Hey Friends, How are you today? I’m so excited you’re here.
Where I am, spring is here. The daffodils are up, the birds are singing and building nests. In fact, the first set of finches have built nests in the birdhouses hanging on my she shed and I expect the hear the chirping of the new flock in a week or two.
Spring is my favorite season, without a doubt. The air changes and it’s just fresh. I planted the primroses in my window boxes. If you follow me on IG you’ll have seen some photos that I posted in the past few days. This burst of colour is….just everything. It makes me so happy to see.
Because it’s spring, it reminded me of this blog post I wrote a couple of years ago and I wanted to update it and share it with you today.
Today, let's talk about a new way to think about your business.
A way that will help you through the tough times, when you’re working like crazy, but it feels like you’re not growing fast enough or you’re worried “it’s not working”.
It’s going to help you manage your self-doubts and feel better.
Building a business is tough! It’s the fast track to personal growth and it’s so easy to get impatient!
All over social media, you see coaches saying they are earning "big money" and they did it fast. How many claims do you see to six figures in 60 days” or “I’ve been a coach for 3 months and I’m fully booked.” Well on social I would say, don’t believe everything you see. We don’t know that they’ve been working at this quietly for years and have finally got some momentum. Or that they’ve tried two other businesses and failed, but they are trying again and this time it’s working.
When the comparison queen comes along and you see these posts, she might whisper in your ear. “So how come it’s so difficult for you?” “There must be something wrong with you. They can do it and you can’t.” That voice of the mean girl, the voice of self-doubt in your mind can talk you into doubting yourself.
Do you feel alone and wonder if you missed the magic step?
I hear this a lot and you are not alone in this feeling.
If you’re starting out, and really any time at all that you’re growing your coaching business, it helps to think of your business in the right way.
How you think and how you feel is in your control.
Mindset makes all the difference between giving up and success.
You are in control; you’ve got a choice. And this choice is empowering.
You get to decide, you can think of your business like a sport fishing trip, or you can think of it as a garden.
If you treat your business like a sport fishing expedition, you’re after a big catch.
You plan, get your gear together, jump in the boat and head out to the ocean.
The waves might be small, or they might be big and choppy. Are you prepared for the weather?
And it’s easy to get wet and sometimes even seasick.
When you think you’re in the right spot, you get your fishing rod ready to go. Look at the conditions and hook up the lures.
Then you cast the line and wait a little bit.
You wonder, do I have the right bait? Am I iin the right spot? What if there are no fish here?
It’s easy to get frustrated.
Depending on your experience you might have to wait a long time. Lots of times you’ll return to port empty-handed.
But sometimes, you catch that big fish! You reel it in. Celebrate, clean it, and take it back home. It makes an awesome fnher way, another metaphor that I like to use for building a sustainable, profitable coaching practice that gives you long term income where you can be fully booked with all the clients you want.
The approach I recommend is to build your business as if you are planning, cultivating and growing a vegetable garden.
For those of you who are gardeners, you’ll have some experience with this.
First, you turn the soil over, you add compost and perhaps some fertilizer, make sure everything is in good order.
You make sure it’s a healthy nutrient-rich base.
Then you take the first of a few trips to the store and choose excellent seeds (I like the top quality organic ones), and take time to plan your garden.
You consider, where will you plant seeds now and where will you leave space to plant later?
As you plan you will decide what to plant. If the weather is cool, you will choose crops that do well at this time of the year. For me, I’m getting ready to plant my lettuce, spinach and peas because it’s still cool and this is when they thrive.
More than likely you’ll plant a variety. Some veggies grow better close to each other, right?
Peas like to be planted close to carrots, but they hate being close to onions…so it pays to plan well.
Once you’re organized, you seed a portion of the garden.
Then you wait….you water and make sure the environment is right.
If it’s cold, you might put something over top to keep the soil and seeds warm. Or you might even start your seeds indoors if the nights are too cold and the conditions too harsh.
Then you wait some more.
This is the tough part, and this waiting is the tough part for your business too. The waiting time, the time when our patience will pay off. We’re not sitting back twiddling our thumbs and doing nothing. Not at all, we’re managing our minds, we’re putting in consistent effort. Maybe we’re creating value, offering free training, free coaching, posting on social media to attract your best clients or even being a guest on a podcast like some of my coaching clients have.
Many talented coaches give up in this waiting time. I bolded this for emphasis. So I’m going to say it again. This waiting time is when many talented coached just give up.
We expect it to be fast, we’re used to taking a pill to deal with a headache and the pain is gone in 10 minutes. We’re used to quick fixes. Microwave meals.
But remember in the natural world things “take time” and that’s not a problem, it’s part of our natural cycle.
You know some seeds take a couple of days to sprout…others take weeks. When I look on the back of the seed packages it tells me cucumber seeds sprout in 3 days, lettuce seeds sprout in 7-15 days…but carrots take 2 to 3 weeks.
When you’re gardening you have no problem keeping the faith. You don’t give up after a few days, you stick with it. Because you know they WILL sprout.
This is just like your business…sometimes you’ve got to do the work, even sweat a bit and strain your muscles….and have the patience that you’re on the right path.
You don’t give up after 24 hours with a newly planted garden right? So don’t give up prematurely on your coaching business either.
After you’ve put in the time effort, care and attention….
Finally, a little sprout comes up!!! Woohoo, you’re excited. This is like when you get your first client.
If you’re like the fisherman (or woman) you return to shore, settle down and enjoy your feast. Then no wonder you have to start all over again before the next amazing client comes your way. You’re on shore…not in your boat.
If you treat your business like a garden think like a gardener. What do you with those tender little seedlings….you nurture them, treat them well. You watch them, sprinkle them with water, check that there’s no slugs coming to eat them in the middle of the night. And you certainly don’t pull them out before they have a chance to mature right?
You do thin the seeds, give them some space and allow them time to grow.
Nurture your clients and your relationships the same way. These first clients and all clients are important!
Here’s where you are learning and fine-tuning your coaching skills. You don’t want to over-water or let the bugs of your self-doubts destroy them.
After a while, your little sprouts begin to mature. As you harvest the veggies you’ve grown, make sure to re-seed before your harvest is completely mature and your garden is empty.
A good vegetable garden will provide you with awesome produce for a long time. The hardest time, when you have to practice the most patience is the first couple of weeks.
When nothing is growing in our business we worry and fuss. You might even let your inner critic run wild and say "OMG I’m going to be a failure this is never going to work. I’m never going to be a success".
- Have patience ( for your business this means to practice believing in yourself and in the power of coaching).
- Plant your seeds (tell people about coaching and what you’re doing).
- Water the seeds ( as a coach, help people to understand how coaching can help them and the problems can you help them solve).
- Then when the first sprout comes up (and you get your first few clients, coach them well, hone your skills, treat your customers like the gold they are) and
- As the harvest comes in, make sure to plant some more seeds, (coaches: keep marketing your business and ask for referrals, keep relationships fresh).
So you get to decide….do you want the feast, famine and frustration of sport fishing or would you prefer to grow a profitable sustainable business like a gardener?
Your mindset is everything here and how you choose to grow your business can empower or disempower you.
Remember, all successful entrepreneurs were beginners at one time too.
They didn’t start out as experts. But they cultivated, planted, tended, nurtured and harvested and you can too.
Thanks for tuning in and make sure that you hit the subscribe button since that’s the way you’ll be first to get all future episodes.
Plus, If this episode resonates with you and don’t have someone who is helping step by step through the process of becoming a fully booked coach please reach out to me and let’s talk. I’ve got room for a few more private clients plus I’ll be launching a new group in the near future. You can click on the link in the show notes and we can connect.
So that’s it for today friends and before we wrap up, I want to encourage you to sign up for my free resource library. I created to help you become a coach. It’s called The Coaches Online Business Academy and here’s how it works.
When you sign up for your free account you get immediate access to a whole bunch of resources and yeah, it’s all free. There’s, a quiz, a 5-day video training, PDF guides and checklists so you know you’re on the right path. So much stuff available and ready to help you right now.
To get access, click on the link in the show notes and sign up today.
We’ll talk to you soon.
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