EP 306 - How To Start Your Coaching Business in 2026 (The 6-Step Framework That ACTUALLY Works)

If you want to start a coaching business in 2026, then you'll want to listen this episode where we are breaking down the exact 6-step framework to build a profitable boutique coaching business without paid ads, complicated tech, or years of "getting ready."

Whether you want to work with more coaching clients or finally stop "getting ready" and start making money as a coach, it's time to learn what's actually working in 2026 to build a profitable coaching business. There are specific actions you need to take to become a successful coach, and in this episode, Debbie is joined by mindset coach Thais Glenn to help you avoid wasting time and start taking the right steps to build your business with confidence.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The 6 steps to actually start your coaching business (not the busy work you think you need)

• Why registering your LLC, building courses, and designing logos aren't building a business

• The Profitable Boutique Coach framework that creates real paying clients

• How to look established and professional from day one (even as a brand new coach)

• The simple tech stack that costs less than $90/month (with free options to start)

• Why talking to people is the missing piece most new coaches skip

• The 4-step consultation call framework that converts without manipulation or pressure

… and much more!

Want to grow your coaching business?

Join us in the Business Building Boutique. Schedule a call here: https://debbieshadid.com/schedule

Free Resources for coaches:

• Free Masterclass to Grow Your Coaching Business: https://coaching.debbieshadid.com/masterclass

• Canva Workshop: https://coaching.debbieshadid.com/canva

Connect with Debbie:

Website: https://www.debbieshadid.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debbieshadid/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCz6RS8kQGMLJqJrK9uKdjtg/ 

🎙️ Listen to the podcast: Life Coach Business Building School: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/life-coach-business-building-school-with-debbie-shadid/id1502118085

Don’t forget to subscribe for weekly episodes on coaching business strategy for women over 50, tech tools for coaches, and simple business growth strategies that really work: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz6RS8kQGMLJqJrK9uKdjtg

#DebbieShadid #LifeCoachBusinessBuildingSchool #CoachesOver50 #WomenCoachesOver50

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and forward this to a coach who is building and growing their coaching business. CLICK HERE TO LEAVE A REVIEW

Don’t forget to connect with me on social media: Instagram | Facebook

Transcript

Whether you're over 50 or under 50, you're in the right spot. So welcome. I'm so glad that you're here. Uh, t his is the year you've been saying your business is finally gonna come together. This training is for you. So if you guys don't know me, I'm Debbie Shadid. I literally have helped thousands of women. I've been at this 25 years. I don't even know how you quantify. We have 10,000 here. It's thousands of women. I am so excited. I just was notified that my, YouTube channel, Had 80,000 downloads and I was like, oh my gosh, because we really just started focusing on it. So, excited about that. So there's lots of women that I've helped. I'm so grateful for that opportunity. But the goal is to have you build a boutique style business, which is a business that's built on your terms, and just to have this concept of boutique in your mind. I'll talk about that as we go further. Also, I don't know if you saw the word profitable as in here, another important piece to having a good business. All right, so what I'm not gonna talk about is you registering your LLC. Because first of all, I shouldn't do that, but that's not starting a business or opening up a bank account or getting your payment thing set up. Even designing a logo, which I hate to even say because we teach branding, but there is this thing of like, I have my, even a website, like I, I have my business done. It's like, okay, that's actually not building a business. Building a course before you've ever even coached someone, and nobody has to raise their hand and call themselves out. But I know that that is what is being taught in the online space. Like get ready, build your course. You need to coach people first, is my opinion. And then now we have ai, But we cannot let AI do the work. Okay. Those things obviously feel productive, but they're not gonna create momentum. So when I talk about building a real business, I'm talking about building a brand, not a logo, a brand. I'm talking about building an audience, right? We gotta have people a following, a reputation. And I think more than ever, it is our job to create trust. Visibility is important and that's how you create trust with a consistent brand image, with a consistent message. With consistent visibility. So all of that is what leads to paying clients. And to me, that's when you do really have a real business. I think there's this getting ready thing that so many coaches, I don't know, I wouldn't say hide behind it now, that's what I've got there, but it's like, it feels so productive. I'm still getting ready. And I talk to, and Thais talks to coaches sometimes that have been getting ready and talk to me three years ago, and then they talk to me again. They're in the exact same place that they were. it feels useful and it feels like you should have things like you have to get it all set up. But honestly, you can get your business set up in two weeks. Really. You can be like in really great shape in two weeks. So I'll talk to you about that at the end. But at tech, listen, there is lots of people selling you tech and I'll tell you about the tech that we use today, what I recommend, but tech does not get you clients. And I like to have the simplest tech. And there are ways to run a business with no tech, believe it or not, designing freebies. We have to really work on our freebies these days because AI can design a freebie in seconds. That's not the freebie that you wanna give out to people. And then I have to admit that when I use ai, and I'm sure you guys will see this too, sometimes it takes me more time than it took if I'd have just done the darn thing myself. So none of that though replaces you connecting with people. I think the coaches who are gonna win, not, I think I should say, I know the coaches who will win in 2026. They're gonna have clarity around their niche. They're gonna provide clarity to people. They're gonna show up confident because they have clarity. They're gonna have lots of conversations. Lots of conversations. This is always the missing piece. People is always the problem. You wanna focus on connection, not complexity. today I'm gonna walk you through the Profitable Boutique Coach framework. It's gonna be four parts. I actually walk through this. I teach you how to build a business without paid ads, without using, like I said, complicated tech. And I don't, we really don't want you to rely on AI in the beginning, although I have now two custom chat GPTs that we use inside of our program, but you actually input the information into it to get the correct output. So for those of you guys who are new and have not been here with me before, I'm gonna share a lot of information. I don't want this to be a, a point where you're like, this feels impossible. I want this to be a point where you say, I can see what I'm missing and I know what I need to do next. Of course, for those of you who are new, I'll share at the end how we can support you. I am gonna walk through the four steps, To use when you actually meet people. That'll be towards the end. The Profitable Coach framework, this is four essential components that will help you create this business. You cannot do a business without. All four of these. Many of us get stuck in like one of 'em, and we can't get past the first step or the second step, the first step is all about niche. It's about brand image. It's about brand presence. You have to look like if you're gonna succeed in today's market. I don't believe in lying ever. I am a woman of integrity, but you have to look successful before you start. You want to look as if you've already been working with people. You don't wanna look like a brand new person. You wanna look like you're established and professional. I'll just mention women over 50. that's what they want. They want to look good. I don't wanna go out there and look like a fool, right? becoming well known, this means that you decide what your reputation is going to be in advance. You're the one who decides what people are going to say about you and your business. You decide how to communicate about your coaching very effectively, and I'm gonna say efficiently. Then all of the marketing without paid ads. Listen, that is everything from email marketing, growing a list, which is critical. You have to do that. Of course, it's social media critical. The workshops that I do, lots of other ways, I'll talk to you about our summit too. That's another way you can grow without paid ads. And then the fourth component is just about enjoying your business, because we put ourselves in jail by working seven days a week and never getting anywhere. Instead of putting some parameters and borders around our business to where we do only work a certain number of hours. today I'm gonna walk through six steps about knowing your niche, building your brand, creating your offer, talking to people, the tech, and about mindset. And it'll be fun to have Thais here to talk a little bit about mindset too. the first step is about niche. And I'm gonna go through this quickly. This is not, a niche training. This is just an overview of all this. I will talk about connecting with people towards the end. you have to know what you stand for, what you stand for before anything else. Your niche is gonna be really the entire foundation of your whole business. before you post anything, before you build your offer, before you build your website, you have to know who you serve, and you have to solve a critical problem. This just becomes more and more evident the further along that I go. When I first started this with coaches, generalization was just fine. A little bit of nicheing was just fine. It is just getting to be that we have to be narrow and narrow 'cause we're beating the AI game by narrowing down and getting really focused on one thing. Without a niche, everything will feel scattered. You are on social media looking for an idea for inspiration. When you have a niche that you're very clear about, very clear about the problem, about the way you're gonna solve it, you're not looking anywhere else to see what you think. What should I do for my business today? You know what to do about your business and what to do for your business, and the consumer will know what you stand for. I always say, and I'm gonna continue to say, you want a consumer to go, oh, she's talking to me, right? And everybody else just scroll by, We don't want people on the fence. We want people who know that you get them, you have to be crystal clear so they can be crystal clear. You wanna help a specific person with a very specific challenge. I know that it feels like you want to include everybody because you don't wanna miss out on anyone, but here's the thing. You're gonna be including people by getting specific, not excluding them, You'll be including people by getting specific. what do you need to know about your niche? Who is your ideal client? How do you speak to their problem and their words? This is so critical. We have, we work on people's marketing message and sometimes this is the entire disconnect. Why they're not getting clients is because they don't know how to talk in a way that somebody can understand. And I have to be honest with you. Sometimes somebody comes to work with us, we work on their marketing message, and even over a number of a weeks, they're still like almost understanding how to talk about their business. And as they understand to talk about their business, they have more eye-opening moments. It even helps Ty and myself even get even more clear on how to help them. it's really interesting. There's a lot more to understanding how to work with your niche, how to talk about their problems and what their problems are than what you're thinking right now. You have to understand the transformation that they want, not what you want right now. You are evolved. You're at a different place in your business. They have a specific pain point, I'll call it that they're cut and they're bleeding. They want a bandaid to fix that problem. The transformation that you can provide, that's a whole nother complete training, but that needs to be your specific transformation. That is, an accumulation of the skills and knowledge that you have. So you, you have to be clear. If you are clear, your marketing will get much easier. That's what I was saying. We're not looking around to see what anybody else is saying. You will know what to say and sometimes that clarity takes a little bit of time as you start talking about it. It's not that you change what you're saying, it's that you get clearer on what you are saying. the second step is to build this authentic brand, a brand that really reflects you. And branding in 2026 is more than ever a. It is you not AI branding, right? I look at the AI I images that are being generated, and I'm like, really? You can tell no matter what. Maybe we'll get to a point where we can't tell, but you can tell. it's that trust thing, right? We wanna make sure that we're really talking to a real person. And by the way, I get this all the time, people will say wow, you're on the consultation call with me. I'm like, yes. And they're like, but who's the coach that's helping me? people want to know that you're really somebody that they can trust, that you're not just selling something, you're not just the face of the brand, you are the brand. So showing up as the real you is really important. How to beat the AI game is that you use your voice. There is a series of words and things that you say that nobody else will say. We call those coin phrases. the longer you go, we'll either identify what they are or you will identify what they are. you have a sense of energy and a story that is all your own whatever is up in your head. It doesn't matter if we all got the same coach training or none of us had coach training, whichever it was, or we all had the same niche. Every single one of us comes at something from a unique perspective. If you're over 50, I'm gonna tell you what, you have a huge advantage. You have lived a life, I know this since I'm over 60. Um, you have led people, even if you have been somebody who stayed at home and raised your children, you have re uh, you have led your children, you are leading your grandchildren. You have led people in your community. You have so much experience. You really have instant credibility. I mean, I really want that to sink into you. You already have credibility. You're trying to seek credibility. You already have it. it's just up to you to basically own some confidence about what you're doing so that you can show up and talk about yourself, talk about your business in a bigger, bolder way. a professional brand is going to include colors that reflect who you are. Our new branding, GPT, is called Picasso. It will help you create a brand, very simply. we're actually just gonna have our first tester use it next week, a new client. I'm excited about that. You need to have a beautiful logo, easy to read. Fonts. One photo is enough. One photo. I know this is another one of those things where we're like, we're still getting ready 'cause we're getting photos. One photo is enough. You can do so much with one photo. Do you wanna have a collection of photos? Of course. Listen, I had like two photos for the first eight years. No kidding. one photo is enough. You have to have professional domain address and which is debbie@debbieshad.com. You have to have that. And then really professional graphics. Okay, that's gonna say a lot about you. I really wanna emphasize the only impression somebody has about you today is a quick scroll. Doesn't matter if it's on YouTube, a podcast a, they're first gonna see a visual and that's it. all of those things really do matter. People don't buy coaching. They buy you, okay? So your brand creates that trust. It needs to look professional, it needs to look again. Component number one is about you being seen as you were, are successful.' cause you are before you have. Dozens of clients, You're already successful. All right? Step number three is to create an offer that solves a single real problem. That has to be something that is simple for you to sell. I'm telling you what I, that, geez, you can have complicated offers. Nobody wants to buy a complicated offer. You can see their face gets glazed over, right? It has to be transformational. The end result of working with me is you know how to get clients. That's the end result. I'm not here to sell you right now, I will sell you at the end, but I'm just saying that's how simple and straightforward your offer needs to be. What does that you do? What's the end result of your coaching? don't overcomplicate this. You don't need a course, and if you have one, let's figure out how we can sell it. But you don't need a course. You don't need a year long program. In fact, don't do any of that. Your first offer should just solve one real problem and your first offer. Listen. You start with an offer and it evolves as you go. What you think people need might be what they need, and also they might need something else or, and also they might not need the thing that you thought was so wonderful, right? it's really important to go through the offer with some people first before you decide imposter syndrome. I hear this from everybody and I understand that's why we do, that's why we have Tais here, is to make sure that you keep building your business and you don't get stuck in your own way. You have to pick a problem that you know how to solve. We specifically help you walk through an offer. But you guys, I'm telling you, you can do this on your own. Find an offer that you know you can fix for somebody. I know, I can tell you how to get clients. You have to go get 'em, but I know I can tell you how to do this. I know I can teach you. I don't have imposter syndrome around that offer because I, it's only built. I don't do ads. I don't teach you ads 'cause I don't know that I can. I can teach you an ad and have everybody successfully use ads. I don't do ads. What is it that you can do that you know you can do? You don't have to over promise. What you have to do instead is over deliver. start with private coaching. This is where you build your base and your reputation, okay? It is the easiest thing to sell. You will make more money private coaching in the beginning per hour than you'll do anything else. at some point you can talk about that word scaling into group. Now, I will say, I'm gonna pause for a moment. If you work full time, I'm glad you're here, that you've carved out time for that. You might need to start with a group program first instead of private coaching. But ideally. Most of you guys that have more time for your business, you would start with private clients. But again, that could be individualized. We do have some people that immediately go because they only have like 10 hours a week to work on their business. The fourth step is to talk to people. Marketing without ads is the fastest path to clients. I'm also gonna say marketing without using any technology. Marketing, without using any technology is even faster. That means talking to people. You guys, okay? Marketing is everything. It always comes down to a traffic. I should have the word traffic problem in there. The traffic problem. What that means is you're not talking to enough people. And that might mean talking as in words, face-to-face. It might mean the exposure in front of people either on social media, a YouTube, a workshop, wherever it's at. But it literally only comes down to that every time. You cannot expect that somebody, that you meet somebody that you have a conversation with somebody and that they're gonna buy your coaching. I have to be honest with you about that. If you talk to two 10 people, right? Maybe one of those people will become your client, and I'm talking about have consultations with 10 people. Maybe one of those in the beginning will become your client. You'll get better to where it's 50%, 60%, 70%. But right now, in the beginning it's I made an offer and nobody said yes. How many people did you make the offer to? just know that it, that's the hardest part. And I will say it's nice to have sort of a reminder of that regularly. Like, Hey, we need to meet some more people this week. Okay? You don't need ads, you don't need a funnel. A funnel is literally a series of, I don't have my Post-it notes in front of me, a post-it notes, a series of emails, or a series of social media posts. It's a series of communications that you do without tech. Like you met somebody at a networking event, you follow up with them. What's the first follow up? What's the second follow up? What's the third follow up? That's a funnel. It's just a series of steps of how you communicate with someone. if you're in your local market, again, networking, how are you gonna follow up with them? Because it is your job. If you give somebody your business card, it is not their job to even keep the business card. It is your job to get their name and to create a connection with them. Not sell 'em, but to create a connection and create a relationship with them. here's the four Cs formulas that I spoke about. The first step is to have connection with people. You have to meet people. I know I'm harping on this, but it is the easiest most. Underdone thing that anybody is doing. Nobody is doing this enough. We're all so guilty of just staying in our house and thinking that this format is our, like our world, our camera on the internet and it's not. Our world is outside there. meet people, build relationships and then tell 'em what you do if you meet people online. It is, which is phenomenal. Some of my very best friends for life are online. I've never even seen 'em in per in person, but you still have to build relationships with those people. It's still as you checking in with those people. Find some way. I have a lady that I've never met that for the last four months, five months maybe. We text each other three things. We're grateful for every day through a WhatsApp thread. I'm not even sure I could tell you her last name right now. I know her first name's Lori. We text each other. We're building this relationship. We're only texting each other three things every day. We don't have any other communication that's building a relationship. Okay. We would see each other and spend a weekend together and love it because we already know a lot about each other through that conversation. figure out simple ways to do that. Coffee chats, that real connection. That's the conversation. The second step conversation. Okay. And again, I just shared with you conversation that I'm having through three lines. Anytime during the day. Sometimes I do it at midnight, sometimes I do it at 6:00 AM to this particular person that I send this message. The third thing is to have consultations. I like to call those comfortable conversations, but let's call it what it is, a consultation. This, the way that I'm framing this right now is that you invited somebody to have a conversation, the comfortable conversation about your coaching. That's what I'm saying. You're really inviting somebody to say, come talk to me. I'm not gonna arm twist you. That's what I always tell people. I'm not gonna arm twist you and I can't make you buy anything. But we need to have a conversation about how I can help you, right? I wanna be able to share with you what I could do to support you. And then of course, the fourth one is clients. You have to have clients. And let me just say, a free client to start is phenomenal. We have a client right now who just got her first and she told me, I got a client and I was so excited. And then she went, and she's free. And I was like, okay, scratch that part. The free part, I don't care. Because she had a real consultation. She had a real conversation, she made a real connection. And there is growth, personal growth that you don't know that you're gonna need to have the best that she could do today. Was to offer her coaching complimentary, that's the word that I use instead of free. So she is walking her through a genuine coach client relationship in a complimentary way. And I guarantee you, it's the only person that she's gonna do it with. Because already she's like, already talked this lady a couple times and she's like, oh, you know what? I'm gonna do this next time. Now she knows. She's got a different level of confidence. So yeah, clients, whether they're free, they're affordably priced, they don't have to be high ticket. You'll get to high ticket at some point. Every client though, starts with one conversation. connection. You're only one person away from your next client. Only one. Seriously. Sometimes I meet people. In fact, what I, I remember several years ago, I met somebody in the morning, her first time seeing me. In less than an hour. She was a private client, and I even, I was like, wait a minute. What just happened? Like this lady just came across me. I happened to have a time on my counter and she was a client, so this is true. Everything I'm teaching you happens that way. connection, true connection. It is networking, right? But you're not just talking about your business, you're not just marketing, right? You have to build real human connection. I've already mentioned this about four times, but human connection will trump any technology you guys remember, not that long ago when we built businesses, we made notes in a notebook. When we went and met 'em and we followed up with notes, we went and knocked on their business door. All of that still applies. Okay? You can build a relationship in person faster with anyone than you can with months of online communication. where do you find your people? That's always also the million dollar question. Okay, great, Debbie. But where do I find people, I have to be a SmartyAnts and say, where do you find people? Because you should know based on your niche, where your person would be. And that's something we need to work on. But there's gonna be women's groups, church groups. A lot of you guys are in sororities or junior league, or you've been in some kind of organization, some nurses, organization. There's all kinds of networking groups. Toastmasters and BNI, I know Marie's in BNI. You can go to the gym. If you're going to the gym, you should know people. This is, if you want to have a business, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. You gotta get over the own thing. story of like, I'm an introvert. This is like, I don't really like talking to people. If you wanna have a business, you get to talk to people. Facebook groups. If you treat those like those are paid advertising, it will work that way for you. I know there's lots of stories about how they're not any good and you can't sell in there and you better not sell in there. But we hear every single week people that we meet that are selling clients that they met in Facebook groups because they went in there ' cause they were interested in the topic and they made friends with people. They did not sell people, they made friends with people. you wanna have a connection plan. This is literally the exact plan that we tell our clients. Meet one new person a week. And I don't mean like, hi, I am Debbie Shadid. Not that, meet 'em. Get to know 'em. Know something about their life. I have two grandkids. I have this, I have, you need to know something about me to call it meeting someone. Attend one networking event a month. I want it to be in person. Be active in three Facebook groups consistently at a time. Not for one week, not two weeks, but consistently for weeks. And then follow up with every person you meet. 52 new connections a year is just the first one, right? That doesn't include how many people you meet at networking, how many people you can meet in Facebook groups. This is how you grow a business, you guys. That's how you do it. Conversation. It's not about a sales call, it's about talking to somebody, Call it whatever you wanna call it, but it's about getting to know people. If you have a real conversation, you're really interested, right? You're getting them to talk about themselves. You wanna listen more than what you're talking, You wanna help them see what's possible, Help them see what is on the other side of where they are. By sharing your story, by sharing other stories of other people. This is literally how I grew my business. You guys have heard this. If you've been around in six months time, I had this goal. I was gonna make a hundred thousand dollars come hell or high water. I was gonna do that. And all I did, literally seven days a week was had conversations with people. I met people, I offered free coaching. I sent 'em Loom video follow up, I did personal reach outs. I went into Facebook groups. I talked to, I asked for referrals, and I did it. I, I mean, you guys might not wanna do it that way, but I'm just telling you again, that is totally possible. Practice what you're gonna say. I walked around my neighborhood, I walked around my house, I rehearsed it to myself. And I'm not talking about in my head, I'm talking about out loud, what you're gonna say. Because one of the biggest problems is if you don't deliver what you want to say confidently, nobody's gonna hear it as if you are confident. you're probably listening to this workshop as it seems like I'm rambling. It's the third time in two days that I've done it. I did this last night, and I did it yesterday morning. I recorded myself doing this. I know all this stuff, right? I know every single bit of this is stuff that I talk about all the time, but I practice. practice makes you money, When you get those words, when you get it right, when you share what your offer is, how much it costs, that's how you win at this, okay? Prejudging people, lemme tell you what, this has probably cost me thousands and thousands of dollars. I, I'm ashamed to say that, but I'm warning you because it might cost you money too. When somebody gets on a call and is like, okay, I just wanna let you know, I don't have any money, which I understand this. That's the what we all wanna say. When we get on a consultation call, we're bracing ourselves. How often I took that as being the truth, which maybe was the truth. I'm not in somebody's pocketbook, but what I know more often if I don't let that affect me and I just help somebody anyway, what ends up happening is. They decide to see the value and now they say, well, tell me what it would look like for us to work together. in the beginning of my career, I was prejudging people on that like, oh, they don't have any money. It's not gonna be a good fit. Sometimes I wouldn't even make an offer, right? Don't let you know. Don't let them waste their time getting on a call with you and not making an offer to 'em. So just deciding that they're not your ideal client. If they're on a call with you, they think they're your ideal client, okay? the person that you're talking to might not be your client, but they might know somebody who could be. And also, this happens more times than not. I talked to somebody and our newest client that came on this week, Evelyn, she watched my Canva training 12 months ago, saw the Canva training, come up on an ad again, watched it again this week to just see if I really was that sane person. That's what she said. She went back and read my emails and then thought, I'll just see when I get on a consultation call if this lady is the real deal. Those are all her words. You have to be available because you don't know when somebody's gonna be your client, when they will sort of trust themselves enough to say, okay, this lady is real. a consultation is not about convincing all of the energy that you feel, which is like, I hate being pushy. I don't wanna be like that. It feels yucky. That's just in your head. You should just be discovering what's happening for them. You don't have to convince anyone, You wanna have a comfortable conversation about what's happening for them. And if you believe in what you're doing, then you should know how to support 'em. Here's just a quick sample of how a consultation could go. five minutes getting to know somebody, 10, 15 minutes asking questions. To find out where they are at writing down. This is just like a coaching call, by the way. You write down their words. Exactly.'cause you wanna mirror back. It's like a con conversation that you wanna have with somebody where you mirror back, now let me get this right. Did you just say this? you wanna mirror back, reflect back what they said, and then you wanna ask questions to make sure that you are clear and that they are clear. what you're saying is, you've done this, this, and this, and you still don't have what it is you want. That's a moment where somebody's like, yeah, you're right. you wanna present your offer and you wanna state the price and then you just wanna be quiet. That's kind of a simple summary of what's gonna happen. Yes, we need to overcome objections. Yes, you need to know how to onboard a client, all those things. But just in general, give somebody time to process. A payment, a price, and then expect 'em to be like, oh, that's just human nature. It doesn't mean oh means no, it just means, when you ask questions, these are some of the things you wanna know. What have you tried before? Why is this a problem right now? Why are you getting on with me today? Like the Evelyn, after a year of looking at my stuff, why are we on a call today? I'm not asking that in a smarty way, I'm just saying like, tell me what's really going on. Why what would it look like if you had everything in your life right now and it just worked out? That's a question that I ask Evelyn. If you had the business that you wanted today, what would it be? By the way, without Sharon, Evelyn, maybe she's even on here. No, she's not. She had an exact reason why today was the right, why right now was the right day. She actually could answer that question specifically. listen to what's happening. Use their words when you present the offer, reflect back what they've said. All right. Clients, all I can say is that the magic happens in the follow up. You can just assume that I spent a year following up with Evelyn because I did. I nurtured her through emails, through our podcast, through our YouTube. And I know you don't have any of those things. You guys, you don't have any of 'em. I'm just saying in the beginning, you're nurturing them through individual feedback. You're creating something for 'em. You're sending it to 'em. You're, sending 'em a journal question they might think about. There's other ways to do it. in the beginning of your business, you're not where I am in my business, it's different. And then you wanna close, you wanna close the deal, and then if you still have to follow up, okay, great. Still follow up because also some people need time. If somebody's ready to go, be ready to send an invoice, be ready to get the payment immediately. They are not a client until they pay you. this is another brutal truth that is so sad when we have people who tell us, I sold a client. And I, I hate to even ask the question, and sometimes I don't. Like, did you actually get payment yet? Because over my career, many people have said, I'm gonna join you, and then they don't, right? They get off the call. And if they haven't paid the invoice while they're with you, then life happens and their brain gets in the way and they don't join you. make sure that you're prepared to do that, And then make sure you follow up. The fifth step is to keep your tech simple. Do not overcomplicate your business. This is the tech that we use. I just rechecked all this this week. If you use the free versions of this software, let me stop for a minute. Whatever tech you're already using, do not change it. We recommend Squarespace. That's not on here for a website, but whatever you're using, do not change it if it's not this stuff, But I did check the price with Squarespace and all of this stuff. If you start with the free versions first, which we always recommend, it's $58 a month. once you get up to where you're using all the paid versions, it's $86 a month. You cannot run a business anywhere for that price, So it does cost money to have a business, all right? Managing your mindset. You're not just a coach. You're a CEO of a coaching company, right? That means you have to act like you have a job, that you're the boss, you're the employee, right? You're both. You have to get dressed, come to work, treat it like a job market, like it's your job. You never, ever stop marketing unless you don't want people walking through your door anymore. That's for real. you have to treat it as if it was a business and if you treat it as if it's a business, people will start to show up. You have to give your business time for it to grow. If you think about a boutique down the street, when somebody goes to open a dress shop or whatever kind of store you wanna call it, they are first doing research and they're like, what intersection has the highest traffic? How many cars? You're driving by that, strip shopping center. When you go to rent a strip shopping center space, they tell you what the traffic is. They're telling you how many people are gonna see your sign out on the street. That person is looking for understanding of that because they wanna know how long is it gonna take before I'll actually make any money at this deal. That is doing the research and treating her business like a business. She's trying to make sure that she has a consistent flow, and that's not including all the other marketing that boutique is going to do, but she's at least getting drive by. So you've got to make sure that you're always marketing consistency. It compounds okay. it's just, it is like anything else. Money, calorie, deficits, walking, all those things compound. The more people that you connect with, the more posts you create, more emails you send, the more relationships your business grows. What I said in the beginning is still true. The women who win are the ones who don't quit. There's gonna be a point in your business. Where if we work together, you're gonna come to a call and you're like, you're never gonna believe what happened. And I'm gonna say, yeah, we do believe what happened. Because when you are consistent, it's always like, somehow you're surprised. All of a sudden it's like really starting to work now. It's like, no, it just finally compounded. It's not the one post or the one email or the one workshop. It's enough of 'em that it's like a tipping point that it finally starts to work. And again, that's the women who don't give up. So your 2026 action plan is to know your niche. Get crystal clear on this. Build a beautiful professional looking brand that really is reflective of you. If you are casual, your brand is casual. If you are into fitness, your brand is into fitness. If you are like me, your brand is like me. Create an offer that you love. Start with private coaching. Talk to people. Talk to people. Talk to people, Keep your tech simple. Manage your mindset. Do not overcomplicate this. That's really all it's gonna take. I just wanna say, look, here's the deal, I truly believe that we have a, really an opportunity that's different even than last year.'cause so many more people understand coaching. So I really hope that you will step into the identity of being someone that is going to be a coach. Stop talking about being a coach. Be a coach with the business. All right? This is life changing work that we get to do. I don't, I don't wanna just change your life by helping you create a business. I want you to be the one that does the life changing work. Thais you wanna come on camera? Good. Debbie, you said a couple of things. There are two things that you said that I made some notes here that to me sounds like different than what I hear with, you know, the business coaching industry in general. One that I thought was very interesting is how you explain consultation calls. And it's one of the things that really caught my attention when we had a consultation call, right? Uh, that you don't overcome objections. I've seen other coaches talk, like teaching you all the strategy of how to overcome, all the obstacles that the potential client might have and the way Debbie teaches, it's like, no, you're gonna have a conversation. Those people are human beings. They don't need to be convinced. They don't need to be manipulated, right? Like, you just need to answer the questions. So if they feel like this is not a good fit because the time doesn't work, it's a valid, it is a valid thing. It's not an excuse that you need to overcome the obstacle, right? So that is one thing that I really appreciate about you, Debbie, is that how we're able to see the potential clients as human beings, that we can help. Can we help them? Maybe you can't and they shouldn't pay you if you can't. And then another thing that I giggle a little bit you talked about the, um, when you're gonna start posting. So it's like if you are thinking, and you said, tomorrow I will start posting. And my mind was like, that means you won't. If you were, you would do it today. Not more. It's like the diet, starting the diet on Monday. It's like you have no, no desire to do it, so those little things, um, that I find our program very helpful because it's more like, come back to reality. You don't need a group with a thousand people and a million dollars. You need one social media post and one client, right? We need to start from here and then we keep on growing too. Like you, you even said eventually you'll be the scaling, but right now we need to build a business. That is such a great point. So anyways, thank you for this presentation. I actually really enjoyed and I learned. So, just so you know, I am Thais Glenn. I am the mindset coach here inside of BBB. And Debbie and I, we've been working together for a few years now and we are really helping you. She really tells you the strategy, but It's the strategy plus the mindset that will fit your, your business and how you wanted to run this. So I love working here with Debbie. I think we, we do a very beautiful job together. And just the clients, It's like this, I really do believe that we attract this very beautiful, lighthearted, Strong woman who just wanted to do good. And those are all of our clients. We have a beautiful group of women here that just wanted to do good and you wanted to make some money while you are doing good.