9 of 10 validation calls asked for more.

Carla: Hi, it's Carla Cherry. I'm here with Ashley Rigby of Goldinage Retirement Coaching. She is a retirement coach helping wealth advisors cover the non-financial aspects of retirement for their clients. Ashley, thank you for joining me.

Ashley: Yes, of course.

Carla: We are in phase 2 working together, and I wanted to highlight your successes there. We haven't even gotten to the automation part yet. Straight out of the gate, biggest win in phase 2, which is the validation process. What would you say that is?

Ashley: Straight out of the gate, I would say increased confidence and increased clarity, for sure.

Carla: Let me give everybody a little back story. You had 2 clients. You've been helping retirees with coaching, and you came to me and said, I really want to do this, but the wealth advisors are a new target for me. And I said, no problem, because we're going to go through the validation phase. You had such good success in it. Share that with everybody.

Ashley: I met with about 10 individuals, and I would say every single one of those calls validated that there's a need in the market. Each one of those calls, when I got off of them, I just realized there's a need here, and it eases moving into the next phase. I'm super excited to have those follow-up conversations with those individuals, because they were asking for essentially the offer before I even created it. Which is just really exciting, and makes me feel way more confident about connecting with an entirely new market for me.

Carla: You came to me and said, I've been coaching the clients, but I'm in that space where I have a family and I really don't want to get too bogged down with the deliverables. You're transitioning from a full-time job into your full-time consulting career. You said, Carla, I want to design this where I still have my time freedom, so I can spend time with my family. I don't want to be overworking. So we went after the wealth advisors in the validation process, because we knew there would be less time involved and we had a hunch there was a need. And when you met your first one, he came back and said, where have you been all my life?

Ashley: Yeah.

Carla: 9 out of 10. I think there's only one you're not meeting with again. They were the ones who said to you, when can we meet again?

Ashley: Yeah, I learned a lot. And I guess this was maybe something I didn't expect, or it's a byproduct of it: there's a real tangible output from those conversations that is in itself marketable and packageable. And that piece happened way more quickly than I would have thought. If I was doing this on my own, I don't know that I would have ever gotten here, or it would have taken probably at least a year. And we were able to do this work in a matter of weeks. That's probably my biggest aha, how quickly I was able to capture this intel.

Carla: I tell everybody it's a soft sell model. When you go through phase 2, our clients get 1 to 2 clients minimum out of it. And you are on track for 9 out of 10, because every single person asked you for the follow-up call, and the follow-up call is the sales call. So you're set up to go sell. I tell people, don't worry about having it all perfect. We're going to do it as we go, because you found out through this process exactly what they want. And there were some serious surprises in there.

Ashley: Yeah. It's been an illuminating process for sure. I'm super excited about the next phase, and also proud of the work that went into this phase.

Carla: I'm very proud of you. I want to highlight too that it's a little scary. Everybody comes into this phase and it's a little scary, because you're going straight to the market. But after you did one or two, how did you feel?

Ashley: Honestly, after each call I felt kind of just giddy. I was like, wow, there really is something here. And they were excited. At that point the offer isn't 100% personalized, because I was so early on in the process, and it's becoming more clear. But I would just say I felt really excited.

Carla: There's a rush, right? Because beforehand you're sitting in vagueness. I always tell people, what happens in vagueness stays in vagueness. We just got you out of vagueness and into confidence. Now we go crystallize your offerings. We lay out in phase 1 exactly everything we think, then we take the intel from phase 2 and polish that process. How does it feel to get things finally lined up into an offering you feel good about?

Ashley: It feels awesome. I was able to validate things that I was thinking about for a long time and really just get incredibly clear, not from my own interpretation of what I think the need is, but exactly from the individual who ultimately will become my client. And that's really exciting.

Carla: And it's intel you wouldn't have gotten through Google or ChatGPT. So what would you tell someone who is not sure this is worth the process, worth the money? It is an investment in the program. What would you tell somebody sitting on the fence?

Ashley: I would say it's worth it. There's certainly work involved, but it's work that you're probably going to want to do. On your own it's going to take longer, it's going to be less enjoyable, and I don't think you're going to get as clear of outcomes. So this has absolutely been worth the investment, because I've been able to short circuit work I probably would have done in a different way. I think it would have taken me years to uncover what I just uncovered in 2 weeks, 3 weeks.

Carla: I hear that a lot on my calls. Prospects say, well, I'm not ready. There are things I've got to get in line, things I've got to put in order. What would you say to that person?

Ashley: You'll make time. Because I am that person. I have a jam-packed schedule. And once I finished that first validation process, I just wanted more. It was so inspiring to me that I was kind of like, well, this is really illuminating. I think I can actually create more time in my calendar for this than I was before. Because the reaction was so positive, it encouraged me to dig in a little bit more and probably move faster than I would have on my own.

Carla: Anything else you want to share about the process? Anything that came up that you would say to a future you?

Ashley: I think this work, this investment, and probably for a lot of your clients or future clients, it's really about betting on yourself. This is kind of that first step, or perhaps the second step if you've been in it for a while. The investment in yourself is really significant. And you'll put in the work, because you really like the results.

Carla: Thank you very much. I'm so excited for you. I really appreciate you taking the time to share this phase with people, because there are different phases, and we're going to circle back afterwards.

Ashley: Okay, sounds good.