EP 267 — Coaching Business Lessons Learned at 60 (& What I Will Do Differently at 61)
This mistake almost blew up my coaching business at age 60... and you're at risk of making this mistake too if you have an online coaching business! If you want to build a successful online coaching business, you need to avoid this critical mistake - so in celebration of my 61st birthday as I get ready to blow out the candles on my cake I'm getting real with you about this big mistake I made last year that almost blew up my entire coaching business! I’m sharing the exact “oops” that almost blew up everything, the quick pivots that saved me, and a roadmap to bullet-proof your revenue in 2025.
In this video, you'll learn:
• The silent coaching business mistake you’re making that drains revenue
• 3 quick pivots to grow your coaching business after a major setback
• How AI is changing course sales—and what coaches should offer instead
• The mindset shift every coach over 40 needs for sustainable scaling ... and so much more!
Ready to take the next step to grow your coaching business? Comment "GIFT" on this video, and I'll send you a gift to help you get started!
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Transcript
It is birthday week. You know what that means? It means, I'm gonna tell you what's happened in the last year. I'm turning 61 in just a couple of days, and some people might say that I almost blew up my business over the last year.
What I would say is that I reinvented myself. When I turned 60 I had a big goal and I really wanted to redefine my business and get to a whole nother level, and I did that this last year. Maybe some of you have purchased some of my courses. I actually made an entire suite of courses.
That's the direction that I thought I would go with my business to grow my business. As it turned out, i've pivoted again because once I made those courses, I just had this sick feeling like, I don't like this because I'm not actually getting to know the women that are buying those courses. We did actually sell quite a few courses, but I just felt disconnected. I kept thinking, "I wanna help these people. They're gonna have questions. It doesn't matter how good the course is." I really think it's human nature, or maybe it's the nature of Debbie. I like to ask somebody questions and the women that I work with also like to ask me questions.
And with our courses I could not do that. I just had a real sense of dissatisfaction with the way I was gonna grow my business. So you know what? I pivoted again. I'm actually retiring all those courses this month. If you want to buy one of my courses and buy it at a really great price, this is the month to do it.
What I discovered out that process is that I value coaching more than ever. Here's what I know. With AI the way it is, you don't actually even need to buy a course because you can go to AI and actually ask AI anything. It is a course on steroids, but it really, to me, reveals how we all still need coaching.
Everybody has questions and as you build your business, you have questions about your niche, about your marketing, you wanna have that kind of discussion with people. Having those courses and building that out really helped me just see, " ah, that's what I really value and that's what I'm gonna do going forward."
I am doubling down on my coaching and we're getting rid of those courses. This is how I am reinventing myself again as I start with renewed enthusiasm about how much I love, love coaching. That was my biggest awareness over the last year.
I want you to feel like you can go for a goal, you can make some changes in your business, you can pivot, and then it's okay to pivot right back. Don't hang on to what you have created just because you've completed something. Just because you have a course or a program or you've put something out there, and even if you have clients enrolled in, like we had clients and actually currently have some clients enrolled in the Life Coach Business Building School, but they know it's coming to an end and I get to focus now on what I love most, which is coaching. I hope that you will give yourself that freedom too.
Let me cover some lessons that I also have learned in the last year that I think will benefit you as I talk about them. Number one, your message is super important. We actually had some email issues this last year. I really didn't even realize I had email issues until the last few months. Now, let me tell you why I didn't realize we had email issues, and that's because our coaching was still selling.
Our message was right. As it turned out, our emails were going to spam, a lot of 'em were going to spam, and we're still not quite worked through that issue. But what I know is that when your message is good, you can have a very small audience and still sell a lot of coaching. If you remember or have heard me talk about back in 2021 when I started coaching coaches, my list was very small.
I grew from zero to a hundred people in six months time, and I earned about a hundred thousand dollars off of those a hundred email subscribers. Okay? So you don't have to have a big list. If your message is right and if it connects with your person, you can still make a lot of money. Make sure that you have a message that resonates with your clients.
Let me tell you one rainbow result of having this email issue. I had to look for other ways to market my business and I'll tell you, we were really over reliant on our email marketing. I always said there's money in your email list and there is, but I think that made me take for granted the email list and not focus so much on everything else.
I think today our podcast is better than ever our YouTube, we're focusing on now and we're gonna grow that our social media. I made a lot of changes there and I have found lots of new avenues for marketing my coaching without email marketing. This benefits not only me, but it benefits our clients because I teach more free marketing.
In fact, right now, I don't even have my ads on. I'm growing my business without ads, just the same way that we teach our clients.
The second lesson that I learned or maybe relearn is that I love coaching. I think, oh my goodness, we all love communication and connection, and courses to me are not the answer. I think they're not gonna sell again because AI is going to replace that and there's so many different ways to utilize ai. Now you can go ask it anything, which is phenomenal, but we still all want to have human conversation and connection and get those real time responses that are personalized, all the things that AI cannot do.
Number three, quick pivots are the way to have long-term success. I teach, this is one of my core principles that I teach, which is the fastest way to grow your business is to be a really good decision maker and a good decision maker makes fast decisions. I really rely on my gut and on my intuition, and I'll tell you what, I ignored it last year when I was building those courses out, it's like my gut was screaming to me, don't do it. You're not gonna like it. This is not aligned with what you value, and I just ignored it.
So Don't do that. Once you realize that you're not going in the right direction, just pivot. Okay. Don't waste time doing the wrong thing. This is how you build a business quickly.
Also, pivots and decisions also apply to this software and maybe the technology that you're using and I'll tell you another mistake I made last year was switching to a new platform, but I didn't stay there and we spent a lot of time working on getting that platform right. In the end, it was a one day decision of " wait a minute, this is not working.
We're going back to what we had done before." Make sure that you don't get so fully invested in something that you're not willing to backpedal and go back to what you knew really was working for your business. I also hired some people that I made changes on and have a new team. All of that is part of growing your business.
I have learned more than ever that there are levels at every part of your business, not only do you have to increase your sales, you have to increase your systems and the way you support your business and the marketing that goes with it. All those things go hand in hand. I know a lot of us just think " I'm just gonna earn a million dollars."
It's like you have to have a business that supports a million dollars. You have to have a mindset that supports a million dollars and all of that requires pivots and quick decisions and really creating a business that can withstand long-term success.
The fourth big lesson that I learned is that you have to invest in good support. Even if you have made some bad investments and I did make some investments that really weren't great last year in my business, but you still have to be willing to invest. Just because you've made a mistake, you just cut your losses and you move on. That's how you grow a business.
That's just a write off to your business. There's gonna be things that you do that don't pay off that you just cut your losses and you're like, all right, that was just an expense that I write off, and I'm gonna move on and do the next thing.
Invest in yourself even when it feels scary. I have actually brought on even a business manager for our team. You are gonna meet her soon. She's gonna be on the podcast. This is a big step for my business, but it was the right step for where I was at. So continue to invest in help, continue to find people who are further ahead than you who can help you avoid costly mistakes and who can tell you what to do next.
The truth is you do need people who will see your blind spots, who will point out to you where you are going wrong, and who will help you course correct so you can get back on track.
It's not wasting money. It's actually saving you time and time is money. The more time you have, the more you can enjoy your business, the more coaching clients you can have, so it all pays off. So invest in more support, even if it feels scary.
Here's some truths that I've learned in the last year or maybe relearned again. Your mindset matters more than anything. You've got to be able to coach yourself. When you run up against problems, like your emails not getting delivered, you can either retreat and shut down the doors of your business.
or you can say this is just a bump in the road, how else can I reach customers? What else can I do? I wanna give you some perspective. Whatever might go wrong in your business is just like a bump in the road, a bump in the highway that is taking you to your destination. It's just one little teeny slice of multiple years of business, and you gotta get perspective on that.
So self coaching and working on your mindset is in a critical part of having a sustainable, successful business that continues to grow and thrive. The next thing is that I wanna tell you is to stop comparing where you are with me, or I need to stop comparing where I am with the next person.
We all have our place that we are today, and you're in the perfect place. When we measure ourself against somebody else, it doesn't work because what we typically do is we see ourselves falling short, and you're not falling short. You are on your own race. This is your journey.
Just keep your eyes focused on where you're going, and stop looking to see what everybody else is doing.
The next thing that I wanna remind you is don't wait to be ready. Just do what it is you need to do, because the ready moment never comes. You're never really ready to do what it is. I made some quick decisions this year fast, and I feel so excited about where we're headed now.
Now let me tell you what we're doubling down on because this is gonna surprise you.
Last year, on my last birthday, I announced that we were closing the Fast Track, which was our most successful coaching program. I said, I'm retiring it forever, and guess what? I decided to unretire that program. You get to make decisions like that. After going through building those courses and really realizing that was not what I valued and not the direction that I wanted to go,
I just said, you know what? We're bringing back the thing that I loved most, and that was the fast track. We've opened the fast track, we have expanded the way we support our clients in that. Another piece was we've opened up coaching in the evening. I tell you over the years I have coached so many coaches that work full-time.
They invest in coaching with me. They get our support, and they can't hardly come to any coaching sessions. And I thought, you know what? I wanna be available for everyone. If you happen to be working full time and this is your side hustle, I wanna be able to help you. We have coaching on Monday evenings where we meet you for the fast track and we help you get your next step, we save you so much time.
Our clients in the fast track, they actually have made faster progress than even our VIP clients because they don't typically have time to waste. They just come in and they're like, tell me what to do. I'll do it. Come back, ask your questions, tell me what to do next.
Come meet us in the fast track. It's gonna be amazing. I am also redoing all of our content because of what's happened with AI, because of how the coaching world has changed so much this year, I decided when we reopened the Fast Track, which has just been a couple of weeks ago.
I'm gonna refresh all of our content. Between now and October you can actually join us and get double the coaching for the same price and I am simplifying all of our trainings. I'm gonna be talking about how to utilize AI as a partner in your business, as you grow your business.
Also, the Design Live Thrive Summit, you've heard me talk about it. What an incredible opportunity it is. For those of you guys who have no audience, this is a way for you to get in front of your audience. Those are the things that I am focused on. I'm so excited about bringing the fast track back, coaching clients in the evening, as well as the daytime, getting people ready for the Design Live Thrive Summit, helping you understand how to utilize AI, and then simplifying what we're doing and also introducing to you more ways to market your business for free.
Here's what I want you to know. You can go and do new things in your business and you can change your mind. You can head your business in one direction and you can course correct. You can do things that you think have wrecked your business and they haven't.
I remember thinking when I discovered the email problem, oh my goodness. This is like a major crisis, and it felt like a major crisis. In reality, it really didn't hurt my business. It hurt me because I felt bad because people who were expecting to get emails from me were not getting 'em.
But in reality, there's many ways that we connect with our clients. Whatever comes your way in your business and there's gonna be curve balls that come, it's just reality. No matter what type of business you have, there's gonna be road bumps. You're gonna have to take a detour. Just expect it to be that way.
I'm in business for life. I'm in business helping women just like you grow your business. You too can be in business for life. You're gonna have things that come up, and you can either see 'em as an opportunity to elevate yourself, an opportunity to learn some new things, to discover some new ways, some new detours that will get you to where you want to go to. It is incredible to have an opportunity, to have the business that we have, to evolve in the way that we are evolving right now. Everything in the coaching world has changed this year. If you want to have our support and our help. I honestly am so excited. Join us in the fast track.
We're gonna do double the coaching. We have coaching in the evening. We've got our Design Live Thrive Summit, and we have so many new ways to support you. So join us. You guys, let's have a conversation about how we can support you. Plus, I have a gift for you. I have a brand new masterclass.
Just comment the word GIFT, I will send you our masterclass. I'm gonna walk through our entire framework for building a profitable coaching business, your Boutique Style Coaching Business that you will love.
Thank you for being part of my community. I am here to support you. You can do this. Coaching is so needed, and if you have not heard, the coaching business and the coaching world, all in all the numbers of what they expect, the growth in the next 10 years is mind boggling. Just in the next year, they're expecting the coaching world to grow a billion dollars. I believe, in the next 10 years and really from this point on, I think coaching has caught on. People see the value in it. They know that they need to hire coaches for help. The opportunity for you to grow your business is massive. Don't forget to get the masterclass. Just comment the word gift and I will send it to you. Have a beautiful day. We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.