Jo Lott focuses on the power of reflection and strategic planning for coaches as they transition into a new year. She invites listeners to reflect on their biggest wins, client transformation stories, and valuable lessons learned over the past year and create a vision for 2025, visualize their success and plan strategically for the future.

Episode Timestamps:

• [00:02:00] Reflection exercise: Biggest wins in coaching business
• [00:06:00] Reflecting on business mission and values
• [00:07:00] Analyzing business metrics and growth
• [00:08:00] Honest business review: What didn't work this year
• [00:09:00] Discussion on long-term business vision
• [00:14:00] Vision planning for December 2025

I hope you found this episode inspiring and helpful! If you’d like to dive deeper, I invite you to join me for my online workshop on December 5th, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM. Connect with other amazing coaches and craft a vision for your successful 2025!

Useful Links

Register for the 2025 Visionary Planning Online Workshop For Coaches

Download the Free Digital version of Coches' Planner (edition 2025)

Buy on Amazon a shiny printed copy of Coches' Planner (edition 2025)

How to secure more coaching clients' free training

Download the 12 ways to get clients now

Learn about The Business of Coaching programme

Connect with Jo on LinkedIn

Rate and Review the Podcast

If you found this episode of Women in the Coaching Arena helpful, please do rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

If you’re kind enough to leave a review, please do let Jo know so she can say thank you. You can always reach her at: joanna@joannalottcoaching.com

Enjoyed This Episode?

Don’t Miss the Next One! Hit subscribe on your favourite podcast app to be notified each time a new episode of Women in the Coaching Arena.

Hello and welcome to Women in the Coaching arena podcast.

I'm so glad you're here.

I'm Jo Lott, a business mentor and ICF accredited coach and I help coaches to build brilliant businesses.

I know that when you prepare to.

Enter the arena there is fear, self doubt, comparison, anxiety, uncertainty.

You can tend to armour up and.

Protect yourself from vulnerability.

In this podcast I'll be sharing honest, not hype, practical and emotional tools to.

Support you to make the difference that you're here for Dare Greatly.

You belong in this arena.

Welcome to the 89th episode of Women in the Coaching Arena.

I am so glad you are here.

Yesterday I heard the news that my podcast is in the top 3% of all podcasts globally, which feels amazing.

So I really want to thank you so much for listening, for reviewing, for rating, for sharing the podcast.

It's hugely appreciated.

In celebration, I would love to invite you to take a moment to hit on the show name and then scroll down and leave a rating and review.

If you are an Apple listener, you can leave a review as well as a rating.

If you listen on other platforms it might just be a rating that's allowed and once you have done so, please share with me and I will enter your name into a draw to win free access to my Signature Solution course.

If you have already purchased the course, I will think of an alternative, perhaps a one to one call.

So if you gain value from the show, I would hugely appreciate your review and rating.

It makes such a difference to me and other people who are wanting to find the show.

Every good year starts by reflecting on the past, so I would love to invite you to take a moment to reflect on these three powerful questions.

What were your biggest wins for this year in your coaching business?

Really allow yourself to step into these wins and recognize them.

It's my biggest secret weapon in my program to help people to keep looking at what's going well because I really believe that what we focus on grows.

Okay, second question is what client transformation story made your heart sing?

For me, I'm thinking about a client who I had a discovery call with nearly a year ago now.

I guess because she's coming towards the end of her program with me at the moment and fortunately she's continuing in my next level Mastermind, which is really exciting.

But why I really like thinking about her story is because I remember our discovery call really well and she was saying, to be honest, I just don't believe I can ever earn above 25,000 a year from coaching and I want to earn more, but I don't think even if I joined the program it would be possible for me.

And fortunately she did join the program and she contacted me recently to say she had earned her 25,000 within six months.

So there is absolutely no reason why she can't earn that 50,000 within the year.

So I cannot wait for her to bust through that limiting belief that she could not earn more than that amount.

It also means a lot to me because she is balancing her work with being a parent, the school run, all of the things that we need to do.

And therefore I think that's often where the ceiling comes from because we think, well, I don't want to work myself into the ground.

I can only really work part time hours because the school day is really short.

So I need to take a part time wage which for many people is 25,000.

So yeah, it brings me a lot of joy.

And the third question I would love to invite you to reflect on is what challenge taught you the most valuable lesson?

For me, I guess the challenge probably was that my program has grown really rapidly over the last four months or so, I guess and with that brought the worry that I wouldn't be able to provide the sort of service I want to provide and therefore I should scale back rather than scale up.

But for me, I've always had the dream of helping a lot of people.

I have always been the group type.

My absolute vision is to help a million people be happier.

So for me I need to continue to reach as many people as I can to be able to fulfill my mission and help more people access coaching.

Therefore, to overcome that challenge, I created a four week small group accelerator.

So that's calls weekly with me and no more than five other people to really help my clients.

Now the niche create an amazing offer and take some steps to sell that within the first four weeks of their program.

This has worked really well because it's enabled me to get to know my clients on a really deep level quite quickly.

It's enabled them to get to know a few people who are also starting the program at the same time as them.

It's enabled a better and smoother transition into my group program calls.

So I'm really excited that instead of backing out and backing down at that stage when I was feeling that resistance, I actually came up with an idea that would enable me to continue the personal support that I currently offer.

So for me, I would say that has been my biggest lesson in that you can figure out ways if you are determined to continue your mission and continue bringing your values into your business.

Okay, that was our part one, the power of reflection.

Part two is numbers with heart.

So now let's look at your numbers, but not just any numbers, let's look at the ones that tell the story of your impact.

How has your network or social media presence increased this year?

Have a look back at your stats and see if you have grown.

I love doing this exercise in my group and we literally go on mute and do it there and then because otherwise looking at numbers can be a task that we really avoid.

And I do the exercise at the same time as my clients and I'm always wowed when I look back at my spreadsheet and I literally see like, oh, I was thousands less then of connections followers.

I also note things like podcast listeners.

So even if you are not just looking at the figures of clients, really allow yourself to see your growth in your business.

Next up is how many clients did you serve?

You might also want to think about how many discovery calls that you held and how many offers that you made and what your conversion rate might be.

In other words, what's the difference between the amount of offers that you made and clients that you brought on?

What was your most profitable offering and which marketing channel brought you the best clients?

For me, that's my podcast, because people know me then well enough to know that I am the right fit for them.

And I think it's really hard to build that relationship on just social media, for example.

So do take your time to track your numbers today.

Okay, section three, let's do an honest review.

Getting real for a moment and facing this head on.

What didn't work this year?

For me, my main goal for this year was to build a business that doesn't rely on my personal energy.

I have taken some steps towards that by hiring a team member, which has been amazing.

And just in the last three months, we've set up really good business systems that enable me to get more support in my business.

But I must say my business does still depend on my personal energy.

Which offerings drained your energy?

So for me, this was my offer to market program.

It actually wasn't that energy draining this time, but it usually is.

This time we moved from Facebook to Slack and there's usually posts every single day which is like a really hectic month for me.

But I don't really like short term fixes and this off to market is a 30 day program and I much prefer people working towards the vision and a long term goal.

My wonderful friend Faye Wallace told me yesterday that she once had this great interview training when she was first starting out in her job and they said if you're interviewing someone you're looking for different things at different levels.

So for example, if it's a junior person you're going to want to make sure that they can manage their day.

If it's a mid level person you're going to want to make sure they can manage their week.

And if it's a senior leader you need to make sure that they can look years ahead and hold that vision of where we are headed and planned for a really long time to get there.

And my joy is in that leader space.

Someone who is going into business in the long term, this is not a quick fix, this is something that they are committed to.

And so therefore for me a 30 day program just doesn't light me up.

So that was my offering which drained my energy.

What feedback did you receive but maybe avoid addressing?

I was about to send a feedback form today actually to my people that attended my Dare Greatly event last week and do you know what?

I felt like I'm so tired right now.

I don't think I've got the energy to do this form and open it up and receive the feedback.

And I know that's a really bad thing but I just thought maybe another day.

But right now I needed to get an email out about a few things, you know, contact details of each other and a few different things.

And I just thought I'm going away tonight.

I really do not want to be checking my Google forms and starting to get in my head about feedback.

I know the initial feedback was amazing and the people I've spoken to was great, but the feedback I am maybe avoiding addressing is getting more detailed feedback as to what I can improve next time and I may do that at a future date.

But in all transparency that is the feedback I may be avoiding getting.

And the final question in this section is where did you play?

Too small for me.

I had a realization maybe a couple of months ago that where I am now versus where I think I am are completely different things.

So you will understand this feeling if I'm not the only one who feels this way of feeling like everyone else is, are grown up and they really know their staff and they're sensible and they're considered.

So for me, it's not realizing how established I am now, especially now I'm going into this next level mastermind.

I've been looking at people that are joining thinking, oh my gosh, you know, they're amazing, and then realizing, well, I'm doing amazing things as well.

So I think sometimes there is that gap between where we are and where we perceive ourselves.

So for me, I probably played too small by not really owning my accomplishments and what I have personally achieved in terms of personal growth because I see lots of shiny white and beige coaches out there.

My client Nirvana said that to me once, which I love.

In other words, these Instagram shiny people that don't look like real human beings.

And sometimes you see them and think, oh my gosh, like what am I missing?

They're telling you all these mistakes you're making and then sometimes they share a post and their earnings or their client successes are nowhere near as good as mine.

Or like their podcast is nowhere near on the charts.

And I'm like, God, that's so weird because I feel like you're so far ahead of me.

So I think I am internally in an identity place, perhaps playing smaller than I am in reality in our industry.

Okay, so here is the exciting part.

Section four is our vision planning.

Take a moment to think about how many clients you are serving.

Then what does your signature program look like?

How are you feeling by the end of each coaching day?

Think about the amazing results that your clients are having.

Think about how you have developed as a person.

What is your ideal weekly schedule?

Ensure that you are fitting in those walks and all of the things that you want to do around your working day.

Take a moment to think about that now and once you have listened or you can pause this episode, do write down all of this as if it's already happened.

Feel the emotion of achieving this.

I did this exercise at my in person event where people wrote a card to their future self.

This was at the end of January.

Actually it was just a one month challenge.

I did and I'm going to post their cards to them at the end of January.

And then allow yourself to just keep writing and see what comes.

Okay, so let's move into some strategic planning now.

I would recommend listing down all of the things that you want to do and start mapping them out across the year.

So for example, if you know you have a big project like launching a podcast or creating a then put that in your annual plan for some time in the future if it's not a priority now.

What I noticed from working with lots of amazing people is that we just have too many ideas and not enough focus on one of them.

So having that plan across the year, knowing that you have recorded it and you're not going to forget that idea, but right now that's not your focus is a really powerful thing to do.

So many people couldn't make my in person day in Barnes on Friday and wanted an online version.

So I'm really excited to be currently planning an online version on 5th December from 10 till 12.

This will be a paid workshop because I want to do breakout rooms.

I want to post a proper printed Amazon copy of my planner and a few other goodies for those who want them.

I want it to be a full immersive experience, a bit like my day was, although a super mini version because it's just two hours rather than eight hours.

You will find the link to sign up in the show notes and I cannot wait to see you then.

And like I say at the end of every episode, trust yourself, believe in yourself and be the wise gardener who keeps on watering the seed.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Women in the Coaching Arena.

I have a mass of free resources on my website.

JoannaLotCoaching.com that's Joanna with an A and Lot with two Ts.

JoannaLotCoaching.Com and I'll also put links in.

The show notes below.

Let me know if you found this episode useful.

Share it with a friend and leave me a review and I will personally thank you for that.

Remember to trust yourself, believe in yourself and be the wise gardener who keeps on watering the seed.

Get into the arena, dare greatly and try.