Inner Game, Outer Growth: The Secret Formula for High-Paid Consulting | Stories With Traction Podcast

SHOW NOTES:

In this episode of Stories With Traction, Matt Zaun sits down with business strategist and growth expert, Jessica Yarbrough, to discuss how high-achieving professionals (especially those from the C-suite) can escape hustle culture and build scalable, sustainable, and wildly profitable consulting businesses.

Jessica shares her journey from building startups and consulting in her 20s to helping seasoned executives command six-figure engagements today. She unpacks the inner game of imposter syndrome, the outer game of scalable systems, and why authenticity will always beat automation.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

✅ The "Bleeding Wound" Test: Why your offer must solve urgent, high-stakes problems if you want to scale

✅ Why AI Can't Replace Human Coaches: And how to use it as a time-leveraging tool, not a crutch

✅ Storytelling That Connects: How to document pain, process it, and share it with impact 

…and much more!

BIOS:

Jessica Yarbrough is a sought-after business strategist for established coaches and consultants who are ready to command premium fees, scale with integrity, and build a business that fuels both income and fulfillment. She has worked with former Fortune 100 executives and leaders across various industries to package their expertise into high-value offers and thought leadership platforms.

Matt Zaun is an award-winning speaker and strategic storytelling expert who shows leaders how to inspire action and drive results through the power of story, with a proven track record of helping over 300 organizations transform sales and marketing.

He is also the author of The StoryBank. This practical guide equips business leaders with tools to create vibrant company cultures and become dynamic public speakers through the art of storytelling.

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

 

Matt Zaun 

I'm so excited for this conversation, because today I'm joined by Jessica Yarbrough, who is a business strategist and growth expert.

Entrepreneurs go to Jessica when they are ready to ditch the hustle culture and feeling overwhelmed so they can focus on building a company that's scalable, sustainable, and profitable.

Welcome to the show, Jessica. Thank you for having me, Matt.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Thanks for your time.

 

Matt Zaun

I know you've got a lot going on. We were even talking about travel earlier. So you're traveling. You're helping people build scalable, profitable businesses.

I know you have a lot going on, so I appreciate you spending time with us today. Can you just share with us a little bit more?

more about what you do for my audience, who you helped specifically, and some of those success stories that you can point to.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Yeah, absolutely. So my primary focus is working with established coaches and consultants that are usually stuck at, you know, anywhere from 250,000 to a million plus in revenue, and they're ready to scale.

Most of my clients are former senior level executives, whether they're VPs or C-suite, or they were entrepreneurs in different industries, and they want to translate that all of that real world experience.

And to high value coaching engagements. they hire me when they want to go into organizations and be able to command very high value fees, multiple six figures for their time, and be able to build a business, making a great impact working with fewer yet higher paying clients.

And as far as success stories, I've helped people, you know, whose highest package was 15,000 to turn around and sell a $360,000 package.

I've helped people that were stuck at three or $400,000 to scale. I'll do a million and build their expert authority and grow their business.

Perfect. Thanks for sharing that.

 

Matt Zaun

I appreciate that.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

And as you know, because I mentioned this to you earlier, I work with a lot of C-suite executives. Yes.

And one of the things that's interesting to me is often I will have a conversation with someone and I'm fascinated by what they're sharing with me.

But it's their day-to-day.

 

Matt Zaun 

They don't think anything of it. They don't realize the expertise and the fascination they bring to the table. And a lot of them want to be coaches.

They'd love to be, whether it's a consultant or a coach, but for whatever reason, they don't feel like they offer that much value to the table.

They know that they're valuable to their company for sure, and they've done great things, but they're not able to kind of pull themselves out of their world and kind of look at it, almost like see themselves, if you will, and how that they can offer more value to others outside of the company that they're in.

So any feedback or any kind of advice?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

you'd give to someone that for whatever reason, they're stuck in their day to day, and they don't truly realize how great of a consultant they could be?

Well, I would say that's a great question. I'd say, first of all, you're often blind to your, you know, your own genius.

It's like if something comes so it's so innate to you, and you can solve something in 30 seconds, we tended to downplay that versus understanding that the person in the next room, they could spend three weeks trying to say solve that same problem.

So just because you're really good and fast at something doesn't mean everybody else is. And so there's a lot of value.

The other thing is if you've been working at your corporate job for 10 years plus, which, you know, my my target market is, you know, definitely 40s and up.

They've got some gray hairs, they've got some experience under their belt, then you have value that you can bring to the table.

Most people have already been consulting or coaching within their own organization. Most people have been coaching people and not even realizing it, even outside of their organization.

They're naturally the advice givers, the problem solvers. So if that's you, then you absolutely do have a place in the coaching or consulting world.

I would absolutely say to hire a coach. And that doesn't have to be me because I work with established coaches and consultants.

But, you know, I think you go out and you and so many people try to figure it out on their own.

They try to DIY it. And it's not the fastest path. It's very different launching a business than it is having access to a team that can do everything.

Because when you launch a business, you are going to wear every hat in the beginning. So getting some help, getting some guidance, at least to get you started.

And then when you get traction, and you're ready to make even more and command more, that's when you would partner with someone like myself.

But I mean, I've worked with senior level executives, you know, at Fortune 100 companies. So no matter what, there is some measure of imposter syndrome that can arise when you're going out on your own.

There's also a general lack of awareness of what the market is willing to pay, and know that you're ever

Average coach is probably going to charge a lot less than someone with a C-suite experience. With C-suite experience, you have automatic respect from the other C-suite members.

They get that you've been in their shoes, so that's a real edge that you have, and you can command a lot more money.

So try not to compare or price yourself according to your average Joe who got their coaching credentials, right? You have a lot more value and insight that you can bring to the table from your experience.

 

Matt Zaun

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. And two things that I want to focus in on what you said.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

So time, really important. That speaks to the experience piece.

 

Matt Zaun 

So everyone listening, just ask yourself how much time you've spent in your field. That would be a quick formula to come up with.

And then after that, you mentioned if you could fix something in 30 seconds.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Yeah.

 

Matt Zaun 

So I would really recommend as an exercise, as soon as this episode's over, sit down, sheet of paper, and start writing out what problems can you solve in 30 seconds.

I think that that would be a really good exercise to think about. I do want to expand a little bit about what you're talking about.

And speak to the inferiority complex, if you will. I was mentioning to you, I also do a lot of travel.

Prior to our episode today, I do a lot of travel, primarily focused on the U.S. I've been to many states.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

I'm at 36 right now that I've been to, trying to speak in every state.

 

Matt Zaun 

That's one of my goals is speaking to all 50 states. But I've worked with a lot of high achievers across the country, a lot of wildly successful people.

And one of the things that's really interesting to me is every single person, does not matter the level of success they've achieved, every single person has some form of an inferiority complex.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

And this was bewildering to me when I first started working in the business world.

 

Matt Zaun 

My background's in the political world, and I transitioned from politics to business. And I was fascinated by this. And how could someone be so successful?

How could someone be someone, especially in the business world, people are put on a pedestal, and yet they have deep-seated inferiority in them regarding something?

Can you speak to that? Maybe the psychology of that and why that might be the case for people that you might have worked with in the past.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Yeah, everybody has something. For some people, it's imposter syndrome because they feel like, hey, you know, I just got lucky and ended up here.

And a lot of people are terrified that they're going to drop the ball and lose it, lose everything. Everything is crashing down.

Some people, it's more of a self-worth piece, and that could be of how you were raised. And thinking about the generational kind of trauma that passes, you know, from the generation that went through the Great Depression to how that raised the baby boomers to then how those mindset beliefs impacted millennials.

Like all of those stories that were passed down that affected you and your parents' spending. You know, I remember my mom personally and, you know, sitting there cutting coupons every weekend versus that's not something I do.

My child has no concept of that. So know that a lot of the impressions on our mind are made as young children.

And so whether it's your self-worth or... Or telling people, you know, to be more for the community versus yourself or whatever it may be.

Those mindset beliefs do drive people even into, you know, their late years in life. And so understanding and working on the inner game as well as the outer is important.

It's why in my business, like 50% of what we do is inner game. I don't talk about that a lot.

Like on LinkedIn, I do some mindset things, because I think people tend to kind of dismiss it. But once they get in, all of their stuff arises.

And I can see it right away. Every person that joins my program, I'm able to tell what is the one thing they're working on on an inner game, that that's what their journey really is about with me.

It's the external, okay, the money at the end, the expertise, the credibility, all of that, we're going to be able to see.

But there's also an inner piece that every person comes to me with that we have to address. And those things can drive your decisions and, you know, make or break your career as well.

And your overall happiness. So we need to fix those so that when you make. That decision to transition out of corporate, that you don't end up building a business that you resent or creating another job for yourself.

That you're actually getting clear on what is it that you want and what are your needs outside of even achievement, which is so corporate focused.

You know, I am my identity. I'm my success. So that you can build a business that actually not only fuels you financially, but also fulfills you.

yeah, 100%.

 

Matt Zaun 

That's awesome. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that. I want to talk about the future, even though no one can obviously predict it.

I feel like we've been pretty terrible predictors of the future. Just from a, if you look back at history, we don't do a great job as a society predicting the future.

We can make, we could speculate for sure and try to predict the best we can and prepare. But on everyone's mind, people are thinking about AI, how they're going to use AI.

So where do you see in your experience, especially when it comes to the coaching and consulting world, where do you see that world?

as it pertains to AI. Are we going to still need coaches? How is that going to change? What are your thoughts regarding that?

Absolutely.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

We're going to need the human connection. AI should be a tool, but I don't think it's going to replace coaches and consultants.

And I know this because we use AI in my business and my clients will often try to lean too much on AI in the beginning of our relationship together to formulate their solutions and their outcomes.

And I'm like, this is not working. So it has a time and a place. I feel like AI is great for certain things, but I don't feel like it's got that human connection and it has the ability to, let's say, build and run a coaching business for you.

I do think there is certain ways that we can use it to leverage our time, especially content production. But as I feel like the market in the coaching and consulting world has swung so heavily, you can see this on LinkedIn towards AI, that people can see right through it.

It's boring. It's generic. It sounds robotic. And there's this craving that's already happening, even though AI is still emerging.

contract Student Yes. then. Where people are like, no, I want the real thing. I want the human piece. And we're seeing all these AI videos and you can tell right now that it's not real.

So I think more than ever, we want that authenticity. We want the human connection. And again, AI can be a tool, but I don't think it's going to replace coaches and consultants.

It's a multi-billion dollar industry, right? They're still, you know, I mean, people are still selling high value from the average like solopreneur, small business coach or consultant to the McKinsey's and Deloitte's of the world.

So I think for data gathering research, there's amazing things that AI can do, but there's nothing that's going to be sitting in a room with someone and solving their problems, listening to them and solving them in real time based on your 20 years of experience.

 

Matt Zaun 

For sure. For sure. So we spoke a little bit about the future. Let's backtrack and talk a little bit about the past because I want to unpack a little bit about your story and not starting in the beginning, but I really like to start in the teen years, right?

I want to talk about teen Jessica. When you were a teen, is there something specific that you wanted to do?

Were you involved in athletics?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

I know you mentioned inner game. You mentioned that word game a couple of times. So were you drawn to different games, athletics?

 

Matt Zaun 

Were you focused on writing?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Where were you as a teenager? Well, I mean, I definitely was into all kinds of intelligence games, like different bowls or whatever that I would do in school and debate and all of that.

I mean, my focus is I was always interested in solving problems. My mom was always like, you can find the gold in any situation.

And so I started managing companies really young. And I started consulting in my early 20s. And I built a startup company in my early 20s as well.

So I was very ambitious and driven. And, you know, I just it was different than a lot of people that I knew.

And I'm grateful for that opportunity because I built this company. And then I walked away from it, which not a lot of people do.

But I realized that I had been so driven at such a young age. I mean, to give you perspective, when I was really young, I thought I wanted to be a doctor.

So I spent my summers volunteering in the hospital at like 12 and 13, which is not common, I think.

And I quickly realized that I don't want to be a doctor, but I love the business side. And the way that I knew that was I actually ended up working in like ambulatory outpatient surgery, which was my favorite apartment and coding and doing all kinds of things that really a volunteer shouldn't be doing.

But they know I was smart. So they had me doing it. But I liked business. And I was drawn to business always.

I built my startup company. And I realized, gosh, I've been driving so hard since such a young age. And I knew that I had the chance to step away and go travel and live my life and see a bit of the world and that no matter what, I would create opportunity.

And that's what I did. I walked away, bought a one way ticket. I spent the next really few years traveling, living in Southeast Asia.

Asia, Central America, backpacking all over the world, having my eat, pray, love journey. And I'm really grateful for that experience because when I came back to building my consulting business, it gave me a lot of perspective on how I wanted to structure my life for the time, freedom, and travel that we were chatting about before this podcast.

 

Matt Zaun

All right. There's so much to unpack with what you just said.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

So let's peel back some of the layers.

 

Matt Zaun 

All right. So you mentioned your mother said to you, you need to find the gold in every situation. So I mentioned to you my background in the political world and politics.

It's crisis management. It's spin, right?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

How do you take a message and paint that perception that it's better than it is, right? Yes. So when it comes to that statement, clearly it had an impact on you.

 

Matt Zaun 

So when you are working with a company, and let's just say something really bad happens, how do you coach someone to step back and look for that perspective shift, look for that gold in that very difficult situation?

Is there one thing or maybe a couple of things you could point to that you say you got to focus on blank?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

What would that blank be? Well, we need to focus on what is the, whenever somebody has some kind of crisis, we're looking at what did you learn?

Because sometimes people try to share too soon before the lesson has already, before they've had the time component that allows them for perspective.

So I'm always looking for how can we pull back, find what the lesson is, and then turn that tragedy or that crisis into something positive.

And it's got to be something that's meaningful for your ideal clients as well. Otherwise, it just feels like drama.

So we're looking for what is the lesson and how does that impact and how can it help others?

 

Matt Zaun 

What about documentation for that? Because one of the things I see often is we think, we think we're going to remember something.

Like even if we're in a really, really hostile, challenging situation, we think we're going to remember something. And then a year later, we were fuzzy on the details.

But if we get through that, that could be a really great story. that we can share, though, can impact culture, can impact those around us.

So what about the documentation piece? said share too soon, need to process. Would you also encourage people to make notes and document that so they can share it?

Well, yeah, because we also know that the truth is subjective because we tend to change it.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

The truth is never 100% how we remember it. We change it to support our ego and to support our consciousness.

So you definitely need to write it down so you can remember the details before you alter it, unconsciously alter it.

 

Matt Zaun 

So we don't want to be changing the details a year later to support our ego.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Correct. For sure.

 

Matt Zaun 

No, I really appreciate you mentioning that. All right. So then you also mentioned your time in the hospital around 12, 13 years old.

And you mentioned that that sparked a need in you to understand more elements of the business aspect of hospitals.

Was there anything in particular that was... Was it really troubling that you saw that positioned you more towards the business versus pursuing the healthcare world?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Oh, gosh, that's a lot of things. So they floated me around to every different department, you know, from long-term care to patient waiting room.

There was so much pain in the hospital. I would say just seeing how the nurses, for example, were overworked and underappreciated and, quite frankly, some of the abuse that they received from the patients and the families, just in terms of verbal.

And sometimes physical. And then also, you know, a really hard thing was death and experiencing that. And I will never forget the day that a child died and just how sad the entire department was.

And they didn't know, but it impacted every, they didn't know this person. You know, all the workers didn't, but it impacted them greatly.

And I think that steered me away from it. And like I said, dealing with all of the trauma. Yeah.

That happens in the hospital. I was much more drawn to the back-end admin business side of things and didn't want to experience some of the sadness that comes along with being, you know, an amazing healthcare worker.

Sure, sure.

 

Matt Zaun 

No, that makes a lot of sense. Also the backpacking piece, because you said that backpacking across the world changed your perspective.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

You perspective is powerful.

 

Matt Zaun 

It's amazing how when we change our perspective, it really changes our reality with the way that we think about certain situations, as you know.

So I want to not necessarily make different comparisons, but different ways that you learned from other cultures regarding the U.S.

and then how that might have shaped you in business to offer even more value to your clients. So what I'm getting at is, is there something that you experienced or you saw in another country that you said, for whatever reason, that's not typically culturally how we do business in the U.S., but it could have...

A positive impact on a certain situation. so what would that one thing, that cultural difference be that you would mention?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Well, it would be completely different. So having done Europe and Asia and Latin America, they're such different cultures, just in the way that they approach business.

So I don't think it was like one particular business lesson. It was more spiritual growth. But certainly when I was living in Asia, I was consulting.

And so I did have a lot of insight into how Asians approach certain issues and how maybe you have to adapt your messaging because they may not be as vocal about certain problems.

It's a little bit more of a safe face culture. So you have to really modify how you market to their culture.

That was something that I learned. But more, I would think it's the spiritual growth. It's that you can create opportunity no matter where you go, is that no matter what, we all want the same thing.

In terms of peace and fulfillment and a happy life, that there people are inherently good, you know, that there is always going to be some bad players, but, you know, most people will try to help you and lend a hand.

And that I feel like despite our cultural differences, we're actually more alike than we are different in terms of human connection and the fact that you can even not even speak the same language and have a whole conversation with someone, if that makes sense.

 

Matt Zaun 

So you said peace, fulfillment, happy life.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Yeah.

 

Matt Zaun 

Universal desires. And obviously there's this major, major debate in the philosophy world on should someone focus more on happiness or duty?

Did you see differences in different cultures on maybe a certain culture focused more on that duty and some more on the joy and happiness?

If so, what culture would you assign to those two different things? Well, there's a lot of duty in Asia, right?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

There's a lot of duty to parents and culturally, I think, and falling in line. Like it is more of that.

However, I will say in Bali, I saw the happiest children I've ever met in my life. So there's something about their particular, I wouldn't say all of Indonesia, but Bali, that it tends towards happiness and being present and being in the present moment.

But yeah, I did see some differences with that. Absolutely.

 

Matt Zaun 

Talk to me more about the present moment, because I feel like in order to be an incredible coach, you need to know how to be in the present moment to guide and direct a client.

So are there any strategies that you utilize to help people be more in the present moment?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

And if so, what would those be? Yeah, we absolutely teach guided meditation as part of the program. I have a dedicated mindset coach that does that, but I practice meditation every day.

You know, it's a combination because so much of what I do for them is future focused, right? We were like creating goals and what do we need to achieve to get to those goals.

But before you can do any of that, you definitely have to drop in and make sure you're fully focused on what's going on in their life and what roadblocks are going to arise.

Taking a deep breath and centering yourself before any call is key, and really also helping between myself and my assistant coaches is helping them to stay present, take walks, get outside in nature, not go into a tailspin because of their never-ending to-do list.

Make sure that they're prioritizing their health, their well-being, and absolutely time for their family so that they don't get too caught up again in that corporate mindset of, you know, I need to be glued to my phone and hustling 60 hours a week.

Like, entrepreneurship gives you the unique journey and opportunity to really create a life based on your terms, and so making sure that you practice those principles and mindset practices that keep you present is going to be key.

 

Matt Zaun 

So when you say the word meditation, I feel like there's a lot of people listening, and their minds go in multiple directions, and we formulate these pictures on what meditation looks like to them.

meditation, I Can you specifically share with us what do you mean by meditation? What does that look like, especially in a corporate setting?

Let's say someone is behind their desk and they're overwhelmed with stress.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

How would you coach that person to meditate in the way that you're talking about? Well, there's a couple of things.

If you want to leave your desk, you can step outside, download one of the many meditation apps, and do a walking meditation that's maybe more about having you focus on observing nature.

That could be one, because not everybody can sit there with their eyes closed. Uh, the other one might be again, closing your eyes and doing like a couple of deep breathing exercises, like box breathing to get you centered.

So I feel like with meditation, it's a huge umbrella of, of, you know, ways that we can take it and tools and practices.

And you have to find out what works for you. What works for me is I start in my day with meditation.

That means before I even get out of bed, I will lay there before I check my phone other than seeing the time.

Okay. 6.30, I'm good. Then I will do a quick kind of body scanning meditation and setting an intention for the day.

And at the end of the day, I'll kind of do a releasing and letting go to make sure that I'm not taking any of my stress from family or business into my dream state.

So those are like bookend meditations that I do. But I think it's really important to, again, download some apps, find what works for you, and practice a lot.

Try different things until you can find something that integrates into your day in the best way.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, no, I think that I think it's really important to talk about because I feel like in a lot of corporate settings, it might be a little bit weird to talk about mindset techniques as it pertains to meditation.

So I appreciate you sharing that with us. I also think this is going to sound I can't even believe that these words are coming out of my mouth.

When I first heard this, I just I thought it was super strange. And then I adopted it. And it's been really working for me.

So there's a lady that I connected with. We were talking about LinkedIn earlier before this episode. I connected with her on LinkedIn.

Her name's Carrie Schwerer. She was amazing. She was on this podcast a couple years ago. But she talked about this grounding technique where you go outside barefoot and you basically, you ground yourself in the grass.

This has helped me significantly with cravings. So what I mean by cravings. So I'm actually, so as of this recording, I'm coming up on six months of no alcohol.

And that's for me, right? So I'm sure I'm not downplaying alcohol. There's a lot of people that can drink in moderation.

But for me, I wanted to nix it. And the grounding with that meditation piece has been very helpful for me on, I really want a drink.

I'll go outside. I'll put my feet on the grass. I will calm myself. I will practice those presence techniques.

I was using Headspace as the app, and that has been incredibly helpful. I have another friend, her name's Amy Lynch.

She's also been on the podcast. She refers to it as a mental palate cleanse. So basically music, grounding, meditation, prayer, foreign language.

were talking about different countries.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Speaking in a foreign language actually gets you out of your current state for that palate cleanse.

 

Matt Zaun 

So I think we need to talk about this more in a corporate setting because there's so much stress that happens.

If we continue to feed into that stress, it could be detrimental to us. So I appreciate you talking about the meditation piece for sure.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Absolutely.

 

Matt Zaun

So let's talk a little bit about the scalability aspect of the coaches that you work with. So someone will go back to the beginning on they understand how they could fix a problem in 30 seconds or less.

They have a lot of time so that experience. They go out by themselves. they go from being, let's say that they're a CEO of a very successful company.

Now they want to be a consultant. So they go out on their own. They recognize that it's a lot different than where they came from.

And now they want to scale that. What are some things that they should look for in order to set it up to position their new venture for that scalability?

Well, it's a couple things.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

One, whatever problem you're solving, number one, make sure that it is an urgent need in the marketplace. So many people, they start just trading time for dollars, like, oh yeah, $250 an hour, $350 an hour, $500, whatever they charge.

And they're going in there like, hey, what do you want to talk about today? That's not scalable. So when you think about going into an organization or working with a C-suite executive and you want to charge them $50,000 to $100,000 a year to work with them, it cannot be a minor cut and you're a Band-Aid.

It has to be a bleeding wound. And you have to become the tourniquet. So make sure that you're solving an urgent need in the marketplace if you want to command top dollar for your time and solve big problems that, you know, are timely.

And they'll find the budget for it no matter what, if it's a bleeding wound. So that would be number one.

The second thing is looking at serious transformation. So what is it costing an organization? Are they bleeding revenue? Are they a revolving door of talent and every person they leave costs them hundreds of thousands, half a million dollars, depending on where they're at?

Are they stalled with productivity? And therefore, it's costing them to lose business to their competition and not innovating fast enough.

I mean, think about the kinds of outcomes that you can really provide and the big issues that you can solve.

That would be key as well. So it's all about the solution. And then do you, as far as you and scalability, are you doing the delivery?

Who else? You need to bring in to help you so that you don't just get one whale client and then you're stuck.

It's like, oh, yeah, I've got this client's paying me half a million a year, but that's the only one I can serve because I dedicated too much of hours in delivery.

So what other experts that can you bring in to help with delivery? Because number one, you shouldn't be the only person.

It's not very well-rounded experience. Other people can add value and they have different zones of genius. So number two, you can't scale it.

And then once you get into an organization, now you've got your foot in the door. This is why my clients like transitioning into the larger corporate clients is where else can you go?

So you start at the C-suite, go the next level down. After that, hey, you know what? Let's do an emerging leader program.

Oh, you want to take this and create a communication program for your entire organization of 50,000 employees? Why don't you license my IP?

You want to train up people within the organizations? I've got to train the trainer program. There's so many different models that you can take just within one single client that can

Create seven figures, and that can be huge. That can be recurring over many, many years. So thinking strategically, how you can go deeper once you've got the foot in the door with a client, and how you can take yourself out of the center of the delivery is going to be key.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, so you not only spoke to the scalability, but also the sustainability, right?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Because you mentioned if you just have one massive whale of a client using your words and that goes away, that's detrimental.

 

Matt Zaun 

I was actually in a meeting recently where someone was talking about, she had landed this amazing, amazing client, huge client, and that was feeding her business.

And everyone in the meeting was excited. There's a meeting of entrepreneurs. Everyone was excited for her. And then toward the end of the conversation, you could see the sheer panic on her face that the client's contract was ending.

It was ending. Like, that is her business, right? So I think it is incredibly important to set up this process, these systems around how you can continue to be sustainable.

What is something that you've seen that you would say, this is something that you should really look into as far as like, if you don't have this, you're in the danger zone of not having a sustainable coaching business.

What would that one thing be? It might not be one thing, but a thing be. I mean, I would say it varies.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

So if you're lower end, it's different. But I would say if you want a sustainable business over half a million, right, then you need systems and a team.

So, you know, you have to have systems like marketing and sales systems that is driving people from the top of funnel so that, you know, into your process and so they can be nurtured and become paying clients because you cannot rely on referrals alone.

A lot of people come to me and they're like, my referrals dried up. I'm like, what marketing are you doing?

Well, I haven't. Why? Because there was always referrals. And I'm really busy. So the other thing is you're going to have to make the time.

So I'm, I threw a lot of things at you, right? I'm like train the trainer and pass all those things.

Take that magic ingredient of time. So anybody that's like, We can scale your business in eight weeks. Please run from that person because that's not going to happen.

And so the kind of chicken versus the egg scenario problem that happens with a lot of coaches and consultants, especially the ones that are kind of stuck at the half million and up, is they're like, but I'm so busy.

I'm so busy because they're not charging enough. They're running around like a chicken with their head cut off on the road, 58 days a year to 100 days a year.

They're like, I don't have any time. And I'm like, well, you're going to have to make the time. If you want to build the systems and team and all of that, it's, you're going to have to make the time, which may mean rolling up your sleeves and doing some extra work while we restructure the way that you're doing things.

And we take those clients that have been underpaying you and charge them a lot more. And you're going to have to have difficult conversations.

And I'll help you through those difficult conversations because let me tell you, if you're undercharging, that client knows they're getting a deal and no one is going to say, hey, Matt, can I pay you more money?

But when you have the conversation, they're to be like, I know we've been getting you for. We'll pay you more.

All right. We love you. Thank you for all that you do. But no one's going to do that. So it's going to be a combination of setting up these kind of external systems, restructuring, owning your calendar, owning your time so it doesn't control you.

And also that inner peace of like really stepping up and owning your worth and being okay with like, not only having those conversations with existing clients, but being able to stand in your power and say, I'm worth this much money to those new people.

It's going to be very, it's a confronting process. I make it sound easy, but let me be very clear.

Like this process is very confronting. And that's why you really need some, like I said, doesn't have to be me, but you need someone that is experienced that can help kind of shepherd you through this process and through those difficult conversations.

 

Matt Zaun 

Perfect. Well, you mentioned conversations. So thank you for our conversation today. I appreciate our conversation. I appreciate all the insights that you shared.

I feel like we covered a lot of stuff in the time that we had. And there's three things in particular that I'm going to take as a walk away.

From this conversation, there's a lot that you had covered, but three in particular that I think was really important for me to hone in more on, which is one, you said I had asked you about the crisis piece, right?

And you had mentioned your mom telling you, you can find gold in every situation. And I asked you more about that.

You said you need to figure out what you learned from the situation, but often people share too soon.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

You said you need a process.

 

Matt Zaun 

You need to be able to step back and then properly document the details so that you're not changing the details later, because often our ego wants these details changed so we sound better.

I think that was fascinating. I appreciate you sharing that. Also, you mentioned in all your experience when it comes to world travel, you said that people tend to want the same thing internally, that peace, that fulfillment, that happy life.

And the reason why that spoke to me is it's really important from a messaging perspective. Often when we're talking to a great crowd of people, we wonder, where do we feel?

And you really speak to the emotion piece behind it, that the emotion is the foundation regarding our messaging. And we could really speak to a lot of people if our stories, if our messages are having them feel more fulfilled, having them feel happier, having them feel more at peace.

I think that was really important. And then the third and final piece, you said that when someone transfers from the C-suite into being that coach, that consultant, it needs to be urgent in the marketplace.

It cannot be a minor cut. It needs to be a bleeding wound, which coming from you, you know, your experience in the hospital, right?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

There's a lot of images with that.

 

Matt Zaun 

But I feel like people often think about their services in terms of, let's say, a vitamin or candy when they need to be selling aspirin, right?

Like someone just got hit on the head. They desperately need that aspirin. That's that bleeding wound. And I think that that transformational piece that you talked about is really important.

So those are the three things that I'm going to have. takeaways. If anyone wants to get more information on what you do, they want to reach out to you for your services, where's the best place they can go to get that info?

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Well, absolutely go to jessicayarbrough.com. You can download some of my resources there, case studies, a great guide I have on the ladder of influence.

Also follow me on LinkedIn, hit that connect button, let me know you heard me on the show and I'll accept.

I put out content every day. You can subscribe to my newsletters on LinkedIn or hop on my list and receive my emails every week.

 

Matt Zaun 

Perfect. Thank you so much. I'll include that in the show notes. People could just click and go from there.

Jessica, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

 

Jessica Yarbrough

Thanks for having me.