Emerge + Expand
Recording #28: 028 The Power of Story Telling Marketing with Brook McCarthy
Katherine Mackenzie-Smith 00:00:00 00:01:51 Play
This is The Emerge and Expand Podcast, a place for introverted and sensitive souls who are trying to cut through the noise online and create success in their own businesses on their own terms. I'm your host, Catherine Mackenzie Smith and I'm so glad that you're here. Hi and welcome to another episode of The Emergent. Expand podcast. I have another interview in the Do Business Different Friendly Interview series for you today, but before we get into it, I just wanted to remind you about my new Get Out of Your Head and Get Into Action seven day journey called One Step at a Time. It is completely free. You can download it@katherinemckenzismith.com journey and if you're listening to this, between the 6th and the 13 July, I'm running three free live stream sessions in my introvert, friendly business community. So if you'd like to come along to that, all of the details will be in the show notes or head to Catherineckenzismiths.com journey to get all of the details and first access to the guide when it's available. Now, let me introduce you to the guest for today's Do Business Differently interview. It is my friend Brooke McCarthy, who I met when I was very early in my business back in Sydney at a B school meetup back in the day. And I just really appreciated Brooke's no BS approach to business and the stories that she tells, not just in her life, but also through her marketing messaging. So I'm really excited to share this conversation with you today as well. Brooke works with values based business owners who deliver professional services through business coaching, training courses and Masterminds to equip owners to earn consistent ten K months while magnifying their impact without burning out, getting overwhelmed or overspending on team tech or other fancy stuff. Hi Brooke, I'm so excited to reconnect with you today and have an amazing conversation with you.
Me too, me too. It's been six years, at least six.
Katherine Mackenzie-Smith 00:01:58 00:02:03 Play
Years since I was living in Sydney and was probably the last time that we got to see each other.
Indeed, long time ago.
Katherine Mackenzie-Smith 00:02:06 00:02:21 Play
I know. So great to reconnect and I know this conversation is just going to be so juicy today. I can already tell from the chat we had before we started recording how good it's going to be because there's so many things that we could talk about and I'm excited to see how that plays out.
Yeah, we're like, come on, we have to hit record. This is.
Katherine Mackenzie-Smith 00:02:26 00:02:36 Play
The good stuff. But just for anyone who is listening who isn't across your work, can you start by just telling us a little bit about what you do and who you support?
Yes, I'm a business coach. Please don't hold that against me. I'm also a business trainer and I work with soloists and business owners. They tend to come from the health sector as well as creative sector. So I do tend to attract a lot of writers and videographers and generally kind of creative people, even if they don't consider themselves creative, even if what their work isn't kind of obviously creative, they are still creatives and sensitive folk, critical thinkers and most often women. So I do have some men, mainly gay, but the majority of my clients are female, and a lot of them are over 40 as well. Now, you said, don't hold that against me.
Katherine Mackenzie-Smith 00:03:29 00:03:40 Play
So that actually brings me to a question that I really like to ask. What is it about the work that you do and when maybe you started your business that made you want to do business differently from how others in your industry do it?
How long have you got? So many things. And in fact, I find it personally really motivating to look at other people doing a shockingly shit job of something, and I think, oh, God, like, I almost feel a moral obligation. You know, I can think off the top of my head at least three instances. There was one time I was just about to quit social media marketing. I found it sorry, social media marketing training. I found it very hard work to deliver that. I found people got highly emotional, and I was like, I'm done with this. I'm too old to be teaching it anyway. Let the young kids teach this. And then I went to a business event. There were about 300 people in the room. It was one of those events where you know you're going to get pitched because the ticket is free or the tickets cheap, and they pack people in, and they got the credit card machines out the back near the doors. I wasn't paying much attention when I booked it, but it was all about social media marketing. And the guy who shall remain nameless was standing on stage giving the worst, most unworkable advice to a room full of small business owners that I kind of felt morally obligated to keep going.
Katherine Mackenzie-Smith 00:04:53 00:04:59 Play
I have to say, when you just said that, I was like, I have definitely had periods like that.
Yes. And a compliment that I get a lot from clients is that I'm honest. And I find that that's, like a recurring compliment. I find that a really weird compliment. And it just makes me think, what the hell are you who are you interacting with that I stand out as an honest person anyway? Yeah.
Katherine Mackenzie-Smith 00:05:26 00:05:33 Play
You think that that should just be a standard, and the fact that that's something that stands out to people surely says a lot.
Absolutely. This should be like, the bare minimum. This should be the price of entry. Is that you're honest?
Katherine Mackenzie-Smith 00:05:43 00:06:20 Play
That's wild. Actually, I need to take a moment to just recover from that. Look, there are so many different directions that I know that we can go talking about this. And I know coaching is one that you and I both are in, but also have many, many opinions about. So I guess when we're talking about standing out and having this moral obligation to show up in that way, can you give us any examples of if you've got a slick marketing message? It can be really easy for people to get kind of caught up in that versus actually what people should be looking for when they're deciding who they want to work with as a business coach.
Yeah, I think that there are so many things to consider here and I'm just trying to pull out all the different threads in my mind while I sound articulate and hopefully funny. But I think that coaching at its best is unbelievable. It's amazing. It's the best job in the world. Both being a coach is amazing and receiving coaching is phenomenal. And I wish that everybody had access and that this was something really normal and not something that's in vogue or different or unusual. And then having said that, I think it potentially puts you in a position as a coach. It potentially puts you in a position of great power, which means that it is a position that you can abuse. And I don't know if you remember, but I did a religious studies degree and I studied cults at university and I also accidentally joined a cult.
Katherine Mackenzie-Smith 00:07:22 00:07:22 Play
Good news.
They were very lovely, seventy s free love and mung beans kind of cult. So it was a lovely experience. Not a koolaid cult, not one of those weird cults. Apart from all of the meditation, full moon and all this stuff, it was a tantric Hindu cult for those who are interested. And the guru was from Calcutta. He died in about 1990. Anyway, point being is it made me kind of very sensitive to abuse of power. And with the benefit of hindsight, the wisdom of hindsight, I think I've been scared of my own power and scared of my own leadership. And for many years, when I felt like clients and others were looking up to me or respecting me, it caused this weird reaction in me whereby I really didn't like it. I think it's always really useful not to put anyone on a pedestal because we are all normal slobs. We are all human. And being a coach doesn't make you some kind of Buddha. I think that's a popular misconception that because you're a coach, you somehow have all your shit together and you never feel jealous and you never get angry and you never say things you regret. And that is far from the truth. It is sometimes a bit of a minefield. And I have a big screening process. Normally by the time I get on a sales call with somebody who wants one to one coaching, they've filled out two different forms. And then during that sales call, I'm vetting them, so to speak. It's not a very nice word, is it? I'm trying to find out. I'm trying to feel into. Are we a good fit personality wise, will you get an excellent return on investment? Are we the kind of personality that fits together like hot chips and Seagulls? Because I don't want to get into a situation where there's a weird dynamic and to learn from experience, sometimes hard experience, what personality types go well with my personality type and what personality types don't. Because how I approach business is I want my clients and myself to be a mutual admiration society of two equal consenting adults who are both bouncing off each other's ideas and energy and are both kind of benefiting. It's like a win win relationship. And so as a consequence, I'd probably turn down more people than I'd take on. And the other thing too is that I think one to one business coaching is expensive and group business coaching is an excellent alternative that tends to be a hell of a lot more cost effective as well.
Katherine Mackenzie-Smith 00:10:37 00:11:58 Play
One thing that really I'd love to go a little bit more into is this idea of the power or the imbalance of that I think power dynamic or that dynamic that, like you said, can be as coaches, something we need to be cautious of. But I think also as clients, as consumers of content, as people who are usually when you go into business, interested and curious and learning new skills all the time. And one thing that I often say to my clients who are more introverted, more highly sensitive, that when you have an energy field that is affected by the energy of other people, being really mindful and grounded in our own sovereignty is so important because that boundary can get really word. And I say to people, I've said this to so many clients over the years, which I don't know if it's a bit harsh, stop trying to give me all your power. Because that's something that people do prey on, I think. And we see this in sales and marketing, messaging and tactics. But I think as well, we all need to take responsibility for our own boundaries as well and actually stop seeing people who maybe we think are making more money than us or who have more followers than we do, or are our coach or someone that we're learning from actually stop handing our power over to them and be really mindful of that too. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Yeah, I mean, I think you've hit the nail. The hammer the nail anyway, you've hit something. I think to bring in another metaphor, you bang on. There's so many things you said there and so I'm going to try and pull out the different threads because I think you said something about taking responsibility. I think you were also referring to the fact that there's a lot of charlatans and that beware that we need to do our due diligence. And you also talked about sensitivity and empathy. Let me try and address those amazing.
Katherine Mackenzie-Smith 00:12:42 00:12:43 Play
Sorting out my.
Self here because I'm like, Shit, there's so many things to say. I might start