118 - Making a Simple Business Plan for Your Coaching Business
The key to staying consistent with your business, is having a solid and sustainable plan.
In this episode, Business Success + Life Coach, Debbie Shadid, is going to walk you through 4 super simple steps that you can do to map out 12-month's worth of planning in about an hour.
Let's face it, planning is not exactly the most exciting thing to do in running a business, that is why a lot of business owners tend to skip this step.
And so for this episode, I will be introducing a process that is short, simple, and actionable. Because, when you have a plan, it's so much easier to get your business consistently out there in front of people so that you can have the result that you want -- which is consistent clients.
Join us for this episode to learn all about how you can easily plan for your business in the next 12 months in just 4 very simple and actionable steps!
Connect with Jen and checkout here website here!
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Debbie Shadid:
Welcome to today's podcast. I'm glad to have you guys here. I wanna talk to you today about making a plan for your business. Now, let me just tell you, when I talk about making a plan, it's like, oh my gosh, this is way too much Debbie to talk about in a podcast, but I'm gonna give you four super simple steps for you guys to make a plan like in an hour.
And that really is what will help you stay consistent. With your business. But before we get started, I wanna introduce you to a client. Jen Lafin. She left me a really fantastic review on the podcast. It says, hire Debbie. Now, if you are a listener to Debbie's business, building boutique podcast, you already know how brilliant she is when it comes to helping you identify.
The actions you need to take to grow a profitable business, but when you hire her as your coach and you get the specific steps and you take the action, your business can grow so much faster. Thank you, Jen, Jen, by the way, is.
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Uh, really a go getter. She has gotten in here and she has gotten her business built super, super fast.
Jen helps high achieving women, high achieving women who have put their own dreams and goals to the side. As they have been taking care of everybody else's to-do list. And she really helps them get their life back on track where they're doing what they really want to do. So she helps women who have been procrastinating on their own desires.
They make progress, they feel amazing and they get organized and efficient. Right. They do all of the things to get their own. On the path. So if you are somebody who wants to write a book, or if you wanna go back to college or do any of that stuff someday, you should start today to do that. And I'm gonna leave Jen's website in the show notes.
So go check her out.
All right. So let's talk about the business plan that you guys are gonna make four simple steps.
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You can do it in hour. We're gonna talk about big picture planning. Why do I want you to make a plan? The reason why I want you to make a plan is because when you guys have a plan in place, you are so much more likely to stay consistent in your business when you have no plan, and I say, Hey guys, what are you doing next week to build your business? It's like, I don't know, guess what chances are a whole another week goes by and you don't do anything. When we take the time to make a super simple plan, the four steps I'm gonna share, it will help you stay on track. You know, that bratty brain of yours that I talk about that.
Always get you to put off doing the hard things. When you have a plan it's so much easier to get your business consistently out there in front of people. So you can have the result you want, which is consistent clients.
All right. So step one, I'm jumping right into it is for you to create a 12 month marketing plan for your business plan. Now I know you're thinking like you gotta be kidding me. 12 month marketing plan. No way. But here's the deal.
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I want you to decide what marketing you're gonna do this week, this month. And all you have to do is decide, and then commit to do that for the next 12 months. I did this a few years ago and it transformed my business.
I made the decision on what I was going to do every week and every month. For the next 12 months. And I did nothing else, but that, so when I had a new, better idea, I said to myself, Nope, you gotta wait until next year before you start that. So I want you to start today. I want you to start whatever day it is that you're listening to this podcast 12 months, the next 12 months from today.
So here's an example of what your marketing plan could look. Probably would be a great plan for you. One email a week to your subscribers. One email, three social media posts every single week. Now I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, well, I could do more than three, but I want you to commit to do the bare minimum.
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What you know, for sure you can do, cuz I'm asking you to do it for 52 weeks for 12 months. So one email a week, three social media. Per month. I would love it. If you would go to one networking event each month, one networking event, either in person or online, because you will meet so many people. And also you guys, when you are out talking to people about your business, you actually really learn so much about your business.
You learn how to talk about your business in a way that people understand, you'll see face to face. What people are interested in that really helps you improve your marketing. Then I also want you to. One new connection, like a virtual coffee date or an in person coffee date with somebody where you really get to know somebody.
So that would be an example of a marketing plan. Again, I'll review that for you. One email per week, three social media posts, one networking event each month, and one new connection each week. If you could commit to just doing that from where you are today, which is inconsistent, your marketing, you guys after 12.
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Your business will change. I promise you the thing is most of the people that I work with they've come to me. They tried some of this stuff, but they weren't consistent. It's not until we get in there and I help them figure out how to create content, how to do all of the things that they need to do to execute this marketing. They put it in place and it is so easy and it changes your business. So that's step one, make your 12 month marketing. Just like I told you, all right. Step two is to make your 12 month offer plan, do not overcomplicate this. The biggest problem is that we make everything too big of a deal. We wanna make sure that we have the perfect offer and the perfect price and the perfect name for our program and all the things. And I just wanna tell you. Perfect is great. And I do help my clients try to figure out the perfect thing, but here's the deal. Just deciding, making a decision and just putting yourself out there is actually the fastest way to create results in your business. So your offer could be private coaching for six weeks period, and then group coaching for 12 weeks.
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That's it? That is how you make your offer plan. Then you decide on top of that. Well, okay. If I am going to do private coaching, For six sessions and I'm gonna do group coaching, 12 sessions. Am I going to have enrollment for my group coaching open all the time so that I call that rolling enrollment, which people are coming into your program in and out all the time, or you gonna have open and closed enrollment.
So maybe you have enrollment open. At the first day of each quarter of the year. So four times a year, you have open enrollment. All right. That is how you make your offer plan. I'm gonna do private coaching for six weeks, and I'm gonna do group coaching for 12 weeks. That is your offer plan. Number three, step number three is you do a client goal, a 12 month client.
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You decide then how many private clients, if my coaching time is six weeks, how many private clients am I going to coach at one time? And then how many groups, if your group coaching time is 12 weeks. How many groups am I going to have going at one time? I've had plenty of times where I had three or four groups going at one time.
So you just need to decide what's that gonna look like? So to decide on a client goal, let's keep this simple. If you have 12 people in your group coaching, and we've already decided that your coaching is 12 weeks long and you do open and closed enrollment. So the same group starts and finishes together.
So once a quarter, four times a year, you do a new group starts. So four times a year, you have 12 people in your group coaching program. That's 48 people a year. Then you could have a private client goal and you could say, all right, I'm, I'm gonna have six weeks of coaching. We decided that private clients work with you six weeks, and I'm gonna have six people at a time.
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So six weeks, how many times during the year, can you run that cycle? It's eight times, eight times during the year, you can. You're six clients. Are you guys with me, which is 48 clients a year. So that's like the perfect picture. Okay. I've made it super simple. That means you're gonna get a client goal of 48 people in a year's time to go through your group coaching program.
You're gonna have 12 people at a time, and you're gonna launch your group coaching four times in one year. That's 48 people. Then your private coaching, as I said, 48 clients. In a year's time, because you're gonna have six weeks of coaching eight times during the year, and you're gonna have six people at a time.
That's how you decide on a client goal. Now, maybe yours is much smaller. You guys maybe just make it okay. I just wanna have, you know, one group going and I'm hoping to have, you know, half dozen people in each group and I'm gonna have three private clients and you pick a number different than that, whatever that is.
It's just that you decide. All right.
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Step four is the money goal. How much money are you gonna bring in? Are you gonna bring in cash all at once? Are you gonna take payments for your coaching? So cash in the bank at one time, or are you gonna just decide on sales? How much you've actually sold as people are making payments?
Because honestly in a 12 month time, maybe you have payments that will go beyond the 12 months that we're talking about. So how much cash do you want to bring in, in 12? Now, how do you do that? We go back to the six week coaching program. And so maybe you've decided your six week coaching program is a thousand dollars and you decide, as we've already said, you're gonna have 48 clients.
That's your goal at a thousand dollars? That means it's $48,000. That you will bring in, that's your money goal for private coaching, and let's just keep it simple and do the same thing for your group coaching and you decide I'm gonna sell my group coaching the 12 week group coaching package for a thousand dollars.
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And I know that's super cheap. You guys, I'm just keeping numbers. That will be easy for me to do the math on. And for you to follow on the podcast, we made the client goal for 48 people. Right. We're gonna have 12 people a time in the group program, and we're gonna relaunch it four times in the year. So 48 people times a thousand dollars is another 48,000.
So private coaching group coaching cash in for the year would be $96,000. Now, can you just see big picture, how simple that could be? You could sit down in an hour's time and say, all right. I don't know how to make my plan for sure, because I've never done this. And maybe you haven't been in business a full year.
Maybe you're just kind of, you know, putting some numbers out there and you're gonna work towards it, but you decide, all right. I know what my marketing plan is. Now. I'm gonna email once a week, I'm in a social media post three times. I'm gonna go to one networking event a month and I'm gonna make one new connection.
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Meet one new person each week. That's my marketing plan. Then we've just been through what the private coaching and the group coaching would be number of weeks, number of clients and the money. Now we know how you can get to $96,000 a year. That is how simple you can make your business plan in four steps.
So you will never wake up on Monday and say, I don't know what I'm gonna do this week to work on my business. The plan will already be in place. It's like, oh, this week I need to post on social media three times. I need to write one newsletter and meet one new person. That is my marketing plan. Can you guys see how simple that would be?
And I promise you after a year's time, if you do this. It really adds up. I mean, it really compounds and your business will change. The last thing I wanna mention to you before we go is I wanna talk to you about building an evidence bank. Now, what is an evidence bank? I want you to find evidence that what you're doing is working that coaching works, that you have seen results in coaching that you have had results in coaching you've received, because the other part to building your coaching.
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Is, you have to sort of maintain the doubt that comes in. Y'all know how it is. 50% of the time you are thinking like, this is it, it's a home run and 50% of the time you're like, Hmm, I don't know when you have your evidence bank built and it you've written it out on a piece of paper, all the evidence. Of what has worked in your business.
And maybe you have to go to, what's worked in your life where you've overcome things and prove to yourself like, Hey, building this coaching business is not hard. Look at all the other things I've done in my life. What I've accomplished, maybe that's part of your evidence bank, but when you have that, then you continue to go back to your evidence bank.
Every time you feel a little bit. Mm. I don't know if this is working, mm-hmm you go back to your evidence bank, you check in and you take a look to see what you have accomplished. All right. The last thing that I want you to do as part of this plan is I want you to think about the thoughts that you can believe that will support.
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Those four steps that we just outlined, right? Consistent marketing, keeping your client plan, figured out what your group coaching's gonna look like, what your private coaching's gonna look like, what your pricing is gonna look like and how many clients you are aiming to get. I want you to come up with some thoughts that are believable, you know, for me, that possibility word, like it's possible.
This could all work out exactly as I've planned. Maybe that's the thought that you can believe. So find two or three thoughts. Like I've done hard things before, and I'm on my way to accomplishing this now. Right. I know how to coach and I have the support of somebody. If you're working with me, for example, Debbie's got my back.
She's gonna tell me the next step. So I know I'm on my way. So find some thoughts that you can believe along with the evidence bank that you have, and then follow your plan. You guys, that is as simple as it is. All right. I wanna invite you guys to have a conversation with me about your business. I do business assessments for your coaching business.
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We get on a call. I look at what's happening for you. Um, give you some guidance and if you're a fit to work with me in my business, in the business building boutique, we'll talk about that. Uh, you guys know what I do. I am all action oriented. There's no, uh, real mindset work. We have a coach that takes care of that.
Our mindset. Specifically works on that. But the rest of the work that you do with me is all strategy. I help you based on your business, I help you based on the level of business experience that you have, the niche that you're coaching to, and we figure out the tools, the technology, I show you how to do it.
I give you templates that you can use to write your emails, to use for social media, for captions as a guide to design your offer, to design your program. All of those things are part of the way that I support you in the business building boutique. And as I mentioned, the icing on the cake is that we do have a business mindset coach that comes in and does some private coaching with you and also group mindset.
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Coaching. It is amazing. So have a call with me, debbieshadid.com/schedule. You guys do not wanna miss out on what I have going on. I have something super fun as a bonus happening right now. It is a special that I'm doing right now called the first four. Where, when you join me, not only do you get the other bonuses that I have, but you also get to spend your first four weeks with me separate from the rest of the group.
As we get all of the key foundations set in your business, this really accelerates your growth and really puts you on the path to much quicker success. All right. Have an amazing week. And by the way, if you wanna be featured on the podcast, you guys, you know what to do, go leave me a review. I will introduce you just like I did Jen today and I will share your website just like I'm going to share hers and the show notes.
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Okay. Have an amazing week. We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye that's it. Thanks for listening. Now it's up to you. Put what you learned today into action. Do what you need to be seen and then hired by clients in your niche. And if you're ready to stop wasting your precious time and get your business finally booked up.
You're invited to join me in the business building. For new life coaches where you will learn everything. You need to be a coach with plenty of paid clients. All right. Have an amazing week until next time. Bye-bye.