Lynne Jacob

Micheal Pacheco 0:00
Hello, everybody, and welcome once again to another episode of the remarkable coach podcast. As always, I’m your host, Michael Pacheco. And today with me, I have Lin Jacob Lin helps men in business, from business suits to construction boots, go from feeling fed up with struggling, sacrificing and settling for less to having the best teams they’ve ever had, making the most solid and reliable profits they’ve ever had, and getting the fun back, meaning that they fall back in love with why they went into business for themselves in the first place. Lin Jacob, welcome to the remarkable coach.

Lynne Jacob 0:45
Thank you, thank you very much appreciate being here. Really appreciate the invitation.

Micheal Pacheco 0:49
appreciate you making the time for it. If you would, I always like to open up this podcast by simply inviting our guests to tell us a little bit more about yourself, in your own words, and why you got into coaching.

Lynne Jacob 1:01
Okay, well, about myself, I guess I’m a bit of a free spirit or Vagabond or a nomad or something like that, because I like to travel a lot. And it happened to be when I was living in Belgium for a short period that I learned of coaching. And I had learned of it at any event that I went to. And so then I just, you know, research that when I got home for several hours into the late night hours, and then the next day continued researching. And I just sent out some emails, I guess, to a couple of coaching academies. And so that was on a Sunday. And by Wednesday, I remember getting a phone call on my cell phone while I was driving. And this is way back in 2002, I think or 2003, something like that. And anyway, pull over the side of the road, take the call, give my credit card number and off I go. So that was the coaching part of it. And I just wanted to study in the UK instead of Belgium so that I could study in my language. But but then when I got back home to Canada, that’s when I got into working with the construction industry after the first year of being in business for myself. Because I started building a house. Yeah, not something I would do again, I just have no desire to do that. Again, I have no desire even to own more properties than what I have right now. But if I ever did, then I definitely would be. I definitely would be hiring a general and working shoulder to shoulder with the general instead of working shoulder to shoulder with my trades.

Micheal Pacheco 2:50
Okay, so you acted as the general contractor when you built your house?

Lynne Jacob 2:54
I did too. Mm hmm. Yeah,

Micheal Pacheco 2:56
what? So a little bit of background that might be relevant in this conversation. This office that you see behind me, is my brand new house that we built during COVID. Now I hired a general contractor to do it all for us. But I think there were a lot of it was kind of a perfect storm, right? It was COVID times. Interest rates were extremely low, everybody was building. The price of wood was was quite high. We had issue after issue after issue after issue in building our house. And even still, this house. We’ve been building it for over a year and a half now over a year and a half. And we still are working on our punch list. Because the trades are difficult. Sometimes it’s difficult to get them out here and we’re struggling with general contractor. With all of that said back to you. What did you learn? When you were building your house when you were acting as a general contractor that led you to decide that you want to help these people do better?

Lynne Jacob 4:09
They’re flying by the seat of their pants. They’re great at their trade. I mean, they’re awesome at their trade. Every every person we had working in our house was was great at what he was doing but organizing. Yeah, so so they’re great at their trade and then a business happens upon them. So let’s look at the electrical contractor for example. I’m working with one fellow whom I met in December 2006. And we are still coaching twice a month today. So how many years is that from oh six until 22. And in that time now he’s he’s paying a whole lot less than anybody else in my business because he recognized he recognized the value of stepping into grandfathered program. So anybody who’s in a grandfathered program, that’s the at their investment point, and it doesn’t go up. But nonetheless, you know, this fellow got his apprenticeship through the hydro company in his area. And so then a business happened upon him, you know, his family’s calling on him to do wiring and his family’s friends are calling on him and his neighbors and all that sort of thing. So it turns in what business you know, how hard can it be? Oh, my God, those words are hard. Can it be last words? Yes, exactly. So he had been in business when we met for 14 years. And I happened to be doing a workshop for his association of which he was a chapter president. So he had some, you know, professionalism. Certainly, people saw him in a professional light. And so he came to the all that all the chapter presidents came to this workshop this day for their association to see if they wanted to introduce it to their local members. And so he, you know, he called me two weeks after that, it’s funny, because I was fairly new, fairly new in business at this point. Three years, and, and I wasn’t great at the sales part, you know, following up all this stuff. And there were so many people in the room, I didn’t know who was who anyway, and so I’m just gonna wait until January and follow up. So this was the middle of December in January, he called me on that first workday in January, if it was the third or the second, or whatever it was. And he said, I have reflected more on my business in the past 14 years, then, and no, I have reflected more on my business in the past 14 days than I have in the past 14 years in business. And so he said, You know, I want to take that program that you talked about, because in October, he had decided that’s it at the end of the year, when his when he gives his people the time off for Christmas and New Year’s because he would close business typically for a week and a half or so that he was going to give them as a gift separation papers, because he was going to go back to work, the only thing he knew how to do be an electrician at this hydro company. And by the grace of God, he wasn’t good at making decisions. I say, because I teach this successful simple decision making system. And and it is, you know, receiving whatever the idea or the opportunity is considering it by asking yourself a question, is this something I want something I want to do? Something I want to have? And from that you make a decision. And the decision is simply yes or no. Then you step into it. So he thought he made the decision, but he hadn’t stepped into it. Then when he came and sat in this workshop for eight hours that they mid December thing was the 14th of December, then he you know, his wheels got turning, and he didn’t give us guys separation papers, he had eight or 11 employees, something like that at the time. So it’s gonna be a huge impact on many families in their area, right.

So anyway, he stepped into this program that I offered that, you know, went on for a year and he and I coached for a year and a half. And after that, and then he took a break for a few months. And he said, so call me call me again. In the fall. He took a break for the summertime call me again in the fall, and we’ll pick up from where we left off. Okay, great. So I did and he returned my call in February. And in February, he said that he just felt like he was right back to where he’d been when we first met, which was flying by the seat of his pants. Putting his head down day after day and plowing ahead. And this is this is so this is what happens is they become business owners but they don’t know how to be business owners. They’re still electricians or plumbers or mechanical, you know, technicians that sort of thing. Or, you know, even a builder one of my builders, one of my clients is a builder. He was a truck driver. And he built himself a house himself. He did all the general work for it. And then his sister said, Well, if you can do that, do it for me. Okay, fine. So we did it first sister, and then a business happened upon and then eventually he quit driving truck, but when we met they met been in business for maybe 10 years, I think at that time. And when we met, they just they weren’t making a profit. I mean, they were actually so far in the hole every year. And the bank would just keep giving them more money. And they were just just putting holes in the ground before before the freeze the winter freeze. And just go, go, go, go go. He, the year before we met this general and his wife and I, they had four, they put 40 houses up. Now when you’re not making a profit on any of them, multiply that by 4047. That’s what it was. 47 houses 47 track homes. And then you’ve made a profit on any of them. So multiply that by 47. In one year.

Micheal Pacheco 10:49
How do you so you you saw you saw this on the back end? He’d already made that happen. From your perspective, how does someone how do you get to that point where you’re building 44? Zero houses?

Lynne Jacob 11:06
Or seven or seven? I just

Micheal Pacheco 11:10
round that up to 50. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 50 houses and you’re you’re not profitable on one house? How do you? I mean, why did he let it how did he let it get to that point? I don’t understand like,

Lynne Jacob 11:23
because he didn’t know. Okay, he didn’t know what he didn’t know.

Micheal Pacheco 11:27
He’s just not tracking the numbers.

Lynne Jacob 11:29
No, they thought they were. But they did and, and they weren’t doing so. So what he did is, is he finished up that year. He he sat down with a better accountant, he had a bookkeeper slash accountant. Yeah. Who didn’t know, but my client didn’t know that this guy didn’t know. Because when you’re in that kind of financial situation, you go with what’s good enough? Uh huh. Because that’s what you can afford. Sure. So it just was one, it was just a big shit show. It was just one problem after another after another after another. So he got through that you got all those? Those deals closed and done. And on. I remember, he sat in on a half day workshop with me. And he said, Okay, I have a situation for you. How would you deal with this? And I said, What does the contract say? And he just like blank, and I said, you build houses without contracts? And he said, No, I have a contract, but I have no idea what it says. He said, In fact, my lawyer drew it up. And I remember the first time I read it, I didn’t understand it. And he said, don’t worry. It’s just legalese. Oh, wow. Oh, he didn’t worry. And I remember also that he talked to his lawyer about getting a better contract drawn up, one he understood and one that he could speak to his purchasers about. And the lawyer was upset that he would be paying a business coach to do what the lawyer was doing for him, advising him in business and helping him make better decisions and stuff. And he said, Really, you’re helping me do that. If you’re helping me do that. Why am I in this situation that I’m in?

Micheal Pacheco 13:23
Right? Anyone? How did I get here? If if you’ve been helping me this whole time to to achieve that goal? Why am I stuck here?

Lynne Jacob 13:33
Yep, exactly. So that was the lawyer and that’s not a lawyer’s job. Lawyers don’t do that. The lawyer was doing it as a friend, right? Yeah. Lawyers don’t know anything about business either. They too, are technicians. They too are trades people. Yeah. And then they have an office. So it’s a it’s a professional service that they offer, right? Without all the materials that you’re that you’re acquiring to put a house together. And lawyers, I’ve had lawyers as clients, and because I was in law for 25 years. I didn’t like having lawyers as clients, because I could just not only could I see where they were holding themselves back, and were their beliefs were so limiting to them. But it annoyed me I could feel the annoyance in my cells. Because I’d done it for 25 years. Uh huh. And I mean, it was it was fun for me until a certain moment and I just I just had an up to here you know, with people getting into problems going to the lawyer, the lawyer fixes it for them. They’re back within two or three years with the very same problem that they had before for the lawyer difference for them again, so I just, I left and went off to do what I did lots of different things until I got into coaching. Yeah, back three years when I hung up my shingle so

Micheal Pacheco 14:56
interesting. So you’re in your bio, you say you help men in In business, from business suits to construction boots, is this students? Are you talking about the lawyers? Are you talking about general contractors? Or like who do you who’s your client? who your clients right now today? contractors, contractors, okay,

Lynne Jacob 15:15
contractors, one is a real estate. It’s a couple one. Client is a husband and wife real estate investor. So construction more or less, but also I have worked with, I’ve worked with lawyers, as I say, and I don’t anymore, I would refer them on to anyone else. But me. But I,

Micheal Pacheco 15:36
literally anyone else

Lynne Jacob 15:39
that in the food and beverage industry, I don’t like that one either. So I would refer those people out.

Micheal Pacheco 15:46
That seems weirdly specific, why the food and beverage industry,

Lynne Jacob 15:50
because they believe that that they can do nothing about their pricing, that they have to charge what they charge, they have to pay what they pay. And I remember asking this one guy, well, what about contractors, you know, when they’re building a house, or they’re putting all the wiring into this huge office complex? Or they’re putting in all the the ducting and equipment, you know, that the, you know, furnaces and stuff like that air conditioners? Like what about them? Don’t they have to buy materials, to turn that into a meal that’s going to be serving, you know, the owners for a lot of years to come? It’s not the same? Okay, so it’s not, so they could not and I worked with two of them just just in a diagnostic assessment. So that’s how I started everybody. And, and no, there was nothing they could change about the way it was, well, then if you can’t change anything, then why are you? Yeah, you know, work with me? Because if, if you can’t change anything, you know, then nothing’s gonna change. Yeah,

Micheal Pacheco 16:57
just keep it like they had a story that they like to tell themselves.

Lynne Jacob 17:01
Yeah, exactly. It’s a limiting belief is what I say that they’re just limiting beliefs. That’s what they’ve heard. That’s what contractors, I mean, I’ve had I used to do years ago, you know, to grow my business, I would have full day workshops, and I built this house. So I had a great room, and it would hold several people. And so I’d have it all set up. And I provided delicious lunch and all this. Well, numerous times pretty much every time there, there would be somebody in the room saying, oh, you can’t do that. No contractor can do that. And so I would just ask questions about whatever it was I said, and and then there’ll be somebody from a back row who would say, well, actually, I’ve done that before. Uh huh. And I’m realizing that I should be doing that more now. You know, whatever it was, and, and, and I remember one was, I was talking about being not getting into the competitive bidding war, because it’s, they, they are their words. It’s a competitive bidding war. So why do you want to get into a competitive war? Why do you want to get into a war that sounds like a negative place, ie, you know, so they just bid on everything. Kind of like throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks? Yeah. And for many contractors before we’re working together, that’s what they’re doing. So I help them identify who their A, B and C quality customers are. And right off the bat, let’s just let’s just work with your A’s and B’s and forget about the C’s for now. We’ll get into them later. And then what I want them to do is become one of the three contractors of choice that gets invited to bid with two other contractors, whether it be electrical and mechanical roadbuilding generals, everybody, everybody you want to be an invited contractor. Yeah. And they have told me in all these workshops, you know, they would say well, that’s not possible and I love the way that you know, it really posture themselves and I love working I just love working with these guys. I really do because because this tough exterior There’s salt of the earth people right contractor big

Micheal Pacheco 19:28
strong blue collar men. Yeah. So

Lynne Jacob 19:31
this tough exterior is not who they really are. Not at all. So I love to see them become a bit vulnerable. Because that way they they can be receptive to the possibility of another way and a better way. Yeah, I just I just love working with these people, but I have worked with other people in suits like insurance broker I worked. I remember, for about three years or something years ago, early on, I worked with this insurance broker who was a regional manager for this big insurance company, this global insurance company, and he was a regional manager. And our working together took him out of that regional seat, because he said, This is not beneficial to me, I’m on salary as a regional manager. And so my books of business dwindling, I mean, they’re not continuing to grow as they should be. And I’m giving away some of them, because I just can’t keep up with them. But that’s where the money is. No, is selling insurance and investments. So so he quit being a regional and just being, you know, a broker, a financial planner, that sort of thing. So, yeah, so I’ve worked with these people in suits, but also, I work with contractors who are I mean, now more than before, although I love, you know, the small business owner, I love, I love working with them, because they, they grow so quickly. But I also work with, you know, owners of companies who have 100 150 employees, and they’re making big money. And there’s usually somebody in there who’s wearing a suit almost all the time, because they’re out schmoozing with the owners and the generals to get those big contracts of choice and that sort of thing. So yeah, there are contractors who wear suits to, and, and my clients, typically are not on the tools anymore. But But I do have a program that I’ve run before that is more for the smaller contractor, and I’m getting into resurrecting that as well, because I miss them. I miss those, those smaller, smaller companies, you know, to help them grow, because because there’s just it’s so fast, you know, it’s, it happens so quickly. So basically, and I do call it the trade contractors Business College, in fact, so it’s, it’s entrepreneurial school, but with with tried and true rubber hits the road, simple, simple tactics.

Micheal Pacheco 22:16
And it sounds like you’re you’re probably this is kind of agnostic in terms of whether we’re talking residential or commercial

Lynne Jacob 22:24
exists exactly. Residential ici. Yeah, the whole thing.

Micheal Pacheco 22:29
Nice. Where, where do you get your clients right now? How do you market yourself?

Lynne Jacob 22:34
At this moment, right now, I’ve been blessed with referrals. I just, yeah, referrals. And, and LinkedIn, I guess, I haven’t been on LinkedIn too much of late. But for about two years, I think I was, I was pretty active on LinkedIn, and it was paying off very well. And then, you know, I had a full day. So I like to have my clients, you know, one full day so that nobody gets bumped around because of my travels, because I do still travel a lot. And I don’t, and that’s what had me put them all on one day. So I might go from 7am until 9pm with the number of clients that I might have, but I want them all on one day so that I don’t have to, you know, ask them to indulge me and my travel agenda, certain things. So,

Micheal Pacheco 23:30
yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So So I mean, that kind of leads actually into my next question is what does a typical engagement look like? With you? Are you doing like monthly retainers where you meet once a week? Do you have like three or six month packages?

Lynne Jacob 23:44
Yeah, my I always sell in a package. And it’s a minimum six months, it could be six or seven months, depending on which the package is. And why? Well, just because there’s some other in depth stuff, which actually, I can’t exactly sell right now, because of the well, I mean, I guess I could if I were back where from whence I come. But I happen to be in Mexico right now. So people could be coming down though, actually, yeah, I could be thinking of that, again, they could now be coming down and, and we could be meeting in Mexico to have an in depth. So here’s, here’s what I really, really, really love is when I meet with somebody for about a half day in person, and this would be in after we’ve we’ve coached for about a month, you know, a few weeks, month, six weeks, something like that. So we’ve come to know each other a bit, they feel, you know, safe and all that with me more than just the diagnostic assessment. And then we get together for a half day and that half day just means that I don’t book anything after that. And I’m telling them a half day but that half day could be six hours. I mean, it just it depends on how long it takes us. To get to a great point, or to, you know, separate from there, and then we continue working with all that information that came on. And what it is, is I am. So I train on seven simple strategies, seven key business strategies that I’ve dramatically simplified. Okay. Strategy number three is to understand what truly stops you. So it’s actually to follow through and understand what truly stopped you in order to follow through. So I will do this, just ask questions. That’s, you know, what a good coach does just ask questions, and I’m asked questions to help them identify what it might have been that that impacted them somewhere between the ages of five and seven. So between the ages of five and seven, with all of the knowledge of how to survive in this world that they have accumulated in their first five years of life, or six or seven, something happens that causes them such deep shame that it leaves an indelible mark on their soul. And it’s like a tree, you know, is growing, and then this hit, makes it split, you know, those trees, they get hit by lightning, maybe, and then they split. Now, that’s what we all do, every single one of us has had that moment. And then our ego becomes so strong, that it controls us more than 90% of the time. And so every decision we make is basically made by the ego part of us as, as opposed to the soul or the god part of us. Which is, which is, you know, that little boy who just likes to, you know, go running in the woods and pretend these Davy Crockett, or whatever, you know, and there’s all they still do that is fantastic. It’s fantastic, because that’s what we’re here for. We were simply here to have experiences,

Micheal Pacheco 27:19
and have fun. Yeah, enjoy it.

Lynne Jacob 27:22
That’s it. And if we haven’t experienced, it isn’t so fun. And we just ask ourselves, is that something I want to do again? Likely not. However, we don’t you know, is that something I want to do? Again, we don’t even ask ourselves out. It’s just I gotta do that again. And again, and again, even though I don’t want to do it. Because we’re programmed. We’re, I mean, the last two years of never before we’ve seen how programmed we are, but we’ve been programmed since pre birth. I found that out from my grandson when he was born. When he was one year old when he was one year old. His parents discussed while he was in utero, his name, what would they name him, and they discussed it for many months, because they were not agreeing on the name. And finally, they agreed on a name. And the father said, when when my daughter proposed the name, then his father, my son in law said, yeah, yeah, I like that. If I can call them Bastion. And the name would be Sebastian. And so my daughter. Yeah, I like Bastion. Yeah, that sounds nice. Remember, the Neverending Story? Oh, yeah. So anyway, Bastion is born. But he was never called that he was called Sebastian or it was called, say, bass. His father called him say, bass. We didn’t call him Bastian. And then when he was one year old, I happened to be babysitting him one day because I was down in their province visiting them and my daughter was back to work again already. And, and so he was with me all day. And I said, I think Sebastian has a name for himself now, but it wasn’t anything like say bass or Sebastian, and what he was calling himself at exactly when your role was BAFTA. Ah, and wouldn’t that be very close to Bastian? He’s 14 and three quarters now. And he still goes by back then with an N on the end of it. That’s all. Yeah. And I say nobody ever called them Bastion. Except when when his body was in utero. Oh, funny. Isn’t that so then it just took me to another level of understanding of the programming that goes on with us. So So anyway, that’s what I love the most. I’ll spend a few hours sitting with this person in the energy in our physical energy and just asking questions, and and it’s when they say, I don’t see how this has anything to do with anything but that’s what I want to hear because their ego does not want them to see Yeah, but it comes up anyway. And all my goodness, you know, they’ll break into a raucous sobs and I just push the Kleenex box over and say, Well, did you want to suppress that again? You know, because I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s let it out. Nice.

Micheal Pacheco 30:20
He’s gonna He’s gonna get like a pet at some point. And he’ll name the pet a trail.

Lynne Jacob 30:27
Yes. And they have seen the movie actually, they watched it with me, Sebastian and his sister. Watch that. That movie with me. Yeah. And yeah, first, they got a lot watching a video. Like that’s old fashioned. And they were little, but still, you know, they wanted to go to the theater. And it didn’t work out for whatever reason. And so they were both standing on the, you know, on the sofa cushions.

Micheal Pacheco 30:52
This is this is neverending story that we’re talking about. For those listening in the cheap seats. Look it up. It’s so great. Amazing, great movie, beautiful story. I want to I want to circle back then to something that you said, between the ages of five and seven, you get some of some event happens. I don’t know if it’s singular, or maybe events plural, that that gives you shame. Right? And then your ego kind of your ego protects you from that moving forward. Is shame. The right word is that is it always shame or can it be some other?

Lynne Jacob 31:32
It’s very typically shame. Shame is the lowest vibrational emotion that we have. And and it’s at, it’s in that moment. And just to give you an example, nobody will ever No, you know who has said this. But one, one guy, his mom was beating on his little brother. Little brother was three, I think. And so my client was five. And He curled up into a ball on the sofa as far away from his mother as he could get. Not wanting to say a word because if he did, he knew he would be next. Wow. Now the shame of not protecting his little brother. Haha, he carried with him until the moment we aren’t just feeling it again. But and he was one who said, Well, I don’t think this has anything to do with this. But and that was one of those. And, boy. So for the next. So then after this, when we identify what this is after this moment, then we continue our coaching and something will come up where they’re not following through on something. Hmm. And, you know, I just I’m remembering what it was that was their defining moment between the ages of five and seven. And I can see the connection. And I say, Ah, it’s kinda like that moment when and they go, Oh, my God, it is. So for this guy, I left him with the assignment. And he said he agreed he would do it to go and talk to his mother about this because his mom no longer you know, drinking. I mean this many years later, it’s 40 something years later right now. And they had a you know, decent relationship and stuff like that. Anyway, so have you gotten to see your mom yet? Have you gotten to see your mom yet? So then one day, coaching session, and the first thing I said, I said, So how’d it go with your mom? Well, that and I said, Listen, I’m gonna hang up on you right now. We’re going to talk at this time tomorrow morning. And I’m going to hear all about it by he said to me, when we talk the next day, he said, When you hung up that phone, I just everybody in my office heard, bitch. Yes, that happens sometimes. And this guy, this guy in particular, told me you know, some months later, he said, you know, Lynn, I love you like a big sister or like an aunt or something better than my aunt, I guess like a big sister I never had. I remember him saying that. And I said, Oh, even though I can be that big B word. Because you know, it’s not fun to do something you really don’t want to do. But being a

Micheal Pacheco 34:42
coachee being coached is not fun. Mm hmm. Especially in in, in professional and personal situations, right? Not necessarily talking about sports, but like professional and personal situations. If you go out of your way to hire a coach, it’s because it’s because you Know that you can level up and you need help doing it. Right. And it’s and it’s not a coach is is is is can be distinguished, I think from a consultant in that a coach is a guide. But with a coach, you have to do the work with a consultant, they’ll do the work and tell you the results, right. And so, yeah, being coached is, is, is intrinsically difficult, because you’re the one that has to go through and do the work, you’re the one that has to dig deep and go through, you know, bad emotions and and dig up shit that you saw was buried and that you were perfectly happy with it buried.

Lynne Jacob 35:41
Your you thought you were but you have come to a coach, right? Because you’re not happy with your business results if you come a contractor. But not only I’ve worked with women also who are not in construction, I’ve worked with pretty much every industry. But when people come to a coach, it’s because they’re not happy with their results. So they’re not happy. Yeah. And I

Micheal Pacheco 36:02
love this. I love that you’re that you’re talking about this, and I and it really resonates with me and and a lot of what I’ve heard being on this podcast, hosting this podcast, I’ve spoken to almost 100 different coaches, just on this podcast alone. That’s not including, you know, my marketing company, and we work with coaches every single day. And one of the common themes that I hear from business coaches and executive coaches, is that their dirty little secret is that their life coach, isn’t it? Because it’s all intertwined at this point?

Lynne Jacob 36:36
That’s right. That’s right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because this is what stops us from doing what we know we need to do. Yeah. But also with in my business, I’m training I’m teaching also, there’s this this training, huge training component, because they don’t know what they don’t know, one of my clients is a father and two sons. And, and I said to the Father, in the diagnostic assessment, there were the three of them there. And I said, Is this really the entrepreneurial training you want to give to your sons, what you’ve learned over the years? And I mean, he’s never been financially successful. But the way he does it is the only way he knows how to do it. And his sons are doing it the same way. Or we’re doing it the same way. We’ve been working together now for more than a year. And it’s amazing the changes because again, it’s for those smaller businesses, it’s so simple.

Micheal Pacheco 37:37
what’s your what’s your typical churn on on clients? How long? How long did the client stay with you?

Lynne Jacob 37:43
I bet, I would say an average of three years that they stay with me. So of course, they go into that grandfathered program, after they’ve been through the initial, you know, six or seven or nine month program that we started in. And that’s taking this this one guy out of it has been with me since 2007. We met no since we started the origin

Micheal Pacheco 38:07
story.

Lynne Jacob 38:09
And you know, that guy, oh, my God, that the things that he’s gone through over the years, he I can say this, because nobody’s gonna know who he is. Probably anyway, he has ordered and has received the confirmation of delivery date of a brand new airplane, custom built airplane. He didn’t know squat about flying when we met. And this is not his first airplane, he bought a used one. And before that, he was off scuba diving in the East Timor Sea. That’s very cool, isn’t it. And this is a guy who didn’t do anything outside of business, business, and home and a deck that has never been built. I think they’d been in their home five or seven years or something, they built the house. No offense to you taking a year and a half. I said I will not go through a process. Mine was a long period. And you know what it was it was the equal to a gestation period of a baby. And the delivery was every bit as painful. But, but he had built the house, you know, he and his wife built the house themselves kind of and because he’s an electrical contractor. And when we started working together like he’d been in business, 14 years when we started working together, he did nothing for himself outside of the business. He and his wife go camping. That was the extent of their and they go skiing in the winter time. snowmobiling, I guess. Yeah. But anyway, then. Then I got him thinking about doing something for himself just to get away from everything. And he started in the Gulf. And two years later, he he packed it in he said it just didn’t take lessons anymore. After two years. He said I have to admit Lynn, I Hate golf. And, and I said so. So how do you think I feel about golf? And he said, Well, I suppose you’re like it like everybody else. And I said, Oh, no, I detest it. And he never knew in two years, how much I detest golf. But today, he still is invited to golf, you know, golf. Holidays, are by by his suppliers, because he’s, you know, a customer of choice. And so they take him to the, whatever it is Trump International or something, and other places, you know, and all expenses paid and, and he knows how to golf. And so he feels confident on the golf course. But then after that, when he decided he would quit, that he knew he needed to do something else. So I suggested, he just started looking at what’s available to do as a pastime. And so he got into deep sea divers scuba diving first to get into scuba diving. And then that led to deep sea diving. And yeah, and then he came home from, you know, after a few years of that, and he went away to the East Timor Sea, like five planes to get there and talk about being unplugged from your business. Haha, totally unplugged. So it takes a while. And I recommend that everybody get to that point of a three week vacation, or you’re totally unplugged from your business, it has to operate well without you there. And it takes a while to get there. You have to grow your team build your, you know, make your team stronger and more competent and less dependent on you. And yeah, nice.

Micheal Pacheco 41:42
What, what sort of things did you first struggle with when you were newer to coaching,

Lynne Jacob 41:51
marketing and sales, I knew squat about both of them. I was fantastic at admin. But I didn’t know how to get clients.

Micheal Pacheco 42:03
So did you do to make I hired a

Lynne Jacob 42:06
coach, because, you know, I needed a coach, but I hired a coach who had had lots of sales experience. So someone who, like I had, you know, legal experience, and that really comes in handy with my clients, I don’t give them legal advice, but I give them scenarios. And I know when they need to be contacting their lawyer and stuff like that. So I wanted somebody with some expertise behind them in sales. And that helped a ton, a ton. And then of course, over the years, that was just in the very, very beginning. And I worked with that guy for two years, every week for two years. Yeah, and then and then I worked with, you know, coaching mentors, let’s say and, and the biggest thing was on marketing, you know, marketing, marketing, marketing, so

Micheal Pacheco 42:59
nice. And that got you up to a point where now it sounds like you don’t need to do marketing at all.

Lynne Jacob 43:05
I would say I would say we always have to do marketing. But but I’m guilty of doing very, very, very, very little. And it’s working so well for me, because I have had enough, it’s almost 20 years. Right? And, and, you know, so I get referrals and and it’s great. But as I say I have a an online one online. Yeah, like video, it’s going to be video, I’ve done it before for years and years, I did it. And it was tele conference. But now we can do it by video. So it’s just that much better. Anyway, it’s the training of those seven Simple Strategies for Success. And I’m getting that back out there. So now I’ve got to get back to marketing, you know, because I need it, I need I need, I need a minimum of 10 clients in it, to make it to make it really valuable to the clients. And then of course, once once it gets going, then clients will come in every month, you know, new people will come in every month, and it’ll just keep going. So is

Micheal Pacheco 44:06
this is this a pre recorded course that you’ve got set up? Or is this going to be live group coaching?

Lynne Jacob 44:13
Yes, yeah, but not so much coaching. This is the training component. This is this is the training and so all they have to do is, you know, follow through from week to week on the training. So the way I’ve run it before and I would do it again because it works so well is twice a month, you know, so the beginning of the month in the middle of the month. And that’s one strategy and then strategy number two is the next month and strategy number three the next month so it’s a seven month program, but it’s so much more affordable. Right? And and there’s a q&a portion of it. So everybody has an opportunity to you know, to bring in their questions so that they’re more likely to follow through but it’s not the one on one coaching and if they want At one on one coaching, of course, they can get it there’s there’s an upgrade, you know, like, you want to fly at the back of the plane? Or do you want to fly at the front of the plane? Well, it’s just an opportunity. It’s just, it’s just, you know, it’s an opportunity to get more and, and it will be also without the heavy investment of the three coaching sessions a month, which the other programs are it’s three, one on one, personal, private, you know, coaching sessions, and it’s an investment. I mean, it’s it, you know, people say, Oh, my God, that’s a lot of money. What would it take in new sales for you to recuperate this investment? How can one pay for itself? Absolutely. And that’s what I’m always looking for, is to have your business, recuperate this investment quickly, like, Why drag it out? You know, and just to give you an example, one guy dragged his heels in, that’s in his testimonial, he says, I just wish I’d hired her five years earlier. So five years before we start working together, he and I meet he, it was through LinkedIn, I remember years ago, and we went to the same college, not in time. And you know, same towns and college, all that stuff, but not at the same time. We didn’t know each other. And he said, if you’re ever in my area, I’d love to buy a coffee. And I just happened to be coming through your area driving through your area, you know, next week, so fine, we get together, I followed up with him, because I’m now good at sales wasn’t back that way back then. And I followed up with him and three strikes and you’re out. So you know, the third time, okay, that’s fine. Give me a call if ever, you decide to, you know, get off the pot. So he he did reach out to me and actually was for his daughter. So both of them became clients, but he said well, and he said, not only, you know, for my daughter, but I want to talk to you now, too. It was within eight days, within eight days of our diagnostic assessment, not even into the full blown coaching and everything. Eight days from that first session, he landed a job that gave him more profit than the entire seven month program he stepped into within eight days. And he says by the grace of God, he didn’t. He didn’t actually do the work on that job. He’s a general, but he didn’t actually do the work on that job for a couple of months. They got started a couple of months later, he said, so we made far more profit on it than I imagined we would when I put the book together because we tweaked so many little things along the way that they made so much more profit. So that’s great. Yeah, so that’s what I’m looking for. I’m an I’m a numbers person. I love math. So simple math.

Micheal Pacheco 47:58
When what is your what is your plan for so you’ve got, you’re gonna you’re gonna restart this seven month, seven step group code group training, not coaching. Make sure I’m using the right the right terms here. What is your plan to market that? Do you have? Do you have a plan for that right now? Or is that something that’s still kind of on the backburner?

Lynne Jacob 48:16
It’s a it’s kind of on the back burner. It’ll be coming to the front burner in the not too distant future. But yeah,

Micheal Pacheco 48:23
yeah. Awesome. Cool. Well, this has been really great. I want to be respectful of your your time here. Is there anything that you would like to chat about that we haven’t had an opportunity to touch upon quite yet?

Lynne Jacob 48:39
I don’t think so. Really, I guess if I could just get a message out to your viewers. You don’t only have to be in business, but you’re probably in business. If you’re watching these, this podcast, Michael’s podcast. But if you’re in business, and you’re not getting the results you want to get you keep struggling and you keep pushing forward. And and you feel like you’re gaining ground, but it’s not happening quickly. And it sure as heck isn’t easy. hire a coach, just hire a coach, make sure. And I’m gonna say check the referrals. And I said this, I was working with clients just do this. My client day was yesterday. But these last clients I was working with, they need to put together a system for selling this new thing that they’re just getting into. So we were working at that. And I said, Okay, well, when you guys get your system together and your questions and whatnot, send them to me and I as Mrs. homeowner will be happy to poke holes in it. Because I said and I said to them, and you need to have three really good testimonials of people I can talk to as a homeowner, because I do and I said because if I were Your client, I would be calling them and both of them laughed and said, Yes, you would? Yes, of course I would. And you want clients like that. So I have two who have sold themselves on working with, you know, before you get into the program, though, whatever, you know, like what they’re offering and because it’s, uh, it’ll be like a three month job, you know, on their homes, you know, so. So you want them to be in love with the fact that they stepped into making this buying decision that you don’t want them to feel like they were sold and all that. And it’s the same thing for all of us, as business owners, we want to check the references. So reach out, give people a call, have some really good like three really good questions to ask them to make sure that it’s going to work for you and then become really clear with what is it? What’s it going to take for this to be a worthwhile investment for me, you know, how many new clients do I need to bring in or whatever. And I have worked with people in my early years, who invested in themselves. One was to get her dream job that had eluded her her whole life. And the other one, you have a few more but anyway, the other main one, he’s, he was a manager of a department in a trucking company. And his crops, his trucks were the construction trucks, they were delivering aggregates and stuff like that. He invested in himself to work with me, because he heard about me in the construction industry. And he wanted to know what he would go into next before he quit this job that wasn’t satisfying him. And within three months, his boss called him in and said, like, what’s going on? Like, you are a different person. And so the boss said, well, we want to be paying for that coaching for you, then you shouldn’t be paying that out of your own pocket. We should be paying for that. Because look who you’ve become. And you know, all is still in that company today. And that’s been,

Micheal Pacheco 52:07
and he loves it now, presumably 1213 years

Lynne Jacob 52:11
old, loves it loves it loves it, he has grown his department into about three different divisions. And he just loves it. He just loves it. So so if you don’t own your own business, you’re worth more than your business is worth. So why not invest in you? Yeah, that’s the message I

Micheal Pacheco 52:31
want. And I love that. I love that a lot. That’s yeah, that’s a great message. Man, thank you so much for joining. Gosh, I love it. Where can our listeners and viewers connect with you online?

Lynne Jacob 52:44
Oh, well, they can go to my website at m LJ international.com. And they can find me on LinkedIn. Lynne is L y n in E. Jacob like in the Bible, J AC OB? And yeah, I guess I guess that’s about it. That’s about it. My website and LinkedIn, they’re, they’re the two places.

Micheal Pacheco 53:10
That’s perfect. Linda, thank you so much, again, for joining us on their markup coach podcast. I appreciate you making the time. This has been a very great conversation.

Lynne Jacob 53:17
I’ve had a pleasure. I know I’ve rambled on a lot, but I am just so passionate about what I do. And and it still amazes me after all these years and then and it amazes me, you know, to be having a conversation with someone like you today, Michael, and it’s been fun hearing about your house and your building walls.

Micheal Pacheco 53:36
Yeah, yeah, they’ll stop someday, we’ll say.

Lynne Jacob 53:41
Well, thank you so much for the invitation.

Micheal Pacheco 53:42
Yeah, thank you. And thank you too. As always, thank you to our viewers and listeners for joining us. We’ll catch you guys next time till then.