Ep 208 - A Sneak Peek Inside the Open Coaching Sessions
Episode 208 of the Life Coach Business Building Podcast
In this episode, I’ll be giving you a sneak peek inside my open coaching sessions and the magic that happens every single Monday. You always hear me rave about these sessions, and I know you might be thinking that it sounds too good to be true. But I want to assure you that the value you'll receive is the real deal.
I’ll share with you how we answer coaches’ most common questions and help find solutions to common business challenges, from niche selection and certifications to website woes and hiring a VA.
I believe there's enough business for all of us, and I want you to think that too! So join in, level up your coaching game, and together we’ll offer our solutions abundantly to the world!
👉 Join us for a FREE workshop on May 17th at 12:30 pm Central Standard Time, where we're going to be teaching you about making your offer. Reserve your spot now at debbieshadid.com/workshop.
👉 Check out my FREE Canva Workshop and learn how to create stunning graphics for your coaching business!
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Transcript:
Preview: When you are holding on tight to your knowledge,when you're not helping people understand the value of what you have, when you're not teaching from that abundance mindset, what is happening is you are selling and it's feeling sleazy. You're selling and you're convincing people. You are not feeling anything but salesy, pushy, right? Can you identify with that? I guarantee it's because you have a scarcity mindset. You're not feeling abundant like there's enough for all of us. You're wanting to hold on tight to the special information that you have, and that is hurting you.
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 this week's podcast today. I want to invite you to our new open coaching that we are hosting every single Monday. And I want to talk to you about why I am giving complimentary coaching every single Monday, head over to debbieshadid.com/opencoaching. Reserve your spot and come and see what it's all about.
In the meantime, let me explain. I decided to give complimentary coaching because I think there's a lesson in this for you. So I looked at what a common question was in our business. And one of the most common questions is how can this open coaching that you talk about really be like it is? We tell people when we meet them and we have consultation calls or when we have our workshops, we tell them about our open coaching and we explain that we literally answer everybody's questions.
Every single session, we talk to you about your niche, about your level of experience. We tell you what to do next. And we do that week after week. And I know that you guys have bought coaching and you're thinking, I never had a coach do that for me. This sounds too good to be true. So I looked at that as a challenge in my business.
And again, this is the lesson for you that I want you to be thinking about. What is a challenge in your business? So I looked at the challenge of people having a question about this open coaching. They think it's too good to be true. So how can I show them? What we really do, that's why I decided to give open coaching every single Monday.
I want people just like you to come and to really see what it's all about. So that firsthand you too can get your questions answered. So that is what we're doing. That's why we're doing it. And I want to give you kind of the details. I'm going to share the answers to some of the most common questions we get on Mondays.
So that will help you in your business. And then I want you to be thinking about the questions that you will bring to our open coaching sessions. In the open coaching, it's divided up into two different sections. The first section is where we meet you. We get to know about you, you know, I find out about your niche, kind of your background, your experience, where you're at in your business.
Then we open it up for questions. And then in the second part of the session, we actually talk to you all about our business. We show you every aspect of it. We talk to you about our VIP and fast track coaching experiences. We answer all of your questions. We share our pricing. We share everything just like it is a consultation. But it's in a group setting. So you will not feel any pressure to buy. In fact, I never pressure anyone to buy. That's just not my style, but it's a unique opportunity. If you don't want to schedule a consultation, just come to open coaching and learn about what we do after you get your complimentary coaching.
I also want to mention that we sweeten the deal by offering our best bonuses of the entire week. In fact, it's the best bonuses ever on Mondays when you come and you actually can buy our coaching for the best price. Yeah, we've double stacked the bonuses on Mondays because we want you to come and get the coaching and then of course stay and find out about what we have to offer.
Let's get started with the most common questions. So this will answer some of your questions as well. The number one question is about niche. And I'm sure you have that question too. And look, I understand why you have that question. It is so significant that literally what your entire business is about deciding who you're going to coach and what the problem is.
So I get it. It is a big decision. I will remind you if you've been listening to my first answer and the main thing that I want you to consider is that you should be coaching around what you know best. You should be coaching on something. Your needs should be something you understand that you do not have to do any education on, that you do not have to do any studying to answer anything, that it would not matter what the situation was.
You could answer questions. You could coach somebody around that. That is the niche that you should pick number one. So it has nothing to do with what the market thinks about your niche. It's what you think about your niche. Y'all have also heard me say that you make your niche perfect by marketing it.
Yeah, it's the marketing that actually makes your niche work. Now, one of the biggest challenges that we help people with when they begin to work with us is writing marketing. You have not been to marketing school, so you have no idea how to do that. We actually teach that so that you know how to do it from the beginning until forever in your business.
So you have to learn how to communicate very effectively to your niche client about what their pain points are and about what it is they're going to have as a result of working with you. So that's what I can tell you about the niche. You pick the niche that's best for you. You pick the niche that you know best, and then we. Well, make it right with the marketing that you do when you have an effective marketing message.
All right, the second question that I get is about certifications. Listen, my dear, you do not need another certification. In fact, you don't need any certification. There is no regulation on coaching. Now, I think certifications are great. And I have one. I understand why you want to be knowledgeable, why you want to be professional. That's what I'm all about. But at some point you thinking that another certification will help you get clients is just not true. The way that you get clients is by marketing your business. I know it comes back to that same thing that you don't like and you don't want to do.
So nobody cares if you have an advanced certification in this or that. In fact, what most of my coaches tell me is that nobody even asks what their certification is. They didn't even actually talk about the background that they have. So just check yourself if you are getting a certification versus Not starting your business because you're telling yourself, you don't know for sure. If you know enough, you're wrong. Start your business. And then when you start making all kinds of money and you have extra time. Go get another certification at that point, if you want it.
Okay. Another interesting thing that came up last week was somebody talking about hiring a VA. She was telling me about her business. She was telling me about her niche, all the certifications, this particular lady had a lot of them. And then she said, I'm just going to hire a VA and they're going to build my business. I'm like, no, no, no. Now I have an amazing team that at this point in my business, it would be difficult for me to do it without them. But when you are starting your business, you have to be in charge of it.
You cannot hire a VA to tell you what to do. You can't hire a VA to write your marketing, your social media, to do your branding, to do any of that, unless they understand what it is from you that you are doing. They need to understand your offer. They need to understand the pain points, but only once you understand them. So a VA is not the right move. It's another one of those things. Online that everybody talks about, like hiring a VA for cheap. And by the way, do not underpay people. These VAs that are working are gosh, they're changing your businesses, Pam appropriately. Anyway, I'll get off my soap box. You do not need a VA today. Wait until you are prepared. Wait until you've learned your own business, then go seek out a VA.
Another question I get is about websites. Most often people ask me about technology. What website platform should I use? And I'll just tell you the two that I recommend are Squarespace or Wix, because you can get a Squarespace or Wix website for, I don't know, 200, 250, or something like that a year. Most of you guys that have already bought software often have bought something like Kajabi, which is what I use, but you do not need Kajabi for a long time. In fact, Kajabi is very complicated to learn when you are trying to learn all the other things. It will be the right thing for you at some point in your business, but not today.
Most people have bought Kajabi or Karcher or fill in the blank. There's so many different ones. In fact, now there's even more that I don't even know all the names of, but you don't need those and they're very expensive. So on a monthly basis, you might pay, you know, Kartra, I think is 99, Kajabi is 149 and 199. You're going to pay a significant amount, that's per month you guys, where you could get a Squarespace or a Wix website for an entire year for like 225. So that's what I recommend. I actually recommend that you learn how to do your website yourself so that you can always make changes on it. We also get questions about tools and software.
So what software should I be using? I want to link for you an episode that I did all about the software that you need for your coaching business, but I'll give you a quick brief overview of it. You'll need a few things. Where you are today, you need a paid zoom account. You need a paid Calendly account, a paid Canva account. You need your website that costs you every single month or on an annual basis. You need your domain based email. Email. And then we recommend Flodesk. I do have an affiliate link to get that for you for 19 a month, saving you 50%. But all of those together, you guys equal like 78 a month. That is all that you need to run your business. So when it comes to software, where you are in your business, less is more right now. Less is more. So keep it basic, make it easy for yourself and don't spend money on things that you do not need right now.
I got a question last week from somebody who's a client now. She just started working with us. She came to our open coaching, you guys, and then she stayed and she learned about our program and she joined us. She got questions answered at the very beginning of the call and she was impressed with the answer I gave her. And she said, And that's what prompted her to stay to learn about our coaching and now to become a client.
So her question was about combining her speaking and her coaching. She wanted to know how to do that. And when I tell you this, it's going to sound obvious, but it wasn't obvious to her. And sometimes you guys will get stuck on things that when I give you an answer, it's like, Oh yes, of course. That makes sense, but you're stuck on the same thing for a long time because you've never done it.
So she was wondering how to do that. What I see speaking as for this particular lady, it's almost like a funnel so she can do the speaking and people will sign up for the speaking event to come hear her talk. That will then. funnel into her coaching where you can start marketing. So she is in ministry, women's ministry.
And so she would go do workshops, women's ministry workshops, and then she does Christian life coaching for women. So you can see there's a perfect tie in her question logistically on the website. How would she talk about both those things in one place? And interestingly enough, they really are about the same thing. Right? The topic, her niche client, is not changing. It's a Christian woman with a certain set of circumstances that she's going to help him change. Whether she's speaking to him about it or whether she's coaching him, they're the same. So her website copy is the key piece. That website copy is the most important thing that we help our clients do.
In fact, to talk about her a little bit more, she just came to our intensive mastermind, which is part of what we offer, yesterday. And she actually spent the entire day with us. So she joined on Tuesday and then on Friday, just a few days later, she came to write her main marketing message. Now she already has a website. She already had her branding, but she trusted what I said, which is come and spend the day with us and learn how to communicate, learn how to be a copywriter. Everything that you will write in your business, Everything has to be a compelling copy so that somebody will say yes to you. You have to be able to write social media posts.
You have to be able to write emails, sales pages, webinars, and speaking. She has to be able to write speaking gigs, you know, her workshops or her topics or the way the speech flows has to be good enough To be able to get people to take the next step, which is to be able to talk to her about coaching. So we spent the day and she got to the end of the day and she was like, wow. I mean, I thought I knew my business. I've already had experience at coaching. I've already been speaking. I am blown away. Now I feel like I have a deeper understanding of exactly what the problems are that I wasn't even thinking about. Now I understand how to write. I understand how to write emails.
She decided she wanted to update her website with that copy. We actually redid her entire brand. Also yesterday in this intensive mastermind, we worked on writing copy and branding. And again, she already had a brand. We introduced her to a brand new color palette that she didn't even have in mind. She loved it and so did I by the end of our session yesterday. So maybe you have a question about speaking and coaching, and that is how you take care of it.
Oh, by the way, I should tell you, we have added to our coaching offer. We are now offering two hours of weekly tech support. Yes. For those of you who are stuck with tech, you have an opportunity to not only work with us and learn the tech through our Business Building Boutique university, but you also get to have tech support to get out of the messes that you get yourself in when you're working on learning how to do it.
So I want to talk to you about your mindset. Now, in our Monday open coaching calls, Thais Glenn, our mindset coach joins us. And again, that's one of the things that's really unique about what we offer. I'm the strategy action coach who tells you what to do, who shows you how to do it. Here is what I am seeing. There is a lot of scarcity mindset thinking and it's unnecessary. I want you to think about approaching your business with abundance.
I feel abundant giving you free coaching every single Monday. Even if you never buy coaching from me, I feel a sense of abundance when I host workshops. And I teach you what you need to know exactly to build your business. You guys have all signed up for my Canva workshop. We give templates away. I want to give away a lot because here's what I know for sure.
If you receive from me and you like what we have, you're much more inclined to stay engaged with us. And let me also just say, there are some people who cannot, no matter what, buy coaching from me right now. And if I'm able to give them a hand up. and give them good information that will help them begin to build their business, then it's a win for me. So you see, I believe there's enough business for all of us. And I want you to think that too. I can give and give and give and give and still people hire me. So if you come to our open coaching on Monday, which I hope you do, debbieshadid.com/opencoaching to save your seat.
When you come to ask all the questions you want to, I'll answer you. I'll tell you how to get clients. I'll tell you what to do next. Now, it might not be simple, one answer, but I'll answer all those questions for you. And then if you want to stay and learn about our coaching, great. I really think people want to work with me after they hear all that we have to share. The opposite of this abundant thinking is scarcity. Now, what does that look like for you? What I hear coaches say is like, Oh, I want to know how to make sure my PDF can't get downloaded. I want to make sure that my video can't be shared with anyone else because I don't want anyone to take my ideas.
Listen, my dear, there are no original ideas. Nobody wants to take your idea. And if they do look, just give them the gift and let them go. Now. Yeah. I don't want everybody copying everything I have, but I'm just saying there's enough for everybody. You hear me? There's enough. When you are holding on tight to your knowledge,when you're not helping people understand the value of what you have, when you're not teaching from that abundance mindset, what is happening is you are selling and it's feeling sleazy. You're selling and you're convincing people. You are not feeling anything but salesy, pushy, right? Can you identify with that? I guarantee it's because you have a scarcity mindset. You're not feeling abundant like there's enough for all of us. You're wanting to hold on tight to the special information that you have, and that is hurting you. So take a look at your thinking. And again, make sure you join us on Monday. Thais can help you with that.
You can come to open coaching for mindset coaching, but also for strategy coaching. Either one is great with us. Okay. I hope this helped you. I hope that you will look at your own business, that you will look at a challenge that you have, and you'll ask yourself, What can I do to help a potential client trust me to believe what I have to offer? And again, for us, it's offering this open coaching, look at your own business, decide what the solution is, and then offer it abundantly to the world. Okay. You guys have an amazing week. I will see you on Monday in open coaching. 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.