e164 What I'd Do Differently If I Was Starting My Coaching Business Today
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[00:00:00] Welcome, welcome to the Heads Together podcast. I'm your host, Gill Moakes, and I'm as always thrilled to have you with me again this week. Thank you. Of course. If you're new around here, welcome. I'm so glad you found me because I am gonna be bringing you great stuff around. That's what I do week after week.
It's what we talk about on this podcast. It's mostly stuff I've found out the hard way that I now pass on you so that you don't have to make all of the many, many mistakes that I made over the years. And so this podcast really is a little training ground for coaches to grow their businesses, grow their coaching practices.
My style is very much real talk. You don't get an awful lot of fluff. You get a lot of honest truth around these parts about what it really takes to [00:01:00] grow a coaching business. You know, I don't need to tell you, there's so much noise out there about what you have to do and what you shouldn't do and what you must do, and the truth is there is no one.
Magic recipe for growing any business. There's one non-negotiable rule, and that is you need to be radically authentically you. If you can master that one, you can learn everything else, learn everything else. Just make sure you are bringing the whole of you into your business. Okay. What am I talking about this week?
So this week we're gonna do a deep dive into the things that I would do differently if I was starting my coaching business today. Alright, let's dive in.
Welcome, welcome to the Heads Together podcast. I'm Gill Moakes, and I [00:02:00] am obsessed with cutting through the noise when it comes to growing your business. Each week via intimate coaching conversations and inspirational stories. I share what it really takes to get the results you want in a way that feels right to you.
I am all about attracting higher ticket opportunities, building authentic relationships, and creating the abundant, full fat version of your dream business. I mean, how many of us have beavered away creating a light version of what we really want? The thing is, I honestly believe when you are outstanding at what you do, there is no limit to what you can achieve.
So are you ready to put our heads together and make it happen? Let's go.
Okay. I'm pulling back the curtain today and I'm gonna be really [00:03:00] honest. I would do differently if I had the, if I starting my coaching business all over again today, T. There used to be this song in the eighties, hindsight is 2020. Vision. Can't remember what song it comes from. Anyone who's my age listening is gonna be like, oh, I remember that.
Yeah. Hindsight is really fantastic. It's also quite a harsh teacher. I have learned a lot of things over the years and, and don't get me wrong, I'm so proud of the business I've built. I'm really proud of it.
I definitely did not take the smoothest route to get here. There's a lot of stuff that I really did kind of attach stake in. And became very immovable when it came to certain [00:04:00] strategies and things, and so I would tend to kind of flog a strategy for longer than I should have done, or I would go the other way and I would flit from one thing to another and not give things enough time to work.
Yeah, lots of kind of zigs and zags on the route I. If you're just getting started and growing your coaching business, or if you're a few years in and still finding your own rhythm, then I really want this episode to give you like a bit of a shortcut, which I didn't have. I never had that. So the first thing I wanna talk about is.
How I definitely did not have it all figured out when I started, and that is understandable. None of us have it all figured out when we started, but there is one assumption I think that we all make as coaches that does not serve [00:05:00] us, and that is that we start our coaching business thinking that our coaching skill on its own will be enough.
And I think I was very much attached to that concept. I really believe that being outstandingly good at what I do would automatically lead to a steady stream of clients. This is something that I think is a little bit of a, a message that a lot of coach training programs will give people. I was lucky I didn't do my coach training until much further down the line.
So when I first started I just knew I was naturally good at coaching and very good at consulting. So I was very good at people giving people advice, the do this thing next, and then I honed my coaching skills over time. I think there are a lot of [00:06:00] people, particularly with the influx that we've had of new coaches into the arena who are being led to believe that just do this fabulous shiny coaching training, and that's all you'll need.
The clients will miraculously appear, they don't, right? They. There is a lot that goes into growing a coaching business that it has nothing to do with how good or not at coaching, rightly or wrongly. And this myth is really one of the reasons that I started the collective, which is my membership for coaches who are growing their businesses because I honestly believe that the coaches who are committed to being great at what they do, they deserve the information that they need to be able to put their coaching into the world.
To be able to get in front of the. And that [00:07:00] is missing from a lot of coach training facilities. So I think that the first thing I would do differently if I were starting my business today is that I would definitely start with this truth around what it's gonna take for me to build my business. I wouldn't want those kind of rose tinted glasses that if I just get good enough of coaching, it's gonna work out.
So I think that's probably a really important thing to say before we start. So there's kind of seven things I've outlined in my notes here. I don't script these episodes, but for some episodes when I wanna make sure that I'm gonna capture all of the different points that I wanna make, I do set myself a few notes, and I've done that for this episode.
Seven things I. And the first one [00:08:00] is, I would begin with the end in mind. Thank you Stephen Covey. I talk about this all of the time. I would get very clear on what I wanted from my business from the outset. 'cause I definitely wasn't, I did not have a clear vision of what I wanted from my coaching business.
I. What I was being told that I should want, and I got very caught up in trying to copy what other people were doing. But I don't think I spent an awful lot of time really understanding what I wanted this business to look like in terms of what, what was the lifestyle I wanted it to give me? What was the income I wanted?
I didn't at the beginning write down a number and say, right, that is how much money I'm gonna generate from my coaching. Lemme work back from that so that I can understand how many clients I need to serve. What do I need to charge them? I [00:09:00] didn't do it that way. I did it the other way. If a client came along, it was, it was almost like a surprise and a bonus.
I didn't start with the end in mind, and that is the first thing I would've done differently. There's a quote actually, well, I dunno who said this, but it, there's a quote that says, when you don't choose your direction, you default to someone else's. Isn't that so true? So I. Number one, so important. Get very clear on what you want from your business.
Write it down. Don't use fluffy terminology like this is not a writing exercise. This isn't a substack essay. Be really clear in the collective, in the membership. We have workbooks around this where you really get clear on what you want from your business. The second thing I would do, I would've niched down sooner.
I know [00:10:00] this is, ugh, this is a tricky one. Even I still wrestle with the concept of niching because there is a part for me that still wants to fight against this and say, you know what, maybe we don't have coaching. Lots of D, lots of issues. I don't disagree with that. Part of me believes that too, but honestly, when it comes to starting and growing your business, we don't have that luxury of sitting back and saying, I'm the coach for everyone, because no one will hear that message.
Choosing a niche doesn't have to put you in a box. It can give you a box to stand on top of. I hope that analogy lands. I quite like that analogy. It really is the thing that will get you noticed, particularly [00:11:00] in the beginning. Now, here's. The interesting thing, niching doesn't have to be about picking a industry that you coach in.
It doesn't have to be about picking a particular type of coaching, right? It doesn't have to be the traditional niches that we. Talk about niching down can be about putting a stake in the ground and saying, you know what? These are my values and my niche is that I coach people whose values are in alignment with those.
Right? Think and experiment about different ways you can niche down so it doesn't.
Pull to being a generalist instead of a specialist. I'm never gonna be the one that tells you, you are wrong [00:12:00] to do that. But I'm gonna tell you that you're gonna make marketing your business hard. And if I were you, if I was starting my business now, I would be nicheing down. I would be doing it straight away.
I would wanna become known. For my thing, my niche, the kind of people I coach, the way I coach them, the topic I coach around. One of those things doesn't have to be all of those things. You don't need to niche every aspect of your business, but I would absolutely be getting clear on what I wanted to be known for.
So that's the second thing I would've done sooner. The third thing is. I would've worked on building my personal brand, and this is something that I didn't do until a lot later, and it's now something that I teach, whether that's in one-to-one coaching or inside of the collective. [00:13:00] I teach you how to really build your personal brand with purpose, not by accident, not by trying to sound like every.
Right. This is about owning your own brand story. It's about owning all the, the quirky things about you that make you, you. It's about understanding what your voice is and building your brand around that, because people aren't buying your coaching business. They're investing in you. As coaches we are, whether we wanna be or not, personal brands, that's a really important thing to remember.
So that is the third thing I've focused on sooner. Working on my personal brand, I would've absolutely spent time figuring out what it [00:14:00] was about me that was different, what it was about me that was special because of every single piece of lived and learned experience that I'd clocked up over the years.
Not just in coaching, but you know, in my corporate world, in who I.
I would really have gone much deeper into that work at the beginning of my coaching practice because I know that that would have accelerated the growth of my business for sure. The fourth thing that I would do differently. If I, starting my business today is something that took me a long time to learn, and that is that I would put way more focus on relationships than on social media or search engine optimization or any, any other kind of marketing strategy I would've.
Double down on relationships right from the start, and that is something that I [00:15:00] learned the hard way. I learned eventually that no amount of content marketing, however dialed in your messaging is. And don't get me wrong, it's important. It's really important when it comes to growing your business to create thought leadership content that positions you as this recognized authority in your niche.
In terms growing business relationships are everything for coaches. Again, people are investing in, you're investing in how you make them feel, and that is about conversations. It's about. Not obsessing over your content and likes and, uh, hashtags and all of that kind of stuff. It's about real conversations.
It's about, you know, how can I deepen the relationship with people who come into my world? Whether that is through networking, whether it's through social [00:16:00] media, whether it's through events. Our businesses as coaches, they're built on trust. And trust is built one conversation at a time. This is why there's been this move towards audio and video content, right?
I've talked about this recently with the rise of ai, chat gt, all of that kind of thing. We're in a little bit of a trust desert. We don't really know what to trust and what not to trust when it comes to the written word. Whereas with me talking to you now, I'm between your ears. You can hear the inflection in my voice, you know, this is me.
This is coming from me. These are my thoughts. And you will feel like we know each other. I get this all the time. When people do come into my world, they definitely feel like they already know me quite well because they've been listening to the podcast for a while. I love bloody love that. I absolutely love that.
That's how I start building [00:17:00] relationships with people before I.
The collective join the membership. I, I'm already building a relationship by putting out this content every single week, sharing a bit more of myself to focus on building the relationship. So that's something that I would've done much sooner. Again, I would've done it sooner. This podcast, it's, you know, we're two and a half years to the podcast now, and it's been a slow burn.
This was not a podcast that when I, you know, started releasing episodes, was generating, you know, thousands of downloads. Absolutely not. It's been a slow burn. So don't wait. Don't wait around. Focus on relationships. How can you deepen relationships with the people that come into your world? Doesn't have to be a podcast, doesn't have to be a YouTube channel.
It could just [00:18:00] be networking, attending events, sending people voice notes, messages, collaborations. That's what I would have focused on sooner. What is the fifth thing that I would absolutely have do differently now? I would have completely ignored everything that I was told in the beginning about sales.
I, I did a horrendous program. The beginning of my coaching business, I wouldn't call it out anyway because for some people they might have got a ton of value outta it. But for me, this course I did this program around selling was just horrendous. And still now to this day, I'm still unpacking some of the things that I was, I'm using air quotes, the usual pointless.[00:19:00]
You know, things like all the sleaziness, the sleaziness around making sure it's the decision maker. And, you know, is this, is this someone who needs to get the approval of their spouse before making a decision to invest? And if so, are they, are you gonna get them on the call as well? It's like, ugh, it actually makes me feel sick.
Now when I think about some of those horrendous techniques. Oh. Pressurizing people into making a decision. So doing all of that thing, like if you sign today, you'll get it at this price, but if you.
But obviously when you begin, you dunno what you dunno. I didn't realize at the beginning what I now know to be true, which is that as coaches, we never need to sell. I didn't realize that as coaches, specifically as coaches. So anyone listening to this, if you are thinking, but Jill, [00:20:00] everyone has to sell. If you're in business, you've gotta sell.
I. 'cause I've grown a very thriving coaching practice by knowing this to be true. As coaches, we do not need to sell ourselves. We just need to give the person we're speaking to a taste of how it feels to be coached by us. If you want to use the S word that is selling as far as coaches are concerned, right.
That is. And you know, sales of service is a cliche, but it's really true if what you do genuinely helps people than selling is serving. So I would've got way more comfortable with inviting people to work with me by giving them generously of my time and experience of how it feels to be coached by me. I would've done that much more and I would've [00:21:00] stopped listening to all of the people who say, don't give away your coaching for free.
Don't coach on a sales call. I mean, God's sake. Don't call them sales calls for a start. Yeah, I would've really made peace with that much sooner, and that's what I would do differently now. I would really embrace the fact that sales is service, so you forget and just be of. That. Okay. Another thing I would do differently if I were starting my business today is that I would create one great coaching offer.
I think that I kind of consumed a lot of stuff in the early days around. Digital courses. So when I started my business, digital courses were all the rage. And honestly, I was kind of seduced by that passive income promise of a digital [00:22:00] course that would be passive. I wouldn't have to do anything and the money would roll in while I'm sleeping.
And actually, I think I neglected. In by having a few half attempts at creating courses and programs and things like that, none of which ever saw the light of day. They were literally just a soul-sucking waste of time. And I realized after a while what I now again know to be true, which is that building a.
Really thriving one-to-one coaching practice. It's what delivers you to the gateway of diversifying into more offers, but getting really clear on creating one great coaching offer or an amazing. Signature framework that takes a client one-to-one with you through a process of evolving of transformation.
That is how you grow your coaching business [00:23:00] at the beginning. And if I were going back, I would just have been blinkered on that. If I were literally starting again today, I would go so all in on one great offer. Yeah. So one thing that I've realized is that. Once you get to capacity, which can ebb and flow, of course, you know, sometimes you're gonna be fully booked with private clients and sometimes not.
But once you are at that period in your business where. You are having regular periods of being at capacity for one-to-one clients. That's your signal. That's your sign that you're ready to create a leveraged offer, whether that is a group program or it's retreats, or it's workshops, or it's digital courses, whatever it is.
And if I were starting over, I would take that approach again. I'm never super directive with anything. I'm just telling you what I would do. There are some [00:24:00] coaches out there who love group coaching so much that that really is their priority. And if that's that one great offer that you're gonna create from the outset, go all in on that.
Do that really, really well, right? Honor your own path through growing your coaching business. Trust yourself to make smart decisions around things like this. The final thing that I would do differently if I was starting over my business is that before I made any offers of coaching or before I decided on the prices for my coaching, I would've absolutely done more work on my money mindset at the beginning.
This is something I now teach, but at the beginning of my business, I undercharged, I overworked. I didn't believe that I could make real money as a coach. I definitely didn't believe that I could build a six [00:25:00] figure plus business as a coach. I had an assumption that if I wanted a business doing what I love, I would not be able to earn a lot of money doing that.
I just made them mutually exclusive and it was only really when I did a lot of work, internal work on my money mindset, on a lot of the limited beliefs that I had around my worth and around charging for what I do. Only then was I able to confidently charge. What I wanted to charge for my coaching, what I believed in around the value of my coaching, and that is about really pricing your coaching for sustainability, right?
It's not about having some sort of internal fight around what an hour's coaching with you could possibly be worth, [00:26:00] and I know some of you're still having that internal fight with yourselves, but this is really about being confident.
And what you feel is in line with the value that your coaching delivers to your clients. There are no pricing police. There are no, no one is going to enable you or stop you from. I believe is the right price for your coaching, and trust me, you need to be comfortable with what you're charging. If you don't do the money mindset work and are therefore uncomfortable with the price that you've set for your coaching because you don't value your work highly enough, you believe it's too expensive, maybe you don't invest in yourself at that level, then you.
Who are [00:27:00] willing to invest at that level. So that's the last thing that I would do differently. I would've worked on my money mindset very much at the day one of starting my business for sure. There's a few things I wouldn't change, so it's probably worth actually me going over that because it sounds like, you know, I've got all these regrets about my business and that just isn't true.
I love the business I've built. I absolutely adore it. I adore the clients that I've worked with over the years. I adore the clients that I work with now. I love my membership. Building beautifully. It's just a gorgeous space and I love it, and I wouldn't change that for the world. Things I wouldn't change, I would not change the decision I made to go all in on coaching.
Oh my goodness. Imagine. Imagine if I hadn't made that brave decision [00:28:00] back in the early days when I really, I'd started my first business as a va, but it.
What I was destined to do, and I made the really brave decision to go all in on coaching, and I wouldn't change that for the world. It was the best thing I did was to not give myself a plan B to just go for it. So I wouldn't change that. I wouldn't change all of the relationships I've built over the years.
You know, when I think about some of the early clients I coach, when I was really under. But you know what? I'm still in touch with a lot of the people I coach back in those early days. I'm so with relationships nurtured over the.
Would I change all of the times when I've been in tears thinking, oh my God, this is so hard. It would be so much easier to go and get a job. [00:29:00] It'd be so much easier. No, I wouldn't change those days. I wouldn't because I feel like those are the days where you actually understand and realize that you have to do this.
You have to do because as soon as that thought comes up of like, shit, can I really do this? Can I make this work? Can I make the ambition that I have for this business real? And those days when you start self-doubting and almost threatening yourself with doing something you really don't want do because you are worried that you can't make happen.
Those days are the rude awakening. That's the awakening. You need to realize you have to do it. You have to make it work. Those days make you actually the business owner that you need to be. Yeah, so I wouldn't change those days and there are hard days business building. Any business isn't easy and the people who say to you, you know, oh, it doesn't feel it's beautifully in.[00:30:00]
Any business is hard, but if that's true, I've said this lots times, you know if, if building any business hard, why would.
And you know what? There's no perfect path to about growing a business. You are gonna get things wrong. You are gonna get down the line and then do your own version of the seven things I'd do differently if I were starting by coaching business, right? You'll have one of these podcast episodes inside you one day, so you're definitely gonna do things wrong.
You get to choose again every single day. Every single day in business is a fresh start. You get to change your mind as often as. You get to pivot as many times as you like. Don't allow yourself to be bullied by the people that say, oh, you're damaging your brand if you change your mind, or if you change things too often.
No. If something's outta [00:31:00] alignment, you need to figure that out. You need to figure that out, and you need to make changes, and you get to do that fresh every single day. Until you get to a point, which is where I feel I'm right now of just feeling the so much gratitude for the business. I have so much gratitude for the clients.
I have so much gratitude for getting to do the thing I absolutely bloody love every single day. Hey, what is not to love about that? Right? If you are a few years in, I would love for you to think about this. What would you do differently if you were starting over today and what's stopping you from doing that right now?
If there are things that you are thinking, oh God, yeah, if I was starting over, I would definitely do this differently. Change it today. Make the change. Okay. Been a.[00:32:00]
I love listening to episodes like this from other people. I honest.
So I hope this has been helpful. If you would like to find out what more support from me could look like, I would urge you to check out the collective. If you go to jill oaks com collective, come and join us inside that beautiful membership. All of the information is on that landing page. So do go and have a look at.
Your journey to grow your coaching business. It's what I do. Paying forward what I've done and helping people avoid the mistakes I've made is what I do. Alright, have a fantastic week and I'll catch you again. Same time, same place next week. Bye for now.[00:33:00]
I hope you enjoyed this episode and that getting our heads together this week has filled your mind with what's possible. If you love the show, would you do me a massive favor? Please? Would you leave a five star rating on Apple Podcasts? It would really help you Put more heads together, reach more ears, and expand more minds.
Until next week, bye for now.
