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.

I was networking this week and somebody asked me a question. How did I decide to help life coaches? How did that happen? I gave this guy an answer, and it was definitely the short version, but it made me realize there’s a lot more to it than just that answer that I gave. The long answer, it really addresses this really uncomfortable kind of painful stage of a coaching business where you’re [00:01:00] ready to continue getting good at coaching, but you need clients to do that.

You need to basically create a business out of nothing in order to attract clients, but you’re also in this really what can feel like a very vulnerable being a bit unsure of your coaching skills, and also very uncomfortable with putting yourself out there with marketing, sales pages, automations, websites, and so on.

And that’s actually what this episode is about. I’ll get to that that answer, I’ll get to what to do about that and how to address that by answering how I decided to help life coaches. Okay, I promise I’ll get there. Okay, but here’s my answer, and it’s three parts. The first part is I’ve always held a deep seated belief that what you do for a living should be something that you enjoy.

And there’s, there’s other ways of saying this, and I’m sure you’ve heard it other ways also, is that, I believe that you should have a connection with what you do for a living. [00:02:00] And I, I guess we all want that, but I truly believe that it’s possible. And I’ve seen it. It is possible. I know that it’s possible.

Something inside me completely lit up when I first heard about these online entrepreneurs sharing their knowledge on this new free source of information, podcasts. I was first drawn to the fact that their work is done remotely, not in a manufacturing plant, which is where I was for 11 years as a manufacturing engineer.

I had to show up, but in seat in that manufacturing plant where the bottles were filled with soap. People like Amy Porterfield, Pat Flynn, Chris Gallebo, John Lee Dumas, they were all doing something they were very passionate about from anywhere. And you could feel that passion, you could feel that energy coming from them.

And I was totally smitten. After working on the plan to quit my manufacturing career, [00:03:00] over the course of a couple years, it took It didn’t happen overnight. I stumbled into helping my first client who was a life coach. So I had this deep seated desire to enjoy my quote unquote day job, like what I did for a living, what I did during the day.

And then I learned about life coaches when I started helping one with her business. And that was when I realized that from my perspective, the average life coach is a life coach. Absolutely following their, their calling, their intuition, their gut instinct. They’re looking to help others like they themselves found help.

They are often looking to guide others through a transformation just like they themselves went through. That is the type of person, the journey that I identify with. I want to be part of making this world full of people doing what they’re called to do. Life [00:04:00] coaches of all types. I mean, it can be such a general term.

Someone could stay general. It could be a general term that refers to a lot of smaller niches. But I haven’t met a coach who is working their butt off to become a coach because parents guilt that guilted them into it. Or society expects that them to do that or whoever told them to do it. But they themselves aren’t really feeling it.

No, they are. They’re there because they wanted to be there. Coaching Life Coaches was the, was the perfect match for my desire to do something I was passionate about and to do it for people also pursuing something that they are utterly passionate about. So, I had this desire to do work during my quote unquote day job that I was passionate about from anywhere, and then I stumbled into this opportunity to help my mom, who is a Life Coach.

And I branched out from there. That was point number one that I believe that we should be passionate about our day jobs. And the second part of how I became [00:05:00] helping life coaches is that I had this opportunity to help my mom, who is a life coach. She helps women lose weight and menopause. She grew up through the life coach school.

And I had learned enough to be able to help her. I was coaching her to do the work. She was either doing the work or her VA was doing it, but she kept running into needing things done that her VA wasn’t capable of. So I started doing the work for her. I was writing sales pages, creating the automations, writing emails, planning launches.

I was pretty much doing everything except for doing the consultations, masterclasses, and actual coaching. It was a very natural transition. I started hiring experts to do the work. I’ve had contractors do big chunks of work, like a full website update, or a full set of copywriting for a launch. I’ve found that the message and the strategy can become distorted if you’re too hands off.

Too much of just handing it [00:06:00] over to someone else for them to do what they think is best. You know, that’s, it’s been over the years. I found a happy middle ground where I have my hand ensuring that the client’s voice is accurately coming through and every piece of the puzzle is contributing towards and following the strategy that we’ve developed.

It’s really about the strategy, coming up with the right strategy and following through on it. When I started hiring experts, I got more time back and the quality of the work I was delivering increased. I realized I was ready to help more life coaches achieve their goals. Just like, which is exactly what I had been doing.

I liked the feeling of helping one person. I wanted to help as many people as possible. So I started marketing myself as able to help people. It was just a very natural transition because it had been what I was doing for years already. And yes, it was natural because I had the skills to do the work, but the, the plight and the journey [00:07:00] of the life coach, of, of a life coach is, I feel a very strong connection to.

And the third part of the answer is how I, how I came to help life coaches make more money is, is this. The more coaches I helped, I observed there’s a need for business acumen when it comes to starting a coaching business. First off, I believe that every business owner, every person, benefits from having a coach.

But the skills needed to start an online business are limited. are, or at least are very perceived as being very different from coaching. But this is actually the whole point of this episode is that I thought of this the other day and it is a significant point that just by being aware of what I’m about to say you can use it to your advantage.

So picture yourself as a new coach. You’re going through a training program, or you’re going through the [00:08:00] experiences that are giving you the skills that will turn into a coaching method and style. You’ve maybe coached some friends and family. You’ve probably coached a few people for free. Maybe been paid, or at least you’re definitely ready to get paid.

And to progress, you need more people to coach. But, to do that, you have to get the word out. You have to do marketing. This feels like starting a business. Some people will make a big deal out of that. Not only are you putting yourself out there with your, your developing coaching skills, your budding coaching skills, you’re trying to let as many people as possible know that you’re going through this, what feels like a very vulnerable stage.

And on top of that, if learning to coach wasn’t enough, you’re trying to do this marketing thing that feels new, unproven. You probably feel shaky at it, unsure. [00:09:00] So, you’re doing coaching that you have a whole world of thoughts about. And you’re adding this totally foreign set of work to it with needing to do marketing, sales, consultation, sales pages, websites.

You are testing your business resolve at the most toughest point of your coaching career. If this sounds like you now, or you’ve been there, And it feels hard, you are right on track. Just know that. You’re learning multiple skill sets at the same time. If you feel some part of your brain telling you to stop, to just go back to when things felt familiar and safe, that is normal.

That is your brain just telling you to go back. Back to the cave, back to safety. It’s just doing its job. Your job is to push forward. Know that if you keep doing what you’re [00:10:00] doing, you will get what you want. I call this doing hard things. My wife and I talk about this concept with our kids. They don’t want to do their homework.

But of course they want the good grades, the recognition from doing it well, and of course, let’s be honest, the screen time they will earn from doing it, first they have to do the hard things to earn the reward. And that’s exactly how it is for us adults when it comes to work. A job, a business, doing hard things is like going to the gym, like building muscle.

The more you do it, the stronger you get and the better at it you become. Just like in the gym, when you don’t want to keep going because your muscles are tired, your brain is telling you to stop. Putting yourself out there with your marketing or telling people you’re a life coach because that makes your brain tired.

Now putting yourself out there is the [00:11:00] path of least resistance for your brain. You can strengthen your do hard things muscle to get your brain used to the fact that you know the right activities to work on so that you get what you want. So that you can become the life coach who has all the clients you need to make the revenue that you expect from yourself.

All of this line of logic comes from, well, this guy probably thought it was a very simple question that I, that I heard, that I received this week about how I got into helping life coaches make more money. Of course, there was a short answer that I gave to him at the time, but the more I thought about it, there’s this whole long nuanced answer that I also wanted to share because it could be helpful to hear that the early stages of starting your coaching business are so important.

It’s just such a unique time for you when you’re balancing this wide variety of new ideas, new skills that you’re [00:12:00] developing. If you’re in an early stage of your coaching business, if this resonated with you and you want some help getting through this uncomfortable place as quickly as possible, you can schedule a free mini session on my website at bjbutler.

com. You’ll get my eyes on your business. I can help guide you to make sure that you’re doing the right activities that are going to push you forward to be making revenue the fastest. If you’re past or almost past this stage, I can help you get to whatever the next level is for you. Group coaching, more individual coaching clients, making everyday business feel easier, getting all the work, all your business work done in less time.

Whatever it is for you, I can help. You can schedule a free mini session on my website. All right. I’ll 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.

I was networking this week and somebody asked me a question. How did I decide to help life coaches? How did that happen? I gave this guy an answer, and it was definitely the short version, but it made me realize there’s a lot more to it than just that answer that I gave. The long answer, it really addresses this really uncomfortable kind of painful stage of a coaching business where you’re [00:01:00] ready to continue getting good at coaching, but you need clients to do that.

You need to basically create a business out of nothing in order to attract clients, but you’re also in this really what can feel like a very vulnerable being a bit unsure of your coaching skills, and also very uncomfortable with putting yourself out there with marketing, sales pages, automations, websites, and so on.

And that’s actually what this episode is about. I’ll get to that that answer, I’ll get to what to do about that and how to address that by answering how I decided to help life coaches. Okay, I promise I’ll get there. Okay, but here’s my answer, and it’s three parts. The first part is I’ve always held a deep seated belief that what you do for a living should be something that you enjoy.

And there’s, there’s other ways of saying this, and I’m sure you’ve heard it other ways also, is that, I believe that you should have a connection with what you do for a living. [00:02:00] And I, I guess we all want that, but I truly believe that it’s possible. And I’ve seen it. It is possible. I know that it’s possible.

Something inside me completely lit up when I first heard about these online entrepreneurs sharing their knowledge on this new free source of information, podcasts. I was first drawn to the fact that their work is done remotely, not in a manufacturing plant, which is where I was for 11 years as a manufacturing engineer.

I had to show up, but in seat in that manufacturing plant where the bottles were filled with soap. People like Amy Porterfield, Pat Flynn, Chris Gallebo, John Lee Dumas, they were all doing something they were very passionate about from anywhere. And you could feel that passion, you could feel that energy coming from them.

And I was totally smitten. After working on the plan to quit my manufacturing career, [00:03:00] over the course of a couple years, it took It didn’t happen overnight. I stumbled into helping my first client who was a life coach. So I had this deep seated desire to enjoy my quote unquote day job, like what I did for a living, what I did during the day.

And then I learned about life coaches when I started helping one with her business. And that was when I realized that from my perspective, the average life coach is a life coach. Absolutely following their, their calling, their intuition, their gut instinct. They’re looking to help others like they themselves found help.

They are often looking to guide others through a transformation just like they themselves went through. That is the type of person, the journey that I identify with. I want to be part of making this world full of people doing what they’re called to do. Life [00:04:00] coaches of all types. I mean, it can be such a general term.

Someone could stay general. It could be a general term that refers to a lot of smaller niches. But I haven’t met a coach who is working their butt off to become a coach because parents guilt that guilted them into it. Or society expects that them to do that or whoever told them to do it. But they themselves aren’t really feeling it.

No, they are. They’re there because they wanted to be there. Coaching Life Coaches was the, was the perfect match for my desire to do something I was passionate about and to do it for people also pursuing something that they are utterly passionate about. So, I had this desire to do work during my quote unquote day job that I was passionate about from anywhere, and then I stumbled into this opportunity to help my mom, who is a Life Coach.

And I branched out from there. That was point number one that I believe that we should be passionate about our day jobs. And the second part of how I became [00:05:00] helping life coaches is that I had this opportunity to help my mom, who is a life coach. She helps women lose weight and menopause. She grew up through the life coach school.

And I had learned enough to be able to help her. I was coaching her to do the work. She was either doing the work or her VA was doing it, but she kept running into needing things done that her VA wasn’t capable of. So I started doing the work for her. I was writing sales pages, creating the automations, writing emails, planning launches.

I was pretty much doing everything except for doing the consultations, masterclasses, and actual coaching. It was a very natural transition. I started hiring experts to do the work. I’ve had contractors do big chunks of work, like a full website update, or a full set of copywriting for a launch. I’ve found that the message and the strategy can become distorted if you’re too hands off.

Too much of just handing it [00:06:00] over to someone else for them to do what they think is best. You know, that’s, it’s been over the years. I found a happy middle ground where I have my hand ensuring that the client’s voice is accurately coming through and every piece of the puzzle is contributing towards and following the strategy that we’ve developed.

It’s really about the strategy, coming up with the right strategy and following through on it. When I started hiring experts, I got more time back and the quality of the work I was delivering increased. I realized I was ready to help more life coaches achieve their goals. Just like, which is exactly what I had been doing.

I liked the feeling of helping one person. I wanted to help as many people as possible. So I started marketing myself as able to help people. It was just a very natural transition because it had been what I was doing for years already. And yes, it was natural because I had the skills to do the work, but the, the plight and the journey [00:07:00] of the life coach, of, of a life coach is, I feel a very strong connection to.

And the third part of the answer is how I, how I came to help life coaches make more money is, is this. The more coaches I helped, I observed there’s a need for business acumen when it comes to starting a coaching business. First off, I believe that every business owner, every person, benefits from having a coach.

But the skills needed to start an online business are limited. are, or at least are very perceived as being very different from coaching. But this is actually the whole point of this episode is that I thought of this the other day and it is a significant point that just by being aware of what I’m about to say you can use it to your advantage.

So picture yourself as a new coach. You’re going through a training program, or you’re going through the [00:08:00] experiences that are giving you the skills that will turn into a coaching method and style. You’ve maybe coached some friends and family. You’ve probably coached a few people for free. Maybe been paid, or at least you’re definitely ready to get paid.

And to progress, you need more people to coach. But, to do that, you have to get the word out. You have to do marketing. This feels like starting a business. Some people will make a big deal out of that. Not only are you putting yourself out there with your, your developing coaching skills, your budding coaching skills, you’re trying to let as many people as possible know that you’re going through this, what feels like a very vulnerable stage.

And on top of that, if learning to coach wasn’t enough, you’re trying to do this marketing thing that feels new, unproven. You probably feel shaky at it, unsure. [00:09:00] So, you’re doing coaching that you have a whole world of thoughts about. And you’re adding this totally foreign set of work to it with needing to do marketing, sales, consultation, sales pages, websites.

You are testing your business resolve at the most toughest point of your coaching career. If this sounds like you now, or you’ve been there, And it feels hard, you are right on track. Just know that. You’re learning multiple skill sets at the same time. If you feel some part of your brain telling you to stop, to just go back to when things felt familiar and safe, that is normal.

That is your brain just telling you to go back. Back to the cave, back to safety. It’s just doing its job. Your job is to push forward. Know that if you keep doing what you’re [00:10:00] doing, you will get what you want. I call this doing hard things. My wife and I talk about this concept with our kids. They don’t want to do their homework.

But of course they want the good grades, the recognition from doing it well, and of course, let’s be honest, the screen time they will earn from doing it, first they have to do the hard things to earn the reward. And that’s exactly how it is for us adults when it comes to work. A job, a business, doing hard things is like going to the gym, like building muscle.

The more you do it, the stronger you get and the better at it you become. Just like in the gym, when you don’t want to keep going because your muscles are tired, your brain is telling you to stop. Putting yourself out there with your marketing or telling people you’re a life coach because that makes your brain tired.

Now putting yourself out there is the [00:11:00] path of least resistance for your brain. You can strengthen your do hard things muscle to get your brain used to the fact that you know the right activities to work on so that you get what you want. So that you can become the life coach who has all the clients you need to make the revenue that you expect from yourself.

All of this line of logic comes from, well, this guy probably thought it was a very simple question that I, that I heard, that I received this week about how I got into helping life coaches make more money. Of course, there was a short answer that I gave to him at the time, but the more I thought about it, there’s this whole long nuanced answer that I also wanted to share because it could be helpful to hear that the early stages of starting your coaching business are so important.

It’s just such a unique time for you when you’re balancing this wide variety of new ideas, new skills that you’re [00:12:00] developing. If you’re in an early stage of your coaching business, if this resonated with you and you want some help getting through this uncomfortable place as quickly as possible, you can schedule a free mini session on my website at bjbutler.

com. You’ll get my eyes on your business. I can help guide you to make sure that you’re doing the right activities that are going to push you forward to be making revenue the fastest. If you’re past or almost past this stage, I can help you get to whatever the next level is for you. Group coaching, more individual coaching clients, making everyday business feel easier, getting all the work, all your business work done in less time.

Whatever it is for you, I can help. You can schedule a free mini session on my website. All right. I’ll talk to you next week.