Creating a Category of One with Louise Courville

TRA Louise Courville v1.1

Fri, 8/19 6:41AM • 44:53

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

framework, people, building, creating, business, category, coaches, authority, talking, offer, vehicle, coaching, actual, accountability, messaging, podcast, commodity, alastair, book, famous

SPEAKERS

Alastair McDermott, Voiceover, Louise Courville

Louise Courville  00:00

There’s two ways you can do that, especially online as coaches and consultants is that you want to create that framework and you want to create the actual offer that will differentiate you as well. So those those are the two key components of creating that.

Voiceover  00:18

Welcome to The Recognized Authority, a podcast that helps specialized consultants and domain experts on your journey to become known as an authority in your field. So you can increase your reach, have more impact and work with great clients. Here’s your host, Alastair McDermott.

Alastair McDermott  00:34

Hey, folks, it’s August, as the summer winds down and we’re getting ready for September, I’m getting ready for a new intake into Authority Labs. That’s a coaching group and tight knit community for independent consultants and experts who are looking for coaching, accountability and peer support on your journey to authority. The next Authority Labs cohort will be starting in September. And if you’re a consultant or experts, and you’d like to build your authority and grow your income, have accountability and support around you while you do that, then this might be the right group for you. You can sign up for the interest list at TheRecognizedAuthority.com/group. Now on with the show.  Hello, and today my guest I’m delighted to say it is Louise Courville, and Louise helps coaches to become virtually famous by creating a category of one. Louise, can you tell me a little bit about what that actually means creating a category one and what you do with that?

Louise Courville  01:30

Actually, yes, I love it. And thank you so much, Alastair, for having me. And yeah, the actually, we actually do a few things when we say famous, famous is actually my framework. And my framework is is is how I differentiate myself from everyone else in the in the actual marketplace. Not only that, and when we actually look at businesses, we look at their frame, well, a lot of online businesses, or coaches don’t actually have a vehicle. And I know we’ve discussed vehicles before, but the vehicle is what you’re taking people through. And that is your framework. And if you don’t create a framework that you become known for, then you’re just like every other coach in the marketplace.  Now, why I love working with coaches is because they really need this help when it comes to the messaging of their business. And why you know, I don’t really work with people who have a vehicle that is maybe summits or Instagram, or any of those, those are platforms that they that’s becomes their vehicle, with coaches, your framework becomes your vehicle. And so this is how we actually help coaches is building that framework, and also the actual offer that creates a category of one. So the offer is part of that framework.

Alastair McDermott  02:58

Okay, so so can we get into what actually a category of one is? Does that mean that you, you know, you’re creating a new segment of the market? Like, how do how do you think about that?

Louise Courville  03:10

Yeah, it as we know, we’ve been online long enough to know that there are three different categories, those are the major categories, it’s health, wealth, and relationships. And then everybody started creating subcategories from that. And then from there, they started niching down and creating a, you know, many categories of those categories. And what happens is, is that it eventually becomes saturated, it’s inevitable that it becomes saturated. And so everybody starts running towards that, that particular, you know, vehicle that and what happens is, is that, you know, that becomes completely what we call a commodity, okay, so then you start being into you create a commodity product, and I come from an industry, the eyewear industry that actually lenses are a commodity product. And so it’s really hard to, you know, sell against a commodity product, once you start selling toward a commodity product, it’s a race to the lowest price, and then your, your, in your, your, your your messaging has to be different, it has to differentiate, and it can’t be better. Okay, so your offer, that’s why your offer is so important. Your your offer will differentiate you as well, so that you’re actually not doing an improvement offer. You’re doing a totally new opportunity.

Alastair McDermott  04:39

Okay, that’s really interesting. So, so not better. And I assume not cheaper either, because those are the the two kinds of commodity you don’t want to be you don’t want to claim to be cheaper because that’s just the race to the bottom. I’ve seen this before in well in several different industries. One I know very well as the web design industry. Were at The bottom end of the market is always being eaten away by, you know, you see ads on TV for build your own website. So the people at the bottom of the market who are compressed competing on price, they’re there one side of them is being taken away by by the do it yourself website builders, and then they’re not in this kind of place where they can move up the food chain. So I think is that kind of what you’re talking about here?

Louise Courville  05:24

Absolutely. There’s no way you’re, there’s no, there’s no what how does it then I think it’s Dan Kennedy that says, there’s no, there’s no competitive advantage to being number two, when you’re in a commodity product. So you want to get out of there. And that’s with, there’s two ways you can do that, especially online as coaches and consultants is that you want to create that framework, and you want to create the actual offer that will differentiate you as well. So those, those are the two key components of creating.

Alastair McDermott  06:01

Okay, can I ask you that? Because Because we think framework is pretty self explanatory. But we will dig into that a bit more in a minute, can you just talk about an offer that differentiates? Like, what does that actually mean? When he talks about an offer that differentiates you from the market, and when

Louise Courville  06:15

When you’re actually looking at building your offer, we want to look at not only the your, your program, or how fast your program allows your, your, your, your client to achieve. What you’re trying to do is also look at how can you, you know, the time factor, okay, and if you looking at time and effort, if you can reduce time and effort in some way inside of your offer, then that will, you know, get them a faster result. And so if you’re looking at creating so one of the things that, you know, we did inside of Virtually FAMOUS Category of One is that we we were we were helping people with their messaging. And once we were helping with with their messaging, we understood that they didn’t understand how to sell their component, they didn’t know how to sell their framework. And so that’s when we started pivoting more to helping them do that. So we created a service inside of our coaching. So we’re building out that whole service side of it, so that people who want to do a web class or a masterclass of some sort, we’ll help them build that. And we’ll help them understand what needs to happen in the psychology of selling. So that the it converts properly. But we’ll also put it in slides for them. And we also design the slides. So we’ve that’s what we’ve done just to give you an an example of how we’re taking our, our coaching to another level.

Alastair McDermott  08:04

Okay, so, so I think of this, again, this sometimes goes back to the like websites, and there’s different different different industries use this, but I think of do it yourself DIY done with you and then done for you. It sounds to me a little bit like what you’re talking about there is creating a done for you package to go along with, you’re done with you or you’re you’re doing yourself.

Louise Courville  08:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah, if you if you can do more of the work for them to get that. Because everybody, you know, what do they want, they want, they want more time, or they want more money. So how can you help them achieve that and, and take something off their plate. And sometimes we look, you know, we’re looking at offers. And when you’re actually doing a webinar, that’s two, that’s another set. You know, that’s, that’s a huge piece of every buddy’s business when it comes to doing a webinar. And the thing is, is that we find that we’re working inside our business, and we’re constantly thinking about our business. And what happens is that those thoughts just go around in a circle in your head, and there’s nobody to pull them out of you. And what we do is we actually pull your thoughts out, and then we put them down and we clarify them so that people can understand them, and then also gives you confidence that you’re creating something that people will benefit from. And not only that is that we understand that we need to get people away from what you know, overcoming their beliefs with the stories that they’re telling. And that’s that’s that’s half of the battle when it comes to, you know, some of these coaches who are coming to us.  And you know, every time you’re in your business, you start to see what people need and now When you need to pivot or not, maybe so pivot, but that’s when you need to kind of take charge and grab that piece so that people do get the result that you’re, you’re guaranteeing. And so when we, when we work with clients, we want to make sure that, yeah, you’ve got your framework, you’ve got your offer, we understand your offer, and then we want to be able to make sure that they can sell it, if we don’t give them that piece of it, that that doesn’t help them. It gets it gets them, you know, on the field, but it doesn’t give them you know, a goal, you know, in that sense. And so that’s, that’s the goal, what we’re trying to do is not we’re trying to complete the whole process. And you’ll see that in your business, when you’re creating your offers, you’ll see you’ll start to talk to your clients. And you’ll see, yeah, you need to start creating this service over here to help them get the result faster and easier.

Alastair McDermott  11:05

Right. And so when, when you’re creating an offer, what your clients, you’re looking at the kind of the transformation, the problem that they solve, and you’re looking at, how can we help? How can we help your clients isn’t when you’re talking to your client? How can you help their clients to get faster results? And then how can you create messaging around that?

Louise Courville  11:26

Is that right? Yes, yeah, that’s that’ll the between your framework and your offer that could actually differentiate you from anybody else. And not only that in, people always immediately think, Wow, if I do that, then you know, it’s going to cost a lot of, you know, my pricing is going to have to go up. And that’s okay. Because what you really want is you want to have your pricing so that it can cover your costs of building that team out. And in, the more that you’re building your team, the more you can help them. So it’s kind of it’s kind of a, you know, revolving, it’s this continuing… Not only are you building, you know, a result for somebody, but you’re giving them a result, because you’ve got the ability to back them up with with a team that you’re building.

Alastair McDermott  12:19

Right? And just on that like, is, because I imagine that some of the coaches that you start working with are solo, do you get resistance from people about building a team, that’s something that I find when I talk to so consultants and coaches, they don’t want to hire anybody else, they want to do everything themselves? Can you talk to me a little bit about what you think about that?

Louise Courville  12:38

Well, I think that the, the book that they need to be reading is The E-Myth and what you don’t want, you know, just because you set up a business to make cakes, you don’t want to be making cakes all day, what you want to do is hire people to build to bake your cakes, and so that you’re working on your business, not in it. And so as you grow, the more you know, you’re going to have to to help people with your result, then those people you need to hire out and train those peoples. Once you have the processes in place. It’s easy to hire. So you know, you give three people the same, the same task, and you see who’s the best of those three people, it’s quite simple. Believe me, I came from when I was hiring sales reps, it was a much bigger task. And it was it was it that your business is only going to grow. If you’ve got other people doing the the other parts of your business, whether that’s social media, whether that’s whatever it is that you know, that you can help them with, whether that’s, you know, emails, whatever, you know, that your consultants are doing, then you want to be able to help them. You know, build, I think that building a team is is is important and imperative.

Alastair McDermott  14:05

Yeah, yeah. Well, I’d agree with that. I think that it doesn’t have to be a huge team. Like you don’t have to hire 100 people. But it is useful to have people in a way I think of it as buying back my time. So I’m training up somebody in how to do one particular task that I used to do. And then I pay them for that. And now I’m no longer doing that. I now have more free time to work on other things. So yeah, I just wanted to get your thoughts on that. I think it is something that’s important for growth, and also to help disengage from the time for money connection that a lot of people are kind of stuck in trading time for money and never been able to get off that that kind of hamster wheel or that tread treadmill that that they’re always doing that. Right. Yeah. So okay, so we’re talking about category of one. And when you when you say category one, does that mean then that that, that if you implement this, that you clearly stand And out against everybody else. Like there’s nobody, nobody even looks like they’re doing what you’re doing, like how much how differentiated because I know people talk about, you know, red ocean, blue ocean, all that kind of stuff. What does it look like when you’re a category of one?

Louise Courville  15:14

Well, and when you’re trying, you’re building out a category of one, it’s, it’s, it’s about I know, I’ll give you the blue ocean red on red ocean, I get that I get that. And but when you’re actually I’m building that out in your in your business with your framework. Okay, now it starts with your framework. But then what you’re doing is you’re actually using your unique marketing mechanism. So what’s a unique marketing mechanism? So when you’re looking at an unique marketing mechanism would be something like, what p90x did, p90x was a hot home work at home. 90 minute workout. And what they did was they they went to market and it felt dramatically ill drastically it was a real failure. And so they went back to the drawing board, and they change one thing, and it was their unique marketing mechanism, which was muscle confusion. And so that that became the novelty within the p90x messaging.  So the messaging is… there’s a particular word wording, I like to call “category stacking”. That’s my word. Those are my words, category stacking, offer stacking, those are things that I tend to say a lot. And also, the, it’s when you when you’re like, FAMOUS is my framework, and actually Virtually FAMOUS is trademarked. So it is, it’s it’s five months taking it to register. But that particular framework is very, very different from whatever other people are doing. And so what we’re looking at is, you know, having an opposing opinion, one of the things that, you know, a lot of people do is called, they call it throwing rocks, okay, they throw rocks at the subcategory that’s above them. So I might throw rocks at, like people who, you know, are doing courses, courses are, you know, that’s a category that that is, is, you know, people are purchasing courses.  And what they’re doing, all they’re doing is they’ve got more information, but they don’t know how to simulate it into an actual direction, they don’t know how to get the result from it, all they’ve done is created more information in their head, and nothing comes out of it, because of the fact that they don’t have any help to do that. And so when we take clients on, we only take two a month, because of the fact that we’re so deep inside their business, that and we’re pulling information from their head in their mind, so that we can actually understand it. And if you’re just, if I were to put out a course, for instance, then people would not get the same result, because they’re still working in their business as solo entrepreneurs. And that was, that’s one of my hashtags, it circles, not silos, and every time you actually you hire a coach to help you, then they will get you a better result because of the fact that they’re not in your business. They’re giving you, you know, guided, you know, expertise. And I think that that is the difference when it you know, if I’m opposing anything, it would be course courses, and why buy another one, because you’re not, you’re still getting nowhere, because it’s just more information.

Alastair McDermott  18:59

Yeah, I find it really interesting. You know, when people and I do it myself, you know, I buy a course that I’m in a topic that I’m interested in, I have a quick look at it. And I say I’m gonna look at that later. And then I never go back to it. And it’s, you know, we take in an awful lot of information. And, and I think that workhorses can be really good as they sort and organize information and make it you know, they put order around it in a way that if you just googled it, and you, you know, you went through it yourself and Googling using up a lot more of your time. But I think the issue for me is is do I actually implement? And where’s that accountability part? So, so I, I agree with you. I think that I think that courses, you know, standalone courses in particular, are not so valuable. And I think the accountability part, particularly of having a coach, but even if it’s pure accountability, but some kind of accountability is really important.

Louise Courville  19:53

Absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more and you know, there’s there’s there’s companies not come But he’s but a couple of girls are actually created this, this accountability thing where they you basically you show up on a zoom call, you say what you’re going to do, and for two hours you work on it, and then and then at the end, you get, you get the actual result, you know, Do do do it, and did you get it done. And that’s just accountability, they don’t coach through the whole process, they just give, it’s just accountability.

Alastair McDermott  20:26

I think that’s brilliant. And I’ve actually seen that. And one of one of the people in my, in my mastermind group has suggested that I do it for the mastermind group. So I said, I’m gonna give it a go. I’ve seen that from one of the former guests on this podcast, Rob Fitzgerald. And he has a book called write useful books. But he’s also got a community around that the write useful books community. And what they do is once a week, actually, I think they’ve got several different options. But if you’re a member of their community, they’ll they’ll talk for five, five minutes at the start talking about what they’re actually going to write. And then they’re gonna they’re writing their book, for the next, you know, 45 minutes. Now they say at the end, we’ll take what they did.  Hey, folks, I just want to let you know that I’m actually running the sessions now. So as I record this, it’s seven weeks after I recorded the initial conversation with Louise. And I’ve been running these for about three weeks now. These are what we’re calling focus work sessions. I’ve been running them with my coaching group with people from my email list, and with people who have joined me from social media, from Twitter and places like that. And so I’m running them currently on Mondays on Thursdays, you’re more than welcome to join me. And and just to let you know about what what you will get, what we’re doing is we’re doing a one hour call, you tell the group at the start, where you’re going to be focusing on we do a roundtable and then everybody puts their microphone on mute, and works for 45 to 50 minutes uninterrupted. And  I’m going to screen share a timer, and you work on whatever tasks do you think are important for you, I would suggest that you work on something that is in your important but not urgent category, which is something like writing a book or something long term, because the urgent tasks tend to find their way onto your to do list, whereas the not urgent tasks are the ones that tend to always get dropped. But you can work on whatever you want to, I’ll give you a five minute warning. So it’s on mute the whole time some people have cameras on some have cameras off. And then when the timer goes, we just share with the group how we got on if we made progress. If there was something I had somebody today tell me, they had created and printed out their lead magnet, they’ve been working on that for a while and finally got that done. So you know, you can make some progress with things that you haven’t been making progress with. So it’s just a group accountability work session, I run them at 3pm Dublin, London time, which is 10am. US Eastern. If you’re interested in joining us, go to therecognizedauthority.com/focus to find out more, and that link is in the show notes. Now on with the episode!  And I think that’s genius when you’re writing a book, because you know, books are very easy to get put on the backburner when you’re writing. So

Louise Courville  23:07

I believe me, I’m writing one right now. And it’s it’s Virtually FAMOUS, and it’s it’s a fringe day, it’s my framework. And that’s the beautiful thing about a framework is that you can actually write a book with your framework.

Alastair McDermott  23:21

Yeah, and okay, so let’s, that’s a good segue to dig into that a little bit more. So let’s see where I want to start with that. Okay, so you talked earlier about about vehicle and I know that you use the word vehicle in very specific way, can you can you talk about what you mean by vehicle when it comes to what we’re talking about here?

Louise Courville  23:37

Well, the actual framework, so the FAMOUS virtually, like the FAMOUS is an acronym, and that is my, my vehicle. And so when we, you know, if we’re a mindset coach, or a, if you’re a mindset coach, or it’s more than that, it’s it’s not as easy as being a Instagram coach. It’s so when you’re a mindset Coach, how do you differentiate your your message from everybody else? Well, that’s creating your framework. And we we help you pull that out of you. And so the other thing we actually want to do when we create that framework is obviously get that’s the, that’s the first thing that we do is pull the framework out. And then we usually make it into an alliteration or an acronym. And that’s for a reason. We want it to be memorable and repeatable and portable. And so when we actually look at creating a framework, is it going to be is it going to be easy for you to remember it, but also your your your audience, so that’s, that’s the key. I use a lot of frameworks in my business like the ELF framework. ELF is, is the way when I sit down to write any, any sales copy on a page. I always use my ELF. First hit hit the Emotion What’s the mean motion that I’m trying to evoke? And then what I do is then go after the Logic because people, you know, buy with emotion, but justify it with logic. And then what you want to do is then the third part of that whole sales page. And if you look at it thirds, the last piece is is, is, is Fear of missing out. And so whether that you, you know, your doors are closing, or certain bonuses are going away, it doesn’t matter what it is. But that’s what you’re what you’re trying to do is just create those frameworks. So it makes your life easier, and it makes sure your audience is, you know, remember it as well.

Alastair McDermott  25:42

Yeah, so I have created a framework. And it’s kind of a model of how I see how I see a certain progression that people make when they’re building authority. And I call it the authority maturity model. And that model, it’s very similar into anybody’s familiar with the software world, the Capability Maturity Model. But what I, where I think what you’re talking about is different here, the model that I see is just representing what I see out there in the world. It’s not talking about how I think things can be changed. So it’s not talking about how I think you should go from step stage to stage. So I think when you’re talking about a framework, you’re talking about something that actually identifies the problem, and identifies the the transformation, the solution, is that right?

Louise Courville  26:32

Yeah, and that is the preference. And not everybody can do it. But at least you have frameworks inside of your business. And so one of the things that I do a lot of research, I’m always looking at marketing, I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to marketing messages. And one of the things that I noticed was this mattress company now mattresses are in a very, very commodity market, right. So they are, there’s so many mattresses out there and big companies who have them. And one of the things that they’ve done is, this particular one is is called an eight sleep. So obviously, you know that what they’re trying to get you is eight hours of sleep. But they took what they what they did was they did a category stacking. So here’s the category stacking that I’m talking about. It’s the they took from the actual Fitbit Fit Bit industry, right, the actual, you know, walking insights of Fitbit, and they added their own sleep tracking to the bed. And they obviously their bed is temperature controlled. So that that was an that was a definite difference. But the Fitbit made it a totally different category. And then what they did was they added a third one. So if you’re looking at it, like what a Venn diagram, that would be, you know, the Fitbit, it would be the mattress cooling system, and then they would also have, they have a digital component to it, where they have actual coaches on sleep. So that was the other thing that they actually did. So that was their category stacking that they’ve done. They’ve also done an alliteration inside of there inside of their Venn diagram, and I will try to remember what it is. And I don’t know if I can, but they actually have three components performance. There’s a, there’s a three and I’m, it’s their, their marketing message. And I tend to not remember everybody’s marketing messages, but they actually have a three P formula. So that that would that’s an actual framework as well.

Alastair McDermott  28:56

Okay. Interesting. Yeah. And like they clearly they clearly stand out from from everybody else, because they’ve got this act of cooling. You know, a lot of manufacturers will say that their mattresses are cooler or whatever, but they’ve got this, you know, some sort of active system. And it’s interesting. So it’s kind of like, what they’re doing is they’re intersecting, you know, that that diagram that the, the intersection gets smaller and smaller, every time they have another intersection, they rule out another class of competitors. So it becomes it becomes really tight. So they become the only one that does this, this and this,

Louise Courville  29:33

right. And they also the so their messaging is all about performance potential and productivity. Everything Is Everything is wrapped around that. So every time they they write a blog, or if they do anything, it’s always going to be around those three pieces.

Alastair McDermott  29:50

Right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that then gives them the content because this because I think about you know, the contents that people are grading in terms of building authority, I think about the cornerstone concepts. I think Jonathan Stark calls them solar system, because he thinks of the different planets that you talk about. That’s his way of representing these things, but having these different topics that are like your core topics, and that’s, that’s a really great way because they’ve got that framework. So they can, they can say, you know, these are the three sections. So that is something, actually that they already do with the authority maturity model, because there are distinct points. So I do use that to create content. But I want to come back to the framework is, is your framework that frameworks that you’re creating with your clients and for yourself? does it actually take take the client of the framework? Does it take them through a progression? Does it take them, you know, step by step through? Or how do you think of that? Is that something that you try and build in?

Louise Courville  30:51

Absolutely. So your framework can be, obviously, once you start creating frameworks, it becomes like you started having frameworks inside of your frameworks. And so inside of that framework, these your your, your signature framework, or your famous framework, is your process, it’s your steps. And then what we try to do is we understand what I call the BEFTER – the Before, After. So if we understand the BEFTER, where they are now, where they are, where you want to take them, then we can understand what word we’re actually building. We’re building a, you know, word that makes sense. If we can’t get it there, then you do what Sleep Eight did, and put it into a process inside that Venn diagram.

Alastair McDermott  31:39

Okay, okay. Yeah. So, so you’re so you’re looking, so you call it better? So that’s basically the the before state is the problem? And then the the after is the the, the outcome? And do you have? Do you have something in there that talks about the actual solution itself? Or is that kind of baked in? So So when I think about this, I think about problem solution outcome in that kind of step of three. And that’s something I’ve talked to people about when they’re creating content about the, you know, focusing on the problem with your content or focusing on the solution, or focusing on the outcome of the transformation.

Louise Courville  32:17

Right. And so, the FAMOUS framework is, is is obviously, what I think I know what you’re what you’re talking about, I think we talked about it before a little while back. But it’s, it’s I call it a doodle. And so a doodle is basically where they are right now. And they’re they’re the best kept secret online. And then they go into most of my clients are in the second frame of that, which is a commodity, I call them commodity coaches. And then the third line is they start to be create demand based on the, you know, the fact that what they would they would, with their messages, and a good a good example of demand. And how you create that is exactly from your guests from Two episodes ago with Chris Walker, he is that that whole demand in how you’re using your messaging to create demand. And then the next level is you’re going into that category of one, based on that particular framework and your offer. So your offer has to be in there as well. It’s got to be different than everybody else’s.

Alastair McDermott  33:32

Yeah, yeah. Really interesting. Can you talk to me then about your virtually famous framework? Can you can you tell us a little bit about what the what that looks like? Is that something you can talk about? Well, I,

Louise Courville  33:44

then I’d have to, you know, I’m, ya know, like, if I’m, if I’m worried, if I’m worried, just start with just the framework and not the famous, if you’re looking at the famous, then I, I, we create that framework with the alliteration and the acronym, like I mentioned earlier, it needs to be memorable, portable, and repeatable, so that you know, that people will remember you, for your framework, you also need to have some, you know, opposing opposing opinion in there as well. So, that’s it, then the then the unique marketing mechanism. And then the last part is the solid point of view or selling your framework. So it’s that solid point of view that is different than everybody else’s. So as you can, as you know, being you know, you don’t have to be pro- prolific that you’re, you know, you’re not way out there that you’re, you know, so different, but you need to take a stand, and you have to take a stand against something and for something. And so as you mentioned, you and I are probably on the same page when it comes to taking a stand. We don’t do Leaving the course part of it as much as we believe in the coaching part of it or having more done for you or with you is much more, you know, it’s going to be much more successful and result than if we just leave them on their own, you know, doing it themselves.

Alastair McDermott  35:19

Yeah, yeah. Another another example, something I take a stand for a lot on this podcast is the concept of specialization of niching, down or niching down. And that’s something I talk about on probably at least half of the episodes on this podcast that comes up. So. So let’s come up again. But that’s something I believe very strongly and, and then something that I would take a stand against is this dependence on referrals that a lot of people have, I think referrals are actually dangerous and can be bad for you. And that’s, that’s something that people may disagree with. And I’m happy to go into that. But not today, because we’re gonna run out of time. So, okay, so So let’s see, is there anything that you wish you knew before you started your business and doing all of this? Well, I,

Louise Courville  36:05

when I started my business, that was my problem, my problem was finding my vehicle, and now it’s my solution. So that was, that was the big thing. And, and I remember, I bought a course. And then I went out to California for their live event. And, and I remember, you know, it was James Wedmore. And I remember him saying, we were in a, in a separate meeting with Rick Mulready. And he said, It’s the vehicle that, that that’s the piece that you know, and you need to find your vehicle before you can do anything. And that was that was a long journey, a long journey. And so what happened after the vehicle was, you know, I couldn’t find it, I just couldn’t find, find and like, I didn’t want to build anything. So I built a an agency, then blink, digital marketing, and we started building out sales funnels for people. Because the offers were, you know, that people were coming to us. And we were building out there integrating everything for them. But when I asked them for their copy, and their their messaging, they didn’t have it. And that’s when I started saying, Oh, my goodness, you know, you need this before you ever come here and do this. And so that, that’s when I started helping people find their, the, their vehicle, their framework, and then everything happens for a reason, right. And so that was when I started building out virtually famous because of the fact that I saw something that was needed. I saw there was, you know, a pain point, when we were building out the app, this one particular authors funnel, and they put their, their, their copy inside the front end, the actual funnel, I was on the page, I was like, oh, okay, so I went in, and I just did all their copy for them. But you know, copywriting is an expensive sport. You know, that’s, that’s expensive. And, and I was doing more copy inside of actual funnels and creating their offers, I was doing everything for them. It wasn’t just the integration of the actual funnel and building up their offers, so that you see a pain in that, and I started filling it.

Alastair McDermott  38:24

Yeah, and copywriting is expensive, because it’s really valuable. It’s a really valuable skill. And, and it’s hard to get right. So yeah, I’m with you there. Okay, so I just want to ask you again, just so I get a soundbite what is the number one tip that you would give somebody who wants to build their authority? Build a

Louise Courville  38:43

framework? A period? Yeah, if you have a framework, and that becomes your unique, you know, unique positioning in the market. That’s that’s the key is having that framework will and virtually famous, nobody can use that. It is trademarked. And so you can’t touch that. And neither should anyone be able to touch your framework, because it’s your proprietary product.

Alastair McDermott  39:12

Yeah. And, and that’s something you know, that that we’ve mentioned before, I think was episode 20, Erin Austin, whichever episode that was, was on the podcast talking about intellectual property, and she would be a big fan of what you just said. So. So Okay. Is there a business mistake or failure that you’ve experienced that you can tell us about

Louise Courville  39:35

Building the wrong business. That was…

Alastair McDermott  39:38

What happened?

Louise Courville  39:39

Actually, I used to have my first entrepreneurial venture was I did eyewear for the film industry in Toronto, and I built a business thinking that it would be fun, and it was the most boring business I ever built. And so you have to look at whatever you’re doing building that you’re, you gotta look at it as a long term really long term. I mean, five years from now, are you really going to enjoy what you’re doing? And, you know, that’s the key when, you know, I could talk about marketing all day long. I love marketing. But, you know, building that was very, it was very time intensive, a lot of sitting around film sets. I am, you know, aren’t you know, fitting actors in such a it was it mean, it was kind of cool. But at the same time, it was extremely boring.

Alastair McDermott  40:34

Really interesting. Because some people would be saying, Oh, I’d love to do that. But yeah, I think when when you actually start to do these things, that suddenly the glamorous becomes mundane, very quickly.

Louise Courville  40:46

Yeah, it’s not like you do your job and you go, and for the most part, you were like, sitting around and waiting for for scenes to finish to fit them in. I remember Matthew Perry fitting him for eyewear and he, you know, it was like an hour or two hours sitting in this hot, you know, warehouse in Toronto. And, you know, it was supposed to be fall and he was sweating to death. It’s like sweating. I gotta touch him behind his ears.

Alastair McDermott  41:20

Okay, okay, let’s see. All right. Well, that’s the first you know, real celeb mentioned that I’ve had in this podcast. So yeah, there you go. You get get kudos for that. So I You did mention the E Myth already? Is there a business book or resource that’s been important for you? Is the E Myth, the one that you will choose there? Or is there another book that’s been important for you in terms of business?

Louise Courville  41:40

DMS promises is, you know, is the it’s a very good book. But my go to book and I go back to it several times. I mean, I still go back to it. I’ve had it for years. I’ve done coaching through Russell Brunson is the experts secrets. It you know, anytime you’re like thinking about something inside of your business, and he’s got an answer for you in that book, you can go back to it. The second book I would suggest is play bigger with Christopher lock ahead. And Chris, play bigger. That’s it. Yeah, he’s Yeah, that’s a that’s an that’s a good book to the first part of it’s really good. There’s four guys who wrote wrote it, but Christopher Christopher lock heads the one I was follow. I follow him on LinkedIn and, and his podcast. Cool. And do you read fiction? Now?

Alastair McDermott  42:37

Okay, is there a favorite TV or movies that you use kind of like to spend time with?

Louise Courville  42:45

I was trying to think about what I were. You knew what I’m the type of person that if I don’t like to think, because thinking burns calories. And so I’m one of those people like that. If I find something I like I binge watch it. And I’ll sit and watch it in the evening when I’m not working. And you know, there’s something to do. But I have to do something like that. Because if I don’t, then I’ll start I’ll be thinking about my business 24/7. So I have to stop that or go out with friends or something like that, because I will think about business constantly. So yeah, I’m a binge watcher, because I don’t want to, I don’t want to make decisions. If I if I’m going to sit down and watch something. I just go to that and stay there.

Alastair McDermott  43:33

Yeah. That’s why I read fiction, because it’s the only way to turn off the business part of my brain. Yeah, it kind of stuffs that. Yeah. Okay. So we got to wrap it because I know that you’ve got another call in four minutes. So I want to to make sure we get you off in time for that. So if people are interested in learning more about you, where should they go check you out.

Louise Courville  43:56

Go to Luis kohrville.com.

Alastair McDermott  44:00

Cool, and we’ll have that link in the show notes. Great. Awesome. Luis, thank you so much for being with us here today.

Louise Courville  44:06

Oh, it was it was great fun. Alastair, I appreciate it.

Alastair McDermott  44:13

Thanks for listening. And don’t forget, if you’re interested in learning more about getting some coaching peer support accountability on your journey to authority. The next authority labs cohort will be starting in September. So if you want to learn more about how you can build your authority, grow your income, have some support while you’re doing it, check out the interest list at the recognized authority.com/group. Catch you in the next one.

Voiceover  44:38

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