Don’t Miss Inside This Episode:

This Pennsylvania Dutch quote on a plaque in my grandparents' kitchen was ingrained in me from an early age : Ve get too soon oldt undt too late schmart. It doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to get smart late in life. Learn from others.

• The riches are in the niches. Why you don't want to wait to claim a niche and how it's actually easier to create content when you narrow down who you work with and the specific solution you bring.
• Common email marketing mistakes to avoid.
• What's the fastest path to low self-esteem and how to recognize it.
• How you can pay for the expenses of outsourcing what you don't want to do or what causes you to want to pull out your hair.
• How Eleanor Roosevelt can help you get past perfectionism.

Links and products mentioned in today's episode:

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About Your Host

Melissa Brown, MD - Coach, Author, Speaker, Teacher, and Podcast Host.

After leaving medical practice in 2009, Melissa discovered the online world and never looked back! After coach certification, she began a healthy lifestyle coaching practice online and quickly fell in love with blogging, writing, and content marketing.

Melissa believes that coaches have the power to change the world. Unfortunately, too many coaches get discouraged by the amount of content they need to create for marketing their business and this can lead to overwhelm and giving up on their dreams. There's such a ripple effect when a dream dies, so Melissa is on a mission to help coaches and solopreneurs overcome the overwhelm when it comes to content creation so they keep those dreams alive.

Your content can impact massive amounts of people and positively change the world. You've got content in there inside you; let's get it out into the world.

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Get your FREE Never Run Out of Content Ideas Tool Kit/Workbook: https://shesgotcontent.com/content

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I remember a plaque up on the wall in my grandparents' kitchen.

It had an old Pennsylvania Dutch wisdom etched in the wood.

It really fascinated me.

It was one of the first things I learned how to read.

The quote read like this, Ve get too soon oldt.

undt too late schmart.

I can remember having lots of conversations around cookies and

milk with my grandparents sitting at their kitchen table and talking about

that plaque and that quote, what it meant, why it was spelled like that.

Fast forward to what I know now.

You don't have to wait to get old to get smart.

Learn from the mistakes other coaches have made so you don't have to repeat them.

And if you find that you're already heading down a path with one of these

mistakes, it's not too late to turn your ship around and course correct.

Hello there.

Content creators.

You're listening to the She's Got Content podcast where it's all about creating

content for your coaching business.

I'm your host, Dr.

Melissa Brown, and I'm here every week to help you get your content out of your

head, out of your heart, and out there into the world where that information and

your services can impact the most people.

Get ready to take notes today and then take action, content creators.

Let's dive in with today's episode because you've got content to get out there.

Welcome back content creators.

That old Pennsylvania Dutch saying up on the wall in my grandparents' kitchen, that

was ingrained in me from an early age.

And well, I didn't wanna be someone who grew up old too soon and smart, too late.

I've always been one to keep an eye on things other people share about what

doesn't work, but also what works for them because it stands to reason if

something's working, the person who tells you about that has probably already

tried a bunch of things that didn't work.

It's great to grow and learn from others mistakes, and you also

wanna learn from other successes.

John Maxwell, the leadership expert, has been credited with this quote.

It said that a wise man learns from his mistakes.

A wiser one learns from others' mistakes, but the wisest person of.

Learns from others' successes.

Keep listening content creators and keep all of these wise guys in mind

that John Maxwell talked about.

I've compiled some of the most common mistakes that new and sometimes

even seasoned coaches make so you don't have to make them too.

By steering clear of these mistakes, you'll be on the path to success

much faster than someone who's trying to go it alone and stumbling

through all their own mistakes.

Number One.

Trying to help everyone with everything and not nicheing down.

You might have heard that the riches are in the niches, or maybe you've heard

that it's best to niche down to blow up.

Well, you might resist nitching down because you don't wanna leave anyone out.

You wanna help lots of different types of people with lots of different problems.

You might think it feels too confining to only offer your coaching to a

narrow specific set of people or only help them solve one problem.

. The only thing is, the opposite is true.

It's actually easier when you niche down because then your message stands out.

It's so much easier to write your content when you niche down and your

intended audience, those people will see themselves so much better in

your writing and in your offerings.

Your ideal people will find you.

They'll hear your message better.

They'll think you've been speaking specifically to them and they'll come

to realize how you really get them.

That's because you've narrowed down your offerings to a smaller subset of folks.

You're not trying to help everyone with everything.

In other words, you've become a specialist in the sea of generalists,

so you're gonna stand out.

If you're not sure how to niche down, who you wanna work with as a group

of people , or what type of challenge that you'll help them overcome?

Well, you can experiment.

You can focus your writing on a target audience of people.

People with certain characteristics.

And just keep refining your focus with specific challenges

that you help them with.

Keep drilling down, keep refining your people, your

ideal customer or your client.

When I went through coach training, I was told, Don't worry about picking a niche,

somehow your niche always finds you.

And as long as you're continually experimenting, I've seen

that happen again and again.

Along with not nicheing down, a similar mistake is not asking your

people regularly what they need.

Make sure to poll your people; spend time doing one on one Zoom meetings,

phone calls or face to face meetings with them, to ask questions about what they

need help with, what their challenges are, if there are any new challenges or

problems that have come up unexpectedly.

Record what they say and then use those words.

That's gonna help you in your copy.

And remember, you don't wanna edit what they say to make them sound

like how you think it should sound, You wanna use their own exact words.

That helps call in the people because they're gonna recognize

themselves in those words.

Second mistake, actually there's a few under this one,

and I think I've made them all.

These are email mistakes.

The first one is not building an email list from the beginning.

This is one of the first things you should be doing.

Yeah, I, did.

I just shoulded on you there.

You should be building an email list.

This is really one of the most important things you can

do for your future business.

Start building an email list.

There's no point to waiting.

You don't even need a website to start building an email list.

Create some type of a lead magnet that's a freebie, something that

answers a compelling question or solves a problem for your audience.

And the email service provider you choose will likely have a landing

page where you can have your opt-in.

That's a place where people can add their name and email to

get access to your freebie.

Choosing one of the email service providers that has landing pages is

a must if you don't have a website.

But if you've got a website, you can have that landing page

right there on your website.

Don't overthink that freebie.

That often eats up a lot of a new coach's time and energy trying

to get a perfect opt-in gift.

Just forget about getting it perfect because the likelihood

is it won't be perfect.

You're going to be tweaking and changing that opt-in gift for a long time.

So remember, done is better than perfect.

Get it out there and start collecting emails and names to start your email list.

Another mistake I see in email marketing is not tagging new email subscribers.

And again, this is something that I had not been doing in the beginning.

You want to use a tag when people join your email list.

When you're choosing that email service provider, you wanna make sure that

they have an option to tag subscribers.

Now what that means is, as the person signs up for your freebie, you

designate either one or more tags-- a word or a phrase that lets you know

later on how that person found you and what interest they have among the

topics for which you create content.

Keep tracking those tags to see what lead magnets, what freebies are working

for you, and which one of those topics resonate most with your audience.

For instance, if you have a blog post about quick, healthy choices for dinner,

and you offer an opt-in, a content upgrade that gives more information,

Let's say it's a checklist of healthy pantry staples to have on hand that you

write about on your blog, and then all of your recipes will pull in from that

checklist to whip up a healthy meal.

When someone opts in for that checklist, that pantry checklist, you could add

the tag to the subscriber's account.

Maybe that tag would become the letter C, and the letter U, which stands for

content upgrade, CU- pantry picks.

Let's say you're gonna write an entire book of recipes that are

healthy and quick to prepare.

You'll wanna know who on your email list is interested in this topic

because they're gonna be the first ones you notify about your book.

So you send an email to everyone with that tag first.

You could even use that group of people with that tag to poll them about

what they find most challenging about preparing quick and healthy meals, and

use that information in future content.

Tagging allows you to segment your list and really tailor your offers to people.

Don't wait to get started with tagging.

Another email mistake is not emailing the people on the list you're building.

I get this.

Oh my gosh, I avoided this like the plague.

You worked hard to get people to sign up on your list.

Now you worry that you don't want to bother them by sending them an email.

And maybe you worry that people will unsubscribe if you send them

an email or you don't know what to write about in your emails.

You might be overthinking how often you should send those emails.

What would the format look like?

Or I can't decide on an email service provider, so I can't

send out any emails there.

The list goes on and on.

The truth is that people will unsubscribe.

Just accept that and always be growing your email list so you

can keep adding more new people faster than there are unsubs.

So your list number will always be moving upward.

You need to keep in touch with these folks, Decide what interval is

doable for you, and then stick to it.

Again, experiment with your format for your email.

Call it a newsletter.

You can give it a name, add different sections, features, stories.

Just have some fun with it.

Ask people questions, suggest new products, new services, be consistent.

And the longer you go without missing a week, you won't.

You won't wanna break your streak.

So keep sending them out every week and it just becomes a habit.

Then if you wanna add a second regular, consistent day to send another email out.

Go for it.

Decide what's doable for you to regularly keep in touch.

Consistency is what matters here.

Just pick an amount of times that you can send that email and then do it.

Here are some sales mistakes.

This is category number three.

Waiting to put out an offer for sale.

Well, who is that genius that said, you have to give till it hurts?

Not offering anything for sale until you've almost burned yourself out?

That's ridiculous.

Don't wait to make an offer for your coaching services, for digital

products, for courses or programs.

In a dating analogy, we would say don't ask someone to marry

you on the first date, though.

There is a sweet spot and again, experiment.

Find out what that is.

Too many coaches wait too long to make a paid offer.

Months.

Years.

And even give away their best services without charging.

If you're giving away your coaching services for no payment,

you're just training people to expect everything for free.

So you've really gotta stop that.

Stop it now, and start offering coaching services and your

digital products and selling.

Another mistake is not selling the transformation.

In other words, not selling the results they will get by working with you.

People don't want a coaching package.

They want transformations.

So focus on the transformation that you're offering those coaching clients.

If you position your offer as to the transformation, the result that they're

going to get by doing the work with you in a coaching setting that will get you

better results with people wanting to take you up on your offer to coach with you.

This is a big mistake where coaches focus on putting together

a package of X coaching sessions for X weeks for however long.

No, people don't care how they get there.

They wanna be there.

They want the transformation, and they wanna be off the pain island

and onto that pleasure island.

So talk to that in your copy, in your content and in your discovery

sessions and see if that doesn't change the number of people who

are signing up to work with you.

Talk about the transformations.

And here's another selling mistake: over delivering and undervaluing.

While we're talking about working with people, stop doing this common

coaching mistake--undervaluing your services and over-delivering.

We touched on the undervaluing piece just a minute ago when I talked

about letting people think they can get all your services for free.

Charge what you think is fair and as far as over delivering, that one's a little

more difficult to reign in sometimes.

That's because coaches love giving.

You gotta think of the boundaries though.

Clients will respect you more when you step up and put up some boundaries

on your time and your access and what you'll tolerate from them.

Model what you would coach them around.

Here's another mistake, number four, Getting it perfect

before getting it out there.

All right.

Let's not pretend perfect is an illusion.

It's just a mirage.

Something made up in your mind or other people's minds.

It's not necessary to push for perfection, and it's slowing you

down and it's holding you back.

That means that people are out there looking for the answers

you have, and you're holding back on their moving forward.

Let this become your mantra.

Done is better than perfect.

So the blog posts you constantly tweak, add to, subtract from, rearrange,

and then eventually delete because you think they're not good enough?

They could be helping folks even in their original form before you

started doing plastic surgery on them.

So repeat this after me.

Done is better than perfect.

Done is better than perfect.

So be okay with B or B plus work.

It doesn't have to be a plus for it to be helpful for other people.

Those blog posts you've been working on forever?

Publish them.

That podcast?

Start it.

Don't wait for upteen years like I did.

Just freaking start it and then tweak it as you go.

That coaching program or course that you've been planning and working on

forever, decide that enough is enough.

And quite honestly, you probably already have too much content in

there already and just launch it.

You're gonna need feedback from the people who go through it to make it better.

You can't do that in your content corner in your office.

Do as Eleanor Roosevelt recommended.

She said, you must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Take a deep breath, get it out there.

Not later, but now.

Mistake number five is comparing yourself to others.

Now, I know it might be human nature to compare yourself against

someone else, but it's a mistake.

Don't fall for it.

And imposter syndrome.

You know, I don't know anyone who hasn't had at least a twinge of this where you

think, who am I to be teaching this?

Who am I to be doing this kind of work?

Just don't let that stop you.

Don't let it slow you down, though.

It's a mistake to give into these thoughts.

They're only thoughts.

Okay.

If you're comparing yourself where you are now, maybe you're just starting

out and you're comparing yourself to someone else's middle or late stages.

When you're just starting out, you don't always know that that person

has been what they've been through, and you don't know that they're

in their middle or late stages.

And sometimes people have been in other businesses before they start the one that

you're actually comparing yourself to, they have all that experience behind them.

Comparing yourself to others is the fastest path to low self-esteem.

So don't fall for that and don't make that mistake.

Compare yourself to others.

Compare yourself to where you were a month ago, six months ago or a year ago.

Compare yourself to yourself, not to others.

Number six mistake is not getting help.

Why do so many coaches think they have to do it all themselves?

I get it about being thrifty with the amount of money you spend on your

business, especially in the early stages.

But I see too many people who are slowed down by tech pieces that they

think they have to learn to do certain things in their business when they

just need to outsource that instead of spending time spinning wheels.

And struggling with understanding something that's not in your wheelhouse or

that makes you wanna pull out your hair.

Outsource that, spend more time then on income producing activity.

That should more than cover the cost of outsourcing.

And even then some.

Hiring someone to do the bits that you don't like to do, don't

know how to do or take too much time just makes so much sense.

Likewise.

If you're a coach, don't make the mistake of not hiring your own coach.

Working with a coach or a mentor is a smart investment in your

business, and it shows your clients that you practice what you preach.

In the category of getting help, I'm including this; don't make the mistake

of not getting an accountability partner or joining a mastermind

group to help hold you accountable.

Being a solopreneur is lonely and it's really easy to overthink

every little decision and then start second guessing everything.

That could lead to analysis paralysis, and then you're not moving forward.

So be sure to incorporate accountability into your week, accountability

partners or masterminds are a great way to keep you on the path to success.

Okay, so there you have it, at least six mistakes.

Actually more than that if you count the subcategories, but at least six mistakes

that new and seasoned coaches make all too often and how you can steer clear of them.

Knowing that they're out there, you can now avoid them.

Learn from these mistakes and learn from successful coaches who've

already forged a path that's working.

I'd love to continue this conversation over on Instagram.

Check out the thread over on Instagram at Dr.

Melissa Brown and be sure to post your biggest aha from this episode.

Include any mistakes or successes you think new coaches should

know about to help them get their content out in the world where

it's gonna do its greatest work.

Until next week, content creators keep publishing your compelling content.

You've got a message to get out there and your content is the way you'll reach all

of those folks who are looking for you.

Remember, they need you and they can only hear the solution to their

challenges, their unique situations, with the unique solution you bring.

You've got the answer, you've got the content.

Now go get it out there, out into the world where it will do its best work.

Thank you for tuning into this episode of the She's Got Content podcast.

I hope you got at least one nugget to take action on this week.

If you got value from today's episode, I would be so grateful

when you leave a five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts.

It only takes a second and it really helps me get my message out

to impact even more people so they can in turn, keep the ripple going.

If you're listening on Apple Podcast and leave a review of the show, it

would really make my day, and you just might receive a shout out on

the show as my content creator of the week when I read out your review.

And last but never least, if you want an endless supply of just right ideas for

content, you can write about for your blog post, your emails, your videos,

podcast episodes, all the content things, then you wanna head over to my

website at shesgotcontent.com/content and pick up your free workbook,

Never Run Out of Content Ideas.

Look for that link in the show notes today along with the other

links mentioned in today's episode.

Until next time, content creators, you've got an audience waiting to hear from you

and you've got content to share with them.

Stop being the best kept secret and make a bigger impact when you've