[00:00:00] Michael Pacheco: Hello everybody. Welcome once again to another episode of the remarkable coach podcast as ever. I’m your host, Michael Pacheco. And joining me today is Christine Campbell Rappin. Christine, did I pronounce the name right? I think I did. Okay. Awesome. Just wanted to make sure I usually check that before I hit record, but.
It is what it is. Christine is a business coach, a business success coach, helping her clients and their businesses shift from buying a job to running a thriving business without driving themselves into the ground for little or no profit. She’s a coach, mentor, consultant, speaker, and author. Who helps entrepreneurs turn their ideas into action plans and step out of their comfort zone words is hard, step out of their comfort zone and depart from the sea of sameness.
Christine, welcome back. Welcome back. To the remarkable coach. This is your second time here. I appreciate you making time to chat with me again.
[00:00:57] Christine Campbell Rapin: I’m excited to be here. It’s amazing when you say, we did this last year in February. I’m like, wow. Time trip flies.
[00:01:02] Michael Pacheco: February 15th, 2022 was the release date of our first episode together.
It was a great one. It was very memorable for me. You and I have. Kept obviously in contact and have chatted a few times since then. You guys, if you haven’t already be sure to go back and listen to that podcast. And Christine, for those of our listeners and viewers who haven’t had a chance to hear the first episode, why don’t you just talk tell us a little bit about yourself in your own words, who you are, what you do.
[00:01:31] Christine Campbell Rapin: I grew up in the world of business and I didn’t realize. How few people who want to create businesses had that same experience before they decided that day to put the shingle up on the wall. And I kept being asked by people, my peers, what gives, explain to me, can I buy you coffee?
Can I buy you a glass of wine? Can we go for a walk? Tell me really what, how you’re creating success. And it led to the mentorship that I do in my business today, because I said, quite simply. I treat my business like a business and I didn’t have the awareness when I first would say that because it was not meant glibly.
It was meant generally, I treat my business like a business and people were like, I think the problem is I don’t know what that means. And I started to really see that businesses had great vision and they hustled themselves into some level of movement, but either fell apart, ran out of runway and started to wobble and say, I’m going to give up on my dreams.
And I said business is elegantly simple. You’ve made it complicated. The world is telling you it’s complicated. It’s not, let’s dial it in and help you actually really take back control so that your business doesn’t own you. You’re creating the life you want. And that’s really what it’s all about.
And to me, it allows me to play with cool people all over the world and really help people create impact, which never gets old. It’s such a fun part of the day to day adventure in my world. I love
[00:02:50] Michael Pacheco: it. I love it. How important to you is verbiage and the specific, the words that you choose? I noticed you said play instead of work,
[00:03:01] Christine Campbell Rapin: it’s 100 percent important.
And it is, it’s a tenement of what I actually mentor my clients around. I think, the word words are everything trying to figure out what to say, who to say it to, and how to say it is a mystery. And. For many, particularly business owners who didn’t really think about the business side of running a business are like, I don’t want to market.
And I’m like, let’s just think about what marketing is. And I think that’s sometimes where the overwhelm starts. It’s I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know what to, who to say it to. And I said, let’s just remember what marketing is. Marketing is about movement. There’s a million tactics.
You don’t have to do them all, but you do need to understand that your goal to create a viable business is movement. And so figuring out how to spark curiosity. And I know when we were last meeting, we were talking about the workshop that I was running at the time, which is about how do you spark curiosity?
You have to learn how to move people because movement is the essential ingredient to the compound effect. And so I think it is really important. And so often we do what sounds good, but isn’t true. We say what we hear, and then we sound like everybody else. And then we wonder why is this so hard to create a business?
You look into the wrong place. You’re playing in the place of enlightenment and playing quite intentionally here. You’re playing in the place of enlightenment. Guess what? That’s not where your client is seeking you. Shortcut. Go change the language. Go connect in a different place. You will find you have more traction.
[00:04:29] Michael Pacheco: Nice. Nice. I like it. I like it a lot. So February 2022, a lot, I presume, for myself, certainly for you as well I would assume has changed since then. Give us bring us up to date. What’s new In the world of Christine, what’s new in the coaching world for you? What’s new?
[00:04:50] Christine Campbell Rapin: Yeah. It’s interesting. So fairly shortly after probably you and I had last connected, not only were you having a baby, but there was a big shift in my business because what I was really observing was I felt the wrong conversations were being had felt people were given a. Magic pill that wasn’t working anymore.
I thought people were setting themselves for false expectations. And I just felt like everybody wanted something from you without caring for you. And it was really making me cringe. And so I remember sitting in a mastermind with my peers and saying the wrong conversations are being had. And that’s why people are giving up on their dreams because they simply don’t understand how simple this is.
And we’ve made it really complicated. And I got challenged and said, so what’s the answer? And I’m like, I guess the answer is I need to create the conversation. And I did. And so I. Challenged myself to start creating events and I had always done workshops, but I really said, I want to curate the conversation.
I want to bring people who are actually walking their walk, not just those that got certified and said, I’m going to give, the magic pill because I got a certificate, but people who were really living it and really talking about what’s the elephant in the room. How does knowing that you have an elephant in the room, encourage you to take an action and bridge the gap.
And if we get into the movement of bridging the gap, I think more of us will be here in a year. And so I created my first event and that was also a point I was trying to prove. I’d never done one. I have been on the other side of events. I speak a lot. It’s one of the more strategies I use in my own business.
But curating your own events is a different thing. And I said, give myself a short runway to execute. To do the learning and people kept saying, there’s no business. It happens in the summer and I’m like, I don’t believe that for an iota. So I gave myself 6 weeks. I launched my 1st of a series of master class events.
I brought in multiple speakers over multiple days and it was a full room and a lot of people got a lot of value. And I said. We need to change the conversation. So fast forward from the first events that’s led to, my own podcast and guest hosting on other peoples and say, we need to curate the conversation and we need to break through the clutter of the BS story that we are telling people of what it is like to build a business.
So that more of us will be here in a year and more of us will get good return on our time and we will fall back in the belief that we can do this. And I keep saying to people, you don’t have to be, you have to be recognizing that you are the engine of your dream, but you do not have to be the only fuel source.
And so for me, when I had to go and play in risks, I was like, I’m going to bring some friends. I’m going to have people on my back and I’m going to wobble and they’re going to say, whatever you need, we’re here. And I also started to step into other rooms that said, you have a great idea. Go do that. Events are awesome.
How do we help you? I’m like giving myself six weeks. What do you need? Here’s some suggestions. And it was just really now starting to. Narrow down in some ways, what I stand for, and it is those, that was, of course, the ultimate accelerator to anybody, clarity. But events have been a big change in what I’ve been doing in my business.
In a bigger way, in a more, I’m creating the conversation and I’m really holding the line high, which is to be on my platform or to be in my ecosystem or to be somebody I’m actively referring and introducing to my audience of buyers, be good at what you do. Nice. Instead of going into the land of the Facebook group, I’m saying I’m looking for the lowest common denominator.
Let me raise to the bottom.
[00:08:18] Michael Pacheco: Sure. Now, when you say, so you’ve said it a couple of times, the phrase so that more of us will be here next year, tell me about that. What does that mean? What does that look like for you?
[00:08:29] Christine Campbell Rapin: Yeah, it’s an interesting one because I think we’ve come through a really interesting period of life.
Our shift of what do I really want to be when I grew up has been more brought home through the change of the pandemic, through the change of the work environment, through the change of the inflation that is kicking everybody’s butt financially. And people always believe that they have an infinite runway.
It’s your runway. Is how you choose the length to be. And right now I say to people, when you’re building a business, it’s easy to constantly look for what’s new and what that leads to the overwhelm. What leads to the things I said to people, what if we simplify this? Cause that’s what I believe is needed.
Find your 20%. If you 20 percent that is working, you can master that 20%. You will start to create movement and if movement. Is a self fulfilling prophecy, it reignites hope, it reignites this belief in it. And I said, pick the lane where you want to be here in five years. We’ve started to look so short cycled that I said, why would someone invest in you in the year long program?
Because we’re like, we don’t even know if we’re going to be here in a year. And what I was seeing is the economic reality of if what you’re working and doing right now, isn’t working. You’re needing to take a course correction. And so when I talk about, will you be a here in a year, what will you stand for in a year?
How much is this commitment all in for you close the back door, get the resources you need and lead that belief first every day when you get out of bed. And then it’s really important you do it in the marketplace. And lots of people I know in my peer group have had a lot of shame around. I economically, I’m in trouble.
For things within the business, but also things within their lives. It’s always more than 1 thing at the table. Usually when it’s there and I say, build your end story. My 1st business, when I talked about it, when we were 1st together, I built it as a side hustle. It wasn’t end stories.
If you need to go back and get a job. That’s an okay answer. Crip your family, feed your family, build yourself an egg. But really realize that it can be an and. Keep your business still moving. And I think people don’t talk about that. I said that’s one of the conversations we don’t talk about. Everybody’s got a journey right now, there’s a lot of people that will believe and tell you there’s no money that’s moving hands.
You can’t build a business in a recession. People are losing their jobs and said, don’t misunderstand moving money in a recession. These people are more motivated to a solution. Stop selling the shininess, sell them the result, show them how you’re creating it, show them why you’re the right guide. And honestly, that’s what happens.
[00:11:10] Michael Pacheco: Are you familiar with Jim Collins? Yes. So yeah, there’s studies have been done and the fact, the facts are that businesses that start in recessions tend to blow up. So it’s not only is the idea that you can’t start a business in a recession, not only is that false, but starting a business in a recession.
Tends to be where a lot of these big businesses have started in the past.
[00:11:39] Christine Campbell Rapin: There’s a need to be scrappy. And this is the luxury of how long is your runway. So do you choose it? I know that always when I made big investments, it was a recognition of my runway and it was. I’ll get there because I see it and I’m committed to it, but I might not recognize myself if I don’t get some resources or support and shorten the runway.
And I think what people said, you can definitively see it. You step into the room that makes you uncomfortable and you grow. You stay in the room that says there’s nothing happening. It’s woe is us. We just all need to hunker down. And guess what? You sink to the bottom. Watch carefully what rooms you’re in.
And I think in the last year, I personally in my own business have done a lot of shifting and saying that has served me, but I’m no longer in that place. I’m in momentum. And that group is not, I need to constantly be evaluating. And just the most important question to be asking, where are you playing these days?
I want to play with people who are moving. Not people who are stagnant, because that’s not a choice, actually. Yeah.
[00:12:39] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. I think, a lot of big things can happen for businesses who are, to use your words, scrappy, businesses who are resourceful and businesses who pay attention during recessions.
Another one that, that Jim Collins talks about that I keep near and dear to my heart as the owner of Boxer Marketing Agency is that businesses that do marketing during recessions. They get to buy Attention at a discount because there’s so many other, there’s so many other businesses that have pulled out of the marketplace, they’ve pulled their voices out of the marketplace that you can get advertising.
You can get social media attention. You can get all that stuff at a discount because other businesses have decided it’s a recession. It’s a recession. We’re scared. And all nine times out of 10, it seems like one of the first places. That people tend to pull money from is that marketing budget, which again, I can’t
[00:13:37] Christine Campbell Rapin: prove it that it’s working and you think about, it’s not the tactic, it’s the movement.
I think sometimes that can open that just view lens differently. It’s interesting to talk about when you say, yeah, you can get a bigger share of voice. When fewer people are in the playing field, it’s also important is to recognize what do they need. And I think when I see what’s observing in the coaching space, which is 2nd, part of your question was 2 things.
I made a really big fundamental decision that buck the entire industry. I said, my answer is not evergreen. My answer is not scaling. My answer is not another course. My answer is not another group program. I took all of that off my offer this year. And they’re like, you’re going to do what? You’re going to kill your business.
I said, no, fundamentally. I believe right now, what do we need? Eyeball to eyeball. You’ve lost yourself in the wilderness of a group program. You’ve lost yourself with a low ROI on other programs and they’ve treated you like a number. I don’t want to serve that way. I’ve said, I will scale my business through value creation.
And I’m going to say, I’m not offering that this year. Maybe it will come back when my clients are moving in high momentum and they’re going to need good thinking partners and I’ll bring back the mastermind. But I was like, definitively the market has changed. What do we crave now? Somebody who’s got experience in recession, somebody who’s got experience when things are tough.
How do you. Evaluate what data set are you looking at? How do you recognize you must be visible? And it’s not just now a status of, Hey, I’m over here. But what are you creating movement around? And movement is the key. And I just, I feel it in every fiber of my being. This is what’s needed. I said, I’m not having any hesitation around this.
I’m going to remove that offer. And people that are ready to work and need support on the runway will get it. And the results are phenomenal. And I said, don’t believe they’re not moving. I’ve got lots of clients in similar things to what you do with your agency. Lots of creators is who I like to play with.
And I said, you can pick the lane, but the lane is not the avatar. It’s not the tactic. The lane is what you stand for, which is the result you stand for. The predictability, short confidence around that. Guess what? Clients are here. Clients convert high rates. And it’s an interesting perspective because I just, I looked around the marketplace and everyone was around, more.
And I was like, how about we create value instead.
[00:16:06] Michael Pacheco: So tell us about then what are your offers today? Is it sounds like you’re focused really on, on one with startup entrepreneurs.
[00:16:14] Christine Campbell Rapin: Yeah, so I’ve got a primary offer, which is my business skill accelerator mentorship program. And that is a high touch, high result, highly customized program to how do you get to learn how to think critically to create predictable client results.
And we work clients through three, four foundations, and it’s either pulling the pieces together. If you already have them or fine tuning the skill development, you need to create that through line. So that’s building an audience of buyers. Gosh, right now, nobody knows how to do that. And everyone’s saying old school thinking will get you there.
It’s not working. The old tactics are not working. The market has shifted. So we build an audience of buyers. We master the marketing message, which is where are you leading people to? And how do you not only spark curiosity in the audience? But then be able to pull a qualified lead towards you so that they come to you to say, I know your programs and services.
I desire that result. Tell me what it’s like to work with you. That’s really what a high touch impact service offering should be. And then really being clear, stop justifying yourself in the marketplace through the how nobody cares. I know you had that comment out social media this week. Nobody cares on the how.
They care about the result and they care about the predictability and have to trust that you’re a safe person to guide them there. And to handle the high and the low, not just the high on an upward swing when the market’s easy. And so I take people through those three things. Pulling the pieces together and actually where necessary building the skill.
And so typically most clients will work with me for a year or more. And some clients will come in at six months. I do a thinking partner brainstorming exercise with people, but I said, you’re not getting implementation in that session. So if you need clarity around an offer, that’s just not triggering.
We might look at the messaging. We might look at the sales landing page. We might look at the copy and figure out why it’s not moving. That’s a brainstorming exercise, but you’re left to implement it yourself. More often than not, it’s that high touch a year to six months only. I said, outside of that, we’ll collaborate.
It’s not an offer. It’s a collaboration. So it’s sharing stages. It’s creating events. It’s being part of building audiences together. Not selling. The selling will come later. That’s the two prong I’m approach I’ve taken for the last six months. And I say, my business is doubled in size. Don’t believe it’s not
[00:18:28] Michael Pacheco: possible.
I love it. I love it. Yeah. Our our flagship product today has changed since we last spoke as well since February last year. And now our big focus is on organic social media and creating and. Fostering deep and meaningful relationships with coaches like yourself. And we’ve seen the same kind of results year over year.
We’re almost double where we were last year, not quite, but we’re darn close and it’s because we’re not the selling you mentioned the selling comes later. The selling, I don’t think the selling even happens. it Just, it becomes a, if you’ve, if you can create those relationships through your marketing and you can create that kind of engagement, you can build trust, you can build authority in whichever way you do it, we choose to do it through organic social media.
You could do it with events. There’s, a dozen different ways you can do that. It’s more of a question of timing. It’s absolutely questionable. It’s, it, when that person, when your ideal client, when your prospect decides like, gosh, I really could use some help with this.
You know what? I bet you I’m going to call up Christine because I already know her. I know what she does. I know she’s damn good at it and I trust her. And that’s what I hear. And
[00:19:41] Christine Campbell Rapin: at that point, you don’t have to sell anything. That’s right. And the conversation always is just a capacity one. And I hear it time and time again, I’ve already decided we’ll work together.
The question will be when, and I have to have, the patience and recognizing my actions create the pipeline, my actions create this. And I said, you cannot buy. This is also a trend that I just know I’m not part of. You cannot buy a 9 thing. And become a high paid client for me. I don’t engage and do it at all.
If you want to work with me, we will have a conversation because it has to be a deep rich relationship where there is fundamental trust and a commitment. The commitment is I have your best interest at heart. I’m always going to be advocating for you and looking for opportunities and stepping you past your comfort zone, building the skills where necessary.
And you have to trust that you can take that safety and say, Here’s where I’m truly wobbling. I’m scared to do this. I said that’s why in that high touch program that I only offer now, I said, you’re, I’m watching to observe. Do we need a working session? I’m not going to leave you hanging. And I’ve got the skills in my own toolkit to help.
And the consequence to that is I know I’m going to hire you. This is what I’m looking for to get there. And I said, this is every day counts in your business. When you’re ready, come back. I will tell you nine times out of 10, the trigger happens. And it’s usually the back half of the year where they’ve gone.
I’ve seen your business explode and I know I had the invitation to work with you. And now six months later, the gap is getting bigger and wow, I should do it now. And it’s usually, that’s when we’re not towing in, we’re jumping all in and clients renew. Before their expiry date, I said, my goal is not to make you dependent on me.
My goal is to equip you to make better decisions because you’re going to constantly be iterating your business. Where do you want to be in five years? Can you see it? I’m going to encourage you and slow you down to say stop and see it. Are we moving in the right direction? And it’s, it just feels so fun and you get to choose your clients and you can say, Hey, when you’re ready, the question will be capacity.
And I tell all of my clients, capacity is a solvable problem.
[00:21:50] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. It’s definitely, it’s a great way to. To run your marketing because you’re doing so many things at once, building that trust, building that authority. And you’re qualifying your leads before and really not before without having to fill up your calendar and having a whole bunch, spending your entire day talking to prospects, right?
You’re qualifying them in other ways so that, prospect a may get to know you through whatever it is you’re doing. And yeah. hate your message. They’ve already disqualified themselves. Fantastic. That’s one. That’s one less useless lead conversation that you have to put in your calendar and take up your time, right?
[00:22:32] Christine Campbell Rapin: There’s high motivation when the call actually happens. And I said, just this morning to somebody, I said, I am never in convincing mode. I’m asking you the question, is your engine lit? If your engine is lit, why is it non negotiable and why me? And I ask all those questions before I make an offer.
And if it doesn’t feel like I’m in the right position to bridge the gap, I’ll say we’re not ready or here’s another resource instead. And I also provide other resources to help people figure out, am I the right person? Are you going to gel with the truth telling that I am very much part of who I am? And the interesting thing to your point.
It’s about experiences like we’ve gotten into that, hustle, chase, fill the groups, don’t care about the number of people in it. It’s a model to a really, I just take a very fundamentally different thing. I said, I create experiences. I will, and this was the big tell about that first event I had, I created the first event.
Of course, I didn’t plan for downtime because never occurred to me, and I ran an event that was supposed to be eight hours. It ran nine, not because we were long, but because people kept saying, I don’t want to leave the room. The magic that’s here, the motivation, I want to take action. Can you keep the space open so we can take some action?
And we captured a screenshot of it. It’s 1 thing I use in my webinar. If you come to it, the interesting thing about it is that this is 9 hours nonstop. I have. 95 percent of the people who started the day stayed. I’m working in multiple time zones. And what’s the difference? Experience. When I put together another event, they’re like, I need to be there.
You need to go. You need to be part of it. And when they’re ready, they’re saying, I know I will work with you. Okay. Just be clear. You’re not in front of your own engine. You can choose. Does it help you get there faster? And have to have the patience for it, but it is about experience and experience does qualify and disqualify people.
And I said, I would rather talk, you’ll be in front of a thousand people a month when I tell my clients, get in front of a thousand people a month, be really effective at your marketing, which is the movement piece, not the tactics. You can use any tactics you like, cause they all work to a certain degree.
And so what will work for you find your 20 percent so that the 10 people who show up in your calendar, you want to make an offer to five. And it’s not hyperbole. It’s not fantasy. I see it. Every day. And that’s really the engine you should be striving for. And it’s not hyperbole. It’s not fantasy. I see it.
Every day. Nice. And you can create that.
[00:25:04] Michael Pacheco: So these events that you started doing, you’re still doing them now and you’ve got a webinar you do regularly now?
[00:25:13] Christine Campbell Rapin: I do. And I created a webinar because I wanted people similar thought philosophy there. It’s like I wanted people to experience and the, if you don’t have the business you want, only three things are causing that.
Number one, you don’t know how. It’s the laziest. Answer to be honest, because as a knowledge question, knowledge is everywhere. Number 2 is you believe, you know what to do and you’re doing it, but it’s not working. So doing more of it is just simply insane, but you need to tweak it. You can’t see it. You’ve got your blind spots.
You need help there. Or you simply say, I don’t do it consistently, which means you don’t really want this. You’re relying on somebody else to give you permission or to be the fuel source and it doesn’t work that way in business. You have to be your own engine. And so I recognize this. Pattern in my conversations, in my peer groups, in the networking spaces I was part of.
And so I said, I will give you the how, take it off the table. If you want to know how to create a business I’ve got a big track record behind me. I will tell you the, how you can observe it in my business. You can talk to my clients and see how it’s working in their business, but I will just give you the road map.
It’s a live event. I also don’t believe that webinars should be this, again, evergreen, record it once and drip it around 100 times. I don’t do that. This is a live event. I do not offer the recording. I said, why? It’s an hour for you to know how to do this. It’s the golden ticket. Come. And in that session I give people the roadmap of what it, what does, what are the foundations to create any business, regardless of industry, regardless of the size and scope you want.
And regardless of where you are from day one to year 10, you need to hear that clarity. And the invitation, of course, is take this and run. If you need some help, I will give you 50, 000 feet. Not a coaching session, 50, 000 feet. What am I hearing from you? That you can see where your blind spots might be.
And the invitation, of course, is to fill them. And the more you can be self aware of your own need to, I said, gain the skills, gain the confidence, gain the capabilities, more of us will be here in a year. So I run this event twice a month in two different time zones, one in the morning, one at night, because I’m a very global business.
I say it’s a really impactful hour either live. Nice.
[00:27:21] Michael Pacheco: Where where can our listeners and viewers go to learn more about that?
[00:27:26] Christine Campbell Rapin: Yeah, you can find it on my ecosystem, which is my website, christinecampbellrappin. com. That’s R A P I N. com. You will find it both always on the homepage. You will also find it on the events tab and the list I said, we always publish the future date.
So if you’re looking at it. So two events a month are pretty standard. That’s the commitment I made last December. And I have a funny story. If you’ll just grace me with it, talk about getting in your own way. I made the decision to do this event after my first two events last year. I said, I’m going to do this as a recurring thing in my business.
And I’m going to commit to doing that all of 2023. And I had it created at the end of November. And I almost said to myself, because I kept hearing what the market was telling me, which is no business happens in December, start in January. And I thought. I’ve got to get one under my belt. I’ve got to go and do this.
So I’m going to run two events in December. Like you’re crazy. Nobody will show to an event on the 17th of December and on the 29th. I said to me, I show up for one. That’s always my philosophy. I show up for one and I had 470 people attended. Nice. I said, in a time when nobody did it, and I said, because of that, I had a huge start to client growth in January and it crescendoed all the way through this year where my business is in massive momentum.
And I said, I’ve got qualified leads coming out of it. Not everybody’s in the place to start, but it is fun. It’s effective. And I really hope that I can just cast some ripples to more people stop listening to the hype and just truly say, I. I’ve really reconnected my dream. Here’s the rope up. Let’s run.
Let’s go. If you need help, of course, the invitation is there. When the time is right.
[00:29:02] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, I would double down on that. And just encourage people to stop. Don’t wait. If you have an idea. Have a go to speak specifically to no business in December. I call BS on that too. We got our highest paying client ever.
We signed on in December, like two weeks, two weeks before Christmas.
[00:29:22] Christine Campbell Rapin: Absolutely. And I just celebrate that. And I think be careful. And I said, whose room you’re around, if it’s sinking to the bottom or if it’s saying there’s movement, let’s capture it. Business happens 365 days a year. A hundred percent.
You do not have to hustle 365 days a year, but if you create this framework where I said, I know I show up twice a month to run this event every different time. I’m at the same content, but I’m changing the lens in which I’m seeing it. I’m calling different people and it’s enriching. The experience is enriching the result.
And you’re right. Never wait. Great idea. Should be learn from the experience, get better every day and play.
[00:30:03] Michael Pacheco: Follow your inspiration. If you’ve got an idea that you think is powerful and that can move the needle, why are you waiting a month? Because someone else told you that business doesn’t happen in December.
Don’t do that.
[00:30:16] Christine Campbell Rapin: And it’s also goes to the point of you create the conversation. 100% Sometimes, when people come to me saying, I don’t know if there’s a market for my business people who are in business, but don’t create revenue. They come to me and say how do I create revenue?
And I said, If you’re not seeing it, it doesn’t mean that there’s not a market. It means that you have to create it. That’s a slower path, but you then definitely need a support structure to get there because it’s a longer runway. But that was really the biggest thing since you and I spoke was, I have to create the conversations.
I have to create the space for it. I have to be, owning my own. That lens owning my fact of what do I see in the marketplace? I’ve got to stand in it. And that’s where I said, I don’t need to follow the crowd. I have to face the trail for others to get the breakthrough they want in a market that I have been through cycles.
And that is what makes me unique. I said, what’s the difference maker pulling the pieces together. Take the idea, implement, learn, iterate. Sales marketing operations are all fundamentals. You need to figure out cause you can’t abdicate them. Responsibility lies with you. You can get support.
Honestly, I do not have to be the financial wizard in my business anymore.
[00:31:28] Michael Pacheco: That’s like the first thing that I outsourced.
[00:31:30] Christine Campbell Rapin: Outsource the things you don’t want to do, but you do need to know how they connect. Yeah. Yeah. Don’t believe business doesn’t happen. Cause in this economy there’s some really awesome people. You can help. Yeah.
[00:31:41] Michael Pacheco: Go find them. And there’s, there’s another to, to.
Speak more to what you were saying about, someone coming in and into a new marketplace. There’s another, there’s a synonym for marketing. It’s called demand generation. And so if you’ve got a product that, that there’s no demand for, if you’ve got, first of all, you’ve got a blue ocean.
And if you haven’t heard of or read Blue Ocean Strategy, go do that now. I’m talking to you, watching, listening to this.
[00:32:06] Christine Campbell Rapin: I endorse this message.
[00:32:08] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. Mauborn and Kim. It’s an amazing book. The second book, which is, I forget what it’s titled, but there’s Blue Ocean Strategy. And then there’s the second one, which is Implementing Blue Ocean Strategy.
They’re both fantastic. I suggest you read them both. And then just study marketing or outsource marketing. If you are not good at it and don’t want to do it. But yeah, stop looking for excuses to not do it.
[00:32:30] Christine Campbell Rapin: I love that recommendation because two things happen. Marketing is an essential element to the success plan.
You can’t skip it. You can get support on it. And I always tell people we’ve got misled by The hype, which is all about Legion and buying leads and buying followers and all that false shininess, which does not equal sales. So we’re clear does not equal sales. And I always say to people, go to the market that’s already spending or curate it.
And that’s the piece of really shifting between audience building and building an audience of buyers. It’s a world. The difference. Small. Word change, fundamental difference. And as the goal is to always be curating your demand. And when you get into momentum, the best part, the funnest thing for me is that capacity is to solve a problem.
You decide the lifestyle you want. You can build capacity around that. The best part about it is when you have qualified leads that come to you asking you about your programs and services every day, that feels like an effervescent moment
[00:33:35] Michael Pacheco: and qualified, right? Qualified being, being the key word, because there are.
First of all, if you’ve got a LinkedIn account You already know that there are marketers out there who will contact you daily trying to get trying to sell you lead gen and appointment setting. The last thing that anybody wants is 40 hours booked in their calendar of appointments with people who are lukewarm on whatever it is that you do or whatever it is.
Why am I here? What a waste of time. Yeah. Nobody wants that. There’s better ways. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways,
[00:34:15] Christine Campbell Rapin: I, Michael and I will help you figure that out.
[00:34:18] Michael Pacheco: I don’t want to digress too much, but work with us. Christine, this is great. This is great. Thank you so much. Is there anything let me, before we get to that question, what three books do you recommend that your clients read today?
[00:34:31] Christine Campbell Rapin: Okay. Top of the list is the E Myth Revisited. You really need to understand what do you want out of your business? Do you want a job? Do you want a business? What’s the difference? That’s a really valuable place. Second thing I really like is the slight edge.
[00:34:47] Michael Pacheco: Can I jump in real quick? What is the difference between E Myth and E Myth Revisited?
[00:34:52] Christine Campbell Rapin: It’s just a little more current in terms of the service offering versus product. Okay, cool. Yeah. Very similar concepts, but it’s a little more modernized, original author and a revisited version. So that’d be number one. Second one is the slight edge. And it’s about that compound effect and it’s recognizing just commit to 1%.
I said, showing up is never negotiable for me. It’s I’m going to show up and what will I do in that hour? And so I like the slight edge because it’s the difference between shooting for the moon or ending up in the deep end of the ocean. Small things over time compound. The sooner you start, the more crescendo you will be.
You can choose your speed. But taking your foot off the gas is never recommended. Slow it down as needed. Accelerate as needed. But stay in the game. That’s number two. The second thing I, or the third one I really like is it’s not about you. And I think that the one thing we need to remember, especially if we’re in the emerging stage of entrepreneurship, we get so in our own heads.
We only see our own lens. It’s self important, not interesting for someone on the other side, who you’re trying to capture curiosity with the reason and one of the most valuable things I can do with my clients is help them consistently change the end lens in which you’re saying things. What does someone on the other side need to hear?
What does the other side need to feel? What is the other side saying around their kitchen table? If you cannot connect to that, you are lost in the sea of sameness. So really understanding that this business. It is your maybe heart in order to create impact. You need to see the other side. It’s not about you.
I
[00:36:24] Michael Pacheco: love that. Yeah, we call it at Boxer we talk a lot about the 3 a. m. conversation. What are our prospects and clients waking up when they wake up at 3 a. m. In the morning and they’re concerned about their business or they’re worried about their business. What is that internal conversation that they’re having at three o’clock in the morning?
And if you can figure that out and speak to that in their language, not using your fancy industry terms for whatever industry it is you’re in, but if you can talk about their 3am conversation in their language, it’s That’s
[00:36:59] Christine Campbell Rapin: powerful marketing. I think that is absolutely true. It’s a very similar analogy that I tell my clients.
I said, remember when you’re building movement, which is what marketing is, so don’t get caught in the tactic. Just think about, am I respecting the discipline? First, you want to go where they are. Secondly, you want to sit there and say, I see you. And thirdly, you say, do you know that something’s on the other side of that spin factor 3am?
Are you curious about it? What can you do to trigger curiosity? And the more you have that skill set mastered, the more you know what footprints in the sand you can leave, that they can safely follow, because it’s not a discovery call. That you need to be offering in that moment. And I always say to people, do not look to your peer group for languaging.
The reason I get brought in, not just as a mentor, but as a consultant, it’s we have a marketing team and we’ve stalled on client growth. I said, God, you all sound the same. What is it you do? And it’s speak and complicated. And I’m like, I don’t even know what that is. No. First things first. They’re like, one of them was a classic example.
I was brought in to consult on an insurance company, which is not my general business because I work with a lot of creatives and they said, what’s the fundamental problem? I said, first thing I do is I land on your website. And the first thing you want me to do is to serve myself. You want me to quote my own business.
What is the biggest fear of your consumer? I won’t be covered when I need it to sell insurance. You must be licensed. So why should getting my own quote be the very 1st thing you offer me to do blow my mind. And they’re like, I can’t unsee that now. And I said, not saying that you don’t want to maybe get some pre qualified.
Information before you have a call, but could you put the human back into the equation? And I think this is, we talked about the shift I made in my business to just stop that, that real churn and say, it’s going to be intimate. I will hold your hand and help you get there. That’s my commitment to you is this thing.
We need to bring the human back. AI is really fascinating. There’s a lot of great capabilities, but it’s also two years out of date from the data sets. Be careful. People do business with people. We need rich relationships. We need to create psychological safety and we need to know when things are great.
We’re cheering for you. And when they’re not, we are not abandoning you. Humaneness is the superpower of 2023 and it will be an epic part of 2024. I have zero doubt. And so I said, how can you care more? How can you show up and honestly put the people back into the heart of what you do? You stand out in a way that nobody else competes against.
It’s not
[00:39:32] Michael Pacheco: complicated. Yeah. Yeah. It can be easy to overlook though, especially with all the, there’s so much. I think, I feel like people get caught up in tactics, right? In the tactical conversation what can I do to make a million dollars in the next 48 hours? And that’s, and it’s nothing but a tactical conversation because you can’t do anything strategic in 48 hours.
[00:39:53] Christine Campbell Rapin: And that’s where I always said to my clients, I said, yeah, I’m, I don’t like the word business coach. It’s a word I’ve tried to tie to shy away from. I said, I’m a mentor because I want this to be a repeatable engine for you. And that’s part of the strategy. So what do I see myself as a thinking partner?
Having a good thinking partner is just an accelerator and there’s no perfect decision. There’s no perfect decision, but there are qualified, thoughtful decisions and having the ability to critically think regardless of what’s happening in the storm that you’re part of. That really, that will really create that long term success for you.
And when we talk too much tactic and not enough strategy, I’m like, what conversation do you want to be having in five years? This podcast will live for five years. Will I be proud of the conversations and the philosophies I embody today? Or will I think I can’t even remember what that tactic is.
[00:40:45] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. I like it. Christine, is there anything else? We, I think we covered some ground here, but is there anything else that you would like to chat about that? We haven’t yet had an opportunity to touch upon
[00:40:55] Christine Campbell Rapin: to be honest. No, I think the big thing if I give anybody a big heartfelt hug for me to you, it’s believe in possibility.
Be your own engine. Don’t rely on your own fuel source. So come and connect to me. Come connect to Michael. Come connect to great people who walk their talk because the world needs what you have to offer. Love
[00:41:13] Michael Pacheco: it. Christine Campbell Rampin. Thank you so much again for making the time to talk with me. I appreciate it.
My pleasure. And thank you guys, our listeners and viewers. Of course, you guys are amazing. The show is nothing without you. Please like subscribe. If you know someone in your circle that you think would find this valuable, share this with them. We appreciate it and we will see you guys next time.
