Scaling Your Business in the Coaching Industry
In this episode, I discuss how to win in the coaching industry.
By listening to this episode you will learn how to scale your coaching business to the next level.
Hello, today we’re going to talk about how to position yourself to win in the coaching industry. For those of you who don’t know me. I am Hailey, the Founder of the Health Coach Nation Facebook Group, Business Coach for online coaches and consultants and the Founder of Power Player Marketing Services, where we help you amplify your influence authority and reach online so that you can convert more sales.
And as somebody who’s been in this industry, since the early days. I started very young, I had to get legal guardians to sign my paperwork so that I could get all my certifications and get an LLC and all the things in 2010. I have seen the industry change. I’ve worked with many people in the industry. I’ve talked to hundreds of coaches, and I realized that I don’t think everybody has what it takes to succeed in this industry. In the beginning, I think it’s something you have to morph into. You have to become the kind of person who can succeed in this industry. And it is a process, it is a process.
Change Your Mindset
And it’s something where you have to change your mindset, you have to become a business owner. You have to really put yourself out there. And so what I wanted to do today is talk about how to position yourself to win in this industry. Because I think so many people feel like, if I just had the magic bullet strategy. Or if I just had the right coach, or if I just had XYZ that’s outside of them, that they would be successful.
And I really believe it has to start with you. It’s your, it’s ultimately about taking responsibility of what you are going to embody and how you’re going to put yourself out there and being brave and bold. So I wanted to share a couple tips for you based on what I’ve seen of clients who are wildly successful. That I’ve worked with, and what I’ve had to go through to face my ceilings that I’ve put on myself.
Planning Your Way to Non-Perfection
So the first tip is, you are never going to plan your way to perfection. And the reason I’m bringing this up is because if you want to position yourself to win in this business. It’s not always going to be smooth sailing, and it’s gonna be messy. And you’re not gonna know if something’s gonna work until you actually do it. And I know so many of you want to avoid wasted effort. Because you’re like, I don’t want to try doing something and spend a lot of time on it or spend money on something, heaven forbid, and then it not work.
I’m here to tell you that if you come at your business from that mindset, not wanting to get your hands messy, not wanting to try things, unless you are 1,000% positive that it’s going to work. You will never make any moves in your business, you will never learn anything in your business and you will stay very stagnant, that is a guaranteed way to fail.
So what you have to be willing to do is try things. And actually have them get the data. Learn from it and adapt it and refine it and optimize it etc. And know if a marketing company tells you that, you know, there is only one thing you need to be doing for marketing, and there’s only, you know, this is the best way. I actually really think that is a sign to run away. Because it’s not just about doing one thing or finding the magic bullet or finding the secret.
What is Your Right Combination?
It’s about doing a combination of things that pay off over time. And so you’re never going to be able to pick one thing and plan it into perfection. Then do it and then just see it like you know overnight success. You are going to have to get messy and you’re going to have to try things and learn things. And one of the things that I wanted to share with you is that planning gives us comfort. It gives us this like security blanket like I have my plan. So that’s that’s kind of like now I’m feel entitled for it all to work. And what I want to tell you is yes, having a plan is smart. Yes, taking calculated risks, not just random risks is smart.
But at the end of the day, you are going to have to execute the plan. And, and be able to make adaptations and things like that. Something that’s made me so able to adapt to change is having a marketing business because social media changes all the time client, you know, client, what works for clients has changed over time.
And it’s been my best test. Learning how to adapt with change, and pivot and you know, adapt to the algorithms and all the things so I just want to let you know that like. If you’re going to be that stagnant and need a plan as your security blanket to move forward. It’s going to be really, really hard for you to succeed in this business. Have a plan, start doing it be willing to adapt and go from there. And one of the I’ll give you a recent example, I have a client who has been inundated with the information that you always have to do live launches.
And she just thought, you know what I have to keep doing these Facebook Lives. It’s the only thing that works. Or I’d like to think that you know, there’s other things to do, but I haven’t found anything yet. And we did some lead generation with her. She was like, I want this to be my last live launch, because I’m so tired, she was burnt out. And she wanted to just be evergreen be open all the time.
A lot of coaches are against that a lot of coaches are really heavily promoting live launches. And I feel I personally am a big fan of, you know, many different things that I’ve done. Live launches, but I’ve also been evergreen. So we did lead gen with her. And we did a trial. Because again, going back to planning, not planning perfection, we said, you know what we need to see if this is going to work specifically for you.
We did a trial period. And she was able to, you know, book a client high ticket and learn from the experience. And say, Okay, I don’t need to do my launches anymore, I can just be booking calls, making offers etc. So the point I’m trying to make here is that you can. You can adapt, you don’t need to do what everybody saying that you need to do with a perfect plan. And you can get started now and start making offers and actually start talking to people and it’s a lot, it can be a lot simpler than you think.
The but the thing is, a lot of people never do that. Because they want to do this big, huge social media live launch thing. And they want to avoid having to actually talk to people. Or having to hop on a call or like getting to know someone and that kind of thing. And so then they make this a really big thing that exhausts them and is hard, and isn’t even working for them because they don’t have a huge amount of traffic or they had no strategy for traffic coming into it. And then it flops. So my whole point is let’s start with where you’re at.
And let’s get messy, and let’s get in the game and learn and grow. And you’re going to move a lot faster than if you’re planning this perfect thing. Yada yada. Okay, next tip is you don’t have to get it. All right, you just have to get it going.
And I think that’s a quote from Stu McLaren, maybe. The reason why I like that quote is because, again, if you want to position yourself to win in this industry, you have to actually start and you have to be brave, and you have to be bold, and you have to put yourself out there. And I had a client who was launching a course.
She was very excited about it. And she was a little nervous to launch it. Because she was still wrapping up. She was a full time job, full time day job, trying to transition into her full time coaching business. And, she was still wrapping up some of the materials towards the end of the course it wasn’t fully ready before her launch. And so um, but she did it anyways. Because again, you don’t have to get all right, you just have to get it going. Actually, it ended up working to her advantage, because the group was able to say what they wanted. And she was able to create what they actually needed versus creating something she thought they would need.
Then they didn’t end up needing it. And so she created what was right for them what they wanted, what was in demand. And what happened after because she was open to doing something messy. They asked for more time, they asked for a membership from her after the course. And now she has a business model where you take her course her intro course and then you go into her membership. And she had seven people sign up for her membership. The very first time she even launched it was brand new. I just because they loved working with her, they loved her authenticity. They loved that she cared, she really listened to their feedback.
So it just goes to show that when you are listening to your audience, when you’re adapting and you know, getting things moving for with your clients, you will see the rewards of that. And then the other thing I wanted to mention is there’s more than one type of ROI. So if you want to position yourself to win in this industry, you have assets, right. You have whatever your framework is for coaching, like what your method is or what your program is your signature program, that’s an asset. And, you have your charisma and your people skills. You have your maybe your email list, that’s an asset. And, you have followers on social media, that’s an asset.
And so when you’re thinking about how can I maybe I don’t have a huge budget yet. Or maybe I don’t have a lot of time to focus on my business. Or maybe I Don’t know the right people yet. Think about what you do have. What are the assets you have available to you that you can be leveraging or bartering. Whatever you need, you need to do to get yourself moving. Think about that. And I also want you to think when you’re working with others, there’s more than one type of ROI. So a lot of people think it’s just, if you work with me, the ROI better be money in my pocket. And I would say that, obviously, that is something to look at in your financials every quarter.
But I also want to remind you that things compound over time. So for example, before I did lead, LinkedIn, lead generation services, I was I, before I did it for my clients, I was doing it for myself. And when I was doing it for myself, what I saw was, even if I didn’t make the exact investment back in one month, over a quarter, it more than paid for itself on a monthly basis. Because things compound over time. And then when I started to refine it, and you know, really leverage it and answer my messages and stuff, it got it. I was seeing the ROI on a monthly basis.
But my point is. If I would have said in one month, oh, my God, one one month, didn’t work out, it’s a waste of money, I would have missed out on all of the clients who I’ve now worked with, as a result of LinkedIn lead gen, which is 1000s, and 1000s. of dollars. So the point is. You have to be willing to be somebody who understands that there’s more than one type of ROI. Same thing with your clients, your clients are coming to you not just for,
you know, because they want to achieve a certain goal, they also want your support. They also want your accountant, you know, keeping them accountable, that kind of thing. So when when you’re working with someone, whether it’s in your own business, or you’re hiring somebody understand that there’s more than one type of ROI. And if you are impatient, or you think it’s been one week, and I don’t see the harvest of my seeds, yet, you’re going to really struggle in this business, because you’re just like being conditional.
And it’s going to be really hard for you. So keep that in mind, it pays off, but you have to plant the seeds, you have to water the seeds, you have to keep growing the seeds. And then the last thing is getting good at making offers. So this is a huge thing. If you want to position yourself to win in the coaching industry, you have got to get really good at making offers. And what I mean by this is I talk to so many coaches who say I do health coaching, I do mindset coaching, I offer work life balance, I help people relieve stress, etc, etc.
And you are a commodity when you say that, because everybody says that you have to focus on how can I make a killer offer that people actually want that I can boldly stand behind? I can provide a framework or equation or some kind of signature thing that helps me not just be a coach in a land of coaches, but how can we actually make an offer or solution that people can grasp that people want to pay for. And that is something that’s focused and narrow, and I can really kill it at that. And then I can, I can expand into other offers.
But in order to get a really good killer offer, you’ve got to not just ask your coach and you got to not just ask yourself and what sounds good, you have to put it out there and test it and have knows to learn from why it’s not succeeding, to learn what about the offer they’re not getting.
And that takes a lot of courage. Because you you know, getting nose is painful. And a lot of people aren’t willing to put themselves out there and they want to hide, and they don’t want to hear no. So they stay stagnant. And that’s their choice. But if you want to be successful in this industry, you have to make really good offers on repeat to many people who are the right people at the right time, consistently.
So the last thing I want to leave you with is stop hiding. So if you are hiding, because you’re afraid of getting criticized or you’re afraid of, you know, looking weird, or You’re overthinking your strategy and you’re not therefore you’re paralyzed and you’re not doing anything. Remember at the end of the day, it’s about talking to people and I know a lot of people are really against like, you know, connecting with people welcoming your new like for example, I’m a huge proponent of when you get a new Instagram follower, welcome them.
Say hello, introduce yourself like send a DM and welcome them to your page and say like thanks Follow would love to hear more about you, that kind of thing. And a lot of people are against that. And I completely disagree, because I think that if you are a coach and you’re especially if you’re leveraging organic marketing, talking to people is where it’s at connecting directly with your audience and learning from them, is where it’s at. offering them solutions of value is weird that and you can scale your offer by doing things like ads.
But to me in the beginning, what’s better sticking an ad in someone’s face, or actually making somebody feel recognized and special individually, one on one, and starting to grow your business that way until you know what really works with that audience. And then you can scale that with ads, for example. So don’t be afraid to talk to people. And not everybody’s gonna want to hear from you.
And that’s fine. You just end the conversation. But some people will be thankful, actually, that you reached out because they they’re so busy, and there’s so much noise. I’ve had so many people be like, Oh, thanks for noticing me, like think, Oh, I didn’t know you did that. Thanks for telling me that I was actually looking for somebody who did x, y and z. So to me, I think that’s valuable. I think that’s of service. I think that’s your responsibility.
Especially if you stand behind what you do, and you believe in it. If you’re like, yeah, I mean, I feel like I’m a burden, I feel like my offers a burden. I feel like I’m annoying, then of course, you’re not going to want to talk to people, and put yourself out there. So that is the work you need to do first before you you know, start putting yourself out there. So if you struggle with these things, let me know because I think this is one of the biggest topics are mindset and people the way that people expect or feel entitled to immediately. You know,
seeing instant gratification is a reason why so many entrepreneurs fail. So if that’s you, or if you are not sure what you should be doing in your business, or you struggle with that, just go ahead and comment free clarity call in the comments, and we will be in touch with you. And in the meantime, I have so many free resources on the Health Coach Nation podcast in this Facebook group, whatnot. So always feel free to check those out. All right, I’ll talk to you guys soon. Have an awesome night. Thanks for watching.
Resources
- Complimentary Business Consult
- Health Coach Nation: Marketing, Business, & Mindset for Health Coaches
Find Hailey on Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
