e183 Simplify Everything, Why Less Is More in Your Coaching Business
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[00:00:00] Welcome, welcome to the Rewild Your Business Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me again this week. I am your host, Gill Moakes, so grateful to have you here with me again. I'm kind of continuing a theme this week. This is something that I've been talking about. A fair bit recently, and I think it's natural that that's the case because it's kind of the season that I'm in with the business at the moment.
And what I wanna talk about this week is simplifying your coaching business. Honestly, this has become a little bit of an obsession for me lately. Don't roll your eyes at me. This is not going to be one of those like Marie Kondoe minimalist things, never, but. There is something to be said about really stripping back your business to what actually matters.
What [00:01:00] are the things that really contribute to you making an impact and making money? What are the things that actually matter, and that's what we're gonna go into in this. Episode the Re World Your Business Podcast. Just before we dive in, I just wanna let you know that I have a brand spanking new resource for early stage coaches.
So I've created this for coaches who are probably in the early stage of, they've done their coach training, they're ready and. They're finding that they're struggling to really find those first few paying clients. I've created a little guide or workbook called Your First Yes, and it's a really simple little resource that's gonna take you through a handful of actions that genuinely move the needle.
So [00:02:00] this is connected a little bit to what we're talking about today because if you're just starting out growing your coaching practice, you do not need the complexity of a massively built out marketing ecosystem, right? There are a few very needle moving things that you need to focus on that are gonna get you those first few yeses, and that's the guide that I've created for you.
So go to the show notes of this episode and there will be a link there to download that resource. It's called Your First. Yes. Okay, let's dive into the episode. Welcome to rewild Your Business, the podcast for women doing the work, their soul intended. I'm Gill Moakes. I'm an international business coach, and I'm a guide for women doing the work that matters.
Rewilding your business means cutting away what doesn't belong to allow, what does to [00:03:00] thrive. Finding simplicity in your work. And it's about bringing the whole of who you are to the table. Whether you are building something new or finding your way back to what really matters to you. I'm so glad you're here.
So the first thing I wanna talk about is how so many of us overcomplicate our because.
We think that having more offers, for example, means that we're giving people more ways to say yes to us, right? We think that having or being on more platforms, for example, like social media platforms, means you are reaching more people, you know, more strategies in your marketing means you are covering all of your options, right?
But honestly, it just doesn't work like that. Actually what ends up [00:04:00] happening is that you end up with a business that's so overwhelming to run, not just that it's confusing to your clients and it's pretty exhausting to actually market if you've got one of those hugely built out offer suites. You know, I talk a lot about the offer pyramid.
If you go back, I think we have a previous episode on this. Building out your offer pyramid, and I'm a big believer in having more than one offer as and when your business has evolved to that level. But if you're in the early-ish, first couple of years of building your coaching practice and you've already got a low ticket offer, a mid ticket offer, a high ticket offer, membership mastermind.
Throwing out the old VIP days and retreats and, and then you're wondering why no one actually knows what you're doing, why [00:05:00] your messaging is feeling kind of all over the place, and why you're so bloody overwhelmed trying to market and organized all of these different things. Right. It's because it's way too complicated.
And honestly, something that I've noticed a lot is that complexity is almost always a sign that you don't have enough clarity around who you serve, the transformation that you offer, how you deliver that transformation, right? So you end up trying to create something for everyone. It's like you're hedging your bets, right?
And so you build all of these different pathways into working with you because you are not actually confident in the one or two pathways that are actually right. And I really do get that because honestly, the noise out there in the online world about, you know, having a [00:06:00] funnel for every single stage or an offer at every single price point presence on every platform, you know, it's very loud, it's very dominating.
But actually I do think that this keeps so many people smaller than they should be in terms of expanding their reach and in terms of growing their business. I think this is actually something that keeps a lot of people stuck because they build out this complex business model and then realize it's actually too overwhelming to run, and it's definitely too overwhelming to market.
Everything gets confused. All of the messaging, all of the tightness that you can get around. Having a very simple business model that makes it very clear. Maybe you have one, two, like me, I have three offers, three ways to work with me. In fact, at the moment I only have two. Two ways to work with me right now, work, we have something new coming next year, but at the moment, two ways to work with me.
Those are mastery, which was the Coaching Business [00:07:00] Academy, which is now my 18 week program called Mastery and Legacy, which is my private coaching practice, my one-to-one coaching, and that's been really intentional to simplify my offers so that it's very clear. How I can support you, how you can work with me.
You don't have to work at it to find out the pathway to working with me. There were two ways, right? It wasn't that long ago that I closed the collective, which was my membership. That was a step too far in complexity for me. Didn't feel good, felt overwhelming, felt like it was like. An extra thing to try and market or tell you about, and I wasn't, I don't think I was really clear on why I'd created that offer.
It didn't serve people in the way I like to serve them mastery. My 18 week, really foundational [00:08:00] business training for coaches. It's very clear how I serve people in that. You've only gotta read some of the testimonials from people who've been through that program when it was called the Academy. Honestly, it's so clear.
How that program takes coaches from where they are at the moment, you know that that kind of scattered and unclear and maybe clientless to a place of being very clear on who they serve, how they serve them, very clear on what their offers look like. Very clear on how they're gonna market them, right?
It's a very simple offer and it's very clear who it's for and what it does for them. Simplicity. This is so, so important. So what does it really look like in practice? I think that every coach should begin [00:09:00] with having one clear offer, one clear ideal client, and one clear message. Now, I'm not saying you are only ever gonna have one offer, right.
That's just not realistic for most of us, like most of us, as our business evolves, we create offers that meet that same client. Right? For me, I only have one ideal client. I just have offers that meet her at different places in her journey of building her coaching practice. I say mastery early stage coaches building those foundations of their business evolution coming next year.
That's for more established coaches that are ready to scale beyond one to one. And legacy. Like I say, this is for ambitious women who are building really a legacy body of work. So that's what my private coaching tends to be [00:10:00] about. It tends to be with women who are really working on their business outside of just serving their clients, their coaching.
This is the, the clients who are writing books, they are developing keynote speeches. You know, they're really working on that body of work that will become their legacy. So my business model is now clean and clear and intuitive. And the most important thing is that for me, it actually all points to the same transformation.
You know, it's really. Bringing all of who you are to your work. It's about working in a certain way. It's about prioritizing relationships over algorithms. You know, you've heard this message from me lots of times, so it's cohesive. That's what we're aiming for in a simplified business model, you are thinking, what is the one, maybe [00:11:00] two offers that you can create right now that are very clear, very obvious, who they're for?
Very obvious what the transformation is, that clear message, who is this for and what does it do for them? And you know what? The same principle goes for your content and your marketing, right? Your messaging. You don't have to be everywhere. We know that. We know now that we don't have to have a presence on every single platform.
We need to be a lot more intentional with where we're spending our marketing energy. And if you. Have been following this podcast for a while. You've probably listened to my episode a couple of weeks ago where we talked about how we prioritize relationships over algorithms. We talked about that 80 20 flip.
Most people are spending 80% of their time creating content and only 20% of their time developing the actual relationships with potential clients [00:12:00] and collaborators of business. Really advise you to flip that percentage. I want you to spend 80% of your time on the relationship building and just 20% of the time on the content creation, right?
Simplify. So if you're only spending 20% of your time, then you need to make sure that you're putting your content in the right places. Where are your ideal clients? You only need to be there, right? And doing it consistently and with a message that truly lands. Make sure you've done that where all of the things we teach in mastery in terms of creating that really solid brand positioning so that you know exactly how to present your coaching in front of your ideal clients in a way that they see themselves in your messaging, and understand that you're the right coach for them.
So [00:13:00] which platforms are best for you to be able to do that on? Pick one or two. You don't have to be everywhere. Again, in mastery, we teach a very simple version of content marketing. You pick one original content platform. Maybe it's a podcast, maybe it's a YouTube channel, maybe it's a Substack or, but you pick one long form content platform.
Put out your single piece of original thought content each week. So for me, it's this podcast. That's what this podcast is for me. And once I've done that, once I've recorded this podcast episode, everything else is very simple because any content that you then see on LinkedIn or Instagram, which are the platforms that I use, just those two right.
That content will have come from or been inspired by the content that's in this [00:14:00] podcast episode, my newsletter that goes out every week. It has a link to the podcast episode. The podcast episode becomes the topic that I talk about in that newsletter. It's a very, very cohesive, simple ecosystem. It feels aligned for me and it's what I can sustain without burning out.
And I wanna tell you something that is so incredibly true. The more simple our businesses get, the more they grow because they've got room, they have breathing space. As the business founder, we have breathing space to be more creative, to be more intentional, to be more thoughtful when it comes to how and what we're creating.
Our offers become more intentional. Our messaging becomes more on point. Right? There is just [00:15:00] so much freedom in just stripping back to what really matters, what really moves the needle, and you know. When you simplify, particularly your offers, thinking about your offers, but also your content. Actually, when you simplify, you really do get to go deep instead of wide.
So you get to become known for one thing instead of being kind of like vaguely known for ev a bit of everything, right? Become a coach who's known for something, become a coach who people associate with a particular thing. This is why, again, in mastery, we cover your thought leadership, identifying what you wanna be known for.
Because that is so important. The more you simplify your messaging, the more people can actually understand what it's you do, who you help, and what you're known for, what you're expert in. [00:16:00] I think it's actually quite brave to simplify your business. It takes guts to say, this is what I do in a very simple way.
This is who I help very specifically. And it's brave to be able to say those two things. This is what I do and this is who I help. And if that's not you, that's okay. It's really brave to put that stake in the ground and commit. This is why people find niching so hard because it does take courage. It's brave to let go of an offer that's making money, but maybe not aligned for you anymore.
That's what I did with the collective. It's brave to choose that depth over kind of the breadth that that compulsion to be everywhere, to give yourself more, more chances to get in front of people, right? It's brave to really go against that, but honestly, that [00:17:00] bravery is what will create a business that constantly feels like you as your best self.
Totally reflects the whole of who you're, it does take bravery to do that. So thinking about this simplification of business, of your offers, your messaging, who you work with, et cetera, how do you actually figure out what to keep and what to let go of? And there are three questions that I use for me. I come back to these over and over again, so I wanna share them with you because I feel like these are really good litmus test questions that help you identify whether something is a keeper or a goer.
The first question, does it energize you? Now, I'm not saying that every single part of your business needs to be energizing you every single [00:18:00] moment of every single day, right? But overall, does this thing light you up? Do you look forward to it? Or is it actually draining you before you even begin? Right?
If there is something in your business that is consistently draining you, you've gotta start questioning whether it actually belongs at all. The second question, does it serve your ideal client, not just any client? Does this thing serve your ideal client, the person you're here to help? Does this offer, this platform, this piece of content, does it actually move them closer to the transformation they desire?
If it doesn't, why are you doing it? Really good question to ask yourself. The third question is, does it move the needle? Is this thing actually contributing to the growth of your business? Is it bringing in revenue? Is it building [00:19:00] relationships? Is it establishing you as as an authority in your niche? Or is it just that kind of busy work that makes you feel like you're doing something but isn't actually getting you anywhere?
And I want you to be really ruthless with this one. 'cause being busy does not equal being effective, right? I wanna give you something really practical to do after you finish listening to this episode. You know? So if you're driving or if you're out for a walk, wait till you're home and then I want you to get out a piece of paper or open up a Google Doc or whatever you'd like to do.
This is gonna sound overwhelming. I want you to list everything in your business. I want you to list every offer, every platform you're on, every type of content you create, every marketing tactic you use, every system that you have in your business, every blooming thing, right? Get it all out of your head and onto paper.
And then I want you to go [00:20:00] through that list with those questions in mind. Circle the things, light you up and make you money, not one or the other. Circle everything. That ticks both of those boxes, lights you up and makes you money because the truth is if something lights you up but doesn't make you any money, that is a hobby.
And if something is making you money but is literally draining your soul, that is a trap. So we're looking for the things that do both the things that actually energize you and serve the growth of your business. Everything else, everything you haven't circled, you need to question seriously. Question whether it needs to stay or whether it needs to go.
And I'm not saying for one minute that you need to be burning it all down tomorrow, but I'm saying you need to get honest about what is actually serving you. Your clients, your prospective clients, and what is just adding [00:21:00] complexity? What are the things you're only doing because maybe you saw someone else does it and so you copied it or you feel you should do it right?
Your business needs to feel good for you to run. If you want it to be sustainable, because if not, you'll either burn out or you're gonna lose interest. And when we lose interest, that is when shiny object syndrome jumps in. We start making change after change, after change because we're searching for that thing that does light us up.
That does energize us. If it's not feeling like that right now, it could be because your business is over complicated. If you've added in loads of layers of platforms and offers and different messaging and different ideal clients and different tactics, right? Then just remember that less can be more, and when you do strip back your [00:22:00] business to what actually matters, to what's really aligned for you.
That's when your business can start to feel like it's actually yours again, that you're the one in control. So go and do that exercise. I'm really, I know it sounds overwhelming, list out everything in your business, but if you need to just categorize, you know, categorize things, systems, offers, marketing, social media, you know, list out everything and then circle what's gonna stay and question everything else.
Thank you so much for listening in again this week. Don't forget this, if you are in the early stages, or even if you're someone who actually has listened to this and thought, yeah, I really do wanna simplify, download that your first Yes. Resource. 'cause I think you'll find it quite interesting in terms of the.
Very simple activities that I recommend to people when they're first starting out and looking for those first paying clients. Even if you're not right at the beginning of your journey, it's actually a really good reminder [00:23:00] of what actually moves the needle. Okay, have a really fantastic week and I'll see you back here.
Same time Same Place next week. Bye for now.
