125 - The Truth to Making Your First $100k in Your Coaching Business Pt. 2

Did you know that Debbie was able to earn $100,000 while she was re-building her business from scratch?

In this episode, Business Success + Life Coach, Debbie Shadid, is going to walk you through everything that she did to grow her life coach business all the way from 2016 up to the present. She goes into the detail of her challenges, setbacks, and breakthroughs that led her to earning $100,000 in her business to give you a clearer picture of what it really took for her to get there. 

Re-building a business in the middle of a pandemic was definitely not easy, but by choosing to show-up everyday and by trusting the process, she was able to find the perfect niche for her and eventually reach her money goal. 

If you’re looking for inspiration and practical tips in earning your first $100,000 in your coaching business, then make sure to join us in this episode! 

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Transcript

I basically started my business over from zero, and I used the same method that I teach you in the business building boutique. I did every step and I made $75,000 in six months with a brand new niche and an email list of zero. So when you follow your intuition, number one, it works. And number two, I just did step by step exactly what I teach.

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. If that sounds interesting. Stick around and let's get started.

Welcome to the Life Coach Business Building Podcasts. I'm excited to have you guys here. We're gonna get into the nitty gritty of the honest truth to what it takes to build a successful posting business. Now, if you'll go back and listen to last week, this is a two part series.

Last week I talked about. Kind of preparing to make the money. I talked about what I had to think, what I had to learn, what I had to feel, and what I had to believe. I think that's very important to listen to that part as well. 

Today I'm gonna be talking about the details. Of the actual numbers, the steps that it took to grow my business. This is gonna be something I know that you guys are interested in, but let me give a quick recap of last week's podcast. 

First of all, I talked about being realistic with your goal. Remember the people that you're looking to, you need to look back to where they started. You have a lot to learn and a lot of steps before you get there. You also have to practice believing yourself every day. I talked about that because when you have a sales conversation, when you get on Zoom, when you have a coaching call like that, doubt just creeps in. And you just have to be able to manage it. You have to go back to, remember, I ask you to make a list of what you believe to be true about yourself, the good things about yourself. Make that list and go back and keep looking at it because you're gonna need to remind yourself. Things won't go the way that you want 'em to, it won't go as smoothly as you hope that it will. And so you wanna go back and visit that list. You wanna learn the stuff. That you don't want to learn. You guys hear me? You have to learn how to do all of the marketing. You have to learn how to do the technology. You have to learn how to do it. You have to follow a plan. You have to make the plan and then follow the plan and keep doing it no matter what. And last thing I said last week was you gotta hire a coach. And I really mean that . You are a solo entrepreneur that needs to learn how to be in business. You learn how to be a coach. Now you need to learn how to be in business. 

All right, let's talk about the numbers. Talk about what I did, the truth about building my business, how it all worked.

Y'all know that I started in business in 2000 as a magazine publisher. I sold advertising marketing, I wrote ad copy. I did that from 2000 until 2017 when I sold my. , but really what I was, was a consultant. I was teaching people how to be in business. I was teaching women just like you guys, how to be successful in business.

And I was teaching them the same thing that I teach life coaches today about branding, writing, copy, sales, you know, customer service, they just happen to be women in the wedding business who were serving brides. And you guys are coaches who are serving clients.

So in 2018 I went full time online after I sold my wedding magazine in 2017. Now I started my first coaching program I was delivering a coaching program to my clients in 20 15, 20 16. I did that in person. I took that same coaching program.

That I knew that I had done successfully, that created results for people. It was like a beta program at the time, and that is what I decided I was gonna grow an online business with. So I hired my first coach and I spent $20,000 on a coach. the lady should have said no to me. I can tell you that I was not prepared to work with her even though I had been successful in my business, even though I had a successful coaching program.

I still knew nothing about online business and there is a big learning curve. You guys hear me on this? You have to learn how to write marketing copy, not just be a writer. You have to learn how to write words that will compel people to buy. You have to learn the social media, all of the things, my goodness, when I did that for the first time, it took me forever. I was so nervous talking to myself. So I understand when you guys. I'm so scared to be on video. I get it. I've done all of that. It's taken time to learn how to do it and to do it well. So in 2018, when I started my business, I hire my coach.

Her business format was to start with a webinar to run paid Facebook ads. And I had the money to do that because I'd sold my business. So the first year I was in business, I ran. $57,000 worth of Facebook ads to a webinar funnel, which is not what I recommend that anybody does today. I think you can organically grow your business to a hundred thousand dollars without spending any money on ads, and I think you'll have much faster success and will be much more fun.

But I was following my coach who told me we're gonna do a webinar. You had to run paid ads and you're gonna have consultation calls, and you're gonna sell a high ticket offer, and I had 800 consultation calls in 2018 and 2019. Over that two year period, it resulted in 125 clients. But in 2018, my gross sales was $58,000.

I just told you I hired a coach that was $20,000 and I spent over a two year period, $57,000 on ads. Plus I had all kinds of other expenses. I mean, you know, all the tools that I was learning, all the things, all the expenses that you guys are incurring too. I had to, so I didn't make any money. That was in 2018. In 2019. I also, I should mention in 20 18, 20 19, really up until 2021, I was running my business part-time because I was caring for my grandmother and my mother, both who, needed my care basically daily. I know that you guys all have things as women.

We all have things in our business, which by the way, that's the beautiful thing about growing a coaching business because you can grow. To give yourself flexibility and time and to earn enough income that you might have on a job, but you have flexibility in your schedule. All right, so in 2019, working part-time with the same wedding clients, I made 77,000 in sales.

Again, I just wanna say in 2018, I made 58,000. In I made 77,000. When I made $77,000, I still really hardly made any money. Take home money in my pocket at the end of the day. All right, In 2020, I made $78,000. Now 2020 I was on my way to really doing well. First quarter of. 2020, I made $35,000. I was still coaching women in the wedding business.

I really had my offer really fine tune. I was doing group coaching, and I was only coaching one day a week, Monday evenings from six to 8:00 PM That's by the way, I was able to have a part-time business and earn that kind of money. I worked on Monday evenings from six to eight and I had what I called rolling enrollment.

So people were always coming into my program and I had the same. Set of clients. I knew people came in, but a lot of people stayed. They just kept renewing with me some of those same clients all the way up until, 2021 when I shut down that program. So you didn't have a group coaching program go for a long time. And it's a way to have a lot of opportunities for people to come in and I only coach two hours a. All right. 2020 had that same program really mastered first quarter, $35,000 I sold. I was like, I am. I finally got it. I'm gonna make the money this year.

And then guess what happened? You guys remember the pandemic. Right then my gut was telling me, Go coach somebody else. But everybody that I was being coached by my own coaches were saying, You're crazy. You've been in the wedding business for 20 years at this point. Why would you stop coaching people in the wedding business?

And I just thought, you know, this is not, my heart isn't in this, It really never was in it because I don't love weddings. I love business, but I didn't love weddings. So I kept coaching in 2020. I did start, Life Coach School in August of 2020. And really, honestly, you guys, I just did the life coach certification.

I thought if I could help people see the mindset, part of why they weren't doing things in their business, like how to get over the fear of being on video, how to get over the fear, the doubt, that kind of stuff. I thought that would really help my business and maybe I would do life coaching instead of coaching wedding professionals.

Well, I still am doing coaching in the same format anyway. In 2020, I made $78,000. Let me tell you how I did that. I decided that I was going to use the same list that I'd already used, the 4,700 people that I had grown off the list of spending $57,000 on Facebook ads. I decided I was gonna use that list and I decided to get a new thought about that list.

And I said to myself every single time I wrote an email, I said, There's money in this list. My only job is to learn how to communicate with the people who are receiving these emails. And that is the key for you guys too. Communicate in a way that compels your person to take action and they will become clients, communicate in a way that they understand.

The transformation you provide. They understand how you can take them from the pain that they're currently in to what will be a beautiful life, communicate with your client via email, in words, how they can get from the pain that they have right now to where they want to be, which is this great life. And you'll sell coaching. So I used that list in 2020. I went to Life Coach School. At that time, I also started doing workshops, which were virtual workshops through Zoom.

I was inviting people that were on my email list to come to my workshops. I really wasn't sure, to be honest, in 2020 what I was selling because the wedding business was, you know, it was difficult. It was a challenge. People couldn't even get married. So, I was creating kind of new offers, new opportunities, and it was the first time that I started offering private.

At the time, my coach said, I think you need to do private coaching. So I went away so much from the group model and I started doing private coaching. My marketing in 2020 was email marketing to the list that I already had, doing a podcast every single week workshops every single month, doing social media, right? That was all that I did for marketing. No money on paid. All right. In 2021, I decided, okay, I'm so burned out. I can't keep coaching the same people. I don't have a love or a passion for that work. I have a passion for business. So I decided I was gonna start coaching just women in business, which is what I was already doing.

But I'm gonna coach those, women outside of the wedding world. The first quarter of 2021, I started coaching just anyone. I was just trying to figure out what I was gonna do. I was finally full time in my business. I did sell another group of coaching clients that were wedding people, but I really was just trying to figure it out.

I gave myself the space to entertain ideas about new niches. I had a group coaching program For women in business. And then I finally decided, I'm gonna shut that down. My intuition, this is another business principle I want you guys to hear your intuition tells you what to do and you should listen to it.

My intuition had been telling me for so long, find somebody else to coach. And once I started certification in 2020 at the Life Pitch School, I thought, I'm supposed to help these women. I know this because there are coaches who don't know how to be in business, and this is something I know so well. But I still was not listening to it until middle of 2021 when I really finally shut things down.

So marketing the first half of 2021, still no money on ads. I started a Facebook group that I grew to. Over 1500 people. I will tell you, I didn't have a lot of direction of what I was gonna do in there. It did grow my email list, but, I don't know really how it resulted in clients. , it was women in business.

I still wasn't completely sold that that's who I was going to help. But, I did that. I did a lot of free coaching. I coached in a friend of mine's group and I did free coaching where I coached six people there every week for several weeks. I also did some coaching for an ARBAN group for free. I was teaching all the same business principles that I do today and that I've always done.

I was just kind of doing it to anyone that, was available and willing to have me coach with them. I had my private clients and I let my group program, diss resolve. In May of 2021, I decided I was gonna list myself on the Life Coach School website, and I said that I was a coach for women over 50.

I will tell you the very first day that I listed myself, that was like May 14th, I actually got a client on the very same day and made $4,000. So it, it's like, all right, I am onto something. When I'm talking to coaches that are over 50, I'm onto something. So June 1st, I decided that was it. I was never gonna email my old list.

I was gonna let all my clients go. I was going to only coach coaches and no longer have anything to do with women in the wedding business. That was a hard decision, you guys to talk about. Beths. I was giving up the only income that I had. At that point in 2021, I'd made about $25,000.

I hope this is useful to you. I hope you're finding comfort in the fact that it's a journey to get there. Once I decided to coach coaches in June of 2021, guess what? My email list was zero. I had to change my website to reflect that. I coached coaches. I designed a new brand. I had to change all my social media.

I basically started my business over from zero, and I used the same method that I teach you in the business building boutique. I did every step and I made $75,000 in six months with a brand new niche and an email list of zero. So when you follow your intuition, number one, it works. And number two, I just did step by step exactly what I teach.

It was all the same stuff that I'd always been teaching. I just wasn't applying it to myself. That is what the business building boutique is about. You guys is about building a business on your terms, one that you know you're meant to do. We find a way to make that work.

So I started building my. One client at a time.

How did I do that? I offered free coaching. I had free coffee chats. I offered, going into other people's groups to be an expert for them. I started doing weekly workshops in my business building boutique I teach women how to do workshops. Those workshops are so valuable because there's a no like, and trust factor that is created when you do weekly workshops and people see.

If you guys are not watching me on YouTube, you should go watch me on YouTube because this podcast is being recorded and you can go watch me. You will decide how you feel about me when you are watching me. It changes things. So I was promoting those workshops to the very few people I had on my email list.

I was just like, you we're talking about last year, my email list at one point was like, Oh, it's got 11 people on it. It's got 14 people on it. I didn't get to a list of a hundred. Until the end of 2021. So it took me six months to organically grow an email list to a hundred. That's exactly what I teach my clients today.

By the end of 2021 with that email list of 124 of those people on that list were my clients. So what's the message? Small email list work. In fact, I really believe small organic marketing. Intimate groups of people doing your workshops, you will convert clients at a much higher rate than you will in comparison to running Facebook ads to a cold audience and growing them.

I also continued my podcast. I did get three clients from my podcast that second half of the year. Of course, it was a podcast that was retooled to be speaking to coaches, so I basically started again with an audience of Zero on my podcast. I had still. 50 to a hundred people that listen to my podcast every week. In six months after I changed my podcast to only talk to life coaches, I define my audience. I made, $11,000 from clients that came from the podcast. So that works too, if you keep working it. But I did it every single solitary.

So what did I do for marketing in 2021 to earn a hundred thousand dollars and 75,000 of it with a new niche, , where I had zero email list. I did email marketing, I did free coffee chats, I did workshops. I did social medias, slow and steady over and, and over and over. I asked for referrals, you guys, I kept saying to anyone , Hey, do you know somebody else that needs some help? I did marketing for free for people. I helped people over and over. Every one of you guys has a niche where people need help, and you can do that for free. 

You want to do that because you build client testimonials. I needed the testimonials of coaches to say that the work that I did with good, you need the testimonials just like I did.

I did a couple of speaking gigs. I didn't wanna do speaking, but a couple people reached out to me and said, Will you speak for. Said, Sure. $350. It was three $50. Okay. I also did a two day workshop at a doctor's office. I went in and coached people that were at a plastic surgery office about marketing and sales and taking care of their customers.

Again, it was an experience that taught me a lot and it earned me some money. I ask people over and over, Share my information, forward this to somebody. Every email said that, Please forward this to a friend in me. That's what you guys need to do too. I kept asking, and some weeks I gained 10 people on my email list and some weeks I gained none. 

I worked a lot of hours. Hear me when I say this. I did you guys the truth. Remember I'm sharing the truth. I work seven days a. But I made $75,000 in six months in a brand new niche. I worked, I worked, I kept trying to figure out what am I doing right, What am I not doing right? I approached it all like it was a science project, like a big experiment. 

I coached 18 people privately. Again, all different kinds. You know, deals that I've made with them, different offer length. I really was just like, I gotta get the experience and I've gotta make the money. I had three coaching groups, really, I want you to hear me on this. Three coaching groups that I did. The first one was in July. I did a beta program of the business building Boutique. Now, I had already done that program for many years, but I came to coaches and thought I need to get feedback. There was 10 people in that group. Some people paid small amount. And others were scholars shipped into that. I talk about scholarships when I teach you in the business building boutique, but they were scholarshiped in, one client. I said, Who's got friends they can bring? Brought in two other clients. I launched that group and it was amazing. We just did so well in that first group of the business building boutique 10 people. July of 2021. Then I launched in August. I was very confident and guess what? I had one person. I waited a couple more weeks until start, until after Labor Day, and I got two people. So I had two people total in my second group. So I went from 10 highly successful people to two. Then I decided, ah, I've done something wrong.

I'm gonna fix this. I launched again in October of 2021, and I had one person, one person in my group coaching program. What did I do that worked in 2021? I had a willingness to do it. I did those group coaching programs with one person and with two people. I was uncomfortable. It was embarrassing. I got over the shame of looking like I failed, and I thought, You know what?

I don't care. I'm gonna keep going. Anyway, I said to myself, Those people are gonna get the best coaching ever it's a small group, a small group of one, and a small group of two. Again, I incentivized friends to bring friends. I even pay a referral fee today. I pay a referral fee of $250. If you refer a client, to me and they become a client, they join my group, I give you $250.

It's a thank you gift so from June until December, 2021, I changed my niche. I had sold 24 live coaches in 26 consultations. Now, you guys heard me say that I had 800 consultations in two years time when I ran those Facebook ads. Now I did organic marketing with a list of only a hundred people.

One person at a time had 26 consultations and sold 24 clients out of 26. Do you see how different it can be when you build your business this way? Right. I came to the end of the year and I had $99,000 on like December 31st. I wasn't at a hundred thousand dollars yet. I shared that with a client who was going to renew after the first of the year.

She'd already said that and I was telling her like, Oh my gosh, I'm at $99,000. And she said, My gosh, let me pay you today, . So she paid me on the last day of the year, and I made it to a hundred thousand. 5 25. All right, you guys. I know those are a lot of details, but I hope that you can see that it is possible for you to do it too.

I'll recap that for you. I sold coaching at the price that worked for me. I was not embarrassed about having honestly, two failed groups. One that had one person and one that had two people. I privately coached people that I really didn't wanna privately coach.

I let clients go from all that other business that was guaranteed income. But remember, I only made 58, 77, and $78,000 year. So I let people go so that I could have more. I made room for the right people. You guys are gonna have to do that in your business too.

So what do you need to be successful? Well, you need to have trust in yourself, trusting your abilities. Trust that it's gonna work out. Look, I prayed a lot and I just kept going. I had a plan. I was committed to my plan. I was committed to do things, even if I did not think they were working. I did not change my mind from week to week on what I was doing. I accepted no as an answer when things didn't work. I allowed myself to be worried and I did it anyway. You guys, I allowed myself to feel embarrassed and I did it anyway. That's what you have to do too.

So here's the key takeaways from the two days of this podcast series that I did for you, of how to get to a hundred thousand dollars. And the truth about it here is the truth. You don't have to have a big list. You do need to do the most uncomfortable things, and you do need to be authentic. You need to show up as yourself, right? Just show up. There are people who will love you for being you. You need to be consistent. Your image matters. Now, I'm not talking about my image, I'm talking about your image. I believe that this curb appeal that I teach in the business building boutique helps you look professional. I help you set up a professional looking brand. I help you figure out how to speak to people in a way that's really articulates what it is that you provide that matters. There are so many people that are life coaches now. You want to stand out from the crowd, and you do that by having a professional image. You have to be on social media. I know many of you guys don't like that. But let's find a place. And if it's not gonna be social media, then we have to find out where you're going to be. Consistently having a website is important. I know you don't wanna have a website because it might be harder. Maybe you've got a website and you're like, Nobody comes there. Look, they only need to come there long enough to drive by. Take a quick stop and see, Well, this lady does have website. She is the real deal. You have to do free marketing. That organic marketing, which is the hard marketing you guys, it's because you're creating it, you're delivering it, you're writing it. Week after, week after week, clients I can tell you will come when you least expect them. I told you my podcast was having 50 downloads and in six months time I made $11,000. I'm sure that I had other clients from that podcast, but that was three people that I knew for sure who said, I heard your podcast and they became clients. You have to do work anyway even when you don't feel like it. Remember I talked about 50- 50. Half the time you're uninspired and you just do it anyway. You have to make deals, right? You have to make some deals along the way because you need to have the experience. when you get more experience, your confidence raises. You have to do a beta program and not make any money because you want to be able to say, I have a group pitching program, and you need those testimonials. You're gonna coach for practically nothing and sometimes free until it works. 

You're gonna stop consuming all the stuff. Stop watching all the videos. Stop. Find one coach to work with. Remember, it's confusing. We all can get you there. Just shut out all the other noise and find one coach. Listen to one way implement what you are being told to do. Everything can. Every part of it can work, but honestly, it's confusing if you've got more than one person telling you how to do it.

Price as you want to. What fits for you? And sSchedule. In a way that's realistic for you in the business building boutique, we talk about building a boutique business. Remember I told you in 20 18, 20 19 and 2020, I only work part-time in my business because I had family obligations. I wanted to care for my grandmother and my mother.

And you guys have kids. So many of you that are in my age, you're caring for people. Now you're caretakers. Like you have to have time in your schedule to do that. And then the last thing I wanna close out with is make yourself a goal that really works. Set yourself up for success by having a goal that you believe in, by having a goal that is doable for you.

And then like, let's just blow it out of the water. All right, you guys, I hope this was helpful. Have an amazing, amazing week. GoDon't do the t. The belief work, the thought work, and then take the action that you need to, to build a coaching business on your terms. All right. Have an amazing week. Until next time.

Bye-bye.

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 Canva to create beautiful graphics to market your life coaching. All right. Have an amazing week.

I'll talk to you very soon. Bye bye.