The Psychology of Sales Mastery: Inside the Coaching Playbook with Bart Van Den Belt

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets our guest is Bart Van Den Belt, an internationally recognized sales trainer, coach, and speaker known for helping entrepreneurs and professionals unlock consistent high performance through mindset, behavior, and practical sales systems; we explore his journey, the psychology behind successful selling, how coaching transforms limiting beliefs into measurable results, and the strategies he uses to help clients grow their business and leadership impact in today’s competitive landscape—drawing insights from his professional experience and thought leadership shared across platforms.

You can find him on:
https://businesscoach.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/businesscoach-international/
https://www.youtube.com/@BusinessCoach-com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bartvandenbelt/

Transcript

Bart Van Den Belt 0:00

But then the first thing is, are you able to guide them through a process in which they are able to listen to you and to change their behavior and to change their leadership? And are they open and willing to change? And are you able to guide them through through a process? And if you are able to do that, then do you have a system that helps them to sell that to people?

Davis Nguyen 0:20

And we we noticed that the moment, like I struggled for 10 years to figure out how to build a business, how to make money, until I figured out Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Wynne, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Pedro Stein 1:00

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro and I'm here with Bart Van Dandelt from BusinessCoach.com, a network for experienced business coaches who believe that growth begins with simplicity, ownership, and focus. With their framework circle of business, recognized training programs and the business coach platform, they help coaches guide entrepreneurs towards more structure, peace, and results. What sets Business Coach.com apart is their philosophy that coaches work independently but never alone, building their own business while being part of a group of professionals who make each other sharper and stronger. As the market leader in business coaching in the Netherlands, they offer accredited business advisor training with no deduction on coaches' own revenue. Welcome to the show, Bart.

Bart Van Den Belt 1:53

Thank you so much. I'm so glad that I'm here. And and compliments for how you're doing it. It's really awesome.

Pedro Stein 1:59

Oh, I'm excited that you're here, you know, from the day we met. And before we get into what you do now, I'm curious how this actually started, right, Bart. What was going on in your life when coaching became more than just an idea, you know?

Bart Van Den Belt 2:12

Yeah, yeah. The funny thing is that uh when I started, uh I was 20 years old, and my dream was to become a magician. I was my dream was to become a magician since I was a child. So I became a magician, a professional magician at 20, build a business, build an artist agency. And I did that did that until 2013. And then um I became the freelancer of the year. And based on that, people asked me, Ah, you're building an awesome business. I see what you're doing. Please can you help me? Can you help me grow my business? And then at a certain point, one of the largest banks, I was 27, one of the largest banks in the Netherlands asked me, Bart, we hired you for workshop juggling, and you were talking about letting go. Could you coach our management team? And I was 27, I had no clue what to do, and I said, Yeah, of course, of course. I had no how to coach them, no idea how to coach them. I thought, okay, what I can do is I can tell you what I see. So we started, and there was a was uh was the president and there was a manager, like a director and a manager. They had an argument within each other. So I called a friend of mine who was a really thorough uh management coach and asked him uh how would you solve this problem? And he said, Whatever you do, don't go into the contact, just leave the process by them. So so I set them up together. I said, Yeah, you have a problem with each other, call each other before the next meeting. We had the next meeting, the manager, uh, a lady stood up and said, I have a problem. Bart talked about me with the director. I don't feel safe. Uh, how do you feel about that? And then I was 27, and in that moment I decided I will never do business or management coaching again. That's how I started. And then later on, uh, lucky for me, um, I built a business in the Netherlands where we we became the number one uh market leader in educating entrepreneurs how to build their business. And uh purely by accident, in 2020, a year of COVID, we couldn't do any education. I thought, how can I help more more entrepreneurs? And then we decided to start the to start a certification. Uh, and we're on that track for four years now. The Netherlands, we became market leader. Uh, my book is a bestseller in the Netherlands, and we're currently expanding to like 15 countries at the same time.

Pedro Stein 4:27

Yeah, yeah, that is so interesting. I'm just picturing her, right? He managing her face and looking at your website like oh, that guy, right?

Bart Van Den Belt 4:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pedro Stein 4:40

Oh my god, that's hilarious. Okay. Former magician magician, I love it. And but I want to understand here, Bart, and and I I tend to ask this sometimes. It's like, yeah, at what point did it stop feeling like a side thing? You know, I'm helping people, I'm testing waters to or a calling to start feeling like an actual business, you know, that you were responsible for that first invoice. I'm not sure where when that happened, you know.

Bart Van Den Belt 5:05

Yeah, so so we I still can remember there was one specific moment, it was 2013, October 2013. I will never forget. I was at Experts Academy of Brandon Bashar in San Francisco, and we had a four-day seminar, and at the end, there was a visualization, and then he he ended the seminar with there's a window of opportunity, and the window is closing. This is the moment you need to make the next step. And that was the moment that I decided I need to go. I went home the next day. I called a friend and I said, Within three weeks, we need to have 100 entrepreneurs, and uh, so it started. So that was the moment, and then the real challenge started because I I saw my programs, but I didn't had a program, so we did a lot of hard work with coaching people, everyone was excited afterwards, but it was quite a challenge to uh to do to the first program, and that's how I started. And uh from there on we became more professional and build a team, etc.

unknown 6:02

Yeah.

Pedro Stein 6:02

Oh, I love I love how natural and organic it is, okay. And and you know, in the early days, there's a lot of trial and error, right? You're still still trying to test the waters. Okay, so once you were out there helping people, right? And you're like, no, I'm a coach now, identify as a coach, who did you naturally end up attracting? You know, when did you realize, okay, this is this is my tribe, this is the people I work best with.

Bart Van Den Belt 6:25

Yeah, yeah. So so so the challenge as a coach is that uh everyone's a coach. If you can talk and you can ask questions, you're a coach. But there's a difference between being a coach and being a great coach. And there's some some differences. The first is you know, you know, the imposter syndrome, you've probably heard of that before, you know, that I noticed that by myself when I was 27 and coaching my first management team. And I thought, okay, who am I to tell those guys I didn't have a formal education, I didn't finish college. How who am I to talk about building business and and doing this? So so what what I ended up, and that's that's especially for the people who are listening now, and you're trying to position yourself as a coach, the number one challenge you have is that you attract the people, you attract what you are. In other words, you attract what you communicate, you communicate what you believe, and you believe what you live. So I'll repeat that. You you attract what you communicate, you communicate what you believe, you believe what you live. So I had quite a quite a rough youth. I've I've lived in uh two foster parents when I was 17. I I started living on my own. I had quite a rough youth. So I learned at at uh at seminars that you need to tell your your own story. So that's what I did. I was telling my own story. And the thing is, I didn't got entrepreneurs who need a business coach, I got entrepreneurs who needed a therapist. Why? Because everyone was hooked on my personal story. Uh you had a bad youth, I had a bad youth as well, so you can help me. And and uh, and that's where I learned okay, you should craft your story in such a way that you attract the people you can help, and the most ideal client is the people you are you are five or ten years ahead of.

Pedro Stein 8:09

Okay. Now let me ask you this is this the people you still help right now in the businesscoach.com? I want to understand what exactly it entails right now, the people you serve, you know, who are they?

Bart Van Den Belt 8:21

So there's two layers. So so as a as a business and management coach, because I still do that because I love to do that, I help top-level leaders, CEOs, executives, uh, to increase their business performance. But also there's a moment as a business owner that you need to step up, you know, that you need to become a business leader instead of a hardworking entrepreneur. And and those are the people I help. There are a lot of hardworking entrepreneurs who never became a business leader, and we help them to become a business leader. And at the same time, we help business leaders to to to get some balance between the numbers and and and the people. So there's a difference between people and profit, and and uh a lot of people say profit first. And I I love by the way the the model from Mike Mikalovich. But but we really believe people first, because people are always uh before the performance. Yeah, so we help people uh to perform better, and then from businesscoach.com uh perspective, there's so many coaches who are awesome at coaching and they have no clue how to sell it. So we help them to sell their business to make them the best coaches in the in the industry, and um yeah, yeah.

Pedro Stein 9:35

Okay, now let's talk about the marketing aspect, right? Because I've seen two streams, differ different streams. We're talking about business like CEO executives and business that you want to transform into business leaders, right? Yeah, and you have the coaches. So if someone ends up working with you today, how do they usually find their way to you in the first place, right? The marketing aspect.

Bart Van Den Belt 9:56

Yeah, so there are different ways to do that, but uh, but um we have a beer coaster with a model. So I talk to someone somewhere and I talk about the business. I say, Hey, what's your number one challenge? And they say, Oh, this is my number one challenge. They say, Oh, let's map that out on the back end of a beer coaster. And then they they love it and they say, Oh, can I get the beer coaster? I said, Yeah, of course, give me your business card. And I give them the beer coaster, I get their business card, and the next day I call them, said, Hey, we talked about your business. I think I can help you, but before we talk about that, let's do a business scan. It's only $125. We can start there. I I come into your office and we we drink a cup of coffee and let's see how I can help. And and the the entry point of the offer is so low that that the delivery of the results are really great. 20-page personalized report report. Uh, that people say, Oh wow, this this is someone who's not he's he's not in it for himself, but he's in it for me. And I think that's the most important thing for most coaches. So many coaches are thinking, How do I get to a client? How do I sell myself? How do I position yourself? You need to do one thing, get out of yourself and start delivering value. That's the number one thing, I think. And you can do that through the through different challenge channels, you know, like like you can do uh Edwards campaign, CEO, uh, SEO, uh a marketplace, uh, local business communities. There's so many ways to get clients. That that's what I found so interesting. Uh, I I don't you know you talk a lot about about coaches, uh Pedro. What I what I found interesting is there are so many great coaches. Why don't why don't they get their uh calendars filled? What's what's your your take on that?

Pedro Stein 11:42

My take, um, I would say coaches, most of them are very good at what they do, and sometimes they have a misconception of what selling is. I was a high-ticket sales closer for a landscape business coach, and my take was always to serve instead of closing people. So whenever I wasn't a I whenever I wasn't a call, I was trying to serve them, even if it's not with me, it's a referral or a resource that I can help them with. So the misconception for most coaches I talk to is that they have that idea of what selling is, which is salesy, which is pushy. And then they they stress about it because they, well, at the end of the day, they have a misconception. They they they don't understand what serving really is and and and how bad of a name the word selling got in the market, right? So I think it's just about the framing. That's the first. And second, it's true as well. At the end of the day, there are business owners, right? And they need to accept that. They're not just a coach who who coaches, they need to the business development sign, the marketing hat, you know, the sometimes the the selling aspect and all of that entails in a business owner. So I think they need to accept that if they want to really have a practice, it's like it's not just about coaching, right? Would you agree with that?

Bart Van Den Belt 12:58

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And and uh the the thing is that um um most coaches who are really great at what they do, they want to make a difference for people, they want to make an impact on the business or or or the employees or the the business owner and their family. I think that drives us all. But the thing is, you you can be as good as you want. If you can't sell it, you you you don't make any impact. You need to be able to sell it. We're currently uh translating the the like the circle of business book to English, but I'm also translating my my Dutch book. It's called Value Driven Selling. Value Driven Selling. That's that's I I've written seven books there, and and the value driven selling. I say never be closing. So everyone who is training in selling, they say always be closing. I say never be closing, start adding value, the closing will take care of itself.

Pedro Stein 13:47

Yes, yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. It's like I always compare the analogy to dating, right? If you're going outside to find your spouse, it's one thing you're going with the mentality that it's kind of biased. But if you're going out there in the dating scenario to meet friends or meet someone cool, it's different. You're you're not stressed, right? You're just like it will naturally happen through a conversation because you're there to meet someone and it's cool and it clicks. Now, yeah, I I mean that's the way that's at the same time.

Bart Van Den Belt 14:18

That is true. Uh like like in your intention and mindset, that's true. At the same time, you do need a methodology, you do need a process because the the process, the mentality of adding value is one thing, but the process of actually selling is the other thing. So you need some interventions or some some steps before they take the lead to work with you. So, what we did is we did we did uh we did um a growth phase test, and that means that we give them for free a small test, it's like a lead generator, but once they fill that in, they have exactly where they stand in the business, completely personal for them. And that becomes that then a prospect becomes a uh a marketing qualified lead. And then the thing is, how do I sell? And then you call the prospect to say, Do you recognize that? Please do a business scan. It it costs you a hundred bucks, and then they become a sales qualified lead. So there are two steps to add value, and based on that, you never you're never selling, you're just thinking, how can I create an advancement to the next phase?

Pedro Stein 15:15

Absolutely, I think that's crucial. You know, you need to have a process. I mean, at the end of the day, yes, you need that. What I'm trying to say is I'll give you an example uh objections, right? That's a hot topic on sales. And I think 90 five percent of objections can be killed with a good demo and listening to people, you know, and if you're if you have like 10 to 12 objections, you're always trying to find a new tactic. Take a look at your presentation, take a look if you're actually hearing people during the conversation, right? Because it will they will sometimes find answers for themselves during the call. They will like, oh yeah, but I could do this, I could sell this, I could find this resource, and then we can make it happen. And you're like just listening to them and giving them space. Oh, yeah, 100%.

Bart Van Den Belt 16:01

Uh selling is guiding their thinking process, and the thing that the level of commitment they they start with is also depending on your marketing. Because if your marketing sucks, they don't trust you in in helping them along the way. So your marketing is like like the foundation before the selling. And if the marketing is right, then the next step is just how can I sell you? Because the marketing did the selling for me already, they trust me. And and what I also believe, I have that this a bit from my Myron Golden. Myron Golden is great. If you don't know him, uh figure him out on YouTube. Um I really if you are a call car salesman, okay, fine. I really don't believe in hard selling. It's from the 80s. I don't believe hard selling works. Because if you need to do a hard close, you don't have the right client. That's what I believe. And what Myron Golden said is is uh something like that. I'm not sure if I quote him right. He says, the moment I stopped chasing people that didn't need my service, and I only sold to the people who are looking for my service, that was the moment everything changed. And that's the thing. If you if you if you if your positioning and your target audience and your message is right, then you automatically attract the people who are uh a best fit for you. And once you call them and you add value, the rest is easy.

unknown 17:25

Yeah.

Pedro Stein 17:25

Oh, that that is so true. And I'm gonna I have a personal experience with that specifically. Like when I told you I was a high-ticket sales closer for a landscape business coach, I was like, sometimes in sales calls, and I'm not gonna talk bad about what our marketing positioning, but I I'm I'm just gonna explain to you what like it felt like being a closer. I'm gonna call it closer, that's the the name, but I hate it. Yeah, it was like part of the process was like sort of an awakening, they didn't in this understand what what coaching was, so that was so hard, you know, and and the the messaging was not very clear. So they were like blue-collar people that had no experience with coaching, and they were I was like trying to make them understand we're not gonna light up some candles and dance the kaya, you know. So that part, it was like almost doing the marketing effort during the sales call and having to explain them so they can first understand what it is. So it's half an hour talk, man, just so to make them realize what we're talking about, and that's so hard. I mean, you know, I'm sure you felt that or had some experience about this. It's like when you're talking to people there, you shouldn't be in a call with, you know.

Bart Van Den Belt 18:30

But but that's the thing. Like, there's so many entrepreneurs who knock on our doors and say that we want to be a business coach. And then you say, Okay, you have business experience, you've been you are a business leader, you know how to guide people, you know how to talk to people on an executive level. But then the first thing is, are you able to guide them through a process in which they are able to listen to you and to change their behavior and to change their leadership? And are they open and willing to change? And are you able to guide them through through a process? And if you are able to do that, then do you have a system that helps them to sell that to people? And we we noticed that the moment, like I struggled for 10 years to figure out how to build a business, how to make make money, until I figured out everything is a process. If you figure out the pattern, you can build a system that delivers. And that's that's what we that that's what we did for executive coaches and and entrepreneurs, uh and for business coaches. We we built a system that delivers for them. But the but the thing is the mindset, and that's what we learned all. We need to do a hard close. We need to, if they have an objection, we need to overcome the objection. I only use one method to overcome an objection. One method, and it works always for me. Do you want to know what it is? I of course, I'm waiting. So, so any objections, I always say, okay, what if this wasn't an objection? Would you do it then? And if they say no, I wouldn't do it, then it's oh well. What other objections are there, you know, to isolate the objection? If they say, Yeah, I would do it, then okay, let's figure out how to solve the objection.

Pedro Stein 20:07

Same stuff I did, man. I was like, and one of those were money, right? And I was like, I would say exactly like this. If money was not an issue, would you see would you would you would you be able to see yourself doing something like this? Yes, yeah. If yes, okay, let's work something out, let's see what we can do. Let's sit down, have a conversation. No, okay, he didn't solve value. No worries, he or she, no worries.

Bart Van Den Belt 20:29

And and there is almost never uh there's I I learned it from from Alex, Alex Ramosi. There's almost never uh um a real objection. There's always not a trust that we can deliver the value. So I pay twenty thousand dollars for coaching. Am I sure that I get the value that value that I need? That's the reason why why why people don't don't don't buy. And that's what uh that's what we try to figure out for the coaching. That's what we have figured out how to come through that challenge. Yeah.

Pedro Stein 20:59

Now, now that's something interesting that I need to uh jump on that boat too. It's like I saw I see a lot of coaches and they are high-ticket, right? Sometimes, but they don't themselves don't buy high-ticket offers. So they don't know exactly the feeling of dropping 5k, 8k. And I feel that that's an experience every coach needs to go through. It's like put yourself in their shoes of what it is, what it feels like to invest in someone because you're investing in a person in a business, like in a high ticket that he's promising to deliver you. Because yeah, yeah. And the and the second point, it's like for you to know what a good program is, you gotta know some bad programs, right? You gotta know what to know what good looks like, no know what bad looks like.

Bart Van Den Belt 21:44

That's funny, yeah. Yeah. There are two main objections that high ticket uh coaches have. Uh we we figured out there are only two. The first one is I had a bad experience, I don't trust other coaches anymore. You because why? Because they didn't have the system and and their program sucked. That happens. A lot. And then the second one is um uh I don't have the money, but they don't say I don't have the money. What they do sorry, that that's not what I mean, that's what I say. What I mean is that I don't trust that this will solve my problem or give or give me a revenue, uh, a return on investment. That that's what I actually say. So yeah, it it's I'm totally with you on it. Yeah, and that's what I say. Like in the Netherlands, we are a market leader on business coaching, and we have a lot of business coaches who we trained. And I I talked about it yesterday. I was I was uh training a group of coaches yesterday, and and that's what I'm telling to people like we're expanding to the US now and to other countries, but especially to the US. People can become a business coach, they pay 10k a year, and and the moment I say, What do you think about it? They feel oh, it's a lot of money, etc. etc. I think, okay, let's be let's be clear. The feeling you are experiencing right now is exactly what every other client will have with you. Please note what you're going through, what's your thinking process, what what's your your hurdle? And and I'm totally right. Everyone should, especially if you're a coach and you want to build a business, you should pay a fair amount of money to a program. Either if it's uh the the the purple circle community, I think that's that's your program, uh businesscoach.com, uh whatever uh Grand Cardone call it, but you need to make you need to go through that process for yourself.

Pedro Stein 23:32

Yeah, it's that piece of connection, right? When you mentioned that you created uh well, you had a rough youth, foster parents, and you told me that you started creating connection by explaining your background and people connected with that. It's the same stuff, right? It's like you've been there, you you invested in a high-ticket sales offer. You know how that feels, you know, the buyer's remorse, the it's scary, you know. So if you've been through that, it's easier to connect with someone during a call. You're like, yeah, yeah, man, I feel what you're telling me. I was in the same place, right?

Bart Van Den Belt 24:06

Yeah, but but then there's the other part of it. So so one thing we firmly believe in is that everyone who becomes a client needs to experience the the results of that within 30 days. So that's what one thing we do for our coaches. The moment they say yes and they pay 10k to us or 20k or 30k to become a member of businesscoach.com, the first thing we need to do, and we have a guarantee on that within 90 days you you lend your first client and you get back the money. Because if if you don't do that, and that's what's happening a lot in this industry, especially in the coaching industry, especially in the high-ticket closing industry.

Pedro Stein 24:39

Interesting. Okay.

Bart Van Den Belt 24:40

The moment they they close the deal, they think, okay, we press a button, the automation starts, and we don't have to do anything more. But coaching is always about people. If you focus on the people, the retention of the people, the excitement of the per people you you you serve, that will make sure that that they they uh refer all their clients to you. Like for instance in the Netherlands, it took us like it look took us four years. In the fur we're we're basically in the Netherlands for five years now. It took us four years, what we've done in the last year. In the last year, we had the same result as in the four years before. Why? Because in last year, everyone says you need to come here because we did they deliver, and that's so important. You can do a high-ticket close, you should do that, you should go through the process, but then you need to deliver.

Pedro Stein 25:30

Absolutely.

Bart Van Den Belt 25:31

Now, and that's how do you see that in the coaching market? Because there are so many people who are really good in selling, they follow the marketing courses, they follow the trending courses, and then they do not deliver. I feel so frustrated about that. How do you see that?

Pedro Stein 25:46

Oh, absolutely. Um, we we talk in purple circle about the diagram, right? So the outcome delivery is like if you have leads and you're consistent leads and consistent sales, but you have no outcome delivery, it basically and no what I would what we call results, right? Consistent results for your clients, you have a scam, right?

Bart Van Den Belt 26:05

And you have a scam because if you if I love it, yeah, yeah.

Pedro Stein 26:09

You're closing them, you have the leads, but you're not delivering, this is not gonna last, not gonna end well. So that I think, and I would say I would point out most coaches are great at the outcome delivery, I would say. Okay. The problem is the business side, right?

Bart Van Den Belt 26:24

Yeah, yeah.

Pedro Stein 26:25

Now, uh, since you mentioned business.com, I want to know, right, a little bit about that. So when someone decides to work with your company, what does that actually look like from their perspective, right? What happens?

Bart Van Den Belt 26:37

Yeah, so first thing we don't let anyone in. And uh, of course you can say, oh yeah, that's that's smart from a sales and marketing uh standpoint. Uh you you build exclusivity, but we firmly believe that if you want to help other entrepreneurs, you need to have either have experience in leading other people or in entrepreneurship, you need to have some background. So you cannot say, I was a web designer for 10 years as a freelancer and now I become a business coach. Or I followed the marketing marketing course and I become a business coach. Because the the the long-term impact that we make are always more is always more important than the than the short time, short-time profit for us. So that's the first thing. And then the the second thing is uh we have a we have a 90-day onboarding program, and the number one goal in the 90-day is to lend their first client and to get back their complete investment. And uh beside that, we are guiding them. So we have we have the circle of business, we create a uh complete CRM system with a business scan, and it's just like a complete client acquisition system. Like in June, we're going to uh to launch our new uh our new uh our new um um software, and then you just got a feed, you just see in your dashboard what you need to do to build your business, like completely predictable. We're the only one in the space that are doing that at the moment.

Pedro Stein 27:59

Okay, now looking forward a bit, you know, what's the direction you're aiming the business towards? You know, are you thinking more about growth, leverage, building even a bigger team, or refining what already works, you know? What feels most exciting right now, Bart?

Bart Van Den Belt 28:13

Yeah, we are in the next 10 years, uh, we want to become the market leader in business coaching. And the thing is, we are not a franchise. So, like if you look at Action Coach, Action Coach is awesome, bread sugars, but it's a franchise. You need to pay $30,000, $40,000 to go there. You need to pay uh 10, 20, I don't know, you need to pay franchise fee for every revenue you create. We don't all at all do that. You pay an amount, and the moment you don't want to work with us anymore, you can stop every month. Because we feel it's a good incentive that if we don't deliver to our customers, the customer can stop. And what that that that happened, that's quite I learned that that's quite renewing in this space internationally, but we really feel that we need to deliver value because we help other people to to add value as well. I'm a Joe Maxwell leadership coach, by the way. I I love the work of Joe Maxwell because it's totally value value-driven. And um, and what Joe Maxwell's always saying, and Marco, uh, we add value to people who add value, and we totally believe in the same uh vision.

Pedro Stein 29:19

So you create that ripple effect, right? Instead of getting a contract towards a franchising model, you're like, I'm gonna enable you to build your own practice so you can get that impact for others, but at the same time, I'm getting from your own business. But without that, uh, you know, that contract binding contract that needs to happen X, Y, and Z sort of way, so it's a different relationship, something like that.

Bart Van Den Belt 29:41

And there's like there's a there's a really strong network, you know. We have a community of people. We don't think, oh, if I get the business, you don't. It's just how can I help you? How can we create a community that serves each other to deliver value to to entrepreneurs? And we all make money, like like in the Netherlands, it's so important to me make revenue. It's uh I everyone loves it if you make 250k a year with four days of work or three days of work. We we love that, but but but we we are doing that together, you know. That's so so different than if you get the client, I don't. It's it's just a different um way we work, yeah.

Pedro Stein 30:19

Now I'm curious, you know, you're in a different space, right? That I usually talk to with people in the Netherlands. I I didn't have a lot of coaches in our show here, so I want to take your perspective. And how do you see the Netherlands uh towards the coaching space? Do you see like it's pretty well established, or there is still room for growth there?

Bart Van Den Belt 30:37

There it's pretty well established. Like we have to be honest, our target market in the Netherlands is uh our complete target market is as big as LA. So it's quite small. We have 17 million people, million people living here, like 10 million people are working here. So we have a really small country, but it was a great place to start. It was a great place to learn a lot about how what the challenges are of coaches. And we were able to, and I'm so thankful to Gary, Gary Hansen. He was he was the founder of Business Coach.com. He had a domain name for 20 years, and he was so gracefully to to uh to uh to let us acquire the domain name, and and and that is because sorry if I if I uh interrupt someone with my faith, but I firmly believe that this is what I need to do in this world. I believe that God has has has put it on my path to make a transformation in this world. Because the interest industry is is like so based on how can we make as much money as possible. Well, money is always the result of delivering value.

Pedro Stein 31:44

You know what? I don't think you need to apologize for your faith. I think at the end of the day, we're talking about Bart by Bart, and it's just that you telling your own story, you know. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I encourage that even, you know, that's something that worked for you. It doesn't mean it had to work for everyone, but it worked for you. And we're talking about you and your business today, right? So, you know, I'm curious because even when things are going well, right, there's always something under construction, right? So, what's the main thing you're actively working on or trying to improve in the business right now?

Bart Van Den Belt 32:16

You know, yeah, yeah. So the the first challenge we have is we want to have our first 25 international coaches. That's our number one challenge now because we have validated our business model, our growth model. The book is is translated, almost finished, and ready to be published in the uh the US. We have uh several publishers who are interested. There's my dummy book, so this looks great, but in the end, there's nothing in it. For the people who listen, this is the book. Um uh what we're currently doing is we we are lending our first 25 coaches. So, how can we get 25 coaches who can experience what people are experiencing in in the Netherlands? They just pay a small amount of money to get started, but we need to get some traction in the US. That's what we're working on together. And the only way to do that is to help coaches deliver results and to get results by themselves as well.

Pedro Stein 33:09

Okay, Bart. And yeah, before we close this out, right, if someone resonated with what you shared and wants to follow your work, right, where should they go?

Bart Van Den Belt 33:17

Yeah, they go to uh uh www.businesscoach.com.

unknown 33:23

Okay.

Pedro Stein 33:24

You know, there were a few moments from this chat today that really stood out to me. I would say the first thing is the trickster, right? The magician. I love that. That is so cool, you know. And uh the way you were naturally, I would call it even invited to the coaching space. It's like, hey man, why don't you do that, right? You're good at connecting with people and all of that. And you're like, at the same time down the road, you're like guessing yourself with imposter syndrome. You're like, who am I to give these people advice? You know, I had no clue and all of that. So that vulnerability aspect, uh, Bart, I would emphasize as the key asset for a true coach is to understand that what they've been through to get where they are right now, so they can connect with their you know, ideal client profile or the people they're serving, right? At the end of the day. So you're vulnerable, it's easy to create a connection with. It's not like in the preaching mode, you're like, I solved it all, I know it all. And not really what happens because if you do that type of thing in a in a coaching session, it's gonna be hard to create a relationship, right? This person is so perfect, this person's gonna judge me. And I think that's really that really is a key asset. Now, I I felt that was so interesting that you don't accept everyone, you know, in your in your program. So you have to be a coach, right?

Bart Van Den Belt 34:44

You're not gonna take a web designer or something like that, or an executive director or a former entrepreneur who was successful, but you need to have some some some track record in business-wise.

Pedro Stein 34:55

Yeah, yeah, I love that because that states uh it's like it's it talks about integrity at the end of the day and alignment, right? It's not like I'm gonna take everyone to do this path, like it has to make sense for both parts.

Bart Van Den Belt 35:07

So and also if if you want to build a community, you need to have people who you can relate to with, you know, and and that's yeah, that's how important.

Pedro Stein 35:16

Yeah, yeah, because sometimes I see a lot of coaches and they're in the scarcity mindset, right? And they're trying to land a client, and sometimes they they they're taking people that actually shouldn't be their clients in the first place because there's no alignment.

Bart Van Den Belt 35:28

There is but they feel at the moment they sign a client, they think, okay, I have the money and I have a problem. That's what happens.

Pedro Stein 35:35

Exactly. And down the roll, it will bite their ass, right? Yeah, no, this is my long way of saying that. I really appreciate you taking the time, okay, and being open with this, Bart. It was great having you on, okay?

Bart Van Den Belt 35:48

Thank you. It's such an honor. To be honest, Pedro, you're you are my first international podcast. And I'm so honored that, like a guy from the Netherlands who just built this up based on 20-year entrepreneurship uh is able to do this in a podcast. I'm so honored. So thank you so much and uh for your colleagues, yeah.

Davis Nguyen 36:06

Yeah, great having you. That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This conversation was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. To learn more about Purple Circle, our community, and how we can help you grow your business, visit joinpurplecircle.com.