Jo Lott demystifies the concept of a "business strategy" and breaks it down into five core components that are essential for building a successful coaching business. She emphasises the importance of taking action and not getting bogged down in the planning stages, encouraging listeners to create a simple, usable strategy that can be iterated upon as their business grows.

1. Defining a Business Strategy [00:02:00 - 00:03:59]
2. The Five Core Components of a Business Strategy [00:04:00 - 00:10:59]
3. Clarity (Purpose, Mission, Vision, Brand) [00:04:00 - 00:05:59]
4. Offer (What you're selling) [00:06:00 - 00:06:59]
5. Marketing (How you'll get your business known) [00:07:00 - 00:07:59]
6. Finances (Goals, Pricing, Legal Structure) [00:08:00 - 00:09:59]
7. Operations (Systems, Processes, Team Management) [00:10:00 - 00:10:59]]

Useful Links

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Hello and welcome to Women in

the Coaching Arena podcast.

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I'm so glad you are here.

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I'm Jo Lott, a business mentor

and ICF accredited coach

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Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone):

and I help coaches to

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build brilliant businesses.

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I know that when you prepare to enter

the arena, there is fear, self doubt,

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comparison, anxiety, uncertainty.

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You can tend to armor up and

protect yourself from vulnerability.

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In this podcast, I'll be sharing

honest, not hype, practical and

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emotional tools to support you to make

the difference that you are here for.

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Dare greatly.

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You belong in this arena.

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Hello, welcome to the 67th episode

of women in the coaching arena.

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I am so glad you are here.

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Today I am demystifying a strategy.

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Cause I think, my coach

has used this line on me.

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Prior to me signing up with him

and there's a lot of it branded

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around in the online space of

like, you're missing a strategy.

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And then you kind of feel like, oh

my God, like, what is the strategy?

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What does that mean?

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What am I exactly meant to

be putting together here?

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So I'm going to today demystify a

strategy and help you to really see

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that big picture in your business.

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This will be useful because it's easy

to feel overwhelmed and feel like

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there's so many pieces to put together.

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I have quite a few new people

start in my program this week.

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And we did a similar sort of

CEO exercise where we really

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stepped back and rate yourself.

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In many, many areas of your business

to really see where you want to put

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your focus in the next six weeks.

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And one of the comments afterwards

was gosh, there's just so much.

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And yes, a successful business is

built from so many different parts.

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And they all need to fit together.

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But I think if you take the time

to do an exercise like this, at

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least you understand these parts

and understand where you can just

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create incremental change to begin to

seamlessly, get things working for you.

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So let's start with changing

the word strategy to plan.

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That's literally all it is a plan to build

your business, how you intend to grow at,

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and this can be a strategy in your head.

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I can guarantee you, you can

build a six figure business

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with a strategy in your head.

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So do not go down any rabbit

holes thinking you need to spend

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months on a business plan prior to

doing any work on your business.

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I think when you're starting out fast,

messy action is the right approach.

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And then fine you might want to take

more time to prepare all this stuff

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when you get some money in the bank

and have started to take some action.

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So again, it's a plan which helps

you to actually take action.

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That's the entire point of your plan?

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And it's worth saying that it's

fluid and will change as you change

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and as your business changes.

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There is no right way of doing this.

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I've been blessed with some amazing

people joining my program at the moment

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from hugely different fields, lots of

difference, or scientific background

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and doctors and different people

with different minds to me who love.

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Spreadsheets planning goals analyzing.

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So it's been an absolute joy to

be able to bring some certain

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concepts together in my way.

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And for them to think this is how

I'd do it, I'd create a mind map,

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for example, and to be able to bring

these minds together is amazing.

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And it was also really interesting

because I came to a group call with a

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scorecard of lead generating activities.

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So to be able to challenge people to,

for example, get 20 points each week

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by choosing some of these particular

tasks and each allocated a different

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amount of points, depending on how

much you don't like doing them.

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So usually it's the ones that we

don't like doing, which you're going

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to be the most powerful exercises.

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So, what I found interesting was

how easy it was to get distracted by

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creating a better looking scorecard

than taking the lead generating action.

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So that's the perfect analogy for this.

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Do not start Googling business plans

and spending ages, becoming distracted

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with creating something really fancy.

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We want this to be such an easy, usable

tool for you to actually take action.

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So if this brings you away from

taking action, that is not the point.

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I would allow yourself maybe a maximum

of two or three hours or half a day

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or something to bring this together

as a first draft and then start

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taking your action and seeing what

comes of it and iterate as you go.

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Let's outline what I see as five

core components to your strategy.

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So the first is clarity,

and this is on your purpose.

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Your why.

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Your mission.

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Your vision.

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Your brand.

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And I really think this needs to go first

because I've also seen a lot recently

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is people who don't really want to

build a business, but kind of want to.

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And I think without that

really strong desire, mission.

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Why behind why you're doing this work.

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You cannot succeed.

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So this is where it begins.

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Really hooking to your mission.

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Why this is important

to you to make happen.

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How do you want to make people feel

when they come across your work?

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As Simon Sinek says, start with why

and everything else will become easy.

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So clarity is our first

part of our strategy.

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Next up is your offer.

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So what are you actually selling?

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This is obviously the core part of

your strategy, because if you haven't

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got a really clear offer, that's

bringing in money into your business,

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then it's not going to succeed.

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So take that time to create

a really good tangible offer.

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Figure out how many of these

things you need to sell?

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Do you need to sell more than one type

of offer to meet your income goals?

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Take this time to really think

about what you're selling.

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Makes sure it meets your

core customer's needs.

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Okay, so moving on to step three.

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So first we have clarity.

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Step one, offer step two

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Now on to marketing.

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So how are you going to get your

business out there and get known?

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What platforms are you going to use?

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What other type of marketing,

what you like to use?

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Are you going to do any in-person

stuff or is it all online.

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Really thinking about your strengths as to

how are you going to consistently show up?

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Thinking about different touch points.

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Often people need to see you in

several places to really begin

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to see you and feel like it is a

message that you keep showing up.

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I did a talk yesterday to a group of

coaches and one of them was amazing

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because she was like, oh my gosh, someone

has just recommended you in Scotland.

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And I had absolutely no idea.

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You're part of this group.

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And, so it's just such a coincidence.

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I've literally been

bingeing on your podcast.

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And now, like here you are

talking to me in this group.

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So it's that type of multi faceted

approach that really helps to build your

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brand really quickly help you to build

your relationships quickly with your

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audience and fast track that progress

from them becoming aware of you to

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perhaps considering working with you.

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Okay on to step four.

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This is the finances, so, this is

your goals, your pricing strategy.

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Are you going to be a limited

company or sole trader?

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Are you going to keep track of

those finances and ensure that

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somehow you do what it takes

to reach your financial goals?

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I'm holding an in-person event in Barnes

Southwest London on the 28th of June.

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At the moment of recording, there are

only two places left, so it was probably a

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sellout at the time this podcast goes out.

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But I have an amazing coach who was a

previous client of mine doing a session on

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finance and goals and how to reach them.

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So I'm super excited for that

because for me, it's definitely

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something I do not enjoy.

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I'm way more intuitive in my business

and I need to hire people to keep

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me on track with things like this.

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I think because I'm not

particularly money minded.

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That therefore I get too into wanting

to serve my clients and doing all of

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those amazing, lovely things that most

of us coaches went into this to do.

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So I'm really, really excited for that

session to start to make this a priority,

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because I have got a spreadsheet where I

have set some financial goals and I now

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completes it each week or each month to

really start seeing how far off am I.

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And I can really see that it helps

to drive action when you see, okay.

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If I could just sell one more thing, I'd

actually be hitting my target this month.

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Which then helps you to think.

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What shall I do?

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Shall I go to a networking event?

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I run a webinar.

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What my, I like to do to help

me to reach that financial goal.

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And our fifth and final point

for your strategy is operations.

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So this is your systems and

processes behind your business.

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Ensuring you've got great

onboarding processes, contracts,

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easy, quick ways of doing things,

ways of scheduling your content.

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So things are easy.

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Maybe you have a team,

how are you managing that?

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So that is our final

piece of our strategy.

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So, if you are ever overwhelmed

with hearing this word strategy

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banded about, and you feel like

you're missing something, just know,

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here are the key components that

will build part of your strategy.

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And yes, you can have a

strategy within a strategy.

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So this is your overarching business

strategy, but obviously you can

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have a marketing strategy, a finance

strategy and operations strategy.

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So things can get more complex,

but generally just start, but

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don't get distracted with that.

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The whole point is that it's something

to help you to take action quickly.

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So if your strategy is a business

plan, getting dusty in the drawer.

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Then just know that that is not going

to do anything to build your business.

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Taking fast, messy action.

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Is the consistent.

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Uh, contributor, but I have

seen that helps you to build

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an amazing coaching business.

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So take a moment to think about

which area you need to work on.

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Is it clarity?

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Is it your offer, your marketing,

your finances, or your operations?

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And you're probably thinking all of them.

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And if that's the case,

then this is what I do.

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Come join me inside the business

of coaching, my mentoring program.

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Where I will take you step by step through

all of this stuff, and way more to ensure

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that you build an amazing business.

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I hope today's episode was helpful for you.

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Do drop me a line on LinkedIn or

Instagram and let me know, it's Joanna

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with an A and Lott with two T's.

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I would love to hear your

thoughts and reflections.

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And like I say, at the end of every

episode, trust yourself, believe

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in yourself and be the wise Gardner

who keeps on watering the seed.

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Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone):

Thank you so much for listening to this

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episode of Women in the Coaching Arena.

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I have a mess of free resources on

my website joannalottcoaching.com.

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That's Joanna with an A

and Lott with two T's.

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joannalottcoaching.com.

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And I'll also put links in the show notes.

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Let me know if you found

this episode useful.

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Share it with a friend and

leave me a review, and I will

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personally thank you for that.

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Remember to trust yourself, believe

in yourself and be the wise Gardner

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who keeps on watering the seed.

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Get into the arena dare, greatly and try.