Kirsty Knight:
Hello, my friend. Welcome to this episode of the podcast, where I’m going to be talking to the fabulous Helen Thacker, who is a sales and strategy coach who’s going to be helping you today become more effective in your messaging, in your content. And the reason why we’re going to go into that is because for most online business owners and most business owners nowadays, I would say, who are doing organic marketing and even paid ads, like any kind of marketing, really, and trying to create sales through their marketing, a ton of their time will be spent creating content for that. And if they’re posting content and their messaging is off, if it’s not resonating, you won’t be making the sales that you want and that time essentially will be being wasted. And I’m all about saving you time. So welcome to the podcast, Helen.
Helen Thacker:
Thank you for being oh, thank you so much for having me, Kirsty. I’m really excited to share today. Thanks for listening, everyone.
Kirsty Knight:
Amazing. So give us a proper introduction to you, maybe how you came to start your business and also something unusual that you can share about yourself.
Helen Thacker:
Fantastic. So. Yes, I’m Helen. It’s great to meet everybody on the podcast. So I am a sales and strategy coach, as you said, and I help online business owners, particularly coaches, to accelerate their sales with the two core skills that I know are so often neglected, but which are absolute prerequisites for success. And that is profitable, clear messaging and gentle, sophisticated sales. That’s what I practice and I absolutely love it. And I just adore what I do because it makes such a huge impact.
Helen Thacker:
Those are skills that so many people forget to go and learn or they go and think, well, I need to learn, focus on industry skills, or perhaps go and have some coaching about how to be a coach. And then they don’t realize or they often are in denial that they actually are in sales and they need to learn those skills. Unfortunately, we have to put the money in our bank account. We do that by selling our expertise. So I love it because I actually help my clients to really elevate the level of their income potential. Let’s really kind of very clearly articulate the value of what they do. They’re incredible talents and therefore it allows when you do that, it allows you to really raise your prices and make more money. And it’s all about how you message yourself, how you market yourself, how you get attention, how you create demand.
Helen Thacker:
So, yeah, we were talking before we started about what’s the unusual thing that I do, and I was thinking about my journey. You asking me how I got here and before I was actually in coaching about six years ago now. Well, actually, it’s going back about ten years. I started, I was actually secretly very creative and I had an award winning wedding cake design company so even though I was a big fat fail at art in school, I definitely had some kind of creative skills. And I created this wedding cake business from nowhere. It was so bizarre. Turned a hobby into a business and actually turned out to be really successful. So, yeah, that is a kind of a lesson in don’t necessarily listen to what your grades tell you at school.
Helen Thacker:
You can absolutely find a different way around them. And also, it ties back to my entire journey that you asked me about. So it’s been a long kirsty. It’s definitely been a long journey. And I really hope that this inspires anybody who’s listening that might be thinking, I don’t really know where I’m going. This is taking forever. I promise you, you’re on the right path. And each business that I’ve had, each of the four businesses that I’ve grown from scratch, two of which have taken to beyond six figures, it’s all been a path, it’s all been a journey to get me to where I am now.
Helen Thacker:
And it makes sense. The common thread is sales, and the common thread is the style that I actually use to sell, and that is this gentle, sophisticated sales approach. It started coming out of finance. I was actually an accountant with Pricewaterhouse Coopers, possibly the worst hire that they’d ever made. And I moved sideways into recruitment for accountants, then very quickly realized that in that process, I was very much left on my own to learn my own kind of sales techniques. I had no training. And the lesson there was that I realized it was about building strong relationships. It was about really listening very carefully to what my clients needed and then supplying that.
Helen Thacker:
And I took this kind of relationship building approach throughout my career, left the company I was with, and went and set up my own financial recruitment firm, which was highly successful. I hit like a revenue of over 100,000 within 18 months, and I loved it. But I had a bit of a pause for have my two beautiful boys. And then I went into my wedding cake business again from scratch. It was one of those things where I started a hobby and turned it into a business, and it was the right thing to do at the right time. But again, not thinking I was in sales, and this is a common mistake that people make. I thought I was just making cakes. I thought I was a baker, I was a designer.
Helen Thacker:
But it was all about relationship building. It was all about selling, and it was all about really creating those connections with the brides and the grooms and delivering what they wanted, having listened to what they were telling me they needed for their big day. It was fantastic. From that I went into network marketing because I thought, okay, I saw the dollar signs, if I’m honest. And I was like, I’m good at sales. I know I can do this, I’m going to take this on as well as my cake business. And again, I was really, really successful. However, I did not enjoy the way that I was being taught in network marketing.
Helen Thacker:
It was very pushy, very aggressive and for about six months, even though I’d grown quite quickly a global team, I was like, I don’t like this at all. And I actually stood up for myself and I left my team. I actually ended up switching companies, having incredible success having done that because I then went back to the way that I always knew and that was this more sophisticated style of selling where it is about empowering the buyer and really also looking at the messaging piece. And this is where this came in. So this is where this journey started four years ago when I started network marketing and really building online, we were kind of coming into COVID. Everyone was going online, everyone was using social media to promote and sell and I really honed my craft there. I’ve always loved language, I speak a couple of languages. I am always obsessed with the English prize winner at school and it all just comes together like the messaging piece.
Helen Thacker:
I just understand I am obsessed with the nuances of different words, different tenses. I will pick through sales pages and change one thing and it makes such a difference. And I also love social media, I love Instagram particularly and it’s just bringing it all together. And I realized about a year ago that I didn’t just want to stay supporting my team, my company, and all the trainings that I was doing within my network marketing company, I wanted to go and do this for myself and actually make a bigger impact. And this is what I do. And I help coaches, like I said, to really refine and have expertise in those two core skills of sales and messaging. And yeah, that takes us up to present day. And like I said, I’m so grateful I get to do something I just love, which I’m sure you are as well.
Helen Thacker:
Yeah, it is really transformational for my clients and yeah, it brings me so much happiness.
Kirsty Knight:
Love it. Amazing. Thank you for sharing that journey. Okay, so let’s say that people are like the businesses, that who we’re talking to, you guys listening are posting content in an effort to promote your services and it’s not resonating or nothing is happening or at least you’re not getting the sales that you want or any conversations that seem like that’s where they’re leading. First of all, is that how they know that their messaging is off? Like, what are the symptoms? Where they know that something’s not working here? How can they tell? And then what do they need to do to improve upon it?
Helen Thacker:
Okay, so this is a huge question, it’s like a course worth of question, but the symptoms are absolutely right. So you might be posting consistently and not kind of gaining traction with new followers even though perhaps you have an engagement strategy. And again, that’s an important piece to have. A lot of people are missing. But as a side sort of side subject, you might be doing all the work but people are not hitting the follow back or they’re not really engaging on your content and clearly it’s not resonating or you are just not getting much engagement in general from your existing audience. The mistake that lots of people make is they feel that they’ve got to go out and spend a lot of money on lead generation or ads when actually what you really probably need to do, like 99% of the time is connect with your current audience. You don’t need to do that. And I always say I save people money because actually you don’t need to spend money doing that, you just need to learn how to message.
Helen Thacker:
And once you’ve unlocked that, you can speak and connect really deeply with your current audience. So there’s that. The other thing that you might be seeing is, yes, you’re getting inquiries to go find out how to work with you, but it’s not converting. You might not be getting inquiries, that’s another thing. But the sales skills come in the DMs or on sales calls and so many people are so scared to sell. That’s a huge piece and that’s why I’m a sales coach. But it really does start with the messaging because that’s how you’re going to get attention, that’s how you’re going to nurture and then obviously that’s how you’re going to sell. Your messaging has a piece in that sales process as well as obviously what you do.
Helen Thacker:
It’s all part of the funnel, it’s all part of leading. And the sales funnel is just a fancy word for the whole process that you have in place to take a follower or new kind of eyes on your business from first finding you through the nurture process. When they’re really building that trust, you’re really building that trust with them to the point when they work with you and invest in your products or services. So those are the symptoms. And yes, 99% of the time it’s not your offers, it’s not that you’re not a great coach, it’s not that you are not highly talented, experienced, knowledgeable, skilled in what you do in your niche. You just have not learnt how to articulate exactly what you do so that you’re creating demand for your services so that you stand out from all the other people doing the same thing. And the thing that I love the most is helping coaches to raise their income by raising their prices. Because if you can articulate the immense value that you have, you can absolutely triple your prices overnight.
Helen Thacker:
You can seriously start to charge more. We all know businesses that do exactly the same as us that either charge ten times as much or they charge a third of what you charge. And we all do similar things, but it’s how you position yourself in the marketplace and that is all down to your messaging. So the second part to your question is what can you do? Well, it’s really kind of learn those skills and it’s learning it’s firstly well, there’s a whole process to it. I don’t know how deep you want me to go into this, Kirsty, but it starts with really kind of clarifying what you do. And we go from mean, let’s dive.
Kirsty Knight:
In as deep as you want to go, really? Because I want this to be really actionable and useful, that they can be like, either audit their own stuff and be like, okay, I’m not doing this, I’m not saying this. Or so that they can at least start to play with some of the ideas. And then, of course, if they are like, okay, I need more help with this, then we can direct them to come find you. Absolutely.
Helen Thacker:
So let’s give you some steps then. So the thing that a lot of coaches don’t do in Sales is actually the first piece, which is the first step of my three part framework. And that’s the Clarity piece. You cannot go any further until you completely clarify and niche down on exactly what you do. Now, let’s go into this word niche. Niche is not an avatar, it’s not the 90s. Niche is not a demographic. Your niche is the problem that you solve.
Helen Thacker:
But you do need to get specific on that. You need to get clear so that you have direction in your business. That gives you confidence and more importantly, it gives your community, your audience confidence in what you do. So until we really define what it is that you want to do, we can’t go any further. Now, the way I really help clients on a very kind of high level, basic kind of first look at it that I’d like your listeners can go and have a think about is combining these two things is the perfect kind of combination. Firstly, your skills and expertise and combining that with the things that you absolutely love to do. If you can combine those two things and feel like you cannot wait to get out of bed in the morning and run down to your laptop and start creating content and be on zooms with your clients, coaching them, you need to find that thing combined with your expertise and this is the clarity. But getting very specific on that also does something very important as well as we feed that into your messaging and people can then very clearly see what you do.
Helen Thacker:
It also makes you better at what you do because you are going to be honing your craft when you get specific. Kirsty you are incredible at what you do. It’s very, very specific. I am specifically sales with the messaging kind of piece to it. The strategy part to me being a sales and strategy coach is the strategy around your messaging as well as sales. And it’s very specific. And I’ve spent like literally well, I don’t know, multiple five figures and hours and days and weeks investing in learning so I can get better and better. But I didn’t do that until I had defined what that was and then I went for it like all in 100%.
Helen Thacker:
So that’s the first thing that you need to do. And then from that it is about then diving into your messaging. So what’s missing? And I see common mistakes that most people are making that most sales coaches and messaging coaches are not teaching. I have my own framework based on everything I’ve learned. This is like my proven formula that’s worked for me, it works for my clients. It’s what I teach in my group coaching program. And I truly believe that obviously there’s a lot more to it. But I want to give you an overview today so that you can go away like you said, if you’re listening, and just look at your content and say, have I got these five parts to my messaging and my content and I put them on rotation.
Helen Thacker:
Now when my clients come to me in my group coaching program, I look at these five elements and I look at sometimes for some clients, depending on what you do, you might need more of some of these than others. So it’s very kind of flexible and that’s the approach I want to take. Generally as a creative, I don’t have a content strategy as such. I look at having these elements in it. I love people being able to have that, like those moments of inspiration, because I feel that that is the most powerful content. When you feel so inspired to speak and say what you want to say. I will never create, for example, I’ll never give you a template. I’ll never give you any kind of speech canva template, like content template because I just believe in you putting your own stamp on your messaging.
Helen Thacker:
So we look at these five parts and we look at when you’re working with me, like which ones might be more relevant. But right now you do need them all. So I can go through these. And it’s basically I have a mnemonic and it’s called grasp because I want you to have a grasp on your messaging and to explain these briefly. Basically the g is for getting attention. So g is content that is going to make people stop, that is going to make them go, oh my God, I hadn’t even thought of that. It’s bringing awareness to the problem that they didn’t even know they had. Now, the importance of this is what you’re doing.
Helen Thacker:
You are actually demonstrating that your future clients need you. And this is the thing I see so many people missing. It sounds so obvious when you think about it. But we are conditioned and taught to post value. We’re told, got to give value. Give, give. Yes, of course we do. I’ll come to that in a second.
Helen Thacker:
But when you just educate and give value, like, the three ways to do this, five steps to do that, that’s fine. But if your audience are scrolling past your content or you have a new follower coming onto your page and all they can see is, like, instructions of what to do, what happens if they don’t think they need you? What happens if you haven’t actually shown them an improvement that you can bring to their lives a better way, that there’s a gap missing, that there’s something that could be fixed or improved, a challenge that they could overcome, that they might not even have seen. So what you need to do in this content is really educate your audience that there is a problem to be solved, that there is a need for you. When you do that, they see the need, and they see you as the person that can solve that, and then they’re going to buy. So there’s a lot of what we call self diagnosing content. Now, that is not my phrase. It’s not my sort of trademark at all. But this self diagnosing content is this grabbing attention content where it allows your audience to really kind of go, oh, my goodness, yes, that’s me.
Helen Thacker:
I do that, and wow, there’s an alternative. And if I do this, it will get my results even faster. Wow, I didn’t know that. Okay, so Kirsty is showing me. She must know what she’s doing. She understands me. She can sort of really get a feel for the things that I’m going through. And this is where this clarity, this first piece, having that clarity of knowing exactly what you do and who you serve is so important because you can really use that in your content.
Helen Thacker:
So that’s the first thing. The R of Grass stands for relatability. Now, this is content about you. So this is a piece so many people forget. This is the personal branding. This is your beliefs. This is you standing up for what you want to say about your industry. This is you being that confident, bringing that confidence, because no one wants to buy from a flaky coach.
Helen Thacker:
We want to have confidence that our coach has an opinion, has a perspective, but also, we want to know you. We want to get to know you. So this is sharing things like your brand values, the boring things, like your daily habits, they’re not boring to your world. I put on my stories every single day. I go for a walk. Can rain or shine or snow. You will see it on my stories every single day, weekends, weekdays, part of my routine, which has become part of my routine. I cannot miss as much as if I didn’t brush my teeth that mean like I have to do it.
Helen Thacker:
And people see that. People know me for my walk. They know me for being into fitness. I’m always posting the Peloton workout, I’ve done that that day or whatever. But those things become it’s that repetition, it’s that familiarity. It’s that getting to know you. And it’s so important. It’s sharing your journey, it’s sharing your story, it’s sharing your challenges, the reality, the actual real behind the scenes, like the ups and the downs.
Helen Thacker:
Let’s get real. It’s sharing as much as you want to, obviously, from your personal life. But that’s so important. It’s that connection there. And especially for a coach, most of us are in a position where we really need to connect with our audience at a deep level. We’re going to be working with somebody. So that person needs to get to know who they’re working with and they need to get to know you. The next thing is the A, and the A stands for authority building.
Helen Thacker:
Now, authority building is basically your educational content. However, there is a way to do this that is not the norm. So I don’t want any more of this. Three ways to do that, five steps to do that, okay, there is a better way. When people see the three steps, they take that at face value and they’ll read it and they’ll be like, okay, so I could do this, this or this to get the result. But it doesn’t tell them how. It doesn’t give them the process. So from a subconscious level, it doesn’t absorb.
Helen Thacker:
They just read it and they’ll forget it. If you can provide educational content where you are actually giving a framework, a step by step, how you get from point A to point B via three or four steps or whatever it is, people will actually start to see themselves through that process. Okay? So first I do that, then I do that. And they understand it, it sinks in. They will remember you. So there is a smart way to do that kind of content. And the other thing about building authority is to stand up for your beliefs. If you have something going on in your industry that you don’t agree with, say it.
Helen Thacker:
Recently, I’m always doing this. I’m quite bold competition. I don’t care anymore. And I’m like I was talking about, I created a post about the coaching industry, mr. Thing that was going around and everyone was selling it. And I felt really strongly about this as I said it. And it got so much people disagreed and I’m always open to everyone’s opinions, but a lot of people agreed. But it’s that authority building.
Helen Thacker:
It’s being brave and confident that you need and it’s also putting your arm around people and saying, I’m with you. Because in that the people that agreed with me, we were kind of all suddenly in this little tribe together and it was so kind of yes, you’ve led the way. You’ve been brave enough to speak. So if you can go and do that in your own niche, in your space, it’s absolutely so powerful. The S stands for success and proof of success. So this is so important and I see so few people doing this because we’re scared. We are so scared to shout about our success, aren’t we? Like, especially as women, I think, I don’t want to stereotype, but we’re like, I agree, yeah, people think we’re going to be showing off, so we hide. And it’s not necessarily like we need to show success.
Helen Thacker:
It’s all about showing the confidence that you have. Your clients need to know that you can confidently get them the results that you’re talking about. They need to. It’s not about you showing off. It’s literally kind of saying, look, I can get you this result and you can do that through talking about your own success, your own story. You can do that about talking about your clients successes. So testimonials. But you can also do it in an indirect way.
Helen Thacker:
So if you’re a bit like, uncomfortable about sharing that, why don’t you take a conversation that you’ve had recently with a client or you’ve got a coaching kind of scenario and talk about it, say, what happened? So my client came to me feeling like she just wasn’t seen and wasn’t visible. And we worked through her messaging, we looked at all the different elements that were missing and we filled in the missing gaps. In the end, she ten x her engagement within a week. That is like a really kind of nice, gentle way if you’re feeling a bit like icky about sharing success, but it’s so important that you do the P that stands for persuasion. Now, there will be a bit of persuasion that you need to do. Now, when my clients work with me, we go through a whole framework of how of the topics that we need to talk about on repeat. So I go through a whole framework where there’s literally 15 to 20 topics that you just need to put on repeat all the time and we work out what that is. These are your core topics and alongside that we have four or five core words.
Helen Thacker:
It’s all part of your overall messaging, but the persuasion is coming from some of those topics and it’s really where I want you to look at the reasons why people are not buying from you. Do they have misconceptions about what you do? Do they think, for example, that they could either go and do it themselves so they don’t need any help whatsoever, they’re just going to manage to fix the problem on their own? Or that there’s an alternative method and that might be cheaper or quicker or just a different way of doing things? A lot of the time it comes down to time, people like, oh, I can’t do that because I’ve got time. I’m sure you come across that all the time. It’s happening in lots of ways, but I have that a lot with my clients come to me and say, I’m not in sales. I don’t need to learn how to sell. I’m like, well, are you in business? Do you have a transaction that you asking people to make to buy your services? Well, yes, you are in sales. I’m afraid there’s lots of things so there’s lots of reasons why you can look at the misconceptions around your industry and it’s then plugging that into your messaging and making sure you’re actually really kind of it is gentle persuasion that are required. And then the final piece, what have I not done? I can’t remember what I’ve not done now.
Helen Thacker:
Success. And oh, my goodness. I can’t remember the last can we just pause it a minute?
Kirsty Knight:
Yeah, hang on.
Helen Thacker:
Sorry.
Kirsty Knight:
Oh, that’s right. Keep going. And she’ll just edit it out.
Helen Thacker:
Oh, my God. I’ve just had a total mental like.
Kirsty Knight:
Well, you’ve hit the end of the P. Are you adding on the Y?
Helen Thacker:
Yeah. Oh, no, that’s it. Sorry.
Kirsty Knight:
Because you’ve changed it to grass.
Helen Thacker:
Yeah, I was looking at what’s the Y? I’ve done that already. Sorry. Okay, we’ll start again.
Kirsty Knight:
You’re fine. Okay. Amazing. So we’ll finish with the persuasion.
Helen Thacker:
Amazing. Okay. So if you can bring those five elements, literally on rotation into your content, you will speak and connect with your audience. You will raise your level of demand, and you will attract attention, and people will start to see that you are an absolute must have. You’ve gone from being a nice to have to a must have, and you are able to, like I said, really kind of earn what you’re worth for your immense expertise that you have, because you are just elevating yourself through your messaging and positioning yourself in a much more powerful way. So, yeah, I hope that’s been helpful. But go and have a look at your content and just make sure that you’ve got all those elements in, because I know it works.
Kirsty Knight:
I think that’s so helpful. Thank you so much for going into that much detail. I think that yeah, basically, if you’re listening to this, go pause, go back, re, go through it, and have a think about your content. And probably you’re missing a couple of them, at least, maybe more. I know that one of the things that I used to do is just very spontaneous content all the time, which I was able to do. But I recognize that when I do that, I absolutely do not hit each of those areas. I just would always leave out the success piece or the persuasion piece. I definitely had, and I think a lot of people do have mindset stuff around.
Kirsty Knight:
I don’t want to be convincing, and there is a difference between convincing someone who does not want it and who does not need it. That’s not what we’re saying, but persuading them that you can be trusted and that there are things maybe misunderstandings. I love the Tim misconceptions because I think that objections can sometimes get people’s backup because it feels like we’re not supposed to be overcoming their objections. But really what we’re trying to say is sometimes people just have a general or a genuine misconception. Like, I’m afraid that this is how I’m going to be expected to do this to get the results. And it can be just a lack of communicating that we haven’t quite done, we haven’t cleared it up, or just, they’ve created their own story around what it means to do this, and sometimes that’s not how it is at all. Or they have a story about like, okay, but I’m worried I don’t have the time and I’m not going to put my all into this. And there are ways that we can support our clients even if they don’t have the time.
Kirsty Knight:
Like, how can we help them create the time? Or maybe just reassure them that actually it doesn’t take as much time as you think it’s going to take if we do this. And so that’s really what we’re talking about when we’re looking at misconceptions, like, why aren’t they buying? It might just be a misunderstanding, a miscommunication misconception, or just a fear that they really do want it, but they’re just not able to get over that fear without you helping them through it.
Helen Thacker:
Yeah, I love that you said that a lot of it is overcoming fears. And the way I approach everything, especially on a sales call, it’s helping your clients to make a decision. That’s all you’re doing. And you mustn’t persuade them if you are in that place where you’re persuading a client to join you, they’re not ready, they’re not going to get the results, they’re not going to be invested, they’re not going to actually take the action. And that’s really not great for your business either, let alone your client, because you want to have great testimonials, you want to get great results for your client if you care about what you do. So the persuasion piece is never going to work. You just got to help them make a decision, like you said it is helping them to see that perhaps there is a different way. And do you know what? It’s magical when you can actually open people’s eyes to the alternative way and that they want that result.
Helen Thacker:
They really want it, but they haven’t quite seen how to get there. And when you can show them how they do it is magical. It really is. Oh, my goodness. Like, you’re the answer. Because, again, going back to the sales mindset, we all love to buy things that we think going to get us a great result. Whether that is a great bottle of wine, a new lip gloss, a holiday, investing in a coach we love spending money on the things that are going to make us happy or improve our lives. So that’s the approach that I take.
Helen Thacker:
And it’s not persuading, it’s helping them to see if they’re ready for it.
Kirsty Knight:
Right? Yeah. So it’s like gentle persuasion in the messaging as to why this solution is potentially right for them and clearing up any misconceptions. And then once they are interested and they have fears, just helping them see what those fears are coming up as and helping them make a decision whether it’s yes, whether it’s no.
Helen Thacker:
Exactly. And this is when you’ll start to get inquiries in the DMs because of the power of your messaging. It’s spoken very deeply to your clients because with the work that I do, you know your clients so deeply, you can communicate to them so deeply that they will send you a message. You don’t have to go out and necessarily sell and they will ask you for information. That’s the point you want to get to because they cannot not work with you. They have to know how on earth you can improve their lives.
Kirsty Knight:
Yeah, I love that and I think that that is a goal that most people want because they don’t want to be chasing sales, they’re happy putting the content out. What they’re wanting is for those people to come in, but it’s just not happening just because they’re missing one or two of these elements, they’re not really speaking to the right person. Amazing. Okay, so lastly, thank you so much for sharing that. Lastly, just something that I ask all the guests pretty much in your own business because I know that you made some changes fairly recently to sort of streamline your business a little bit, make it a more sustainable business model for you. Because I remember you saying you felt like you were kind of on the hamster wheel, like recreating stuff all the time and putting out Masterclasses and low offers and things. What have you done that has helped you save time and streamline it in a way that you feel so much better that you have a more sustainable business moving forward?
Helen Thacker:
Yeah. Oh my goodness. Kirsty. I was doing everything, I will admit I’d followed my long term mentor at the time and really followed what she was doing as a model and thought, well, that’s the path to success. Naively, yes, I was aware of the business models and the infinite possibilities that there are, but I was starting to see burnout at the end of the tunnel and I could not this is kind of back at the end of April this year. I couldn’t imagine myself continuing doing what I was doing, like in six weeks, let alone six months, let alone six years. I was like, I can’t, this can’t go on. And it was really scary because I’ve always absolutely loved what I do.
Helen Thacker:
I’ve been really fortunate. Every business I’ve had, I am obsessed with. I love it. And this is the first time I’d ever felt like that. I was like, this is where I’m supposed to be. I am a really good coach. This is what everything was leading to. Why do I suddenly start feeling a bit like I’m dreading it? And it was because I was taking on too much? So I spent and this is another thing I do with this clarity piece with my clients is having that thinking time, have that silence.
Helen Thacker:
And I spent a good six to eight weeks really thinking about, what can I do? What is the answer? Like, there’s an answer here. What is it? So I stripped everything back to just two core offers, one on one elite level coaching and my group coaching program. And I streamlined my calendar so that and I know people have been telling me this for years.
Kirsty Knight:
This is what I tell my clients.
Helen Thacker:
Yeah, I know. I was like, however, it just took this moment to really see the value of it. And I basically took Mondays and Fridays for myself. And I still have no one can touch me on a Monday or Friday. Well, obviously I support my clients on WhatsApp and boxer, but Friday is completely off for me. Mondays, I’m not on client calls. I’m working on my business. I’m doing the fun things, the creative things, like canvas.
Helen Thacker:
Or maybe I will just go out for lunch with my husband or meet some friends or something. And I love it.
Kirsty Knight:
Oh, my goodness.
Helen Thacker:
It’s given me so much joy and I have got so much more done because Tuesdays and Thursdays are client days and Wednesdays are days for podcast, recording or joint instagram lives or coffee, chats or networking and all those fun things. And it’s just really got me very efficient. I am super organized. But this next level of efficiency has just brought so much success. And it’s really funny because from a mindset point of view, and I’m not particularly kind of woo woo spiritual, but I do completely know that mindset is everything. I suddenly took my foot off the gas and chilled the heck out and my sales went through the roof in July. My sales went through the roof in July. Last month I was like, it’s true.
Helen Thacker:
I really relaxed into what I do best and I really started focusing on the things that are working, ditching the things that were not lighting me up. And my whole business just elevated things. Simple.
Kirsty Knight:
Yeah, I love that you said that, because one of the things that I do with my clients and I didn’t used to do this piece, but my own journey has got to that stage where we look at what is lighting you up in your business and what is not. And it’s not even that it’s not working. You could be getting results from it, but if you are like, this is horrific. And I’m dreading this every week and it’s like such a drudgery. Yes, we can make ourselves do it. But is there a different way to get the same result that feels so much lighter and more lovely? And when you eliminate the stuff that is not aligned, doesn’t feel good is so heavy and you focus more on the things that are working and you really enjoy it’s like Ten xing your productivity without even trying. Really? So I love that you said that.
Helen Thacker:
I ditched my membership because even though it was making money, like you said, I was dreading it. Right. And it’s like it’s not the way you want to operate and I’m too old to be kind of worrying about, I just want to enjoy my journey. Like, you quite rightly say that when you’re getting lit up by what you do, it feeds into everything. You’re better for your clients as well. You show up much more positive way. Always gave my clients my best, but that extra level of being happy is definitely showing up.
Kirsty Knight:
Yeah, I love that and I definitely do agree that and that’s why I lead now with time off first. In all, the sort of time sculpting that I do with clients is really like making sure that you do have that time. Because if we’re focused on just fitting more in and just being more productive, you will just fill your calendar with more to dos. And when you look at actually what space do I want for me and to work on my creative side and all the rest of it, and then you focus on being productive in the hours that are left. It’s transformational on so many levels and it means that you’re building a sustainable business rather than one that you are going to burn out in eventually. And then you’re going to be like, this isn’t for me, I don’t want to do this. And I think that’s a path that lots of people get to, like, they get to that point and then you see it and I was nearly there. It’s like that moment where you’re like, this is not what I wanted to build, that I built myself.
Kirsty Knight:
So amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of that. I think that’ll be so helpful for my listeners. Let them know, please, how they can find you, just in case. They love the sound of what you do. They need your help. They are looking at their content and they’re thinking, I definitely need to work on the messaging piece.
Helen Thacker:
Yeah, thank you. So, absolutely just go and find me on Instagram. I know you’ll put the link, but it’s just my name at Helen Thaker. If you just go and say, hi, my DMs are open. Tell me that you listen to the podcast. I’m happy to just give you a quick couple of tips or answer a question on your messaging. Please. That’s absolutely I’d love to all the links to everything that I have going on are in my Instagram link tree.
Helen Thacker:
I have a podcast, and I also do a free coaching call every single Wednesday for about 20 minutes, where I just take people through a piece of content and that’s really helpful. And you’ll see everything in the links, my group coaching program. And yeah, like I said, my Instagram is a really great page to see examples of everything that I’ve just spoken about today.
Kirsty Knight:
Amazing. That’s super helpful. Thank you so much. This has been super fun. I will let you know when it’s going out. And yeah, thanks for tuning in. All right, bye.
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