Hey, welcome back to the Life Coach Launchpad. My name’s BJ, and I’m here every week talking to you about all the online business things that, as it turns out, need to happen in order to have a successful life coaching business. I’m a business coach. I love to help life coaches make more money, get more clients, have more fun, and to do what they love to do, what they’re meant to do, and that’s coaching.

So, let’s dive right in.

Let me ask you this. How do you know if something in your business is working or how do you know if it’s not working? That’s what this episode is all about It’s how to look at your whole coaching business at once and you might think of if you’re just offering individual coaching and Maybe you have a little bit of marketing like a podcast or you’re sending emails or social posts or something like that But it’s harder than it sounds to look at everything Your whole business at once.

So how do you know if something is working? So whether it’s my business or my client’s business, I go right to the calendar. How many mini sessions have been booked this week, this month? Or if we’re making a change to how offers are made, I’ll go look at sales. How many coaching programs were sold?

Sometimes we made a change to the lead magnet or the email nurture sequence. I’ll go look at the number of new subscribers for the month. The challenge comes when I find the numbers that I’m looking for. And next I have to consider if, well, is that good or bad? Of course, your business is your baby that you’ve raised.

You’ve watched it come up from nothing. You, you probably at least have a pretty good idea on the history of your important numbers. But I will tell you that keeping track of these important numbers, As in, writing them down helps ease anxiety and adds additional awareness by being able to see the trends more clearly.

What I’m talking about is a dashboard. A place where you write down your important numbers so that you can see them all at once. And you’ll want to do this on a set frequency. Usually once per month is a great place to start. There’s a belief that a lot of coaches have, is that when something is happening in their business, they’ll just know.

It can be true when you’re working on one thing. If you want to increase your podcast downloads, you’ll probably just watch those. That makes sense. Eventually, you may become confused and frustrated when that doesn’t result in sales. Even in this simple example, podcast downloads are just a small part of the funnel that people new to you will go through.

For example, if you’re publishing a podcast and then guiding new listeners to your website, and then an email sequence, and then hopefully a consultation, and then a sale, You want to know where they’re getting stuck. I have to tell you that when I first started this process, I wrote down everything I could think of.

It took me over an hour to go and get all the information. I was only doing it once a month. So one hour was not that big percentage wise, but it really just wasn’t that fun. And it wasn’t worth it for one client. I have this data going back four years. Every month. A bunch of numbers written down in a spreadsheet.

And I know why I did it, why I was gathering everything. It was because I didn’t know which of the numbers would translate into sales. The thought was that if I looked at everything, when sales went up or down, I’d be able to go look at my dashboard and see what moved and cause that change. Four years later, my plan worked.

I whittled my list of parameters that I keep track of and have a good understanding of what really moves the needle. Additionally, I can grab all the data in just about 15 minutes, something well worth the time to go do. Another reason why it’s important to have a dashboard is to be able to quickly back in time at your business.

There will come a time when you want to quickly know what was happening back when. I’ll use my client as an example of the critical parameters that I keep track of for her. She publishes a podcast. Her podcast leads new people to her website to sign up for her lead magnet. She also has a Facebook ad for this lead magnet.

She offers individual coaching all the time and the doors to her group coaching program open several times per year. She also has a YouTube channel and posts to Instagram and Facebook. So here it is. This is only like, I don’t know, like eight things, but It started out more like 30. So these are just the most important ones over the years.

I’ve narrowed down the list for her metrics and here they are. Ad spend consultations that came from that ad number of new podcast reviews, number of new organic email subscribers. Email open rate, number of consultations, number of purchases, and number of revenue. Eight. There we go. And just for background, I do keep track of much more data during a launch.

When there’s a bunch of emails going out, say five or six per week for three or four weeks, those emails will be directing traffic to something like a free master class, Sign up page or a bootcamp sales page. There’s thank you emails. There’s auto responders. There’s follow up for people who did attend those and what are the next steps?

I will keep track of the number of signups or sales from each email so I know how each email performed. I’ll then roll those numbers up to know how the masterclass or bootcamp performed for that launch. Then I’ll keep track of those numbers. That way I can see how the launch is going midway through it.

And then I’ll also know from a more macro point of view how the history of her launches are going. But I’ve compiled that list of metrics that I tracked for her on going into, into, into her dashboard that you can download. So I created a template. You can find it at bjbutler. com forward slash 32. It’s just those metrics.

I know it’s hard to, in case you didn’t write them all down, I have them in a spreadsheet, in a Google sheet that you can go download for free. How I decided what stays on the list or not. comes down to likelihood of driving a critical business result, like revenue. And honestly, if I’ve had an issue with it in the past, ad spend is there obviously, cause it’s going to play a big role in the overall business results.

So that’s why that’s there. Then I also have email open rate, not necessarily something that you look at every day, but I’m currently helping a client through a pretty major deliverability issue. So it’s something that I keep a close eye on for her. This is a very short list because you have to update all these things every month.

To be clear, you can use the frequency that is best for you, but likely monthly is going to be what it is. The more data you put on here, the more effort you’ll put in every month getting that information. Feel free to download the dashboard template and add or subtract to it with the metrics that make sense for you.

Again, you can download the dashboard at bjbutler. com forward slash 32. The reason why I took the time to adapt this dashboard into a template is because My number one goal is to help you get more coaching clients. If there’s something that I have that will help you is yours. I’m not hoarding information.

I’m not holding it over your head until you do something. You’ll find the same experience. If you book a free mini session with me, I will share what I know about any topic with you about the business of coaching with the time that we have together. I believe so strongly in keeping a dashboard for your business.

I’m offering, I have this mini offer for it. If you want me to create the dashboard for you, we’ll do it over the phone and I will teach you how to go get the right data for it. I will. We’ll meet for an hour. You’ll walk away with your dashboard ready to go. I’ll let you practice with it and then we’ll meet a week or so later to go over any needed improvements or additions.

If you’re listening to this episode in the future though, you can ignore this offer. It’s only available until Thursday, July 11th. To see pricing on this offer, it’s at the same link, bjbutler. com forward slash 32. This is not something I normally offer. It is usually just a part of my full coaching package.

But like I said, I’m always looking for ways to help you get more clients. Feel more in control of your business and just have more fun running your coaching business. If you just run the metrics I talked about above, it’s just those eight things to look at. Should take you about 15 minutes. I promise it’ll be worth your time.

Download it for free at bjbutler. com forward slash 32 or have me do it for you. That’s it for today. Talk to you next week.

Hey, welcome back to the Life Coach Launchpad. My name’s BJ, and I’m here every week talking to you about all the online business things that, as it turns out, need to happen in order to have a successful life coaching business. I’m a business coach. I love to help life coaches make more money, get more clients, have more fun, and to do what they love to do, what they’re meant to do, and that’s coaching.

So, let’s dive right in.

Let me ask you this. How do you know if something in your business is working or how do you know if it’s not working? That’s what this episode is all about It’s how to look at your whole coaching business at once and you might think of if you’re just offering individual coaching and Maybe you have a little bit of marketing like a podcast or you’re sending emails or social posts or something like that But it’s harder than it sounds to look at everything Your whole business at once.

So how do you know if something is working? So whether it’s my business or my client’s business, I go right to the calendar. How many mini sessions have been booked this week, this month? Or if we’re making a change to how offers are made, I’ll go look at sales. How many coaching programs were sold?

Sometimes we made a change to the lead magnet or the email nurture sequence. I’ll go look at the number of new subscribers for the month. The challenge comes when I find the numbers that I’m looking for. And next I have to consider if, well, is that good or bad? Of course, your business is your baby that you’ve raised.

You’ve watched it come up from nothing. You, you probably at least have a pretty good idea on the history of your important numbers. But I will tell you that keeping track of these important numbers, As in, writing them down helps ease anxiety and adds additional awareness by being able to see the trends more clearly.

What I’m talking about is a dashboard. A place where you write down your important numbers so that you can see them all at once. And you’ll want to do this on a set frequency. Usually once per month is a great place to start. There’s a belief that a lot of coaches have, is that when something is happening in their business, they’ll just know.

It can be true when you’re working on one thing. If you want to increase your podcast downloads, you’ll probably just watch those. That makes sense. Eventually, you may become confused and frustrated when that doesn’t result in sales. Even in this simple example, podcast downloads are just a small part of the funnel that people new to you will go through.

For example, if you’re publishing a podcast and then guiding new listeners to your website, and then an email sequence, and then hopefully a consultation, and then a sale, You want to know where they’re getting stuck. I have to tell you that when I first started this process, I wrote down everything I could think of.

It took me over an hour to go and get all the information. I was only doing it once a month. So one hour was not that big percentage wise, but it really just wasn’t that fun. And it wasn’t worth it for one client. I have this data going back four years. Every month. A bunch of numbers written down in a spreadsheet.

And I know why I did it, why I was gathering everything. It was because I didn’t know which of the numbers would translate into sales. The thought was that if I looked at everything, when sales went up or down, I’d be able to go look at my dashboard and see what moved and cause that change. Four years later, my plan worked.

I whittled my list of parameters that I keep track of and have a good understanding of what really moves the needle. Additionally, I can grab all the data in just about 15 minutes, something well worth the time to go do. Another reason why it’s important to have a dashboard is to be able to quickly back in time at your business.

There will come a time when you want to quickly know what was happening back when. I’ll use my client as an example of the critical parameters that I keep track of for her. She publishes a podcast. Her podcast leads new people to her website to sign up for her lead magnet. She also has a Facebook ad for this lead magnet.

She offers individual coaching all the time and the doors to her group coaching program open several times per year. She also has a YouTube channel and posts to Instagram and Facebook. So here it is. This is only like, I don’t know, like eight things, but It started out more like 30. So these are just the most important ones over the years.

I’ve narrowed down the list for her metrics and here they are. Ad spend consultations that came from that ad number of new podcast reviews, number of new organic email subscribers. Email open rate, number of consultations, number of purchases, and number of revenue. Eight. There we go. And just for background, I do keep track of much more data during a launch.

When there’s a bunch of emails going out, say five or six per week for three or four weeks, those emails will be directing traffic to something like a free master class, Sign up page or a bootcamp sales page. There’s thank you emails. There’s auto responders. There’s follow up for people who did attend those and what are the next steps?

I will keep track of the number of signups or sales from each email so I know how each email performed. I’ll then roll those numbers up to know how the masterclass or bootcamp performed for that launch. Then I’ll keep track of those numbers. That way I can see how the launch is going midway through it.

And then I’ll also know from a more macro point of view how the history of her launches are going. But I’ve compiled that list of metrics that I tracked for her on going into, into, into her dashboard that you can download. So I created a template. You can find it at bjbutler. com forward slash 32. It’s just those metrics.

I know it’s hard to, in case you didn’t write them all down, I have them in a spreadsheet, in a Google sheet that you can go download for free. How I decided what stays on the list or not. comes down to likelihood of driving a critical business result, like revenue. And honestly, if I’ve had an issue with it in the past, ad spend is there obviously, cause it’s going to play a big role in the overall business results.

So that’s why that’s there. Then I also have email open rate, not necessarily something that you look at every day, but I’m currently helping a client through a pretty major deliverability issue. So it’s something that I keep a close eye on for her. This is a very short list because you have to update all these things every month.

To be clear, you can use the frequency that is best for you, but likely monthly is going to be what it is. The more data you put on here, the more effort you’ll put in every month getting that information. Feel free to download the dashboard template and add or subtract to it with the metrics that make sense for you.

Again, you can download the dashboard at bjbutler. com forward slash 32. The reason why I took the time to adapt this dashboard into a template is because My number one goal is to help you get more coaching clients. If there’s something that I have that will help you is yours. I’m not hoarding information.

I’m not holding it over your head until you do something. You’ll find the same experience. If you book a free mini session with me, I will share what I know about any topic with you about the business of coaching with the time that we have together. I believe so strongly in keeping a dashboard for your business.

I’m offering, I have this mini offer for it. If you want me to create the dashboard for you, we’ll do it over the phone and I will teach you how to go get the right data for it. I will. We’ll meet for an hour. You’ll walk away with your dashboard ready to go. I’ll let you practice with it and then we’ll meet a week or so later to go over any needed improvements or additions.

If you’re listening to this episode in the future though, you can ignore this offer. It’s only available until Thursday, July 11th. To see pricing on this offer, it’s at the same link, bjbutler. com forward slash 32. This is not something I normally offer. It is usually just a part of my full coaching package.

But like I said, I’m always looking for ways to help you get more clients. Feel more in control of your business and just have more fun running your coaching business. If you just run the metrics I talked about above, it’s just those eight things to look at. Should take you about 15 minutes. I promise it’ll be worth your time.

Download it for free at bjbutler. com forward slash 32 or have me do it for you. That’s it for today. Talk to you next week.