Hey! Have you been wanting to grow your coaching business but can't seem to make progress? I feel you! The fact is, it's not easy or intuitive to make money as a life coach or to create a life coaching business model. There are very real business skills we all need to learn!

In this episode I'll highlight the differences between coaching and business skills, emphasizes the importance of mindset, and share crritical steps for finding and nurturing leads, converting clients, and staying consistent with your business so that you can make a difference and impact the world as a life coach.

There IS a way to make money (and impact) as a coach, and it doesn't have to feel impossible.

Ready to get started finding and nurturing your email list? Download my free guide to getting your business online in just a weekend! https://bonniewiscombe.mykajabi.com/l...

Need help right away? Join me during FREE office hours! Get coaching or find out the next step in your business: https://lu.ma/bonniewiscombe

00:00 Introduction: The Struggles of Building a Coaching Business

00:38 Understanding the Dual Skill Sets of Coaching and Business

01:30 Step 1: Mastering the Customer Journey

05:04 Step 2: Managing Your Mental Stories

10:41 Step 3: The Power of Consistency

13:26 Conclusion: Embrace the Journey to Success

The bummer is that these small,

simple steps are not exciting.

2

They're not sexy.

3

They're not grandiose.

4

Nobody's going to be like, Oh, you posted

every day on social media this week.

5

Good job.

6

Nobody cares.

7

Right?

8

They don't seem to matter.

9

important, but it's these small

ones that make all the difference.

10

Eventually, you're going to get to

a point where these small, simple

11

actions are just second nature to you.

12

They're just a habit.

13

And then you can build from there

and do bigger, greater things.

14

But if you don't start small,

you never make progress.

15

This is Burning Brightly, a podcast

for Christian moms who are feeling

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called to build a business and

share their light with the world.

17

I'm Bonnie Wiscombe, a life coach,

mom, and entrepreneur, and I'm honored

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to be your guide as you face this

business building adventure full of

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highs, lows, and everything in between.

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This is where we help each

other find the courage to shine.

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Hey there.

22

So I bet that you got into the

coaching space to make an impact,

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to make a difference, to change

the world in some way or another.

24

But why in the world is it so hard

to build the business aspect of it?

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Why can't you find clients?

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Why can't you make money?

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I get it, my friend.

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I have been there too.

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If you are tired of running around and

trying all the things that the experts

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tell you to do and still not making any

money as a coach, then this is for you.

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So let's dive into this.

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Here's the issue.

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Being a coach and being a business owner

require two very different skill sets.

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Being a coach requires compassion and

understanding and a listening ear.

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It involves seeing things

from a different perspective.

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It involves helping clients

stay accountable, managing

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their own minds, staying neutral

while you look at their lives.

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So many deep skill sets that

I bet you're really good at.

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Unfortunately, building a business

requires much different skills

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and they are real tactical skills

that we have to develop or we're

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never going to have a successful

business like we're dreaming of.

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Being a business owner requires

being analytical and creative.

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You have to be able to try and try and try

and fail and still get up and keep going.

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You have to be disciplined.

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You have to be consistent

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and you have to be a big thinker who was

willing to be persistent until it works.

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But I bet you can see some

of those skills in yourself.

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You just haven't yet figured out a

way to combine them in a way that

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works and is profitable for you.

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So we're going to talk about that today.

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First of all, of course, you have

to believe that you can become

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a successful business owner.

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We know as coaches, the mind

is the key to everything.

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So if you don't believe you

can do it, you can't, you're

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not going to be able to do it.

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That is the truth.

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So step number one is going to

be working on your own mindset.

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Of course you know that, but I'm going

to talk about three other steps that are

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critical for building a business that

is successful today and in the longterm

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so that you can make a difference in the

world like you're dreaming of and actually

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make money to change your family's life.

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Okay, so step number one, you need

to know and intimately understand

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the basic customer journey

for your customer or client.

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What does that mean?

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It means what are the steps

they're going to have to go through

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to be willing to buy from you?

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You would never meet a person

online, a random stranger and

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get married to them the next day.

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That's weird and creepy.

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Similarly, it is extremely rare

to confront a business online

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and immediately pay them money.

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That might happen with a random business

on Amazon, but it's not going to happen

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For a coach who's asking hundreds or

thousands of dollars to work with someone.

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Your audience needs to know you, they

need to like you, and they need to

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trust that you can give them results.

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If they don't believe those things

and they don't like you for whatever

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reason, they're never going to pay you

the money that you are asking to give

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them this transformation in your life.

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So that's what we have to understand.

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What steps do they have to go through

in order to be ready to hire me and

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have faith in themselves and in me

in helping them get those results.

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So that basic customer

journey has three steps.

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Lots of threes today.

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Number one, you have to

be able to find new leads.

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What is a lead?

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It is any person who has given

you their contact information.

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So if you have 50, 000 followers on

Instagram or more, those are not leads.

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Those are just followers and you

could lose your account tomorrow.

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Or as we've seen lately, Instagram

could switch their algorithm up

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so that none of your followers

are even seeing your content.

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That is not a lead.

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So you have to get your

audience to become leads.

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What does that look like?

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Looks like exchanging value

for their email address.

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What are you going to give

them in exchange for a way

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to contact them regularly?

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Now how do we find these leads?

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Lots of different ways.

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Probably social media you're already

doing, maybe on YouTube, word of mouth.

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If you have clients or other people

that know how you can give them

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transformations, ask them to tell their

friends about you, referrals, right?

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Maybe even paid ads or getting in

front of other people's audiences,

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like swapping podcast interviews

or guest posting on someone's blog.

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Lots of different ways to get in front

of strangers in the hopes that they

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will give you their contact information.

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So once we have leads, step

number two in the customer

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journey is to nurture those leads.

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Again, like the dating analogy,

if you meet a stranger and you go

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on a date or two, now how do we

nurture this relationship until

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it becomes something more serious?

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We do this with more free

content and more free help.

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When do you want to work with somebody

online when they've already helped

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you get results in some way or

another through their free content,

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again, blogs, podcasts, YouTube

videos, email sequences, right?

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If you're sending out emails every

week, is it giving them really good

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value that is helping them get to a

better place so that they know when

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they're really ready to see results,

they come and pay you for those results.

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So that's the nurturing step.

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Find those leads, nurture those leads.

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And then the third step in that customer

journey is to help them become clients.

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How do we help them become clients?

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By converting them to clients.

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This is like the proposal in a

relationship, the engagement, right?

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How do we get ready for marriage

or that client coach relationship?

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Now there's lots of different ways to

ascend the relationship to where they

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pay you money, but that could look like

webinars where you pitch your It could

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look like sales calls for a lot of us.

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It's just, we get on a one on one

call with somebody and we say,

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Hey, tell me about your problem.

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I'll tell you about my solution.

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Does it sound like a good fit?

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And they say yes or no.

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And we move on.

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In other words, anytime you are

chatting with somebody and you offer

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a solution to their problem and they

choose to work with you, that is

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how you convert them into a client.

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so that is step number one of how to

grow your coaching business is be really

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familiar with that customer journey.

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Step number two, actively

manage your stories.

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What stories am I talking about?

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I'm talking about the mental stories that

go through our mind all day long, like

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a loop stories that we think are truth.

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This is what life coaches do, right?

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We manage the mind so that we can

go out and accomplish big dreams.

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It's always our mind that's keeping us,

always our mind that's keeping us stuck.

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We know that when we coach people

on weight loss or organization or

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relationships or anything else,

it's the same thing in business.

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This is why I chose to get certified as

a life coach before coaching on business.

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I would try to help friends

and family with business.

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They'd ask for my advice.

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They'd say, , how would

you build this business?

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What should I do next?

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And I would give them advice

and then they wouldn't take

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action and it drove me crazy.

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I'm thinking, why are you asking me

for advice if you're not taking action?

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Because the stories

were keeping them stuck.

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Once I learned that and I learned how

to push through those stories, how

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to break them apart, dismantle them a

little bit, then I could really help

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my friends and family and clients get

the results they wanted because they

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knew how to push through those stories.

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So what stories?

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keep you stuck when it comes to

growing your coaching business.

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Now there are a handful of

them that almost all of us go

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through at one time or another.

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So I'm going to list them for you.

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A big one is imposter syndrome.

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That means feeling like you don't belong,

feeling like you're not a good coach.

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You're not a good business owner.

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You don't belong in

the entrepreneur space.

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You don't belong on this side of

the camera or phone or in person

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coaching another human being.

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If you feel like an imposter in

any way, shape, or form, feel Then

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that might be what's plaguing you.

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What kind of stories are keeping

this imposter syndrome in place?

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Are you telling yourself

that you don't belong there?

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Are you telling yourself you

can't charge a certain amount?

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What is the thought loop that

keeps you in that negative space?

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Another big one is fear of failure.

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We know that it's going to

require more than one try to

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build a successful business.

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And if you've tried it for more than five

minutes, you know it's going to require

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failure after failure after failure.

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I personally actually love the term

failure now because I've taken it

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to mean a trial that didn't work.

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And so now I know that's not

the way to build my business.

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Now I'm going to find a different

way to build my business, right?

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Failure is so useful.

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But if we're afraid of it, we are

never going to be successful because

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we have to be willing to fail.

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We have to be willing to mess up.

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And we have to be willing to not make it

mean anything negative about us, right?

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Failing is good.

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If you can't fail, you

cannot build a business.

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So the next time you fail, so for example,

you put out a product or an offer or

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something and people don't buy it.

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I want you to tell yourself, I just

figured out something that doesn't work.

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I'm that much closer to

figuring out what does work.

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So that fear of failure is a

big story that keeps us stuck.

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What about a fear of embarrassment?

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A lot of people are worried.

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Well, I want to be a coach and I

want to offer help, but what are

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my friends and family going to say?

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What's my neighbor going to say?

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What am I going to look like when

I start making videos on Instagram

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or on YouTube or somewhere else?

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What are people going to say?

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Well, I don't know.

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It doesn't matter cause what they say is

completely irrelevant to your business.

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It does not mean anything.

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Your neighbor can hate your

business and you can still go

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on to make a million dollars.

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Your neighbor never has to be a client

or a customer nor your mom or your

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sister or anybody else in your life.

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You can be successful regardless

of what the people around you say.

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There are clients and customers for you.

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So you have to watch out for

those stories that are saying,

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someone's going to make fun of me.

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Somebody's going to say something nasty.

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Yeah.

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Welcome to the internet.

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People say mean things, move through it.

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Check those thoughts.

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And then finally, another big one that

I especially see amongst Christian

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women is the fear of being salesy.

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Nobody wants to come off as spammy.

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The idea of looking like a used car

salesman is everyone's worst nightmare.

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You don't want your friends turning around

and running the opposite direction when

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they see you because you feel salesy.

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This is just a story.

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What does salesy mean?

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Why do you not like that

type of salesperson?

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What do you think or feel

when you confront them?

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And how do you avoid thinking or

feeling that way when you show up

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to sell something to someone else?

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What is a sales experience you've

been in on the client or customer

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side that you've really enjoyed?

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How could you channel that?

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Right?

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There is no such thing

as good or bad sales.

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It's just the emotions you

want to feel around it.

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So how can you be a saleswoman,

salesperson who It creates the

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kind of emotions that you love

in your clients or customers.

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Now this is what I do all day long

with my clients, is we look at those

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stories, we look at those soundtracks

and we tweak them a little bit.

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We try to loosen their grip on us so much.

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When we tell ourselves these

stories long enough, they become

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truth in our mind, even though

they're not serving us very well.

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So if you find these stories, It could

be causing problems for you as well.

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Here is how to loosen

their hold on your brain.

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Number one, identify the story.

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What is it you're telling yourself?

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So let's go back to imposter syndrome.

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Maybe the line that keeps running through

your head is, I'm not a good coach.

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Maybe you didn't have a lot of faith in

your certification program, or maybe you

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didn't take a certification program, but

you feel strongly about helping people.

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Your brain keeps coming back

to, I'm not a good coach.

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Okay.

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So identify that story.

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Number two, call it out as a story.

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Remind yourself.

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There's not really any such thing

as a good coach or a bad coach.

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Some people are going to love my coaching.

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Some people are not

going to like it, right?

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So call it out as a story.

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It's not factual or objective.

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It's just subjective.

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It's what your brain is coming up with.

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Number three, ask yourself,

what else is true?

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What else is true about this story?

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So I might not consider myself a

good coach right now, but I have

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the tools to become a better coach.

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entire internet at my fingertips.

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I bet I could become a better

coach with more practice, right?

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So it's okay to believe I'm not

a great coach right now if I also

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believe, I know how to become better,

And then finally shift yourself into

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a place where you can believe both.

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Can I believe that I'm not a great

coach right now and I can become better?

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Sure.

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And that feels so much more powerful

than sitting and staying stuck in

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that story of I'm not a good coach.

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I'm not a good coach.

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So identify the story, call

it out as unhelpful and

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something you want to let go of.

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Ask yourself what else is true

and then shift into a place where

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you can believe both things.

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All right.

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So we've identified that customer journey.

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We are actively managing our

stories, managing our mind.

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The final thing we need

to do, be consistent.

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This can be so difficult, especially

when we don't see evidence that what

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we're doing is actually working.

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You have to get up and do it again

and do it again and do it again.

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Even when it seems like it doesn't work.

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The fact of the matter is anytime we want

to see a transformation or success in

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any area of our life, the results come

after days, weeks, months, sometimes

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years of consistent, small efforts.

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Take weight loss, for example.

298

What if the first time you cut out

sugar, you expected to lose 50 pounds,

299

you'd be seriously disappointed.

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And you would want to go right back to the

sugar because you think this doesn't work.

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I give up.

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Or the first day you counted

macros, you're like, this is the

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day I'm going to lose 10 pounds.

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No, that's not realistic.

305

We know that.

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It sounds silly when we talk about

it like that, but in business,

307

we expect immediate results.

308

We put out a reel on social media

and we expect it to get 5, 000 views.

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Well, it's not working.

310

Well, it's not working.

311

Well, yeah, right now it's

not working because we haven't

312

been doing it long enough.

313

Small, tiny, consistent efforts over

time is what will give you success.

314

The bummer is that these small,

simple steps are not exciting.

315

They're not sexy.

316

They're not grandiose.

317

Nobody's going to be like, Oh, you posted

every day on social media this week.

318

Good job.

319

Nobody cares.

320

Right?

321

They don't seem to matter.

322

important, but it's these small

ones that make all the difference.

323

Eventually, you're going to get to

a point where these small, simple

324

actions are just second nature to you.

325

They're just a habit.

326

And then you can build from there

and do bigger, greater things.

327

But if you don't start small,

you never make progress.

328

The fact of the matter is these small,

simple things will feel like not enough.

329

I guarantee you most Fridays, I think,

gosh, what did I even get done this week?

330

It doesn't feel like enough, but

I put out my podcast and I posted

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on social media and I emailed my.

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List, and I did the small, simple

things that I was supposed to do, even

333

though they don't look big and little

by little, that's what yields success.

334

In truth, not everyone is willing

to do those small, simple things.

335

In fact, very few people are willing to.

336

A lot of people try business for a while

and then they give up because it didn't

337

yield the success they wanted in three

months, six months, maybe even a year,

338

but that's how you are going to win

is by sticking with it and doing those

339

small, simple things for a long time.

340

So the trick is to just keep

showing up every single day.

341

Take some small action in those

three steps of your customer journey.

342

Every single week, find those new people,

nurture them, convert them to clients, and

343

eventually you will start seeing success.

344

It's like getting a freight

train moving, right?

345

At the beginning, it's so hard.

346

It feels like every step

forward is a Herculean effort.

347

And then eventually, It's going

along at a clip that you get to even

348

hop on and ride for a little bit.

349

That's when your business is making money.

350

It's profitable.

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And it's really making an impact that

you dreamed that you'd be able to make.

352

But at the beginning,

it's going to be hard.

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It's supposed to be hard.

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There isn't one single moment that's

going to make you feel like a success

355

in business until one day you wake

up and go, Oh, it's everywhere.

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I see signs of success everywhere.

357

It just kind of creeps up on you

because of those small, simple steps.

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So get out there, be consistent, manage

your brain, take action in all three of

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those steps of your customer journey.

360

And you will absolutely see success.

361

Just remember that every mistake, failure,

misstep, screw up along the way is one

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step forward in the right direction.

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Good luck, my friends.

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I'm rooting for you.

365

Are you ready to start or

grow your dream business?

366

Click the link in the show notes to

download the free starter guide to

367

building a business or to schedule

a free coaching call And if you

368

loved this episode, Don't forget

to leave a review and share it with

369

a friend who might be feeling the

call to burn a little brighter.