Welcome to the Rich Coach Club, the podcast that teaches you how to build your dream coaching practice and how to significantly increase your income. If you're a coach and you're determined to start making more money, this show is for you. I'm master certified life coach Susan Hyatt, and I'm psyched for you to join me on this journey.
Hey coaches. Do you have moments of doubt where you wonder, can I really deliver what I’ve promised to my clients? Maybe you emailed a bunch of people and did a bunch of phone calls and posted on social media, and lo and behold, you convinced a bunch of people to hire you. Hooray. You’ve got yourself a nice full client docket.
Except now you’re looking at all these payments you received, these appointments on your calendar. The clients who have placed their trust in you, and maybe you’re feeling like oh snap, now this is really happening. And what if I can’t deliver the results that my clients are hoping to get?
This is a really common fear for so many coaches. Today’s episode is all about unpacking this fear and figuring out some solutions so that you can sell your work with confidence. And oh, have I got a story for you. Later in this episode, I’m sharing a true story about a time when I bit off way more than I could chew and landed myself in a real shit pickle as my friend Liz Dennery would say. So I’ll tell you what happened and how I turned things around. Here we go.
As a coach, you’ve probably had moments when you wonder, can I really deliver what I’ve promised to my clients? Maybe you’ve gotten people to join your wellness program and you’re promising them, if you do this, you’ll have more energy and look and feel better than ever. Or maybe you’re a relationship coach and you promise, hire me and let’s work on creating a more passionate and fulfilling relationship.
But then maybe something happens that rattles your confidence. Maybe you get an unpleasant email from a client who’s just not happen, or maybe you run a brand-new program and you discover that the program has lots of kinks and issues and isn’t as effective as you’d hoped it’d be.
People complete the program, but they don’t really experience the powerful transformation you hoped to see. Or maybe you notice your clients feeling overwhelmed, feeling stuck, not taking action, and therefore not getting any results. Or maybe you notice another coach out there, someone who just seems way more polished and professional and confident than you feel inside.
So you start to doubt yourself and wonder, what if I suck as a coach? What if I’m not as good as I thought? Or what if I’ve bitten off way more than I can chew? Maybe I’m attempting to do something that’s beyond my skill level or experience level.
If you’re having these kinds of thoughts, here’s what I recommend. First, you need to build up your confidence. A really simple way to do this, make a list of wins. Write down some victories that your clients have experienced in the past. As many as you can remember. You can go through your inbox or texts or DMs to spark your memory.
By rummaging around in your inbox, you might remember a lot of victories that you’ve totally forgotten about. Collect positive statements from clients, kind words, emails where people said, “I loved today’s session,” or, “This really helped me. Thank you.” So make lists, gather emails, start to compile evidence that your coaching services do work. Start to build your confidence back up.
Next, you can look closely at your services or products or programs. If you’re noticing that some clients get great results and some don’t, look more closely into this. What’s happening? The people who succeed, what are they doing? The people who don’t succeed, what’s their deal?
Are they getting overwhelmed and giving up? Are they drowning in too much information? Are they running out of time and falling behind? Are they just not the ideal fit for the program? What’s happening? Gather information.
A program that goes really well gives you lots of information. A program that doesn’t go well gives you lots of information too. Take whatever information you can glean and use this to refine your program and make it better than ever. Coaches have to do this. All business owners have to do this. Even multi-billion-dollar tech corporations do this.
Have you ever noticed how there’s a new iPhone that rolls out every year? Partly it’s because Apple wants to sell you new and exciting things and generate more revenue, but partly it’s because the smart folks at Apple are continually discovering bugs and issues and areas for improvement.
They research, refine, and then relaunch their programs into the world. And you can do the same. So keep asking yourself, how could I make my services and programs even more effective? How can I help my clients to achieve even better results? What needs to happen?
Does your program need to be simpler, shorter, a different format? Do certain clients need a little extra coaching or a particular kind of support? I have certain programs that I’ve been running for 10, 12 years in a row. Years and years and years. And you know what? Every single time we dial things in just a little bit more and we make the program a little bit better than it was before.
And also, sometimes as a business owner you mess up. You’re human. You’re not perfect. Sometimes you bite off more than you can chew. Sometimes you aim but miss the mark. Or maybe you get so excited and enthusiastic about an idea that you don’t really think through the details on exactly how you’re going to deliver on your promise.
So this happened to me not too long ago. This was a year ago when I decided to add another branch to my coaching business called The Agency. It’s a marketing and branding agency. Full service. Most clients who hire me for business coaching eventually need a new website, mailing list, professional branding, and all that kind of stuff.
So I figured, I will put together a dream team of marketing geniuses and we can deliver all of those services. That way, I can be a one-stop shop for my clients. Everything they need to run a super successful coaching practice, all under one roof.
I got so jazzed on this agency idea, I assembled the team, hired the employees, put together the menu of services we would offer. And then because I have a quickstart personality, I felt like I don’t want to just sit on this, it’s go time, let’s get this agency going.
So I started announcing The Agency all around these internet streets. And within weeks, we had a massive flood of clients and even a waitlist. We also handed out lots of special gifts and bonuses to our current clients. Free website design for you, free social media ads for you, freebies for everyone.
And then after this initial frenzy of excitement, my team and I took a step back and realized, oh my goodness, we went overboard here. It’s going to be really hard to deliver everything we promised on time. We have a huge amount of work and we are understaffed.
So for instance, we had a queue of about 60 websites that needed to be developed ASAP but our designer only had the bandwidth for some of that per month. This was going to drag on forever. And also because this was a brand-new project, there was just a lot we didn’t know, things we didn’t factor into our plans.
So we didn’t do a very good job factoring in the fact that marketing projects, there’s a lot of back and forth communication. You present a concept to a client, they give feedback, you make tweaks, they give feedback again. There can be lots of rounds of going back and forth until everyone settles on a final concept or design.
And so we estimated, oh cool, creating a logo, we can bang this out in a few days. But in reality, that might take weeks. All of this to say my agency team and I had to get into problem solving mode and sort this out quickly. Disappointing our clients was not an option.
So I kept asking myself, what’s the high-quality solution to this problem? It’s a happy problem to have, too many clients and projects, and not enough time, so how do we address this?
Eventually, we figured out a strategy to handle the workload and get things flowing better. And this plan included hiring more help, including a project manager, and some contractors too. And even with the extra help, I’ll be honest, it was a clunky beginning.
But eventually we got things rolling smoothly and we learned huge lessons in this process. There was a lot of okay, we’re-never-doing-that-again moments. So let this story be a cautionary tale, but also a comforting tale for you because I want you to understand that even very experienced business owners like myself can make blunders and have tricky situations to solve.
This happens for CEOs and coaches at all levels. It happens at Fortune 100 companies; it happens in Washington DC with people who are running the United States. No one is perfect, no one runs a completely 100% perfect organization. Occasional mess is part of the journey.
What matters is how you handle it. Are you going to collapse and berate yourself and give up on yourself? Or are you going to seek out the high-quality solution to this problem and be a leader and do whatever needs to be done to make it right?
To sum all this up, whether you have services and programs that are going really well or not very well, or kind of mediocre, whatever the situation may be, there’s information to be gained. There’s a lesson to be learned. There are systems that can be refined.
And there is always a next move you can make. So gather your wins, focus on what is working, remind yourself of the impact you’re making on people’s lives, and always look for ways to refine and improve even more.
There’s always more work to be done, always another level you can reach as a coach. You will never be perfect. But even right now in your imperfect state, you are probably more impactful and helpful and influential on your clients than you think.
Your clients probably appreciate you a great deal, even if they’re not always sending you gushing emails full of praise. Simply by showing up for your clients and providing a space to talk and be heard, just that is a lot. You are probably impacting clients in more ways than you even know.
Community wins, y’all. It’s time for a community win. So this is the part of the show where I sometimes share victories, beautiful accomplishments from members of the Rich Coach Club Facebook group or my masterminds. And today, I’m bringing you a win from Meghan Krause.
So Meghan is part of the Rich Coach Club Facebook group and she just posted, “I’m channeling Susan’s Finish Strong message and folks, this week has been a good one. On Monday I launched my podcast, Bullshift. On Tuesday, I learned I passed my exam. On Wednesday, I was named a president’s recognition honorary at a 27,000-person healthcare system. On Thursday, I learned Bullshift reached the top 200 in its category. Big win energy, keep going, y’all can do it.”
Oh my gosh, Meghan, so proud of you. And thank you for sharing. And hey, if you’re listening to this and you’re not yet a member of the Rich Coach Club Facebook group, get yourself in there. It’s free to join. You get to hang out with amazing people like Meghan and we post advice and tips and we have trainings in there all the time. You can find the link in the show notes.
Oh hey, do you love the Rich Coach Club podcast? If you’ve gotten a boost of motivation from this show, or it’s shifted your attitude in any way, or helped you make more money, I would love for you to leave me a review on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Because I am currently mailing out real actual beautiful crowns. Because if you leave me a positive review, in my book, you’re a queen. So if you leave a review and let us know about it, send it in to support@shyatt.com or tag me on social media, I will mail you a crown.
Alright, so here’s the latest crown winner. Somebody who calls themselves ParCheesy entitles this, “Bright and shiny. I look forward to Susan Hyatt’s voice and inspiration every week. Her message is informational, upbeat, and comes from the heart. Her enthusiasm shines bright.” Let me tell you something. There’s a crown coming your way, queen. Thank you so, so much. Thanks for the love. I love y’all right back.
One more thing before the end of today’s show. If you’re having a moment of shaky confidence and feeling like you suck as a coach, here’s a good question to ask yourself. If my client in better shape now versus when they first hired me? Have they changed or improved in any way? Has there been some kind of transformation?
Maybe it wasn’t the exact transformation they expected, or that you expected, but I am willing to bet there has been some kind of shift. So honor that. Celebrate that. Making a difference in someone’s life, whether it’s a big obvious impact or a more subtle one, that’s a beautiful thing. And that’s something you can be proud of. The more you focus on your wins and collect these wins, the more confidence you will have in your coaching abilities.
Thank you for listening to today’s episode. We covered a lot, didn’t we? We talked about what to do if you start doubting your coaching abilities or having a low confidence day. We also discussed what you can do if you run a coaching program and it doesn’t go that well. How to be kinder to yourself and focus on continual refinement and improvement.
Perfection is not attainable, but improvement is always possible and doable. I hope this episode left you with some good things to think about. What’s one way you could make your coaching services better than ever, more effective, more likely to deliver results consistently every time? Think on that. Have an amazing week and I’ll see you next time.
Oh, one last thing. Are you part of The Mastermind for 2021 yet? If not, you want to have a 30-minute call with someone on my team. This is truly a once in a decade kind of offer, so go schedule your call. You can have a private one-on-one coaching session with someone on my team and determine if On the 6 or The Mastermind is the right community of women kicking ass for you. See you later.
