120 - The Business Roadblock That Keep Life Coaches From Growing Their Business
In this episode, Business Success + Life Coach, Debbie Shadid, is going to talk about the things that are keeping you from growing your coaching business.
We all know that the way to have a successful coaching business is for you to have consistent growth, but how can you do that exactly?
In this episode, she will be talking about the roadblocks that are keeping you from growing your coaching business – from gaining your potential client’s interest, to ensuring regular cash flow, and even upto organizing your checklists, we have it all covered!
Join us for this episode to learn all about how you can eliminate these roadblocks and achieve consistent growth for your coaching business.
Listen wherever you get podcasts or CLICK HERE
Transcript
[00:00:00] The number one killer of your dream, the number one business roadblock you need to nix is confusion. And how do you do that? You just start deciding every time you feel confused, the fastest way to grow your business is to just make a decision and then take the action.
[00:00:22] Hello, I'm Debbie Shadid, the host of the life coach business building podcast. If you are ready to have more clients in your life, coach business, then you're in the right spot each week. I'm gonna teach you super simple strategies to grow your business without feeling overwhelmed and without spending money on paid ads.
[00:00:41] Now that sounds interesting. Stick around and let's get started.
[00:00:48] Welcome to today's show. I am gonna be talking to you guys about business roadblocks, the things that are keeping you from growing your business, the way that we grow our life coaching business are the way that I want you to grow your life. Coaching business is consistently, right. I'm sure you want that too.
[00:01:07] So the question is, is how do you grow your business consistently? I'm curious, is that a question that you've actually asked yourself? I know the first question is, is like, um, oh, I'm just gonna keep bringing on private clients or I'm just gonna keep filling my group. Well, it takes more than that. There has to be a plan of how that's gonna happen.
[00:01:28] Probably you've already had the idea that you were just gonna grow your business consistently and clients would just come and it hasn't worked out that way. So let's talk about making some way to eliminate the roadblocks that are keeping you from having consistent business. now I'm talking about you creating consistent growth in clients, right?
[00:01:50] That's money in revenue, but also in the no like, and trust factor. So we know that people come into your world first time and sometimes they fall in love with you on the spot. They'll schedule a consultation and they'll become your client. But oftentimes there is this sort of courtship period. You guys have heard me talk about that this love affair has to build up before they feel good enough about you or they have to trust you.
[00:02:16] And so there's that phase of client development that you have to plan for? The question that you wanna ask yourself is how can you create more interest? I don't know that's gonna be for you. I know that consistent marketing, uh, helps. I know that. Tons and tons of ways that you can market your business.
[00:02:35] That's all part of deciding what that's gonna be. The question I wanna ask you today is what could you do that nobody else is doing? Can you even think of something? Marketing wise that nobody else is doing, because I promise you if you can find some things that nobody else is doing, there are people there that you can reach that could become clients of yours.
[00:02:56] All right. The next thing that I wanna ask you about consistent growth is how can you. Create interest with the people that you already have in your world. Chances are you have following on Instagram, on Facebook. I don't know. Chances are you have people in your world, your neighbors, your city, your town, lots of places, right?
[00:03:16] Your old college sorority sisters. I don't know who it is, but there's lots of people in our world, an email list, hopefully that you could work to create. Additional interest in there. So how are you going to do that? Um, there's people right now in your world that will buy, but what you need to answer is, is how you're gonna peak their interest.
[00:03:36] I know I'm asking you a lot of questions, but I want you to take some time and if you've got a minute, jot these questions down, honestly, take this assignment seriously and go back and answer these question. The next thing I wanna ask you is how can you sell more to a client that's already bought from you?
[00:03:57] One thing I know for sure is that if somebody has already bought from you, they like you. If you've taken good care of 'em and if they've had a great client experience, they like you. and it is so much easier to stay working with the same person than to work with somebody new. I know in my coaching business, I have some clients that I've worked with since 2016.
[00:04:18] Now some of you guys might say, well, hasn't their business gotten big enough yet? Or don't they know everything well, yeah. Their business has grown every year, but as a business coach, I know everything about their business so we can meet once a month and I can give them their next steps, or I can point out what they can't see.
[00:04:36] This would be the same thing, like long term maintenance for weight loss, coaching. Long term maintenance for like, uh, improved marriage relationships. Like there's all kinds of things that you could do that you could sell coaching back to somebody who's already bought from you. All right. When we talk about this consistent growth that I want you to have, then I wanna ask you.
[00:05:00] What is gonna help you have consistent growth that would be planning and then consistently executing on the plan that you have. I know this sounds stupid, but you guys, we all make plans. Like everybody is great at getting a brand new planner. And if for those of you who are part of the life coach school, we do this thing called Monday hour one.
[00:05:21] I'm sure that all of the other coaching communities and coaching programs offer some kind of kind management system that they teach. And so we're really great at doing that. That is so much fun. You always think the new planner is going to be the solution to staying consistent. Or like getting your business going, and it's not what helps is having a plan, but then executing the plan, implementing the plan.
[00:05:44] Right? Another strategy for having consistent growth is to have group coaching that has open enrollment. I call that rolling enrollment. I'm not sure what it's really called, but I like the idea that new clients can come into work with me at any time. Now I offer incentives. At some points during the year where I have specials and there's bonuses to bring people in groups, but I never wanna turn away a client, the potential for working with a new client.
[00:06:16] So that might be something you consider too. Also a referral system. My gosh, I get so much business from referrals and I send a little, thank you gift to anybody who sends me a referral. When a client joins me of $250 and that's always a fun surprise. So one of the business roadblocks is it, your business is not consistent.
[00:06:41] So these are the ways that you create consistency in your. All right. Let me just tell you simply you guys, the best thing that you can do for your business is to talk about it. And I know we hear this over and over and over. Just go tell people about your. Tell 'em that you're a life coach, but I mean that sincerely you guys, we are guilty of not even telling people around us.
[00:07:05] They're like, oh, she has this life coaching thing, but they don't really understand what you do. And what I know for sure is that when you need a referral on a hairdresser or a nail person to do your nails or, uh, something done in your home, what do you do? You ask someone. So I want you to start talking about your business so that you can create some additional interest in your business.
[00:07:27] All right. The next thing that you can do to fix one of the things that slows your business is consistent cash flow. You might actually be selling regular coaching, but if people are paying you in full and if you don't have good cash management, if you're not good with managing your cash flow, like you spend it soon as it comes in, then that's a problem.
[00:07:49] So one thing you can do is that you can create a way to have consistent cash flow and asked by taking payments. When you take payments in your business, you'll actually be able to create a salary for yourself, a salary that you can depend on. And quite honestly, for a lot of the people that I work with, I take payments and people paying.
[00:08:11] And it's probably about 50 50, but I do know for sure that for some people, the fact that I take payments. Is the difference whether they could work with me or not. So I would highly recommend that you do that. What I know is that at any given time I have payments coming in for the next five months. My program is six months.
[00:08:31] So if somebody pays me today, I have payments coming in for the next five months. So I know today sitting where I'm at today that I have income coming in for the next five months. That's the value of taking payments. You can set up by the way, subscriptions on Stripe or PayPal or acuity or paper bill or any of those places.
[00:08:52] Subscription payments is what you'll do to be able to. A client set up on auto payments. Okay. You don't wanna send out an invoice and give them the opportunity to decide if they wanna pay it or not, because what happens. Our bratty brain decides, oh, I don't need coaching this month. Right. That you cannot have a sustainable business.
[00:09:14] If you are asking people to decide themselves, they make the decision. Once that they're gonna work with you and you wanna set it up on a subscription. So it's automatically charged. All right. All right. Let's talk about group coaching and time management, because this is another roadblock to growth is that you run out of hours and I can tell you that that's happened for me.
[00:09:34] It's like the dream position that you wanna be in, where you get fully booked. But let me tell you it's difficult. Once you're fully booked, then it's very hard to continue to do the marketing that's necessary to keep growing your business. And what typically happens is. Once somebody is fully booked.
[00:09:52] They're not marketing like they should for the future business. All right. So let's talk about group coaching benefits. Obviously it maximizes your time. What you could do with 10 people, 10 hours of coaching can be done in one or two hours a week. All right. Sometimes it also gives you the opportunity to lower your price potentially.
[00:10:14] Of the coaching that you provide. So you have really a great opportunity. You have a great opportunity with group coaching. And for me, I think there's tremendous benefit in group coaching. I know we hear it all the time that with group coaching, it's good to see other people get coached, but honestly, it's true.
[00:10:32] What I find is that when I do group coaching, I'm teaching concept. I'm teaching the how to I'm teaching, how to do things. And when I am doing private coaching, I'm mostly just solving problems. That's probably the same way with you guys. If you had a group coaching program, you would have an organized sort of process and like, Curriculum that you would be teaching people.
[00:10:55] So not only would your client get the benefit of getting their problem solved, you would also be learning how to long term be able to continue to keep their problem solved and solve other problems in their life. All right. The next thing that you could do to generate some business. Is to create a new offer.
[00:11:12] And I just wanna encourage you guys to create an offer on your terms. Do not look to see what other people are doing. Create one that works for you. I love doing this in my coaching program. We sit down and I figure out a program that is perfect for somebody based on the lifestyle that they have. Now you could do a V I P day.
[00:11:32] And that's it personally. I love to buy VIP days because that means I can get my whole problem taken care of in one day. Now, maybe if you are a coach that you know, it's gonna take some time for transformation, maybe you have V I P day, and then you have like monthly coaching or you have like boxer support.
[00:11:50] You could do a 14 day intensive. Like you could meet somebody three times a week for two weeks and have like all access via text. Let's. You could do a one month coaching program. You could do any combination of those things and you can also do six months private coaching weekly. It's any way that works for you.
[00:12:12] My favorite way to do coaching is to do group coaching with private coaching. Add-on I love that because to me it's the best of both worlds. All right. The next thing that you can do is you can resell and upsell. Now I've already mentioned to you guys. The person who's already bought coaching from, you would like to buy coaching from you again, if you've taken good care of 'em, then you can resell 'em coaching.
[00:12:35] So how do you do this? It's one of those things that you need to plan without having a plan. Another business roadblock is that you haven't thought through these things, you guys, so if you've got a plan in place, then you decide 30 days before your client's time ends with you. That you begin to offer them to upgrade.
[00:12:58] I actually made a list this morning of clients that are going to receive an email from me because their time is expiring. All right. The next thing is you can upsell. I love it. If you are doing group coaching or if you're doing private coaching about week three is when I find that people have like the aha moment that whatever they're come to coaching for is often bigger than they thought.
[00:13:23] This is a great time to upsell additional coaching or additional maybe a V I P level. All right. Let's talk about increasing interest. A lot of you guys are stuck because you have nobody paying attention to your business. You have nobody in what I would call your business pipeline. And so you can increase interest in your business.
[00:13:44] Through marketing. I know you know that, but like maybe you start doing weekly workshops. Maybe you amp up your presence on social media. Maybe you host your own networking event. Do you guys hear that instead of going to a networking event, you host one. I know that's quite an idea. All right, let's talk about the next roadblock.
[00:14:04] Poor time management, poor time management slows your business growth so bad. You guys so much time gets wasted because you don't have a schedule that you can follow. You don't have your to-do list organized. You don't have yourself organized. You don't even have business hours that you work. So in order to improve your business, you have to become.
[00:14:31] A better manager of yourself. So that means that you allow time for learning. A lot of times, we're not even planning that we're just consuming all the time. I just want you to decide one hour a day. I'm gonna educate myself for my business because we know that's part of it. When coaches work with me, I tell 'em, we're gonna plan your schedule.
[00:14:49] Like you're how many hours you have a week to. Guess what work time is, work time is coaching time with me too work. Time is also self coaching time, right? Because truthfully you guys, if you don't add in all those extra hours, and you're only counting the coaching time, like when you have paid clients, You're not counting time for marketing.
[00:15:09] You're not counting time for when you're working with me, the coach or when you're self coaching or when you're writing your emails to people and you'll never get things done. You'll be behind all the time. There won't be enough time for what you need to do. So managing your time every single week, you guys.
[00:15:27] On Sunday. I look at what I have ahead of the week on my schedule. And I mark things off. I take things off that are like, I don't have to do this. I need breathing room in my schedule. So I just mark things off. All right. So make sure that you are really scheduling everything, make sure that you are allowing enough time on your schedule in between.
[00:15:48] Like, if you're transitioning. From one thing to the next time, do you need a bathroom break? I know this sounds ridiculous, but this happens all the time. Do you need a lunch break? Do you need to run downstairs for me? I gotta run downstairs and get a new cup of coffee, right? Or let my dogs out. You have to plan for time like that in your schedule.
[00:16:06] Uh, you have to allow enough time for consultations. Oh my goodness. If you know that you're gonna run over on your consultations, you better allow enough time. There would be nothing worse than you getting a consultation scheduled. And you not having enough time to answer any objections that they have and objections happen every single time, right.
[00:16:28] That people have questions. If you don't have enough time in your consultation, you've unscheduled that you're in trouble, right. You also have to allow time for distractions. How are you going to prevent yourself from having distractions? I know for me, a roadblock to growth for a long time. We had construction at our house.
[00:16:47] In fact, about two years, we had construction at our house and I finally had to put up curtains in this window that you guys can't see because there was people outside in my driveway, all the time workers coming and going. That was a big distraction for me. I couldn't pay attention. So for some of you that think you have ADHD or DB, you might, and I'm not making light of that, but really it's probably that you need to also find a way to get yourself in an environment.
[00:17:14] That's more distraction free. All right. I wanna mention one thing that probably you guys have heard of that would be a way for you to get organized is to use the Eisenhower method. Now you're welcome to go Google that, but here I'll explain it to you brief. A way to plan your to-do list is you're gonna make four different lists.
[00:17:35] And within those four lists, one of them is gonna say important and urgent and everything that is important and urgent goes in that list. Like these are the things I have to get done. So the idea is, is that you have these four lists going at all the time. And so when you have an idea of something that needs to be done, right, then you put it in one of the four quadrants.
[00:17:54] So there's important and urgent. Important and not urgent, like, oh, I know someday I wanna create this for my business. Then there's not important. And urgent, like something that doesn't feel significant to you, but it needs to be fixed like a payment problem, a link in a website. Like those are things that need to be fixed, but maybe to you, you're like, I.
[00:18:19] Want to mess with that. I'm gonna have somebody else do it. Then there's also not important and not urgent. Those are just like the someday. I'm going to do this. Anyway. Look it up, Google that the Eisenhower method, that might be exactly what you need that will help you better manage your time. All right.
[00:18:36] The last thing that I wanna talk about is the number one roadblock to you growing your business is that confusion kills your dreams. I'm not kidding you guys. How many of you guys raise your hand are confused. How many times do you change your mind? How many times do you have doubt? How many times are you thinking?
[00:18:55] I don't know what to do or which one should I do? Look, confusion keeps you safe. And how does that happen? It keeps you from doing anything. So it's probably masking fear. I want you to check on that. You guys, I suspect that there's fear underneath that confusion. Fear of uhoh. I'm gonna have to coach uhoh.
[00:19:16] If I put myself out there, somebody's gonna say no uhoh. If I go live on Instagram, I'm gonna look like an idiot. Uh, oh, this you guys, the list is long, right? We can come up with a long list of uhoh of what's gonna happen. So there's a high chance that the number one killer of your dream, the number one business roadblock you need to mix is confusion.
[00:19:39] And how do you do that? You just start deciding every time you feel confused. The fastest way to grow your business is to just make a decision and then take the action. All right. You guys, I hope that was helpful to you. Let's eliminate all the business roadblocks in your business so that we can keep you growing consistently.
[00:19:58] All right. Have an amazing wait until next time. Bye-bye.
[00:20:09] Okay ladies, that is it for today. Before we go, I want to invite you to head over to debbieshadid.com. I have this incredible Canva training specifically designed for life coaches, where I'm gonna teach you how to use Hava to create beautiful graphics to market your life coaching. All right. Have an amazing week.
[00:20:28] I'll talk to you very soon. Bye-bye.