In this episode of The Bread Winner Podcast, Caroline discusses the transformative power of working with a coach. She shares her personal journey of overcoming fear, indecision, and perfectionism by investing in a business coach, and how this decision has accelerated her growth far beyond what she could have achieved on her own.

Caroline discusses the invaluable benefits of having a coach to hold you accountable, offer expert guidance, and provide a fresh perspective on your business challenges. She highlights how a coach can help you step into the role of a confident business owner with clear goals and actionable steps.

Caroline also addresses the cost of staying stuck in your comfort zone and the missed opportunities that come from not seeking outside help. Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or simply unsure of your next steps, this episode is packed with insights to help you see the immense value of investing in yourself and your business. Tune in to discover why a coach might be the missing piece to help you break through barriers, make bold decisions, and achieve the business growth you’ve been dreaming of.

Links to things we talked about:

Join The Bread Winner Inner Circle Waitlist

Book a 1:1 Coaching Call with Caroline

Download the FREE Guide and Checklist, Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery at https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist to begin building YOUR thriving microbakery! 

Caroline Bower Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carolinebower_sourdough

Episode 15 | coaching

Welcome to the Breadwinner Podcast. This is the show for sourdough micro bakery owners who are building a sustainable, successful, profitable business from their home. If you are already in business or if you're dreaming of starting one, this is the place for you. I'm your host, Caroline Bower. I own a successful in home sourdough bakery, and I am here to share everything I've learned that works and that doesn't, plus everything that I'm researching along the way so we can build thriving businesses together.

Hello. And welcome back to another episode of The Bread Winner Podcast. Today's topic is one that is incredibly crucial if you have big goals to grow and scale your business.

If you've been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, Or like you're spinning your wheels. This episode is for you. Today. I really want to convince you that there. Is no better investment that you can make for your business then working with a coach .

If you're anything like me, you have a long list of things. That you might want or need to invest money in things like more equipment, specialized ingredients, different tools, even marketing costs.

Not to mention paying yourself after the hard work that you do.

It can be hard to allocate money for something that doesn't give you an immediate, tangible return, like the investment of equipment would.

This is someone who can see your blind spots. Can call you out on your self doubt. And holds you accountable. When you're tempted to shrink back into your comfort zone. A Coach, isn't just a cheerleader. There are a guide, a strategist, and sometimes they're the loving, but firm voice that says you need to get out of your own way.

So let's go ahead and start with the first big question. Why do you even need a coach in the first place? There's so much free information on the internet. You can find the answer to just about anything. If you do enough digging.

If you're like me, you've probably already spent many hours scouring Facebook groups looking through all of the comments and all of the threads. And gleaning little insights here and there.

And as we know, there's not a lot of other information about growing a sourdough micro bakery, online things like blog posts, YouTube videos.

When I got to the point where I knew I really needed to dig deep to grow my business. I realized that the amount of time that I was spending culling through all of these posts. And comments on Facebook groups. Was not giving me any sort of return on the investment of that time.

Things to consider that there's a lot of misinformation, a lot of irrelevant information, a lot of people just sharing their opinions. So you're going to have to spend hours upon hours to find the tidbit that's going to move you forward. Time is the non-renewable resource that we cannot get back. We really need to think carefully about how we're spending our time.

I'm probably not the only one who has whiled away hours scrolling on Facebook groups when I could have been producing a tangible product that I can sell to make more money.

And when you need it. They help you skip the guesswork and the endless rabbit holes of will. This actually work? Or maybe this will work. Maybe this is the thing to try next. Instead of spending hours to DIY your way through every problem, you can get clear expert guidance. Tailored specifically to your situation.

When you work with a coach, you go from being the overwhelmed business owner with a million questions and nowhere to turn for answers.

To stepping into the role of C E O. of a successful micro bakery. With a clear path forward, knowing exactly what your next step is. That clarity is priceless.

All of this is coming from personal experience.

About three months ago, I made the kind of scary decision to invest a chunk of money to hire a business coach.

I had been spending a lot of time wanting to launch this podcast and knowing that I really wanted to serve other sourdough micro bakery owners through my own business experience. But getting stuck in indecision, in analysis, in perfectionism, and I would have stayed there. Probably for, well over a year, thinking that I had this idea on my heart, but I just needed to wait for the right time to do it, or I needed to have everything perfect before I could take action.

I was just crippled by perfectionism and overthinking and self doubt.

So I finally got to the point where I realized I needed to do something beyond myself. I always going to stay in my own way and keep myself stuck, and take tiny baby steps forward little by little, and maybe eventually do the big things I wanted to, but I really needed accountability if I was going to take big action and make a big impact.

So coming straight from experience in the first six weeks of investing in coaching I accomplished so much more than I would have in six months. If I was trying to do it by myself. I made decisions faster, taking bigger steps, and stop letting my fear run the show.

So my coach helps get me out of my head.

And that accountability and the fact that I've got some real skin in the game I've invested financially and emotionally. It's been an absolute game changer for me.

So my coach doesn't do the work for me. That's up to me. But what she does is tells me the exact action that I need to take. I could spend hours and hours researching. Or I could go to my coach with my problems and she could help me uncover the right next step to keep me moving forward.

And let's be real, when you've paid good money for guidance, you're a lot less likely to ignore it. I'm so much more motivated. Because I'm not just letting myself down. If I don't take action. I'm kind of letting my coach down to. And that kind of accountability is so valuable.

So that's my personal experience.

The first thing that a goal that a coach can help you do is find clarity on your goals. It's one thing to have big dreams. It's another to break them down into clear, actionable steps. A, Coach helps you cut through all of the noise and focus in on what really matters.

Coach is going to give you accountability. Knowing that someone's going to check in on you and that you're going to report back to this person every couple of weeks and check in on your progress is going to light a fire under you. Even if you're like me and sometimes you accomplish those action steps the day before the coaching call.

At least they got done right. It's easy to let yourself off the hook. But when you have someone invested in that success, when you have someone who's going to ask you about it, You're not going to want to say, oh, I didn't do it again. You're so much more likely to follow through.

They've helped others just like you. And they know the shortcuts and the strategies that work.

Another really valuable thing that can come from investing and coaching is just a fresh perspective. I experienced this just this morning on my coaching call. I mentioned the economy. We, if you're listening to this, when it's being recorded, we are right here in an election year and there's so much buzz about the economy, but she reminded me. That as small businesses, we are not Nike.

It's hard to step back and see the big picture. So a coach can bring an outside perspective. And can spot opportunities or obstacles that you might've missed.

Again, and along the same lines of that example is a coach is going to help you overcome your mindset blocks. I personally had a mindset block against sending an email newsletter. I know it sounds silly, but it's something that I haven't dragged my feet on for weeks. And I finally overcame it and sent that email.

So fear imposter syndrome, perfectionism.

So working through those mental blocks with someone who can see the big picture from the outside is going to help you step into the confident, capable business owner that you are meant to be.

So now that we've talked about the benefits, let's talk a little bit about the other side of the coin. The cost of not investing in a coach. So think about where you are right now in your business,

what's keeping you stuck. Maybe it's fear, maybe it's indecision. Maybe it's just feeling overwhelmed by everything that you have to do. Maybe you have more demand than you have capacity and you're not quite sure how to restructure or how to delegate. Or what to cut out to make the forward progress that you need to.

Let me ask you, how long have you been stuck in this place?

Now if you're super happy with where your business is right now, and you just want to stay status quo.

That's one thing. But I'm talking to those of you who don't want to stay where you are right now, who really do want to have a larger impact. Maybe you want to earn more money to serve your family. Maybe you want to get your bread out in the community more. And get good bread in the homes of many more people.

So hopefully you can hear from me how passionate I am about the impact of coaching. I believed in coaching already, but just my own personal experience in the past few months has absolutely solidified everything that I already knew about the benefits and the necessity of coaching if you want to grow your business. And whether you are a micro bakery owner. And you want to focus specifically

The first is to work one-on-one with a coach. And this is what I've been doing and has been so completely transformative. And the second option also, Incredibly effective and usually a little bit more affordable is to join a group coaching program.

And I've taken that with me into running a bakery and starting this podcasting leg of my business.

Regardless of the way you go. Look around for a coaching option that feels aligned with your needs and that you resonate with the person who is offering the coaching.

Hopefully by this point, I have planted the seed or maybe even fully convinced you of the power behind investing in your business. Believing in yourself and choosing to put money behind the business that you're growing, because you know that investment is going to pay off in dividends.

It is the only group of its kind. If you want to find a group coaching program, You're probably not going to find one specific to sourdough.

There are certainly other business growth groups available. So that doesn't mean you have to join my groups simply because it is specific to sourdough, but it does mean that there won't be the extra fluff or explaining yourself to people in other industries, we're all starting on the same level playing field. You'll have support.

If you join the wait list, you'll get an email soon with more information and upcoming details about the launch.

And if you do want to work one-on-one with a coach. I offer that as well. There is a link also in the show notes to book a 45 minute coaching slot with me. This is where we get to chat face to face through the screen. And dive into the struggle that you're facing in your business and get you moving forward. I would love to chat with you.

I can't wait to help you take your business to the next level. Remember investing in a coach. Isn't just about the money. It's about betting on yourself, believing in yourself. This is sometimes hard for us as women to do. But knowing that you have potential and the impact that you are here to make is so significant.

That wraps up today's episode. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I'm so honored that I get to spend a little bit of time in your ears each week. If you found this episode helpful or inspiring, take a screenshot and share it to your Instagram story. Tag me. I'm Caroline Bower, B O w E R underscore sourdough. I truly love seeing the screenshots when you listen to the show, hearing your insight, seeing where you're listening from and us all getting connected. I love to reshare those posts. If you're not already following the show. Make sure to subscribe, leave me a rating and review that helps other people find the show so they can grow as well. This is the only podcast that is specific to growing a sourdough micro bakery. So we need to spread the word because there are people who are spending their hours digging through Facebook groups when they could just be growing in [00:19:00] community and getting unstuck.

All right. I will be back soon with a new episode until next time. Happy baking..