How to work with "really, really lovely people"
How work comes in and advice for people starting out(Flying Gecko's Jenna Sanders part II)
Name: Jenna Sanders
Business: Flying Gecko
Location: Midlands
In the first post about Flying Gecko we talked to Jenna Sanders about how her enthusiasm for paddle sports and the people involved in the sector has led to her having a very full diary coaching the coaches and leaders in the sport. Here we talk to her about how work comes in, her advice for people getting into adventure coaching and guiding and her plans for the future.
Key takeaways:
Build a solid reputation before going solo
Treasure your customers: they’ll help you grow your income
Have faith – backed up by savings!
Business insights:
The importance of Positioning (a.k.a “what do you want to be you famous for?”)
Knowing what creates energy for you and your business
In many ways, the route Jenna took to having a full diary and growing her income are the best advice for someone starting out. Do something similar and we are confident luck will be on your side.
Build a reputation
“Work does seem to find me. I think that was partly down to building a reputation while I was managing the centre.”
After moving from freelancing to full time work as a coach, Jenna found herself managing a water sports centre. While there she was trying very hard to make the centre more prominent and well known within the various paddle sport communities. As a result she got to know lot of different people in the industry. This, she feels, had the fringe benefit of also building her personal reputation.
From the business basics point of view, Jenna’s implied strength here is her “Positioning” (what you are -or want to be - known for). Perhaps done unconsciously, but all that raising of the centre’s awareness meant more and more people meeting and knowing her and forming an opinion of what she was all about. At a guess it’s not only her paddle and coaching skills that impress, but also her enthusiasm for the people she is working with. When looking at what works across businesses, it is this clarity on Positioning that seems to make all the difference. Be clear on your Positioning and you’ll waste less time, money and energy and grow your revenue faster. It is also something that seems to get clearer the more you do and the more your confidence grows as a result.
Treasure your customers
When Jenna left the water sports centre to go solo, she feels she had a customer base of sorts already. Does it surprise you to learn this when, as we learnt in the first post, Jenna feels “the outdoors is full of really, really lovely people. 99.9% of the people who come on my courses are just genuinely lovely human beings.” You don’t need processes and slick marketing if this is your attitude. As Jenna tells it:
“It’s just been growing from there. The more I get out there and run courses and meet people, the more word of mouth kicks in and a sort of community builds up.“
When she runs a course, and especially with the interest she shows in the attendees and what they want to achieve, they go back to where they live and sometime later Jenna gets an email from someone else in that area asking if she can run a course for them. And as she says, “that’s really nice!”. (I know my school teachers told me not to use the word “nice” when writing, but isn’t it nice when being nice leads to nice things like this happening 😊)
Interestingly, Jenna has got to this point without spending a penny on advertising and engaging only sparingly with social media (just Facebook and Instagram for now) because she doesn’t enjoy it and has to force herself to do it. This won’t be appropriate for everyone, but it does reinforce how well good Positioning can work for you, even in the absence of active promotion.
Faith and savings
Our discussions also covered what advice Jenna would have for someone thinking of getting into the sector or moving to earning full-time. She doesn’t hesitate: “have faith”. On day 1 when she was starting out Jenna felt it was very exciting, “but mostly terrifying”. Which is pretty much par for the course with businesses we have come across. Like embarking on any grand adventure, you have to be very excited about it to start a new business. But there are so many unknowns ahead that it is natural for it also to be terrifying. So listen and remember Jenna’s “have faith” advice when things do feel difficult.
Short on the heels of her “have faith” comment, Jenna adds
“it’s a lot easier to have faith if you have an element of financial stability”
She advises that, before you go it alone, you have enough of a base that you can get through the first year on less work than you think. And that’s from someone who a couple of years later has a full diary. While there are cases where a shiny new van and a fleet of shiny new toys may be required to get off the ground, Jenna is a good reminder that you don’t have to do it that way. You don’t have to get into debt before you start out*.
Energy
Before turning to talk about the future, the last topic to cover is quite hard to put into words but we’ll try. It connects two of Jenna’s comments while we are chatting:
“There’s no point being in this industry if you don’t enjoy it. We’re not getting rich anytime soon.”
and
“Occasionally you come across coaches who are really, really busy and just have this something about them. There’s a real spark to them. I think it’s a real love of people and a real love of the outdoors”
Without getting too woo-woo about it, this speaks to where people who become good adventure coaches and guides get their energy. What is it that drives and motivates them. It really isn’t about the ego of adventure – although there is surely plenty of that around. (And it’s unlikely to be about the ego of making lots of money.) If you’re thinking of getting into this sector, or making this your sole source of income, or just want to be better at the business side of things, how aware are you of what’s really driving you, of where you really get your energy from? Do you have the spark Jenna talks about, or even the hint of a spark? Because this will not only get you through the tough times but it will also guide your thinking as your confidence grows and you are able to make choices about the types of work you do and the types of people you work with. Which in turn will give you more energy which in turn will help you grow your business and revenue…
Looking to the future
Jenna’s thoughts for the future of the business are summed up by her comment:
“I like to be in constant motion. I’ll never stop learning how to paddle. I’ll never stop learning how to coach coaches and leaders.”
In particular, while the year ahead is full of coaching engagements, Jenna wants to be doing more coach development. She particularly likes it when she can go beyond delivering the “how to coach” course and get into pure development for people. “Going off piste and asking ‘what do you need today and how are we going to get that for you?’ “
I’ve had people on the coach award training who are good but don’t feel they are ready to coach. I really enjoy working with them on that, sometimes just one-to-one, sometimes when they are coaching students themselves. There’s no set syllabus, but they have got a bigger awareness than just “look, I’ve got a qualification” and it’s fantastic to work with them.
We also get an insight into the detail of her work. In theory Jenna schedules four days a week of work on the water, one of admin and two days off. In the absence of finding her a magical admin fairy or being able to squeeze more weeks into the year and more weekends into a week, Jenna wants to control her time more, especially around correspondence. “I don’t want to end up replying to email at 10:00 o’clock at night. And one of the ways I will do that is not replying just because someone has emailed me at 10pm. I know they’re not expecting an instant reply so I’ve got to stop myself from replying just to get it done.”
We suspect Jenna is not alone in this so can we try an experiment, can we ask you to comment?
Do you have any experience of emails and messages coming in out of hours?
How do you cope with this?
Any thoughts or support for Jenna in her correspondence-managing challenge?!
We end with a reminder of another difference between this work and that of traditional professional services like law and accountancy (see the first post about Flying Gecko). Yes, in the outdoor sector there are many years of training. Yes, the pay is not great. Yes, people’s lives can often depend on the professional coaching or guiding them, despite the low pay. But when was the last time you heard a lawyer or accountant talking about their plans for the future say something like:
“Oh, and of course I must remember to get out and do more, not for work, just for the enjoyment.”
Related links
https://flyinggeckooutdoors.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/flyinggeckooutdoors
https://www.instagram.com/jenna.flying.gecko/
* While Jenna is a great example of growing successfully off her own efforts, an interesting counter example in the outdoor sports sector is Maison Sport who’s adverts you may have seen plastered everywhere. You can read more about their funding in this article from Startups magazine.