EP 393 - How Corporate Women 50+ Can Safely Transition into Coaching

MarketingCoaching LifestyleTechnology
Written By Debbie Shadid
 

If you're a corporate woman wondering how to transition from corporate to coaching, how to start a coaching business after 50, or how to leave your corporate job for coaching without the financial risk, this video is for you. If you've spent decades building a corporate career and you're ready to explore coaching as your next chapter, you're in the right place.

Corporate experience is a huge asset, but the rules outside the corporate world are completely different. In this video, I'll show you how to use what you already know to build a coaching business without the risk, the tech overwhelm, or quitting your job too soon.

We will discuss why your corporate credentials and certifications alone won't bring you clients, and how to give your coaching business a runway instead of quitting your job abruptly. We will cover the biggest trap that derails corporate women when they start researching online, why you don't need expensive software, funnels, or a client management system when you're just starting, how to get specific on who you help so the right people recognize themselves in your marketing, and the three things you need absolute clarity on before you do anything else.

🌟 If you want a step-by-step roadmap to set up your business foundation without the tech overwhelm, and personalized feedback on your niche, book a call with me here: https://debbieshadid.com/schedule

🌟 If you want to structure your business for maximum profit and time freedom, watch this video next: https://youtu.be/4lCdZx9ntVE

Connect with me, Debbie Shadid:

Shop Debbie's Resources for Coaches:

Listen to the Podcast:

Subscribe for weekly episodes on building your coaching business, finding clients, and creating the life you actually want: https://www.youtube.com/@debbieshadid

Tired of spinning in indecision about what to post, how to sell your coaching, or explain what you do? This is your moment!

Join me for a live edition of Fast Track + VIP coaching experiences where you'll get real-time feedback on your niche, offers, and marketing, plus the clarity and support you've been looking for.

Spots are limited and enrollment closes soon.

Let’s connect!

#DebbieShadid #LifeCoachBusinessBuildingSchool

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

If you have spent the last 20, 25, 30 years in a successful corporate career, you have built an incredible amount of wisdom. You know how to lead teams, solve problems, and get real results. And naturally, as you look at your next chapter, starting a coaching business feels like the perfect fit. You want flexibility, freedom, and meaningful work where you are in control. If we have not met yet, I'm Debbie Shadid, business coach for women over 50. I specialize in helping mature professionals just like me take their life experience and build respected, profitable online businesses from scratch without the tech overwhelm. And here's the honest truth that nobody tells corporate professionals when they begin. The rules outside the corporate world are completely different. Today, I wanna share the practical roadmap for making this transition safely and successfully. And if you are sitting there thinking, "I don't even know what I don't know," don't worry. Let's talk today about how I can be your guide through this entire process. Are you ready? Let's dive in The very first conversation that I often have with corporate women begins like this,"Debbie, I've worked hard my entire life doing serious corporate work. Now I just wanna have some fun." And let me say I completely understand that desire, but here's a reality check. Fun by itself does not replace a corporate income. If your goal is to simply create a hobby, that is wonderful. But if you are accustomed to a substantial salary and you want your coaching business to provide income for your lifestyle, you have to solve a high-value problem, something that is painful. I always say that people pay to get out of pain, and this is something I don't want you to forget. The good news is, though, you do not have to stay miserable to make money. We take the high-level expertise that you already possess, whether it is leadership, communications, operations, or career strategy, and then we package it up into a service that is both deeply enjoyable for you to deliver and valuable enough for clients to invest in. You don't have to start from scratch and with a brand-new hobby. You leverage the authority you spent decades building. The second hurdle surprises almost every executive I meet. In corporate, client acquisition was handled for you. Yeah, that means you didn't have to go out and get your own people. Whether you've been in HR, management, finance, or operations, the company provided the people, the people coming into you. You had a budget and a brand that was already behind you. The people just showed up in your department and on your calendar because the organization, the company, routed them to you. When you step into the coaching arena, you are suddenly the entire machine yourself. Many women think, "I have 25 years experience," or, "I have a coaching certification, so people should naturally hire me." Well, in theory, that sounds like a good idea, but certifications and resumes alone do not bring you clients. That's just the truth you need to hear. Outside the walls of your company, nobody knows who you are yet. You have to learn how to communicate your value directly to individual people. That requires you building a reputation from the ground up, and it takes patience, consistent visibility, and learning how to invite people into a working relationship. It is a completely learnable skill, but you have to recognize that corporate credentials alone won't do the selling for you. And now this brings me to my favorite recommendation for women over 50. Do not abruptly quit your corporate job. Give your coaching business a runway. Think about a plane taking off. You want it to have a long runway, right? To have a easy takeoff. Stay in your full-time role where you are comfortable and financially secure, and build your business quietly on the side. Building a business while you're employed takes all of the panic out of the equation, and I can tell you, when people try to build a business out of scarcity, it does not work. Make sure that you're comfortable. Don't leave yourself in a position where you're desperately wondering how you're gonna pay the mortgage. Make sure that you are building your business side by side with your corporate job, and then you don't have to feel needy, right? It will all unfold the way it's supposed to. More importantly, mature professional women, and I know I'm using that word mature, I don't know, women over 50, over 60, I have people over 70 that are entering into the coaching space that are still in corporate jobs. Those women, mature professional women, they have high standards, and I get that. They come to me and they're like,"Look, I want to be taken seriously. I want to put myself out there in a way that really reflects the powerful person that I really am." And when you give yourself that runway, the time and space to build your business, whether it's six, 12, or 18 months, you have the breathing room to thoughtfully refine your brand, craft your offer, and sign your first few clients while your corporate paycheck is still rolling in. Corporate women, they are disciplined. They understand deadlines and consistency. Take five to 10 intentional hours a week while employed. That is more than enough time to be able to lay a rock solid foundation. The real thing I want to caution you about is you cannot waste your time in those five to 10 hours. Intentional hours doing the right things to build your business. Now, the biggest trap that derails corporate women when they begin searching online is consuming advice meant for completely different business stages. Now, what do I mean? If you are looking at a coach online who is much further along than you, and they're talking about something that they did in their business, that is not a business strategy for you. When you see somebody on YouTube or you register for a webinar, or you see someone talking about how they scaled their program to millions using automated funnels and paid ads and complex client management software And you think, "Oh, that's the way you run a professional business. I need to get all that stuff set up first." Suddenly, you are spending thousands of dollars on software, and you are fighting the technical setup. I'm gonna tell you what, you will be overwhelmed by the tech because it's tech that you don't even need. You'll be hiring people to help you, and the websites and the tech that you set up will be so complicated, you actually won't be able to ever take care of it, which is again, not anything I recommend. I recommend that you have simple software that you actually know how to use from the very beginning. So let me save you months of frustration. You do not need a client management system when you don't have any clients to manage. Yeah, you heard me. You don't need all the software when you don't have any clients. Even the simplest tech, Zoom, a calendar, those things, I say, look, don't pay for those until you need them. If you are building your business and getting it all set up, you do not need to have a paid Zoom account. You're just paying money for something you don't need. Wait until you have somebody on your calendar, and you need more than 40 minutes with them, and then pay for the Zoom account. You get instant access to whatever software you actually need at the time that you need it. So please be considerate about the software that you're buying and the things that you're paying for before you actually need them. You do not need an automated funnel. You don't. You do not need expensive software. What you need right now is absolute clarity on these three things. Number one, who do you help? Really specifically, and it's not like everyone. Everyone gets you no one. You need to be specific about who you're helping. If you are coming from corporate, I highly recommend that you get industry specific. Not just HR, but like HR support for companies that are doing X amount of million dollars a year, or HR support for companies that are in this particular field. There is plenty of people who need your coaching in any of those fields, and I can tell you when the person in one of those specific fields sees you marketing to them, then they're gonna say, "Oh my gosh, this lady literally knows exactly what I need." So that's what we want. So number one, get absolutely clear on who you help. Number two, get absolutely clear on what it is that they want, and make sure that the outcome that you can deliver, the results that you can give them, that it's doable for what they want. Do not coach on something that you don't know. Don't get a certification after you start your business. Yes, certifications are great, but not while you're starting your business. Focus on getting your first clients and coach them on what you know as of today. And then number three, you have to have human conversations. So you've got to have absolute clarity around how you're gonna do that. What is that gonna look like? What are you gonna say? Where are you gonna meet the people? How are you going to talk about your offer? How are you going to get a payment from somebody when they're ready to pay you? All of this is very legitimate questions that need to be solved before you can do anything. Keep the tech simple. Protect your time, and honestly, protect yourself from being so aggravated. It's not worth it. That's not worth it, my friend. Focus on the basics that will actually generate you revenue. When you are making the leap from corporate to coaching, it is one of the most rewarding journeys you can take. If you are somebody who's over 50, then I can tell you, you are the right person to be doing this. If you are looking to work and have something meaningful, you don't want to work full-time, oh my goodness, this is the perfect career for you. Like you've retired and you want to keep doing something, but you don't want to be like grinding, but you don't want to be working 40, 50 hours a week, this is the ideal career for you. You're actually in charge of your own schedule. So I really want to encourage you, coaching is an incredible opportunity, and the growth in the coaching world, my goodness, it is massive. There is so much opportunity. And the last thing I wanna say to you as a corporate woman who would be coaching other people in career paths like corporate coach for corporate people, there's money in that. When you find a niche where you can impact their career, which means you're impacting their earnings ability, this is a good sellable niche. When somebody is in a corporate career and they need to learn how to be a better leader, they don't wanna go ask their boss. They want to hire somebody to help them. When they are feeling like they're getting nudged out because of ageism, they need to talk to somebody who can help them stay competitive and stay in the game longer. They're not gonna go ask their boss. This is just a couple of examples of all the opportunities that there are for you. there really is an opportunity for you. When you do it right, when you build something that can get you the respect that you deserve and income to go with it, and you take control over your schedule, my goodness, you can really build something that will be so fulfilling and so rewarding and probably, And I'm pretty sure you're gonna look back and say, "Okay, now I know why I went through all that on my career because I can help somebody else." If you want a step-by-step roadmap to set up your business and you want personalized feedback on the niche that you have, and you want somebody's eyes on your business, go to the description and look for the link to schedule a time with me, debbieshadid.com/schedule. Let's have a conversation about how I can support you. I do offer coaching in the evenings, and I will tell you, when you have somebody that is walking you through the step-by-step of where you are today, like I specialize in helping women over 50 who need to know the very basic steps. When you do that and you have limited hours, I can tell you, if we work together, I'll be telling you, "No, don't do this. Don't do that. Only do this this next week." That really is business changing. If you want to structure your business for maximum profit and time freedom, then click this other video right here and I will see you. Have a beautiful week. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.

Debbie Shadid https://www.DebbieShadid.com
Next

EP 392 - How To Price Your First Coaching Offer