25:00
  Stan Ward: Yeah. Carly, Joe, you guys have really been wonderful hosts. I really do appreciate it.
• 25:05
  Carly Ries: And listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. As always, leave that five star review, share this episode with a friend, and subscribe on your favorite platform, including YouTube. And we will see you next time on The Aspiring Solopreneur. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone.
• 25:23
  In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.