Scaling A Coaching Business - a podcast by David Ralph

Todays guest joining us on the Join Up Dots podcast is a lady who has niched down and is working with a client base with a huge problem. While healthcare professionals may be excellent at helping people heal from injuries and sickness, help patients make choices that will lead to healthier lives, and provide the comfort and security we all need when health scares arise, they're (admittedly!) often not great at the day to day business of providing that healthcare. Luckily, that's where Sylvie McCracken steps in to help and enables health care professionals to heal their own businesses from the administrative gulag that hounds them. Since most healthcare providers' income is directly tied to the number of patients they see and a near endless stream of appointments, it's the personal freedom, family, and often their own health that pays the price for financial wellness. How The Dots Joined Up For Sylvie Through identifying passive income opportunities and helping entrepreneurs to execute and sustain those initiatives, Sylvie helps doctors, dentists, pathologists, nutritionists, and more take care of the bottom line so they can better take care of themselves, their families, and their patients. She loves passive income as believes its essential for every entrepreneur (going without it is like driving a car without insurance). Creating passive income with ebooks,  outsourcing, delegating and managing your online dream team (‘cause you didn’t ditch the day job to have your business run you) and  building her clients biz while working a full time “day job” (like I did!) So how did she juggle everything to get into the position to step out on her own And was her business like it is now from the very beginning or a very different version of what we now see? Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots, with the one and only Sylvie McCracken Show Highlights During the show we discussed such weight subjects with Sylvie McCracken such as: We share the hardship of entrepreneurship, and the manner of somehow being out of your control but still living it. Why Sylvie's personality can often repel clients from her life, but thats ok as the great clients stick around. Sylvie reveals that although she loves working in her business she truly loves being on her own and often needs that space to function. And lastly................. We talk about the moment when "The dream job" that everyone thought she was crazy to leave, left a whole in her happiness. How To Connect With Sylvie McCracken Website Facebook Twitter Linkedin Return To The Top Of  Sylvie McCracken If you enjoyed this interview with Sylvie McCracken why not check out other inspiring interviews like Clint Arthur, Lunden DeLeon and Jack Canfield Or of course you can check out thousands of podcast interviews in our archives here Interview Transcription For Sylvie McCracken Interview David Ralph 0:01 Once upon a time there was a guy with a dream a dream. He's Jobs for himself online and have a kick ass life working when he wanted him where he wanted across the world. Little did he know that dream would lead him into a world of struggle, burnout and debt. Until he found the magic ingredient and knows drunk was became a thing of the past, of course, was bad person. And now My dream is to make things happen. BU Welcome to Join Up Dots. Intro 0:31 When we're young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be but somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here's your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph. David Ralph 0:56 Yes, hello there, everybody. Hello there and welcome to Join Up Dots. I'll tell you why I love having an online business. You won't believe how many issues go on behind the scenes to make it seem like we are professionals and we know what we're doing. But I think we're there. I think we're there and we're going to bring a good show to you because today's guest joining us on the show is a lady who is niche down and he's working with a client base with a huge problem. While health care professionals may be excellent at helping people heal from injuries and sickness, help patients make choices that will lead to healthier lives and provide the comfort and security we all need. When health scares arise. They're often not that great at a day to day business of providing that health care. Luckily, that's where our guest comes in, and she enables healthcare professionals to heal their own businesses from the administrative gulag, but hands room now since most healthcare providers income is directly tied to the number of patients they see, and a near endless stream of appointments, it's the personal freedom, family and often their own health that pays the price for financial wellness through IN can't even say I'm so excited through identifying passive income opportunities and helping entrepreneurs to execute and sustain those initiatives. Our guest helps doctors, dentists, pathologist, nutritionist, and everyone else care for the bottom line so they can better take care of themselves, their families and their patients. Now she loves passive income and she believes it's essential for every entrepreneur going without it is like driving a car without insurance. She says creating passive income with ebooks outsourcing, delegating and managing your online Dream Team, because yet didn't ditch your day job to have your business run you she says and building her clients business while working a full time day job like she did can take its toll. So how did you juggle everything to get into the position to step out on their own and was her business like it is now from the very beginning? Or a very different version of what we now see. Well, that's why now as we bring on to the show to start Join Up Dots with the one and only Sylvie MacCracken. Good morning, Sylvie. How are you? Sylvie McCracken 3:01 Oh, my goodness. Good morning, David. Thank you for that great introduction. So happy to be here. I'm happy you're David Ralph 3:06 here as well, because we had a few issues, didn't we? But we, we just relaxed and I stress from this and did I sound like I was stressing? Sylvie McCracken 3:15 No, not at all. You kept your cool. So yeah, we figured out the technology. Sometimes the tech Gremlins are upon us that you figured it all out. Here we are. David Ralph 3:22 I think it is a metaphor for entrepreneurial life. Because I remember the very beginning if something happened, that meant that I couldn't record a show. I used to think oh my god, I'm letting the person down. Now. I just sit there and being okay with you and not the time we're so around the issue where we breeze around, is that something that becomes more and more evident that there's always a way around the obstacle? Sylvie McCracken 3:49 Oh, for sure. I mean, you know, it's it's one of those things where you just become adapt, I think at handling the fact that there's going to be hurdles and if you can't, you know, overcome those words. Then maybe entrepreneurship isn't for you. Because the reality is that that's the only guarantee. David Ralph 4:04 And how do you think entrepreneurship is because I eSports? Because I used to think it was for everyone. And then I used to think it was not nobody. And when I sort of lurch between the two, is it for somebody that is just purely bloody minded and determined, or is it somebody creative? Because you see, great entrepreneurs go under, and you see other people that are quite frankly, they seem like idiots. Rubbish, right, rather well, Sylvie McCracken 4:33 right? Yeah, you know, I mean, I think I agree with you. In the beginning, I was the event the entrepreneur evangelist, right, where everyone, you know, grab random strangers in an elevator and a Lyft, as you guys call them, and just, you know, try and convince them and the reality is, like you said, you know, it's not for everybody, and people that are completely comfortable in their nine to five and in their day job and receiving that salary. As long as they have a pulse. Then, you know, great, that's great. You know, who might have saved that's not A great life. But I think entrepreneurship is for those that are you know that that that sounds like death that working a nine to five working for someone else, you know, is something that they're absolutely not willing to do that they have this passion or this, you know, idea or this thing that they want to do they want to control their own schedule. And I think this is the big and and the big sort of requirement is and they're willing to take the risk and they're willing to deal with it's not an overnight success. And it's not get rich quick, and it's not easy sometimes. And it's definitely not easy in the beginning. So there is that sort of cost of entry, which is you've got to really go through that, you know, that that those hurdles in the beginning where you're working for zero dollars an hour, and it's hard and you're making mistakes, and you're getting told no. And that's kind of the barrier to entry to entrepreneurship, if you don't make it in that first year or three years or whatever it may be. Then, you know, and that's when a lot of people quit and say, You know what, actually my job is not as bad as I thought it was. David Ralph 5:59 Well, I'm gonna Jump back on something you said were working the zero hours because I'm a member. When I started, I was earning less than zero hours because I had costs costs that were going out. But I wasn't. Yeah. And I look back on it now. And I can't actually remember how I survived. But I did. I survived. And I scraped around and I sorted things out. And I had a couple of lucky tax breaks, which brought some money in which allowed us to do one or two things and stuff. But yeah, it was amazing at the time, where I was only seeing money go one way, and it wasn't going into my bank account at all. Sylvie McCracken 6:35 Yeah, right. It was going back. Oh, yeah. I totally agree. And I think that that really speaks to well, how bad do you want it then? David Ralph 6:42 How bad do you want it now compared to when? At the beginning because when you when you get to a certain point, and I'm going to preempt guys, and laziness comes in, where you lose track of who you was, I used to be Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, Hustle. Then once you started going well, it was like a weight off, I can relax. And the more I relaxed, the more I realise I didn't actually want to do what I was doing anyway. Right. And I kind of lost myself for a while. What about yourself? Sylvie McCracken 7:12 Yeah, yeah, no saying Absolutely. And I think it's part of it is you go into autopilot mode, which is, for me, at least what I've operated on a good part of my life. And so of course, that's kind of a hardwired pattern that I have to, you know, kind of sometimes wake myself up out of and say, Oh, wait, what are we doing? Again? What's the big picture? Because I'll get into the minutia of a certain day and what we're doing that day, and I'll forget the big picture, and then I'll find myself, you know, carrying out a project I don't even really want to finish. So I think, you know, that's a really great question. And it's actually something I talked to my clients about recently. That was, you know, really because I was asking them like, you know, especially in the early in the first year, how bad do you want it? What are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to give up? Are you willing to give up your evening and weekend for a while around your day job? Are you willing to shut down Netflix and you know, really give up your free time and do this Because that's kind of what's required. And but the interesting thing is I said, but just so you know, like, what I'm willing to do today is I'm not willing to sacrifice almost anything. And so that's, you know, the interesting thing and the, I guess the good part of that is I no longer have to write so right, you know, at today 2019 2020. I have, you know, a business that I'm able to fit around my lifestyle and not the other way around. But I'm very, very clear that those early years it was hustle, and it was evenings and weekends around a day job, and it definitely was sacrifice and that was what was required to sort of buy into entrepreneurship. And nowadays, I really don't care about, you know, going for the next revenue hurdle, right? We did that. We chased that for a while. Once we hit seven figures, I was like, Okay, I got the T shirt, and now I don't really care about it anymore. It's one of those things where I'm like, well, what's the profit? What's the how many hours? How little hours Can I get away with to run this business? There's other metrics that I'm focused on now. And am I able to, you know, put everything aside and go to a salsa Dancing festival if I want to for a long weekend, am I able to take my daughter to a doctor's appointment at one o'clock? Because I want to be there, you know? So those are the metrics I look at nowadays. David Ralph 9:10 Ryan. Okay. I agree with everything he was saying. And I also agree that the majority of people out there haven't got it. I've now answered my question. When we said at the beginning, who is entrepreneurship for? I think it's almost like, it's for somebody that hasn't got a choice anymore. It's for somebody who's in too much pain, you know, I had a boss from hell. And I just got to the point where I can't do this anymore. I just cannot spend one day more. Now. In fact, Boss wasn't there. And I had a nice boss, who knows I might have still been there. But it was the pain point that pushed me out. And so when people speak to me, and I said, David, David, I'd really like to start my own business. They don't seem to be in pain enough to really Want to push through? Yeah, Sylvie McCracken 10:01 yeah, it's a nice to have not a must have, it has to be a must have. It has to because a nice to have, you're not really willing to do that much for a nice to have you know and I and my health care professional clients deal with this a lot to where sometimes they're helping people where now they've gotten a diagnosis of Hey, you either turn around your health or your end up in a wheelchair, and now they're willing to listen now they're willing to change their diet, but when it was, Hey, you know, you need to lose 20 pounds. Okay, well, whatever, you know, so it's the same with with just about everything I think. David Ralph 10:31 Now the interesting thing about you, Sylvia, and this is gonna sound like an insult, but I'm going to say hello, I Unknown Speaker 10:36 can't wait. It's a David Ralph 10:38 bit of an insult, but it's gonna lead into a lovely compliment. Now, before you came through, I get pitched people and I have a name and the name gets given to me now in the United Kingdom. Sylvie is like a 70 year old nanny, basically. It's like, I never knew that there is an old lady's name and so So I wasn't expecting but glamorous and vibrant you see I've built it up into a compliment person. And when I went over to the website I thought this is interesting because first of all, it moves it there's a video alone and a lot of it is very kind of like Meghan Trainor, you know, making train this video's very bright and very cheerful. And your whole website is very different from most that I get to look at through the show. And it should be by surprise. Was that kind of bright leather jacket is driving around, was that part of the master plan? Or did that just sort of naturally occur over a period of time? Sylvie McCracken 11:44 You know, I usually I defer to my team who they're all so much smarter than I am. And in that particular case, that was the work of Sarah and como Ashman years ago now, I think that website went up either 2015 or 2016, probably 16. And it was all her creative direction. It was all her ideas. Very little input from me or every time I put some input, she'd be like, you know, we're doing it this way. And so she directed the whole thing starlet Fortunato did all of the photography. And it was, you know, at the time we weren't serving healthcare professionals, that's the hilarious part. So, you know, but we were doing I mean, my, my vision has always been the same as far as what I bring to the table, which is this efficiency piece. And so she really wanted to tie it to fuel efficiency, and you know, and that car theme, and so she did a lot of got just just the creative direction around that and the branding. That's David Ralph 12:34 what you said, Man was the key point. I think that was the question in my mind. I was expecting some old lady walking out of a doctor's surgery where, you know, being very focused on the health care professionals. And when I got over there, I thought, My God, this isn't this. There's a sort of juxtaposition of what I was expecting, but actually was more engaging because I realised that I was tapping into who you were, and not what somebody wanted me to see. And, you know, I look at so many websites that they bought me, they bought me stupid, you know? It doesn't come across with you, and how does that work with the healthcare professionals? Did they come across and go? Be speaks to me or actually, this isn't what I was expecting. Sylvie McCracken 13:23 Right. You know, I think that's a really good question. I mean, obviously, there are a lot of people that don't resonate with me. And the reason for that David, and we chatted a little bit before we started recording is I have a little bit of an irreverent style. So there are people that will watch our webinar and will literally will send emails into my team saying, Oh my god, she's so unprofessional. She calls us dude. And I'm like, Yeah, I do because that's what I feel like saying so if you don't buy but then no problem but then keep going because this is what I do. I'm a big fan of, you know, I sort of want to normalise doctors as other humans. Everybody poops and You know, there's no there's no title ism, there's no The doctor is better than the nutritionist or the nurse or anything like that in my world. So if you come into my world and you become a client, you basically acknowledge and accept to be treated just like everybody else with respect, but I'm going to say, Hey, girl, and I'm going to say, Hey, dude, because that's my style. And if you don't like it, that's totally cool. But that's how I roll So, so there's that and then there's, you know, I mean, I use I use rap lyrics as quotes. And, you know, my clients, the ones that do make it past all of those different filters that we've got, basically, they find it hilarious half the time, they don't know who I'm quoting. But you know, that's just kind of what I bring to the table. I'm a little bit a typical I grew up in Argentina and in the US back and forth, so I speak both languages fluently. You wouldn't think I'm Latina, based on the last name McCracken but there you have it. And so you know, I'll do weird things like that. I'll bring in lyrics that from all over the world or references and I'll actually make them into my materials. We've got literally You know, rap lyrics put into our workbooks. So that's just kind of what you got when you're in my world and for whoever it fits awesome. And for whoever doesn't fit, that's fine too, David Ralph 15:09 because I'm slightly pivoted because through Join Up Dots. If you go back maybe two years ago, I used to do a lot of singing on the show and just sort of city stuff, which entertains me, entertain me. And a lot of people would come through to me saying, you know, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't quite what I expected from a business podcast. And I thought that's that's the point. That is exactly the point. Yeah, yeah, I've pivoted slightly because I realised, once I started dropping off the overtly me things. My bank account flourished. You know, it was almost like, people couldn't accept that somebody could do that and be bad at the same time. They couldn't accept but I can show them how to create an online business that literally only takes a few hours a week to operate, you can do it anywhere you want, you know, if I was singing Bon Jovi songs on the show, but I still, I still can't break free from knowing that ultimately, I will come back to that, ultimately, there comes a tipping point where you realise that you can actually be whoever you want to be, and the world goes, and that's what we want you to be. Sylvie McCracken 16:26 Yeah, well, I just feel like you know, I mean, I, you know, I feel like in a traditional environment, you have to morph yourself into whatever is allowed, right? And, and my employees have told me this multiple times as well of like, you know, Oh, I'm so glad that you don't care that I have blue hair or that I have this piercing or whatever it is, of course, I don't care and they're on, you know, our team photos and whatever with whatever hair they have or don't have. And, you know, and I hate that there's, there's these you know, sort of weird rules you have to conform to in these traditional investors. I created a business so I could do whatever the heck I want. So I really, I don't know I stand by this idea of I am who I am and it will resonate with those it's meant to resonate with and it will repel those. It's not meant to resonate with but I don't want to have to put on the suit and act a certain way while I'm working in my business and then go back to being myself after five o'clock I'd rather be myself the whole time and even if that means it will repel a certain crowd, it's probably meant to so you know, if I showed you right now, the Facebook group of our year long clients where there's several MDS and DS nutritionist licenced marriage and family therapist, you'll see GIFs you know, we use GIFs a lot of times to communicate, you know, will will, you know, put GIFs in the Facebook group and they'll join in as well right we kind of keep it funny and light and, and that's just, you know, that's just how we do it. Whether we're having they're having a hard day and something happened or whether they're celebrating an incredible win. Why not keep it funny and light and fun. David Ralph 17:59 I agree. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. And I'm going to play some words from a man or Sheila believes that as well. He's Jim Carrey, Jim Carrey 18:06 my father could have been a great comedian, but he didn't believe that that was possible for him. And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant. And when I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job. And our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don't want. So you might as well take a chance on doing what you love. David Ralph 18:32 Now, do you think those words are correct? Because I used to, and now I love between how do you know the love unless you try anything? Sylvie McCracken 18:44 Yeah, and I think you know, here's the thing to David is the older I get, the more I realised what I don't know. You know, so I agree. Like there's things I sought out to you know, at 20 or 25, or whatever, thinking this is it, this is the right thing and the reality is I agree you don't really know whether you love it, hate it or whatever else until you try it on for size. And then also, you can reserve the right to change your mind. So I'm David Ralph 19:09 going to jump down, I'm going to jump straight in now, because I'm talking about this a lot, my and I want to get your point of view from your clients, where people say to me, I don't like doing this, I want to do what I love. And I say to them, let's just try and learn in the process. Let's let's learn how that occurs, you know, don't say how to get to somewhere, but you don't know that there's a car available, there's a pass available. Let's just try stuff, and then see the process. But I get a lot of people that want to go from I hate this to sexy and I go there's a bit of a journey between it. Sylvie McCracken 19:48 Totally. And the reality is, you know, for example, choosing what business model fits you. You know, it just depends. I mean, for some people, they want to work with a lot of people, they're really extroverted. They want to be around people all day every day and there's other people People that are more introverted and would love to be by themselves in their yoga pants with their laptop and seeing one human a week. And you know, sometimes they don't even I mean, you think that'd be a basic knowing about yourself, but the reality is sometimes you build a business model and you're like, Oh, actually, is this what my week is going to look like? I hate this. And that's okay. I mean, you know, you'll figure a lot of that out, unfortunately, in by trial and error. David Ralph 20:20 I used to have horrible days when I would look at it and think to myself, I might want to stay at work. But that boss, that boss wasn't actually as bad as I think I made. Yeah, she was she. Yeah, she was terrible. But I used to convince myself I actually, I'd made a mistake in my dog, my dark mind state of mind. If somebody came along goes, how's it going? I'd go, Oh, it's brilliant. I love it. It's the best thing I ever did. And then I'd sort of like slink back into my shell again, thinking, Oh, I haven't seen anyone for six weeks and nobody speaks to me. And now I'm very aware as we're recording here, it's November and I'm very aware when November comes my wife who still works for companies, she's doing a Christmas do every night. And every night there's a Christmas party, and she gets invited to it. And basically, she's pretty pissed from now till January, literally literally every single night. Now, as an entrepreneur as myself, I don't get invited to anything. And I wonder, does that something that you find liberating but you don't have that in your life now? Do you have to create Christmas cheer? How does it fit, really great manifested? Sylvie McCracken 21:34 So you know, it's interesting because you wouldn't think so. But I am a little bit more I kind of test on the cusp of introvert extrovert but I am a little bit more introverted, so I love my alone time. So even though we have an office for the team here, downtown, which is about I don't know, six blocks away from my house. I choose to most of the time work from home on my own. I love being on my own and I get a lot of interaction. You know, by doing client calls once a week that I do, I batch all of my calls So I do all my group calls with my clients. And I have meetings with my teams and whatnot. So all that's virtual. Now as far as physical face to face interaction, I do what's called driven dinners. And so I kind of drag out entrepreneurs and we do these kind of networking dinners. So I create those myself. And then the other very social thing for me is I like to dance salsa and bachata And so that has a lot of sort of active things in the evenings and weekends and festivals and congresses and all of that jazz that's very social and very, you know, just just that's a lot that's what a lot of my energy goes these days. So I don't know if that answers and as far as holidays go you know, it's funny because yeah, there's like the the dancing group gets together for a holiday thing. And you know, then our team is very virtual. So we usually will do like a champagne party on zoom. Because we have people all over the US we have someone in the UK, we have someone in Spain, we have someone in the Philippines, you know all over the place. So we'll do that but they basically we send them all about a bottle of champagne, and we Do that we do a toast in December. And you know, that's about it. And for me, that's plenty. But I'm not the type of person that wants to be out every night. I am a person that loves being in my pyjama pants as early in the evening as possible with a cup of tea. David Ralph 23:14 It's interesting you say that because it is prevalent with the people I speak to. And it's certainly in a case of myself, that I have to be on my own a lot. And I actually don't want to see people. But then when I do see people, I really kind of burst into life, and I enjoy it. And then I come back, and I always call it my Batman and my Bruce Wayne. And my Bruce Wayne kind of just sits there not doing anything, and they send out the bat signal and I go off and I do stuff and I sort of enjoy. Now, I see that time and time again with people I speak to so do you think that could be one of the who's perfect for an entrepreneur, somebody that actually is quite good being on their own, so they can actually Work through things themselves. Sylvie McCracken 24:02 I mean, you know, I don't you know, I, I guess nowadays, I would say not necessarily, I would say any type of personality would work. It's just depending on what type of business you build. So for example, for me, I find it hard I found it really hard as my team started to grow from just a handful of people to more like a dozen people because now I found Oh my God, I've got a relationship with a dozen different people who each have families and children. And I found that really difficult because usually my circle my tight circle is very small. I like to go deep vs wide with relationships. And now I found, you know, that had this new family had created of a dozen people and and growing. And so I found that to be a little bit more challenging. I think that you know, you just need to kind of, you know, it just depends on, you know, what you like so, for example, if you're a person that likes to work with other people, you more so than I

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