In this episode, business mentor and ICF-accredited coach Jo Lott discusses the five critical steps that coaches need to take to achieve financial independence and how long it might take to accomplish them. She emphasises the importance of choosing a profitable niche, creating an irresistible offer, building an audience, investing time in growing a financially viable business, and starting a personal growth journey. Jo shares her own experience and the experience of other coaches she has worked with, providing valuable insights and guidance for those looking to build a successful coaching business.

Steps to Financial Independence [00:00:28] Jo discusses the five critical steps coaches need to take to gain financial independence and how long it might take to achieve that.

Importance of a Profitable Niche [00:02:24] Jo emphasises the importance of choosing a profitable niche and the elements that need to be in place for a coaching business to succeed.

Elements of a Profitable Niche [00:07:49] Jo explains what she means by a profitable niche and the four elements that make up a solid niche.

Testing and Refinement of Niche [00:09:58] Jo talks about the importance of testing and refining a niche over time to achieve clarity on each element.

Front Door vs Back Door [00:11:02] The importance of leading with the client's immediate problem and not trying to sell them what they really need.

Profitable Niches [00:12:43] The different profitable niches for coaching, including business coaching, executive coaching, performance coaching, financial coaching, career coaching, health coaching, life coaching, fitness coaching, and relationship coaching.

Choosing a Niche [00:16:05] The average timeframe to choose a niche, which is around three years, and the importance of getting direct feedback and support.

Creating an Irresistible Offer [00:18:12] The top three mistakes coaches make when creating offers, including selling by the hour, selling by the number of sessions, and selling by the timeframe. The importance of focusing on the client's end goal. LINK TO SIGN UP TO LIVE FREE OFFER WORKSHOP ON 23 APRIL 2023 Create a high-value coaching offer (joannalottcoaching.com)

Steps to Financial Independence [00:20:55] The five critical steps to reach financial independence as a coach: choose a profitable niche, create an irresistible offer, build an audience, invest time, and work on your mindset.

Choosing a Profitable Niche [00:20:55] The importance of choosing a profitable niche and being specific when telling people what you do.

Building an Audience [00:22:52] The average timeframe to build an audience or community to sell to, and the need to nurture them until they are ready to buy.

Investing Time [00:24:56] The need to put in time, effort, and consistent active efforts to grow a financially viable business.

Working on Your Mindset [00:25:54] The need to be prepared for the ups and downs of building a business and the importance of investing in personal support to deal with mindset hurdles.

Closing Remarks [00:30:51] Jo Lott thanks the listeners for tuning in and encourages them to trust and believe in themselves. She also invites them to connect with her on LinkedIn and Instagram and share their progress in their coaching business.

Useful Links

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Connect with Jo on LinkedIn

Joanna Lott's website

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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

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Hello and welcome to episode [00:00:30] five of Women in the Coaching Arena. I'm so glad you are here. Today I'll be sharing an honest balanced and real look at the five critical steps that you need to reach to gain financial independence as a coach, and most importantly, how long that might take you. And before you run away thinking that this is gonna be more hype around how easy it is to build a six figure business with no work involved at all, this is different and it's the part that no one [00:01:00] seems to be talking about.

So there are many people making big promises without helping people understand what's involved [00:02:30] for that business growth to actually happen. And it's irresponsible. And as a business coach, I believe I have a duty to share typical results of my clients and not just those cherry picked five year old case studies that get dragged out year after year.

So there's a lot about leads on autopilot or attracting clients on autopilot, but at some [00:03:30] point, if you receive these people's money, you are going to have to provide a service. So I think that is a really, really key point that generally you will have to do a sales call and then service these clients.

So if you have a really big goal, then do map out what's the price of your product and how many clients will that mean for you to reach that goal.

If they create a great high value offer. If they ask for and act on the coach's feedback. If you are an excellent marketeer and market like a pro. If you [00:04:30] have an excellent work ethic and get on with things super, super quickly. If you invest heavily in your business, this type of success doesn't happen without a lot of investment into training and ads and all of those things.

Do you have a big audience or a super strong network? Because people buy from people they know, like, and trust. So it does take time to build up that trust with people. Have you got a great personality and amazing energy around you? Can you put in the time required to build this amazing business? Do you have the resilience to keep going? Because any business person will tell you [00:05:30] that it does require a lot of personal work and resilience to ride the rollercoaster of the entrepreneurial journey. Are you determined and committed? And lastly, are you proactively working on all of the kind of trauma triggers that come up when you are building your business?

And these things will come up. So it's a lot of things to align to be able to attract that level of success.

It will be of no surprise that these are the [00:07:00] elements I cover in my signature coaching program, the business of coaching, which takes coaches through these steps in the smoothest and fastest possible timeframe, as well as being supported so you take action a lot quicker than you would do alone.

This is my genuine experience of trying to do it the other way and of working with wonderful coaches, 35 or so coaches in the last year alone, and they are having the exact same problem. So we can either [00:08:30] keep batting away at trying to sell something that the majority of people don't understand enough to pay for. Or we can get super good at marketing and sales, which is the route I've gone down and why I've been successful in my executive, career and business coaching niches because we need to sell people what they want, not what they need. And I'll talk a bit more about that in this episode as well. So what do I mean when I say profitable [00:09:00] niche? I mean that you can build a sustainable, long-term coaching business around it. So yes, it's easy to land one or two clients with a vague niche or message, but it's another thing to be able to build a solid pipeline of clients that will sustain your business in the long-term.

So your goal is to work your way towards a hundred percent clarity on each of these elements. But in reality, this often takes coaches years of testing and refinement. So I would start with the [00:10:00] problem that you solve because people pay to fix very specific problems, and the more tangible you can make it, the more profitable it will be.

So in my program, the business of coaching, I refer to it as the front door and back door. So the front door is, for example, they hate their job and they [00:11:00] just want a new job. The back door, which is what many coaches often aim to sell and why it can be really, really difficult to sell it. It is the confidence to actually leave that job understanding their strengths and values to figure out what's next for them.

So I needed to lead with that front door. Her actual problem versus what I was trying to do is sell her what I knew that she really needed.

And is it something that they're consciously aware of or is it that little niggle that we all know we need to eat better and exercise more, but we're not really ready to do anything about it?

But there are many, many other profitable niches, and the key here is being brave enough to put a stake in the ground and actually stand for something. And it takes a lot of courage. It took me a lot of courage to get to this point, which again, is why you can't often [00:14:30] be at a hundred K in six months because it's a process and a journey that you go on to build your voice and understand what you are super, super passionate about. So let's talk about these profitable other niches. So we have the executive coaching niche and within each of these niches I talk about there are millions of sub niches. So I would recommend niching down way further than these headlines that I'll give you now.

Then there are fitness coaching niches. Lots of people want to lose weight and be more disciplined. And then relationship coaching niches, people getting on better with their colleagues or family members.

but it doesn't have to take this long, especially if you get direct feedback and support. And I think that's what I've noticed from people who have perhaps been in business for three years and have been [00:16:30] struggling. And they maybe have done lots of other programs, but no one's really explained or given them direct feedback that, for example, confidence is not a specific enough niche.

So sometimes we resist. Most of my clients gain a 70% right niche to take to market within the first one to four weeks of my business of coaching program, because never, ever sit around waiting for that right decision. That, again, is another key success trait to a fabulous entrepreneur because there [00:17:30] is no right decision. You need to get clear enough and take action. And it's the action that will help you to see if it is the right decision. So once you have completed this first step and chosen and validated your niche, then you are ready to move to our second step.

So the first mistake is you are selling by the hour. So that will be a hundred pounds an hour, please.

So coaching is a process. You need to be paid for more than that one hour because it's all of that stuff that happens in between sessions that also forms the coaching relationship. The second mistake is you're [00:19:00] selling by the number of sessions, so buy my six session coaching package, or would you prefer 10 sessions? Nope. People don't care how many sessions. They want to know what they're gonna get out of those sessions.

The final mistake is your selling by the timeframe. So we can work together over three months or six months. People don't care how long it's for. It's like the age old story of would you rather the plumber spend the entire week trying to fix your plumbing [00:20:00] or would you rather get a super experienced one that hits the pipe in five seconds and then says thank you. That will be 250 pounds, please. I am sure we would just rather save the inconvenience of all of the digging up and messing around and just pay this experienced one to get the job done quickly. So again, it doesn't always matter how long it's for. It's all about the result that they want, their big goal. And not ironically, this is another crucial element I work with clients on [00:20:30] in my program because we need to learn to inspire people to act so that they don't stay stuck, and so you get paid to support them.

So by the time you are four weeks in you will have a 70% good enough niche and something unique and highly valuable to sell.

in caps because most people don't speak specifically enough when they tell their friends and family what they do. So when you are starting your business, you are unlikely to have much of a social media presence. So your lowest hanging fruit will be those people that you know, and you can tell those people immediately now [00:22:00] in really specific terms, what you do and tell them often don't think I've already told people that I'm a coach, I'm never gonna tell them again. Tell them now you have more clarity on your niche and offer exactly what you do for people.

I mean, we all need confidence, but we won't prioritise it enough to pay for it unless we have a very specific end goal in mind that the confidence will actually help us to do so fill in that blank. What is it that they would love to do if they had amazing confidece?

And this can genuinely take in all honesty, anywhere between one to two years with consistent active efforts. In my program, this is something I prioritize highly. So then we create those systems to [00:24:00] nurture those people in your world until they are ready to buy. Because it's good to know that only 3% of people are ready to buy right now. Those people that really hate their job and they've just had an argument with their manager and they're ready to finally do something about it after sitting at their desk miserable for years.

So step four of reaching financial independence as a coach is you'll need time. So if you want to grow a financially viable business, you are going to have to put in time, especially in those first two years of your business. Anyone who says you can do it in one to three hours a day at [00:25:00] the start is leaving out some of the truth.

I have been in probably 30,000 pounds worth of different coach programs, and I can promise you there is no silver bullet. It is all about tiny, tiny steps forward to build your business. So if you are building your business whilst working full-time or whilst being the sole carer for your kids, then growth will be slower and that is okay.

So step five of reaching financial independence as a coach is you need to [00:26:00] work on your mindset. So you will need to be prepared for the ups and downs of building a business. If you are of the mindset, I'll give it three months and go back to my day job if it doesn't work out, then you might as well go back to your day job now. It takes commitment, focus, and dedication to build a sustainable business that makes money. You are also likely to need some money to invest in getting help with your business. If your mindset is one of not [00:26:30] investing where you need to, both in terms of the practical business building aspects alongside the personal support to deal with the mindset hurdles

that will come up along the journey, then you are likely to get stuck and lose a lot of time and money.

So do you think about your time, invaluable terms? Any time you are spending, staying stuck is costing you money.

So as [00:27:30] you can see, it depends how quickly you gain financial independence as a coach. But now you know what it depends on. You can work through these steps, make quick decisions and fast track your progress. So the approximate timescales I've discussed in this podcast are an average. There will always be one in 5,000 people who does this in six months.

This is possible for you. So build those solid foundations. Implement what you learn. Be consistent and you will reach the financial goals that you want. So take time to take these steps, try things out, refine as you go. The future you will thank you for creating a sustainable, [00:29:00] profitable business that you can be so proud of for years to come.

Because showing up builds trust. Trust builds relationships and relationships build your business.

So let me summarize the five critical steps to reach financial independence as a coach and how long it might take.

So step one was choose a profitable niche.

I would love to see you there.

Step three. We need to build an audience of people to sell to.

Your progress will depend on what you manage to put into your business and how focused you are in what you're doing in [00:30:30] those hours.

Step five is you need to work on your mindset. So you will need to be prepared for the ups and downs of building a business. If you are in the mindset of I'll give it a few months and go back to my day job, you might as well go back to your day job now because it's gonna take commitment, hard work, but I promise you it's so, so worth it. And you have that in bucketloads.

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

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. Thank you so much for listening.