Toby Mildon is a Diversity and Inclusion Architect and founder of Mildon, and consultancy and advisory business. He shares his amazing journey to establishing a succssful business and the mindset challenge of leaving the dream job to risk it all.
NOTE: THIS TRANSCRIPTION IS STILL IN PRODUCTION AND DOES NOT YET REFLECT THE CONVERSATION
00:00:00 AKS
Welcome to a listening life, the podcast for coaches who are finding it really hard work to build a sustainable, profitable business full of clients. I'm Aly King Smith sharing inspiration, stories and lessons learned from some of my successful peers and colleagues who've managed to crack the code and breakthrough. My conversation today is with Toby Mildon, founder and director of MILDON. A boutique diversity and inclusion consultancy.
00:00:25 TM
I went in kind of exploratory discovery mode. I had no agenda other than to understand what my potential clients were struggling with so that I could start to think about what solutions I might be able to help with. Good serving is just good coaching. If you have a sales meeting, it's about spending 80% of your time listening to the really good questions that you ask your prospective client for them to explain.
00:00:55 AKS
A listening life is a business dedicated to helping coaches who are tired of trying to grow their business into something that makes them happy and brings in the money. Podcast events, mentoring and courses. Find us on Instagram at a listening life and through the website listening-life.co.uk
My conversation today is with Toby Mildon. I heard about Toby some years ago when he was working to keep more women in tech at the BBC. He moved then to Deloitte and then out to the world of freelance as what he now calls a diversity and inclusion architect. What a privilege to hear him tell his story as someone who was born with a disability. Overcoming what he describes as psychological complications in giving up a huge job that he got against the norms and expectations of society, where people with a disability are not expected to succeed. So if you have succeeded in getting that big job in that big brand, how dare you step out of it carelessly into freelancing? So interesting, this is me Ally King Smith talking to Toby Mildon online in July 2022. I hope it's really, really helpful to you as you work out the puzzle of building a listening life that pays the bills.
Let's get started then by taking you back to a moment, you can remember. So I knew. I think I saw you first at the BBC and then Deloitte. I could see you there and then you went solo and then there was a moment when you must have thought I can pay my mortgage with this. If you have a mortgage, I can make this work well. Take me back to then, what was going on at that stage see it was real.
00:02:29 TM
So a couple of things happened for me when I was working in the city and thinking about, setting up my own consultancy practice. Being kind of the risk averse person that I am, I felt that I could only do that if I had built up a bit of a financial safety net, which I had managed to do because I was on a good, good salary within, you know, within the city. And that was fairly straightforward for me to do. So I knew that if I didn't bring any income in my new business, and if I was really careful with my spending, I could live without any income for 12 months and I felt that that was something that I could, that I could live with. I had a business mentor who said to me that when your business reaches the VAT threshold, which I think is about £80,000, that is a sign that you have got viable business and that gave me some confidence that I was operating a viable business because I had hit that threshold fairly early on in my new business.
00:03:36 AKS
Amazing. So there'll be loads of people listening to this podcast thinking ohh I dream of hitting the VAT threshold. It would be, you know, it feels miles away so great to capture your story of going from employed to to hitting the VAT threshold when that's a big moment and interesting your now not working as a coach coach, so you have a consultancy specialist consultancy and I I think there's loads for us to learn in that and the you know how to really ramp that up because you did do coaching first, didn't you? Is that right?
00:04:09 TM
Yeah, I did. I trained to be a coach when I was working at the BBC. We had a course that was run internally at the BBC called Coaching Skills for managers and I was an agile project manager. And when you're working as an agile project manager, there is very much like a coaching style to managing projects and managing teams. So that was my introduction and I just loved coaching. And then I just went on and did my own self funded diploma and initially I kind of dabbled with working as an independent coach. I had a couple of personal clients, not enough to live off. But initially, you know really enjoying working in the coaching space. I wanted to be a full time coach and turn it into a business, but I had a bit of a false start, but now I run my own diversity and inclusion consultancy. I use a lot of those coaching skills in the way that I work and the way that I work with clients now anyway.
00:05:16 AKS
Nice. So you do it with the coaching approach through and through. So that's really intriguing to go from all of that. You've said I've heard I had a false start as a coach. I've heard there was a business mentor. There was a kind of. It's like there was a key turn of AHA to something. Can you tell us a bit more about that. What were your Steps in?
00:05:36 TM
Yeah. So when I first trained to be a coach, I initially belonged to various communities helping coaches become successful and run successful practices and I think I just got so caught up in a lot of the the spin. You know, there was a lot of talk about do you niche or don't you niche or what's your niche or yeah how do you become a 6 figure coach it was all really, I don't it. It never really sat well with me. It was all a bit cheesy. And I mean at the time I was still working at the BBC, I managed to reduce my hours at the BBC down to four days a week and then the idea was that one day a week I would take on coaching clients and I did and I took on a couple of corporate coaching clients, which for me seemed to be quite a good fit because I had loads of sort of corporate experience of working in big companies like the BBC and Accenture and British Airways and such like. So I knew how people operated within corporates, and I knew how to kind of talk to corporates in terms of, you know, like going through the procurement procedures and.
00:06:49 AKS
How do they buy? Yes.
00:06:51 TM
Yeah, but I think I just felt I got to a point where I was just like, can I do this full time? And I just didn't think I could and then something else happened at that time. I I moved from being a project manager in technology at the BBC to working on diversity and inclusion, initially I took on a project as a project manager to get more women into technology because you know, within our technology department, only 14% of our team were were women, whereas the BBC had a 5050 gender split. And then I.
00:07:16
Right.
I mean, I quickly realised that actually I wanted to work within the diversity and inclusion space Rather than be a, you know, quote unquote, executive coach freelancing, yeah.
00:07:38 AKS
Sure, the generalist. Yes. So it sounds like there was some finding of purpose finding of specialty there. I think that's a really interesting differentiation between niching and specialising reputation and confidence. They're also wrapped up together but cause. Interesting that you found the niche conversation uncomfortable, and yet you look as if you've absolutely stepped into your core purposeful niche now and it's it's working so.
00:08:06 TM
Yeah, I mean, ironically, I I, I've, I've. I've ended up in my niche, which is diversity and inclusion. And I had some interesting conversations when I first started my consultancy business, my diversity, inclusion consultancy. But also when I was starting off as a coach around meeting. I think the most useful conversation that I had with somebody was that niching is basically like the handle on the mug. It's give somebody something to hang on to so that they understand like what you're all about? And like within the mug you've got, like, obviously, liquid, which represents all of your knowledge and skills and competencies and experience and things like that. But they need something to hang on to, which is the handle, which is just marketing. Basically. You know, Niching is just a marketing technique. So when I when I was started off as a coach first of well, I suppose I kind of gravitated towards the niche of working with people who are in the media sector. Uhm, because I had spent many years working at the BBC within that industry, so I had loads of contacts, loads of experience of how the industry worked and that worked for me. When I set up my divesting inclusion consultancy, I initially started focusing on diversity and inclusion within technology, because a lot of my experience was in within the tech sector, but so many companies approached me who are not technology clients that I've I've actually ended up not not noticing in tech.
00:09:40 AKS
That's interesting because I my experience is there. I think I've talked about it a few times now, but that my experience has been as soon as you attached to a niche, the first thing that happens is someone says I know you normally do this stuff, but there's any chance I could persuade you out of your niche over here So this thought that niche is gonna restrict you market doesn't actually happen. You just it just helps you and then just you people come for you anyway.
00:10:01 TM
Yeah. And from what I've learned over the years, Niching basically helps you give a more focused message out to the world about who you work for and what you stand for. And there's nothing to stop somebody outside of your niche approaching you or you working with them. But it's just a tool. To help you position yourself and make you stand out against other other people because the coaching industry is a very crowded space.
00:10:33 AKS
Yes. I think for me as well, Clearworks certainly when we were really clear about our STEM biotech pharma It it galvanised our what we read and what we stay current with and you know it sort of keeps us on track all the time with because we've got pharmaceuticals in our background, most of us or or at least some science attachment it just reminds you. These are the exhibitions I should be at These are the people who might be interested in what we're doing, just kind of keep serving the marketing conversation all the way through.
00:11:05 TM
It does. It gives you that focus, doesn't it? Because if you don't have that focus, you could go off to all sorts of industry events, you know from pharma through to agriculture and and then and then and then you dilute your your message and you dilute what you stand for as a result.
00:11:22 AKS
Yes, cause it feels overwhelming, doesn't it? When you're in practise you how? Do I stay current? How do I keep on track with all the coaching techniques with all the things are going on in all the industries, just too many to to master more I think it's a a strict to mastery.
00:11:35 TM
There's niching within niching, so like my niche now would be diversity and inclusion. You know, if I wanted to then niche further, I could kind of do it vertically or horizontally, so vertex.Actually, I could say that I'm focusing on a particular industry like the media or pharmaceuticals or whatever. Whatever. I would like to do. Or you could do it horizontally, which is where I might say, well, you know, I'm focusing on a particular element of diversity and inclusion, so it could be like I'm going to specialise on the gender pay gap or I'm going to specialise on disability or I'm going to specialise on culture. Yeah. So there's there's multiple ways of cutting the pie.
00:12:18 AKS
I saw a really great video recently. Tad Hargraves is a guy like on YouTube. I saw him talking. His business is marketing for hippies. I think so. He's got a really clear. But, he says, if you're short of cash and you need to make some money immediately niche niche, niche, niche, niche on your niche and to just go really for so it would be Eddie and I in media in the NW who employ women who, you know, keep on and on and on. If you if you really want to set off quickly. It takes courage to do it. I think that's it's an interesting concept and I know people who are being very successful with no niche whatsoever, but it's just an Interesting way if you're stuck I think to start looking at it and see how it's working.
00:13:01 TM
The the flip side to doing this actually and it's kind of I think you get a similar outcome to Niching is to really get really clear on who your ideal customer is like the more specific the better. So paint a picture of like what your ideal client is. Where they work, what industry they work in, what business they work in, what level they're at, even personal details about what gender they are, what they what, car they drive. Like the more specific you can get because when you go out to market and you say, you know, this is the person that I work with, then you're going to start attracting those people to you. Because they they look at you and they go, OK, this person gets me, you know, they've worked with people like me and they and they understand me.
00:13:49 AKS
Yes, absolutely. Let me take you in a different direction now cause I've spoken to a few people recently who've been struggling with the start of getting going. And you interestingly made the transition successfully pretty quickly from job to self-employed. So there must have been a change in the cadence of your week in the you know how? Did you? What did you do that? First Monday, when it was kind of OK, so it's me and my laptop. How did you get going?
00:14:14 TM
Good question. And I can't remember what my first week was like. It was immediately after Christmas because I left my job in the city just before Christmas, took the Christmas and New Year off, and then started my business like, you know, the very beginning of January, I think from memory, I had already lined up meetings. That was a top priority for me to try and get out and and talk to as many people as possible. And I I wanted to go to those meetings or cups of coffee with people with a very open mind. I went in in kind of exploratory and discovery mode. I had no agenda other than to understand what my potential clients who were either heads of HR. Or people working within the diversity and inclusion space were struggling with in their jobs. So that I could start to think about what solutions I might be able to help with and that that was kind of priority number one for me. You know, I didn't really have a product per say. Other than me and my my experience, I didn't have a website. I didn't have any marketing kind of going on, so that was my starting point.
00:15:32 AKS
So asking the questions first, that feels really linked to what you were saying before about working out what the problems are you're trying to solve and and who for. So you went to exploring first, and that also links back to your safety net of cash that you've built for yourself. So you've got some time to ask these questions before you need to earn the the crust.
00:15:50 TM
Yeah, absolutely.
00:15:51 AKS
And what about things like organising your day or getting your admin done? Or do you do anything around Mondays to do this Friday to do that? Or does it It's all. Mines mayhem. I'm just asking cause some people seem to have some order.
00:16:05 TM
Yeah. No, I'm. I am a really organised, structured person, yet they're incredibly most instructed and I do a very good job at managing like the tasks that I have to do, you know, making sure that things on my To Do List get sorted. I I didn't really have any structure.
00:16:11
Right.
00:16:27 TM
Other than you know, my my week is very structured as in yeah, I live out of my calendar so my tasks live in my calendar.
00:16:33
Right.
00:16:36 Speaker 2
All of my meetings live in my calendar. I go for a weekly client planning process with me and my PA where I make sure that any client work that I have to do. Is in my calendar as a task, so that that you know I don't drop the ball on actually getting client work done. So yeah, that's how I organise myself.
I think also actually one of my main concerns was whether I would. I'm not really a morning person so my my my biggest concern actually when I first started out on my own was whether I would get up in the morning early enough to actually take advantage of the day. And my friend who runs his own business said, you know what? When when you don't have a regular salary coming in from the job, that is enough to motivate you to get out of bed and do something and start bringing the money in. And and he's he was absolutely right.
00:17:29 AKS
Yes, there's lesson and also knowing that you're working on your own chosen purpose isn't the motivation just comes when you've picked the work. It's not like you're doing somebody else's work that you don't wanna be doing.
00:17:38 TM
Yeah, I I'm doing something I love, which is diversity and inclusion and working with clients and also I'm building my own business. So I'm creating something and it feels great to be creating something of my own that I'm doing for myself rather than building a business for somebody else.
00:17:56 AKS
Yeah, for sure.I'm intrigued about some of the the beliefs that you held about yourself as you made the transition. Cause I I carry all carry still. Carry all sorts of stories from my childhood of how unsafe it is to be self-employed and how risky it all is and I have to wrestle, that's our lifes work for me. To kind ff wrestle that to the ground. I've been in business now, I think 10 years nearly. And apparently it's working, but I struggle to convince myself that it's not high risk time. How did you? So you put your years worth of money to one side but us alongside that you describing risk averse. So how did you get yourself out and start. What did you need to to do?
00:18:38 TM
And I went through my own personal journey of understanding myself. So I I had coaching and and psychotherapy. And I think going through that process helped me understand my my fears and anxieties. But I don't know it. It was a dream of mine to run my own business for a long time.
But I was always I suppose I just stayed in the safety and comfort of working for a company and having a regular paycheck coming in, but also working for businesses that were high profile so it felt good to work for the BBC because I never had to explain to somebody who the BBC was. Everyone knows who the BBC is and and people like often look at it very admirably as well, and that was difficult to walk away from. If I'm on this, that kind of That that kudos or that status and wrapped up in that was a whole bunch of kind of psychological complications around like you know, my identity as somebody who's got a disability that was born with a disability that, you know, disabled people are very often sort of, then they're not encouraged to succeed.
00:19:47
Right.
00:19:53 TM
They're not expected to have. You know, high profile jobs in high profile organisations and you know, I had ended up working in a high profile job in a high profile company and that was difficult to walk away from because that was that was, you know, working against those assumptions that people make about people with disabilities, about what they can and can. So so I had to. I really had to navigate that before I felt confident enough to say, you know what? I'm gonna Jack in my job in the city and you know and and set up my own company.
00:20:29 AKS
Ah, that's amazing. Hearing you describe that you're to to crack the thing that's supposed to be uncrackable and then say. Do you know whatI'm off anyway. I'm gonna do something else. That's fantastic. Yeah. Congratulations on making the step. It's awesome. I've loved watching you and develop your your brand and your certainty on LinkedIn. So I haven't actually met you until couple of weeks ago so. It feels like you've been. I've been watching you kind of take a step this way and then, yeah, this is a sure step I'm gonna go a bit faster a bit further in that direction. It is that how it's felt for you? That's what it's looked like from here.
00:21:07 TM
Yeah. When I first set up my company, I didn't have a grand plan. I didn't have a 5 year plan, a 10 year plan or anything like that all I knew at the time was that I wanted to set up my own diversity and inclusion consultancy and work with multiple organisations. I had no idea what I would do, Who I would work with. What my products would be anything like that and but things just evolve and develop. And and part of my learning has been but I I I need to be OK with not having that plan and to just let things evolve and develop and grow. And there's been a few things along the way that's helped I've I've had lots of coaching and mentoring, which I think is really important, particularly when you're going from like employment to entrepreneurship and maybe, and you don't have an entrepreneurial background. The more coaching and mentoring you can get, the better. People who've been there done it, learn from mistakes that can help you take shortcuts and, you know, avoid the same mistakes, that kind of thing is really useful. And then it's there's a lot around mindset as well. So I read things that changed my mindset, books, podcasts, that kind of thing.
00:22:24 AKS
It feels very smooth at the moment, what we're describing all bells and nice smells. So let's explore the stuff that was hard or didn't work or, you know, things that you've learned from love to hear about some of those stories.
00:22:35 SpTM
Yes, I I say I haven't made any like major mistakes that I regret, but I I could warn people about avoiding. Yeah, I've learned a lot along the way. So thing is when you set up your own business, you have to become the head of every department. So I'm the head of finance and I'm the head of marketing and I'm the head of product development and I'm the head of HR. You know, all of those kinds of things. I think probably what I found is the most. Challenging and difficult in a way is like sales. I enjoy sales, but equally I find it really frustrating. Yeah. For example, you know, I've spent loads of time talking to prospective clients and writing proposals and and and then those like leads just go nowhere. And I just feel like that prospective client has just picked my brains for free and taken me for a bit of a ride. But I I put myself through sales training to help me, you know, navigate that and be a better salesperson and and that was the process of me identifying that area of development. The other thing I've learned is that it's really important to actually have a good bunch of people around you. And like your one of your top priorities as a Entrepreneur is to build a team now. That team can be all sorts of different shapes and sizes and forms, but it is important that you actually start to build a group of people around you who are fantastic at their particular specialty that can fit into your bigger plan. And when I say team, yeah, my team is up now. I've got a employee who's on my team like full time. I've got a freelance PA who does sort of part time hours for me during the I've got a collection of various freelancers who I can call on when needed. So yeah, I've got a graphic design and a videographer writer, that kind of thing. And The thing is, I've picked them because they are amazing at what they do, all of them, and I need their particular skill to help the bigger picture of my my business.
00:24:57 AKS
Yes, we've just had. A picnic actually at clear works wear I have an employee in the business and then a a very valued long standing freelance team. And and it took me a while to register that people actually Want to behave as a team, even when they're freelance they want to gather it's nice to go out to play together. So we've just said this lovely afternoon as as we would.If if we were in employment. And quite often when people say they're lonely in self-employment, I just think there are steps you could probably take to to reach out to people that would like to gather they'd like. I'd like to be a team so forming teams just to not real teams Is part of the joy of it, isn't it?
00:25:33 TM
Exactly. Virtual teams and ironically like. Obviously we we we both operate small businesses and we rely on freelancers and such like to get our business moving. But so many large organisations are now operating virtual teams because of the you know, the pandemic. And there's loads of people who are working from home all week who are isolated. It's physically from that team. Yeah. And a lot of my clients are that that, you know, they're really having to think about how they have that team spirit going on for people who are working remotely.
00:26:11 AKS
Yes. So it's a shared pain there. It's not a freelancer pain. Everybody's got it. We can all learn from each other. I guess it means clients are available actually to gather with us as well. So potentially we could be meeting with them more often. Yeah, I'm just going to go back to what you describing of sales, because I think I take it for granted people understand what sales is and what marketing is, what the differences are. And one of the reasons I actually started this podcast was noticing that people are struggling with that Sales and marketing and the whole area really. When you talk about sales? What? What do you mean by sales, which bittered it is sales for you.
00:26:47 TM
So the biggest distinction that I made on my kind of sales training was that actually there's three parts to it. Serving, selling and clothing serving is basically the marketing side of things. You know it's it's it's putting content out there, you know, educational content, I I my marketing strategy is very much kind of like educational and informative content that people can engage with. That's kind of like what I do to just raise my profile. And let people know that I Exist. That's the. That's the serving element sales I think loads of people have a misunderstanding about what sales actually Is, but I think it's so easy for us coaches actually, because for me, good selling is just good coaching.If you have a sales meeting, it's about spending 80% of your time listening to the really good questions that you ask your prospective client for them to explain, and there there's certain questions that you want to ask in the sales conversation to help qualify whether this person is the right.
For you and your organisation, so you know, for example, you want to make sure that they've got the money. Spend with you or that kind of thing, but you can spend a lot of your time just asking questions to like, try and understand what their pains and problems and issues are. That's just asking really good coaching questions.
00:28:10 AKS
Yes, yes. Yeah, that's a lovely really nice link and I would encourage anyone listening to this who's a coach thinking I hate selling to tell themselves I am a really good at selling because I'm really good at understanding empathising. Listening and helping people form new thoughts, but that is sales, isn't it?
00:28:35 TM
Yeah, that is sales by.
00:28:35 AKS
This this horror of sales we've all got It's not, not, A thing if we're going for the problem we're trying to solve problems and make solutions for people, yeah.
00:28:44 TM
And my my sales coach that I worked with, he's got this little mantra, which is if you're explaining, you're losing. So if you're, if you're going into a sales conversation and you're just. Telling somebody what you do and explaining how you work. Then you're losing, and obviously in the conversation, obviously you know you've got it, it's a back and forth conversation.It's not just you, as the the coach asking questions and not saying anything because the client will want to know things like what are your prices or how do you work. But one thing I learned. Just kind of have this this push and pull technique which is answer their question but then follow it up with another question. So if they say something like So what are your fees then you can say? Well, my clients can start working with me for as little as £50 and I work 1:00 to 1:00 with private clients for £50,000 per annum. When when you last engaged with the coach, how much did you spend with them? You know, that's a good question. For corporates in particular.
00:29:48 AKS
Yeah, for sure. What were you imagining? What's your kind of budget that you're looking to? Yeah, absolutely.
That's really interesting. So serving, selling. And then the last one was closing, so.
00:29:57 TM
Chasing, yeah.
00:29:58 AKS
What did you have to develop as a skill to close.
00:30:02 TM
So first of all, ask for the close. So many people, believe it or not, don't actually ask for the clothes, cause we've got so much fear about money, particularly. I think it's very British thing not to talk about money. So first of all, ask for the clothes, and then the second thing I learned was to begin with the end in mind to kind of steal what Stephen Covey would say. So when you're going into a closing conversation, start with that. So just if you're on the phone with the prospective client, just say. My intention of today's conversation is to get you booked on to your coaching programme. I mean the the coach that I've been working with says that selling is hard. Closing is easy, so if you do a good job in sales, actually the clothes should come easy. A client shouldn't move into the closing phase. Unless you feel confident that you've done a good job on selling and that they that you are a perfect match for each other. But in theory, then the closing should become easy cause all basically all you're all you're doing is confirm.
00:31:02 AKS
Yes. Well that's that's very reassuring, isn't it, that you don't try and close? I think that that they squirmy 1980s sales programmes that made you close and close and and alternative closes and assumptive closes. I think the days that have passed Aren't they the? The relationship is tight. The consulting has happened. The questions have been asked. The client has. Obviously made it clear I love this and this would fit. And then the closing conversation is what? What would you like to? Do about what? What's the timing? What's the Budget and getting to it.
00:31:32 TM
Yeah, it's asking the right questions. And so one thing I learned is that and anyone who's done coaching will will immediately understand this, but it's going to avoid questions that bring no into play. So a poor closing question would be. So I are you are, you know, do you feel ready to? To to go ahead with this coaching programme because that gives an opportunity for the prospective client to say. Well, no, actually I'm not ready. I haven't spoken to my partner. I haven't signed off with the boss. Whereas if you ask a good coach coaching question, like when do you want to get started on your coaching programme, we can start next week or we can start next month, which works best for you.
00:32:16
Right.
00:32:16 TM
That's a better way of doing it.
00:32:18 AKS
Sure. I think I've I've found. Over the years, some of it is get feel, isn't it of when? When you know someone who does love it but they genuinely don't want to progress just yet for for a reason, compared with someone who's probably just nicking your ideas and putting it. Into the proposal. It's and sometimes you get that wrong, but I think part of the journey is is getting it wrong and trying it and actually realising nobody dies. If you accidentally try and close something that's not ready to close, or you know. Just sometimes it goes wrong. And it's all fine as a result. Yeah, and and the sale, the sales part of the process is to try and weed out those objections.
00:32:59 TM
So make you know, make sure that you are talking to the person who is the decision maker and the budget holder, and make sure that there is actually a problem to be solved or needs to be filled, that there's a sense of urgency around that that they need this thing now, because if there's no urgency around it, they'll just keep putting it off.
00:33:20 Speaker 1Yeah, I did some lovely work with a a coach mentor called Chris Gardner, who runs strategic mentors and and.
00:33:28 Speaker 1
He, he said. Really, if you're if you're talking to the right person about the things that keep them awake at night and you're genuinely serving a problem, there should be no issue with closing or or with providing proposals and and pitches, because actually you've aligned that way before you've got to that moment. So I think that's reassuring for a coach.
00:33:48 Speaker 1
If you're listening and talking properly, you you won't make a misstep. In that sense, you'll be providing the solution that.
00:33:53 Speaker 1
They're looking for.
00:33:55 Speaker 1
Yeah. So final expression about profit and pricing and how you got your courage to know what to charge and you know, getting started with that, you had a.
00:34:05 Speaker 1
Bit of a.
00:34:06 Speaker 1
Cheat. Start that you've been on the on.
00:34:08 Speaker 1
The supplier end of the pictures I guess. So you'd had some insight into what people were pitching. Maybe. How did you know where to?
00:34:15 Speaker 1
Start with all that.
00:34:16 Speaker 2
Well, it's a bit of a minefield where to begin because there's different ways of looking at this. So some of what I do.
00:34:26 Speaker 2
Is training that I've developed that I can just rock up to a client, deliver A2 hour workshop and leave again, that kind of thing for me is is a fixed price and it was a bit of trial and error.
00:34:42 Speaker 2
I I would be talking to a prospective client and I would say OK, this workshop is you know.
00:34:48 Speaker 2
£4000 and there we go.
00:34:51 Speaker 2
Ohh, that's a bit. That's a bit too much and I was like OK then and and and luckily I I think I built the relationship with.
00:34:59 Speaker 2
Where I could say to them. OK, So what? You know, what do you think is a a a fairer price and they would go well.
00:35:05 Speaker 2
We were thinking more than £3000, yeah, but range. And I was like, OK, I'll do that training for three grand.
00:35:12 Speaker 2
And that that was my initial strategy. So when the next customer came along.
00:35:18 Speaker 2
And said how much is that training? I'd say that's three grand because I knew.
00:35:22 Speaker 2
Previous client was had paid it and I kind of I I then followed this like stepping stone approach to test the market.
00:35:31 Speaker 2
So after I got like 5 sales at £3000 for a particular workshop, I would then increase the price to three and a half £1000 so the next client that would come along I'll say go.
00:35:41 Speaker 2
Like 3 1/2.
00:35:42 Speaker 2
Grand to see if they pay it now you get to a point eventually where you start to notice people are not not wanting to pay that. So you you know you've reached your your threshold. So that's kind of 1 technique I've used.
00:35:58 Speaker 2
The other thing that I'm looking into is this more for like the consultancy piece of work is around value based pricing.
00:36:08 Speaker 2
So creating a price for a project that represents the value that you're delivering to a client, yeah. Now the work that I do isn't very it. It's quite difficult to ascertain what that value is.
00:36:21 Speaker 2
But initially what you you need to kind of understand the minimum price which is you are you have to work out the cost of delivering a.
00:36:29 Speaker 2
Project. Mm-hmm.
00:36:31 Speaker 2
And then work out what profit you want on top and that's your price.
00:36:35 Speaker 2
So if I I don't know, an example would be. I've been working with the client to create.
00:36:41 Speaker 2
12 months like a a bespoke 12 month inclusive leadership training programme for their 150 top managers in.
00:36:50 Speaker 2
The business.
00:36:51 Speaker 2
Yeah. And I I kind of like did an initial design of training, which they paid for as as kind of separate package.
00:36:58 Speaker 2
And then when they said to me that's great, you know, can we actually deliver and how much it's gonna cost?
00:37:03 Speaker 2
I then said I then did some calculations of how much would it actually cost me to design and deliver this training for a year to the client?
00:37:10 Speaker 2
What kind of profit do I want to make? And I added that on top and that gives me my price.
00:37:15 Speaker 2
But that's also different to what the value how much the client would value, because value is in the mind of the consumer, not the mind of the, you know, the coach or the consultant.
00:37:27 Speaker 1
Yeah, it's it's sometimes hard to truly believe the value as well, isn't it? We did some calculations.
00:37:32 Speaker 1
And if so?
00:37:34 Speaker 1
We ran a coaching circle for eight female leaders in science, and three leaders didn't leave who were going, who might have left if.
00:37:42 Speaker 1
They were not belonging.
00:37:43 Speaker 1
In part of the circle.
00:37:45 Speaker 1
And when you do the sums, it's.
00:37:47 Speaker 1
So mind-blowing they high.
00:37:48
You think? Yeah, I.
00:37:49 Speaker 1
Can't possibly charge that much, but that genuinely is how much money this will save you if you if you run this.
00:37:54
Nice pick up.
00:37:55 Speaker 1
So then sometimes we say so that would be a mad amount, so.
00:37:59 Speaker 1
What 20% of that? What would? Yeah, what's a reasonable amount?
00:38:02 Speaker 1
Of that to actually charge.
00:38:04 Speaker 2
Yeah, the general rule of thumb is well, from what I've learned so far is somewhere between 10 and 20%.
00:38:10 Speaker 2
And I I can do that, you know? And I so I can calculate, for example, the attrition cost to the business of losing people because they don't feel like they belong to the organisation and when.
00:38:24 Speaker 2
When I worked at Deloitte, the the partner that I worked for did this calculation. We got some data out of our HR system.
00:38:31 Speaker 2
And we looked at the number of women leaving the firm because of work, life balance reasons, and the figure was astonishing.
00:38:41 Speaker 2
It ran into the millions every year. So whenever Emma was trying to persuade the rest of the partners to like, put money into diversity and inclusion, she was like.
00:38:51 Speaker 2
Right, I've got 1 1/2 million pounds or whatever it was. It's.
00:38:54 Speaker 2
High on the table, are we just gonna leave it there, you know, or are we going to spend £20,000 on on something that might actually prevent these women from leaving the organisation?
00:39:07 Speaker 2
And and I think that gives you confidence to to understand your what price you can charge when you know what value you can give to the business?
00:39:16 Speaker 1
And that that thinking is lovely for any coach to do, whether it's to an organisation or to a personal client, that what is it worth for you to?
00:39:24 Speaker 1
Buy this.
00:39:25 Speaker 1
And what's it worth for you to not buy it? You have and have the outcome of not investing in this.
00:39:29 Speaker 1
What would it be like for you so you can have those conversations in a cringe, cringy way, but you can also.
00:39:34 Speaker 1
Have them in a very gentle.
00:39:36 Speaker 1
Genuinely, what would? What's the pain of not taking action here?
00:39:39 Speaker 1
What would that be?
00:39:39 Speaker 1
Like and I think it's very good.
00:39:41 Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
00:39:42 Speaker 1
Useful tools.
00:39:44 Speaker 1
Just before we're finished, would just.
00:39:46 Speaker 1
Love to get your final.
00:39:47 Speaker 1
Sort of summary.
00:39:48 Speaker 1
Of if you, if you could give some advice, some lessons learned to these coaches who are either newly qualified and thinking what the heck or they've been trying a while and finding it difficult and what would you look back and say would be advice for you to pass?
00:40:04
So on.
00:40:04 Speaker 2
So I would recommend starting with what I call the business fundamentals and that is understanding who your perfect client is and what problems they're facing and really understanding that. And then go on a journey of discovery to make Connexions with your ideal clients.
00:40:25 Speaker 2
And think about ways in which you could solve their problems. Once you've got that understanding, there's kind of two other things that I think needs to happen. One.
00:40:35 Speaker 2
And is that you need to position yourself as an expert in the field to address that particular problem, and there's multiple ways of establishing yourself as an, as an expert or an authority on that particular topic. You know, one of the things that I did was that I wrote a book inclusive growth.
00:40:55 Speaker 2
And I basically brain dumped all of my knowledge about how to implement diversity and inclusion sustainably within organisation.
00:41:04 Speaker 2
And published that as a book, and that is a fantastic tool for me to use to to position me as an authority or an expert that I actually know what I'm talking about.
00:41:14 Speaker 2
But you know there are multiple other things out there that you can do. And then the third element is really thinking about how you can package up.
00:41:24 Speaker 2
What you do into a product of some sort and then that will help you with the marketing side of things, the pricing side of the.
00:41:33 Speaker 2
Things it just gives you something to to sell something tangible. So I think a lot of work that consultants and trainers and coaches do is it's not particularly tangible, but you need something tangible for people to grab onto.
00:41:50 Speaker 1
Yes, it's a really nice way of changing a service offering to a product offer.
00:41:54 Speaker 1
Or something to buy.
00:41:55 Speaker 1
Yes, we've found that productizing has been really interesting to us over the last few years where actually I think sometimes when you're an expert in a field, even something particularly nebulous like coaching, you feel as if everyone understands what.
00:42:08 Speaker 1
You're talking about.
00:42:09 Speaker 1
But actually when we've given something a name like.
00:42:11 Speaker 1
We've got one.
00:42:12 Speaker 1
Programme called Lab to leadership, obviously taking.
00:42:15 Speaker 1
Science techies into their leadership.
00:42:17 Speaker 1
Confidence. And we've been doing that for donkeys years.
00:42:20 Speaker 1
That actually calling it that people are kind.
00:42:22 Speaker 1
Of ohh I see what you're doing here.
00:42:23
Think ohh I could.
00:42:25 Speaker 1
Have mentioned that before what we're actually causing.
00:42:27 Speaker 2
Yeah, because when I took that product, it's not about having like nice fancy packaging. It can be something. It's like having a nice catchy name for your programme, having like a brochure, even if it's like one or two slides of a four.
00:42:41 Speaker 2
Just having something like a brochure or an explainer video, or I don't know anything that that just makes it tangible.
00:42:50 Speaker 2
Whether price attached, you know, like you don't go into an apple shop and go. I'm really interested in that iPhone.
00:42:55 Speaker 2
How much is it? And they go? I'm not sure. Depends what you want. Depends what you're looking for. You know, they're very clear on what price the iPhone.
00:43:03 Speaker 2
So yeah, and and that that's kind of like the.
00:43:07 Speaker 2
The productizing of what you do.
00:43:09 Speaker 1
Yeah. No. So this is who I am. This is what you'd get. This is how I'd do it. This is how much, much it would cost you to do.
00:43:16 Speaker 1
It and they, can they.
00:43:17 Speaker 1
Can love it or ask.
00:43:18 Speaker 1
More questions? Yeah.
00:43:19 Speaker 2
Or if we were to simplify even further, it's like it's like.
00:43:24 Speaker 2
This is who I work for and the problems I I help those people solve. This is who I am and This is why I'm an expert. To help you with those problems.
00:43:33 Speaker 2
And this is what I've got to to solve your.
00:43:36 Speaker 1
Needs. So a big thank you to Toby Mildon smashing freelancing with style and giving us loads of food for thought about how to own your thought leadership, create products and offers that make sense to clients and having the courage to.
00:43:49 Speaker 1
Ask for the.
00:43:49 Speaker 1
Business. I'm off to order his book inclusive growth.
00:43:53 Speaker 1
Very taken with Toby's reminder that staying curious about your clients problems and needs is 100% of core coaching competency.
00:44:00 Speaker 1
So if you're uncomfortable selling, maybe tell yourself that you're asking questions that are very likely to help your client clarify and progress and move out.
00:44:08 Speaker 1
Of the sales.
00:44:09 Speaker 1
Cringe. Thank you, Toby, for taking the time to explore so many rich scenes with me. Fab to hear and inspiring. I hope to anyone else building a listening life. My huge thanks to producer.
00:44:20 Speaker 1
Steve Holland and to Lauryn Hills at.
00:44:22 Speaker 1
Queue a listening life is a business dedicated to helping coaches who are tired of trying to grow their business into something that makes them happy and brings in the money.
00:44:30 Speaker 1
Podcast events, mentoring and courses. Find us on Instagram at a listening life and through the website listeninghyphenlife.co.uk.
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