10 Things Not to Do When Starting Your Coaching Business
You are definitely not going to run short on tips of what to do to run your coaching business. So I decided to take a little spin on this and give you 10 things that you should stop doing while growing your coaching business.
1. Set a deadline for your success
So that might seem weird and you may wonder, how do you set goals then? Let me explain. If you set a deadline for your success, you are putting a mountain of pressure on top of your shoulders. That is unnecessary. Let's say you decided you’re going to give yourself until the summer to have a $10,000 month or book your first client, launch your course, etc.
Listen, I'm okay with having goals. But the problem with deadlines is the repercussions. The most common repercussion I see is, “If I don't get this result, I am quitting. I am not going to do this.” And that just breaks my heart to see, because it's simply not fair. In my opinion, your business should be something that pulls creativity from you. It should be your creative outlet. Something that you love and makes you want to help people. Because that's what we're here for, right? And you know something? I find that the people who have dollar signs in their eyes are the ones who set these really harsh deadlines for themselves. So take that as you wish.
2. Hustle mentality
Don't get caught up with the hustle mentality. I believe that it is unsustainable for women, especially mothers. For some reason, this is glorified online and I’m here to say that there are a lot more important things in our life that deserve our energy. So if the hustle is leading your life and you're finding that your life quality is feeling low, then you need to reapproach this whole idea and pivot because again, the hustle is not sustainable.
It might look cute on a coffee cup or a sweatshirt, but it's not going to drive your business forward in a healthy way or is a great way to grow your business long-term. Don't pour all of your energy into your business. I know it's tempting because we love our business so much and we could just sit and work on it all day long. Right? I totally get it, but you have to shut it off. You have to pay attention to the other things. Otherwise, those other things suffer and we don't want droughts in our family or personal life. All of those things, they require you too. And you can't hustle with everything. So why not just release that mentality? It works a lot better.
3. Compare yourself to other online coaches
We're always looking in the left mirror, the right mirror, or the rearview mirror. We're never really looking at the road ahead of us because, well, we're not satisfied with where we're going or how fast we're going. So we tend to look over here to see what she's doing, if she has a better vehicle than you, or if she's going faster than you. If we’re not careful, we can get really caught up in what everyone else is doing and we can veer off the side of the road and crash and burn.
So you can either run your business looking left and right constantly. Or you can say tell yourself that it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing. What matters is that you are here to help people. You’re here to educate and equip yourself for growth and you’re okay at the pace that you’re going and nothing else matters. That's the best advice I could give you. No matter what level you are on in your coaching business.
4. Putting your business before your family
If you find yourself bringing your laptop with you wherever you go or when you're doing something with your kids and you don't even look up when they're asking you a question, that's a big red flag.
I've I started a business when I had one kid and now I have three, plus I’ve been working from home for over 17 plus years. Family always comes first. Your family deserves the best part of you. No ifs, ands, or buts. And for some reason, no one really talks about this. If you have a family or you have a future family planned and you're running your business, and you're wondering how to balance it all. Well, it’s easy if family comes first, no matter what. And that comes with you setting your hours for your business. When are you going to be fully focused on working on your business? Set your hours and stick to them and do what works best for your family.
Honor your family and everything will always work out. Don't feel like you need to substitute quality family time for work time.
5. Procrastinate your organic marketing plan
We tend to put this off for some reason and here's my theory on why that happens. We always put off the thing that we know is going to push our business forward because we want to stay comfortable.
I think we can all agree that we enjoy being in the creative zone and marketing can sometimes feel, well, blah. If you haven't been in the process of working on an organic marketing plan, say on Pinterest for example, and see a pin that you put out do really well to drive traffic to your freebie landing page when all of a sudden, all of these email subscribers come flying in because of something that you did on Pinterest well, to be frank, we're just not ready for it.
And that's okay. You might be thinking, “Why wouldn't I be ready for that?” Let’s think about it. Once people are on our email list, what do we do with them? What do we say? How often should we email them? Maybe you’re the type of person who feels like you don’t want to bother them or you don’t want to lose them. So then your list turns into this foreign thing that you’re afraid to even communicate with.
This is a mindset issue that we have to cover in the future for sure and it is true. This block (procrastinating on organic marketing) leads to coaches putting off something so important to the growth of their business because they’re just sticking with the safe stuff. They know they probably should do it, do it, but they don't. So if you're putting off organic marketing, like Pinterest, ask yourself why. Don't do that anymore. It's a great driver for your business. It's going to be a catalyst for list-building growth and it just takes time, which is another reason why I think people don't do it as much.
No one has any patience anymore. Pinterest is a slow boil, but it's long-term growth and I think that's way more appropriate for our business than a quick viral reel strategy on Instagram, in my opinion.
6. Learning from too many people at the same time
I had a session with a student the other day and she said her business is like Frankenstein. Her arms and legs are from one creator. And her head is from a different creator. She’s listening to way too many people at the same time. I get it. I remember being in those stages too. You want to learn from this person and that person plus you have all the tabs up on your computer, right?
One minute you’re set on learning how to be an expert on Instagram. And on the side, you decided you’re going to learn how to write a viral blog post. Plus, learn how to SEO your website. And then on top of that, you’re going to create a course. Can you relate?
And if something doesn't work well or you're not feeling like you're moving forward fast enough, you just go learn from somebody else and add that tab to your browser too. And that’s how you have a Frankenstein business.
Here's the thing. No one has all the answers. Just because someone's tips and tricks and solutions in a course or mastermind sound all juicy and sparkly, it doesn't mean you're going to get the results that that person has. You might have better results. You might not.
And the problem with always following every shiny guru out there is that you always want what they have. So you follow what they have, but yet you don't really know what it took to get them there. You don't know their values, you don't know all the bits and pieces involved.
So before you start listening to all the voices, honor the space in your head and think, “Is this the right thing for me? Do I need all of these people yelling at me, telling me what to do?”
My advice to the student that talked to me about this was to pick one goal that she would like to achieve by the end of the week and then write that on a piece of paper. Then determine what you need to make that happen. And finally, you need to take action.
Everyone is putting off taking action because they're afraid of their results. They're afraid of it not working. They're afraid of the rejection involved or whatever story they may make up in their head. So we go learn from someone else and distract ourselves with another course. I want you to stop doing that. If that's the game that you're playing set a goal, what do you need to achieve that goal?
And then let it ride for a while and get some feedback, whether it is appropriate for you or not, then move forward with the next thing.
7. Change your values
This is so important. Everyone needs to put their values into everything they say and do online now more than ever, people are really watching and they want to make sure that they see what you're all about.
I had a podcast interview a few weeks ago where we talked about values and why they’re so important to have them front and center in our business. The people that are around us should be able to see our values on an Instagram post and just kind of get a sense of who we are. And if they come to your website, they should get the full effect.
Don't be afraid to show your values. And if you're feeling like you're always putting on a mask of someone else's values, because you think that their values work better than yours, it’s time to take the mask off and really think to yourself, “What do I value? What is important to me?” Not only that, but what kind of people do you want to be attracted to your business? Because your values are going to bring in people who identify with those. So if you don't have a reason to put them out there, there's one right there for you.
8. Discount yourself because you're just starting
I don't like discounts because I think they’re an excuse to discount your value. My advice to people who want to discount their services is to switch it around. Instead of saying, “My coaching package is a thousand dollars, but this week everyone gets 75% off!” Flip it around to say, “My coaching package is a thousand dollars for one week and then next week I'm raising my prices to $2,500.” The key here is to increase the price and create a sense of urgency.
When you discount your services, you’re also discounting the education, time, and money you’ve spent on your business. I want to challenge you to value your coaching.
9. Spending too much time creating a course
If you’re spending way too much time creating a course that hasn’t been launched or sold yet, stop doing that. My recommendation is to create the first couple of modules and be done, then launch your course, sell it, and then get paid to create the rest of it.
When I launched Stand Out Coaching Academy in 2018, I created the first couple of modules, and then I launched the program. I sold it to five students. And then as we went through the program together, I would work about a week or two ahead and create the content that I knew those students needed. That's the best way to cater to the students who are coming into a brand new fresh course.
It's also a great way to get to know your students' progress. And you're going to end up tweaking and revamping the course as you go along anyway. So don't sit and take a year to create your course, it's not necessary. When you take way too much time to create a course, you are way too close to it too.
It's way too personal at that point. For example, if you launch and do not get the results that you were hoping for, it's going to hurt really bad because you spent so much time with this thing.
So my suggestion if you want to at least scratch that creative itch is just to create a module or two, launch it, and then create the rest as you work with your students. That's the easiest and honestly the smartest way to do it.
10. Not having a content medium
Not having a content medium, meaning no blog, no podcast, no video, nothing. Just a homepage with no new information and no value where no one can really tell if you're updating your website or not because you don't put anything on there on a consistent basis. You don't talk about new content on your social media platforms and people don't see that you are the authority in this because you're not educating them at a level where they are looking for answers. Well, that’s a big mistake.
If you don't have a content medium, I suggest you pick one now, especially if you want to build your list and your authority. Oh, and to build your SEO for your website too.
Which one should you choose? Usually, the first pick is blogging because it's the easiest. Or maybe a podcast is in your line of vision. Video is great too, but you don't need to do them all. You just need to pick one and stay consistent at a level that you can stay consistent. There's no right or wrong length. There's no right or wrong time or anything. Just be consistent. And pretty soon you'll build a level of authority in your name.
Plus, you’ll get to know yourself a little bit better, what you prefer communicating with, and it's just going to give you the confidence to become the coach that you know you're meant to be because you're constantly educating on a, on a weekly basis or a daily basis, whatever it is.
It’s also going to help your organic marketing because if you are putting out new content every week because you have content to promote on Pinterest, we know that that's important, right?
The important thing to know is that if you want change in your business and feel like you're running at a new level, you don't want to look off to the side and backward anymore. You don't have to, you have the power to do this. This is all in your hands and it's all in your head. It's all in your attitude.