175 - Commitment vs. Quitting: The Path to Coaching Business Success
Has your coaching business NOT grown as fast as you hoped it would? Maybe you’ve already quit before you’ve even begun.
In this episode, we’ll look at 10 reasons why you might be quitting on your business. If you're making excuses, spinning in indecision, and not putting yourself out there, then this episode is for you!
Discover strategies for conquering mindset issues and staying committed even when the going gets tough. Don’t let the “what ifs'' and “shoulds” hold you back from reaching your goals. Remember, the ones who win in this whole business deal are the ones who show up, do the work, and just don’t quit.
Tune in for a much-needed dose of motivation and inspiration to reignite your passion for your business. Your future self is already living the life you've been dreaming of—now, it's time to claim it!
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👉 Watch the episode on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts!
👉 Book a free Coaching Business Assessment with me
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Transcript
Preview: I have made more money in the last 28 months than I did in the five years prior to that all because I have gotten my mind right, you guys. That has been a big piece. I have stopped overworking on all the wrong things. I actually only work three days a week now. I have made my business much easier. I focused in and narrowed in on only coaching coaches. All of those decisions have made my business easier and it's made me more money. So it's all possible to get to this point if you are ready.
Intro: 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 today's podcast. I don't know if this is going to be a popular podcast or not, but I feel like it's a topic that I need to discuss. So today we're going to talk about quitting, the way you are quitting on your business before you get started. I want to talk about this because I think it needs to be addressed. I'll share a list of reasons why most coaches quit and I'll dispel each one of them by telling the truth about the reality of each one of those 10 reasons why coaches quit. So if you're making excuses that delay you in your business, you're quitting. If you're spinning in indecision, you're quitting. If you are not putting yourself out there, you're quitting.
Now, it might not be a final quit for good, but there's small quits along the way that basically completely derail your progress. So what does it look like to quit before you have a viable business? What does it look like to quit before you have clients? If you don't take the time to build your business foundations, you've quit before you got started.
What does this look like when I talk about business foundations? Most of the people that I talk to, unless they've already had a business, they don't plan for business building time. If you haven't finished your website and you don't launch your business, then you quit before you got started. You can't say you really tried until you have some of these things done.
If you don't settle on a niche and stick to it and stop changing it, then really you've quit on yourself. If you don't tell anyone that you're a coach, you guys know you're hiding the truth about your coaching business. Then you might as well call it quitting. If you have drama about your pricing which keeps you from making offers, if you worry about the details that are not even relevant to you starting, like how to handle a business that hasn't even been built yet. Look, let's not worry about handling all the clients that are going to come and getting all the pieces in place. Let's worry about getting your business built and getting our first few clients.
All right. Now I have to say, I know what it's like to think, wow, what am I going to do with my life? Will I have time to handle all of the clients? And I want to tell you that it unfolds the way that it should. You will have time. And also I want to let you in on a secret. You're in charge of your own schedule, so you get to decide if you get overbooked and I've let myself do that, too.
All right. So how do you quit along the way? Let's talk about all the pauses that you take because I'm pretty sure you're not even paying attention to the pauses you take on your business. I talk to women on consultation calls that may be certified 3 or 4 years ago, and they have not gotten their business done. And they come to me and they're saying, like, this is the last thing I'm going to do like, this is it. And they haven't implemented anything else along the way. That too has been quitting, you guys. If you are not moving ahead week after week, you're quitting.
All right, you're going to get tired of hearing this word, but I want to make sure that it really opens up your mind to all the ways that you've given up on yourself. Let me talk about the 10 reasons why you might be quitting. These are the 10 most common things that people tell me, and I want to dispel each one of these. And give you evidence why you don't want to quit.
So number one, you think that your business is not happening fast enough. How many of you guys think that? Let me just say, you don't actually know how fast anyone's business has been built. We go around the internet and we follow successful coaches. People follow me and you don't actually know how long I've been working on this. Well, most of you guys listening do actually know how long I've been working on it. But honestly, you look at people who are making a million dollars and somehow you think you're going to get there as soon as you're certified. So I know when I say that you're like, no, I don't think that, but honestly, you're not giving yourself time because you think your business has not happened fast enough.
All right. Number two. So when it doesn't happen fast enough, then you start telling yourself you're not good at sales. I don't like being salesy. I don't like being pushy. I didn't realize I had to be in sales. I'm going to guess if you were honest with yourself, you actually haven't been making sales offers, having sales conversations, putting yourself out there to sell. Now, when you can come to me and you can say, I've had dozens of sales calls and something's not working, all right, then let's talk about what that is. I don't know if you'd want to quit then, but all of that is fixable. So don't tell yourself you're not good at sales until you've given yourself plenty of time to practice, plenty of time to get adjusted, and plenty of time to really become an expert at selling.
Number three, once you don't build your business fast enough, then you begin to start questioning if you are good at coaching. Is that you? Are you saying like, I don't know if I can coach anyone. It's been so long since I've coached somebody. Let me tell you my dear, if you have learned how to coach, what you learned cannot be taken out of your mind. What I have gained and learned from my coaching certification, whether you have a certification or not, is in my head and I know how to coach. Yes, practice is wonderful, but I can help people and so can you. And if you haven't had practice for a while, you're still okay. You can still coach people. And by the way, if that is your problem, go find somebody to practice with.
All right. Number four, many of you guys quit because you didn't plan on investing any startup costs in your business. I know that there's this misconception about an online business that it looks as if all you have to do is get online. Some people are even taken back at the cost of starting a website, which isn't very much, but you have startup costs and you also have ongoing monthly costs. If you've been listening to the podcast, you know, I talk about the essential things that you need to run your business each month, and the cost is $77.89.
But most of you guys are going to need to build a website. Most of you are going to need to, you know, buy your domain. Some of you are going to want to have contracts and if you're going to want to have business insurance. None of it is very expensive, but you do have to invest money. And most of you guys need to hire help so that somebody can teach you what to do about being in an online business. It's not a skill that people just are born with.
All right, number five, you get stuck on being perfect. You keep telling yourself that whatever you're creating isn't good enough. And I bet it's not good enough, but it's okay. Because until you do things, you can't decide or figure out what good is. If you go back and look at the beginning of my business, it's like, Oh brother, it doesn't look very good, and yours won't either. But that's okay because you have to begin. You start and you evolve along the way. So perfect comes later.
I don't know. Perfect may never come, but you'll never get good until you start. So stop comparing yourself to everyone else. If you are following people on Instagram that look perfect and you're comparing yourself, do yourself a favor today and unfollow them. That is not helping you by looking at somebody else and saying, I don't look good enough compared to them. Unfollow them.
Number six, if you have fears about what if, what if I have too many clients? What if I can't handle what comes my way? What if I can't coach him on what they bring me? What if they find out that I'm not really that good? Here's the deal, you guys. You have to answer those questions. When your brain serves up crazy questions that are trying to keep you from having success in your business, then answer 'em.
So what if you have too many clients? How would you answer that question? Maybe you would end up at a point where you did have too many clients. You would learn the lesson and you would make adjustments going forward. What if you couldn't handle something that came your way? Guess what, you guys? It's your business and you can change your mind.
It's your business and you can adjust your schedule. It's your business and you can decide not to work with somebody. You are powerful in your business. So answer those what if questions yourself. What if you mess up on a coaching call? What's the worst case scenario? Tell me. It's not that big of a deal. Go to the worst case and then journal about it, work it out so you can get those fears behind you.
All right. Number seven. Many of you guys quit because you don't believe in yourself. And many of you guys aren't even being honest with yourself. You don't even believe that you could really do it. So that would be a really serious place to start, you guys. Do you trust yourself to do what you say you're going to do? If you have given up on yourself many times in the past and you have been a habitual business starter and all kinds of ideas and all that, and you've never really successfully done something and finished it, like start to finish, then you have some personal work to do. You have to learn the skill of staying committed instead of quitting. So that is your work. Be honest with yourself and then do what we do, right? We all just stick to it. We do this stuff anyway, and that's how you get better at it.
All right. Number eight, you feel entitled. Do you feel entitled that you should have clients? Do you feel entitled that your business should be working? Do you feel entitled because you have lots of certifications and it should be easier? You know what happens when you should on yourself, you guys, it is not good. None of those things are supposed to happen for you.
All of those things are what you do when you build a business. You bring in the clients. They don't just appear. And just because you have a certification doesn't mean you have clients. So all of the shoulds are not true. So again, answer the question for yourself. Those shoulds are probably keeping you from doing what you want to do. Maybe you're resentful. Maybe you resent other people who look like they've been successful. And you're saying to yourself, this isn't fair. That attitude if you've got that, let's check it and let's get it behind us so we can get our business built.
All right. Number nine, maybe you have poor time management. This is serious. And I want to tell you, I've had poor time management for years. I have overworked just like you. This is something that entrepreneurs do. It feels so productive to continue to watch videos and listen to podcasts. And thank you by the way, for listening to my podcast, but it feels very useful to read books and to do more research and to do more practice coaching and to do all of the things that you think you need to do that feel busy as if you're accomplishing something. You do not need to create a course without an audience. I have again, consultation calls with people who say, I have my course already and I'm like, well, great. Who's on your email list and they're like, I don't have an email list.
I'm like, have you been posting on social media? No, we get these things out of order because we've heard people talk about it. So you do not need a course before you build your business. And if you are building a course, you don't want to have it completely built out because you have to test it out on people.
I recommend to my clients that we map out the course and then we do two weeks out, only two weeks. So if it's a 10 week course, you only do two modules because you want to have the course evolve with what you're learning from the clients. So make sure that you are testing and make sure that you are being honest about the fact that you've got to find people to sell this to before you create something like that.
All right, number 10, you hire coaches and you don't do the work. You guys, seriously, a coach can only help you if you implement. And I know that every coach is different and, you know, I take pride in the fact that my coaching style is different. And then I answer questions and I provide accountability and the things. You've heard it. But if you've hired a coach, my goodness, do what they are telling you to do and try it Implement. Do not quit. If you have hired a coach, do the work.
All right. Let's talk about who wins. The ones who win in this whole business deal are the people who do not quit. Now, I know that that sounds so completely obvious to you guys, but it is so true. So let's talk about how much time it takes to build a business that is winning. First of all, it takes probably six months for you to learn how to write marketing copy, to get your website built, to get your logo, to do all the things that you need to do to get your business set up, to start practicing on social media, to start growing your email list, to start talking to people with your I help statements, to start being comfortable and confident having those conversations.
It takes four, six months, something like that. The business building boutique is six months because typically at the four month mark, we're about at a point where people are ready to start and comfortable, ready and comfortable to start making offers to people. Beyond the first six months I would say that it takes between month six and month 12 to really get yourself in decent shape to really have, you know, a good handful of clients.
What happens at that point in your business is you might have, let's say nine private clients and you're thinking like, geez, I didn't realize it was going to be this much work managing nine clients. That's a whole nother skill that you have to learn. So I would say between the six and 12-month mark, things really start to shape up. When you get to that one-year mark, if you have been consistently working on your business, and if you've been honestly doing the things that, you know, you need to do, not hiding, not quitting a few weeks at a time and then getting back into like consistently doing it. I hear this all the time people tell me at a year, wow my business is like, really in good shape and it will be.
And then that next 12 to 24 months, so between the first year and the second year, that is the time that you can really build a solid, really consistently profitable business. Now, you can't quit marketing in between that time. You can't quit on the business building because that never ends. You're always replacing clients. You're always looking to attract new people. But let me ask you. If you knew it was going to take six months to get the foundations built and another six months to really have, you know, a decent set of clients and then another 12 months after that, between year one and year two to really create this solid business.
It's consistent. Why would you not do it? I mean, that's not unreasonable. The SBA in the United States tells businesses that they have to borrow a minimum of three years of operating capital because they don't expect businesses to be profitable for the first three years. Now in our online space, we don't have to invest very much. You know, it doesn't take much capital to get a business built and most of it you can do yourself. In fact, most of my clients do all of it themselves. But I'm not talking about three years of no profit. I'm talking about months, just a few months to get your business foundations done. And then you start selling coaching or you start selling more coaching than you already were. So why quit?
What is required not to quit? Let's talk about that for a moment. It's the mindset work. You know, in the Business Building Boutique, we have a mindset coach. And that mindset coach is there on purpose because building a business really is tough, honestly, you guys. You'll come up against lots of things like I don't want to be on social media. I don't like going live or the technology is too hard. I'm sure that those are all things that you've said to yourself. So you just have to do the mindset work. Like my goodness, you have been capable of accomplishing all kinds of things. So you want to do the mindset work, that daily mindset work, to believe that you can achieve this, that you can create this. You know, tap into the other things that you've accomplished. Tap into your future self who already has it. Work on that every day. Work on your business even when you feel like quitting, even when it looks like nothing is working. Because even when nothing is working and you are working on your business, you know what happens? It eventually works.
So one more thing. When is it okay to quit? Now, I know this is going to be crazy what I say, but I want to tell you, some of you should say, I'm going to quit and I'm going to forgive myself for wanting to quit and it's okay. So I want to give you permission to decide to quit and be honest with yourself.
Now, look, I love every one of you and I want you to all work with me and I want you to all have your dream business. Sometimes what I find out is after somebody's left certification, sometimes they've left corporate jobs. Sometimes they find out that this really isn't what they want to do. So I want you to do some serious soul searching. I want you to release yourself if that is you. If you keep looking for the next fix to make your business work like that one next thing that somehow is going to be the easy answer. I hear sometimes people say, all I need to do is hire a VA and a sales coach.
I am really good at coaching and I bet you are, but I just need somebody to take care of the business. It doesn't work that way, my dear friend. It doesn't. You have to do the business until you have it established. And then yes, you could hire salespeople. I've done that before. I'll tell you what, they don't sell nearly as good as I do.
I also have virtual people that work with me now. Thank God, because they can help me manage the business that I've built now, but you have to start it. So, if that's not what you want to do, and you're like, you know, what, I really don't want to do this business thing. It's okay. Think of how many times in your life you started a new hobby or you decided you were going to needle point and you bought the canvas and all the thread and then you didn't finish the project. This is the same thing, right? You didn't beat yourself up over not finishing the needle point. You just quit and decided you were going to do cross stitch instead.
Okay. This is the same thing. Whatever coaching certification or practice, or whatever it is that you have done, you guys, nobody can take that out of your mind. The value that you have learned, it will change your life and probably already has. You will, even if you quit your business, change the lives of people around you. You know how to manage your mind now. You know how to change whatever circumstances you coach on. So take the time to think about what's happening. If you've taken the training, it's okay. Nothing has gone wrong. Not everybody is meant to be in business. So give yourself a break. All right.
I adore you. I appreciate you. I love you. And it's okay if you quit. Business just might not be your thing. Maybe though you would be a great employee. And I'll tell you, sometimes people find out that the corporate job that they once thought wasn't that great, they find out then like, wow, I actually do want to work for somebody else.
I really do love going and have somebody else give me direction. I really do love the benefits that come with a corporate career. You also might be a great coach to work for another coach. So it is so worth it, you guys. If you want to build a business, I cannot begin to tell you the personal growth that I have had, cannot begin to tell you the transformation that my clients have after they do the business building part and they get their business built.
It changes who they are because they accomplish more. You will serve clients in your business and you will change the world one person at a time if you don't quit. You will have the time freedom that many of you guys want. And financial freedom can come, not tomorrow, but it can come. I have made more money in the last 28 months than I did in the five years prior to that all because I have gotten my mind right, you guys. That has been a big piece. I have stopped overworking on all the wrong things. I actually only work three days a week now. I have made my business much easier. I focused in and narrowed in on only coaching coaches. All of those decisions have made my business easier and it's made me more money.
So it's all possible to get to this point if you are ready. All right. So what's it going to be for you? Are you quitting and giving yourself permission to do that or are you committing? Quitting or committing, committing to get your business built and profitable.
All right, you guys, thanks for sticking with me. Love and adore you guys. Have an amazing week and I will see you very soon. Bye bye.
Outro: 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.