Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf, and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 304.5.

To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hey coach. Okay, I know that’s not usually the intro I give. But this is going to be a quick kind of bonus episode. And this is an episode that is part of the Unfinished series, although this is not one I planned ahead of time. This is something that came to me this week that I just thought this has to be recorded. This hopefully will be an episode that maybe you save and you listen to over and over and over. I think what I’m about to tell you could really shift some things for you.

So this is a bit of a bonus, but I want to share with you today what I have decided recently are the two most important ingredients to the coaching businesses and probably any business, honestly, but for this case, to the coaching businesses that I see succeeding and working right now. And by succeeding, what I mean by that is a business that the coach wants. Like they have the business they want. They might have bigger goals, but they are making money that they want to make, they are working with clients that they want to work with. I’m going to tell you the two ingredients.

Are you ready? First I’m going to tell you just a very quick story. So yesterday, I coached the first call for the new round of my Reimagine Mastermind. One of the things that happened is before we had our first call, I’d sent a couple emails and one of the things I asked them to just consider in an email is what is a big, maybe scary goal that you have that you haven’t said out loud. And there’s a reason I asked this and it has to do with them kind of tethering to kind of a bigger vision because I think in business it’s so important to think about like what’s the big vision and then also what’s the day to day. It’s like finding the balance between those things.

So anyway, I asked them this question, and then yesterday on the first call, I gave them the opportunity to share if they wanted to. It wasn’t required, but many of them did share their goals. And honestly, so many of them gave answers that I didn’t expect, but I loved. And many of them, their answers were something like they want to love what they do or they want to hit this other big goal, maybe a money goal, but they want to feel more joy while they do it, or they want to feel more them while they do it or something along those lines. It had a lot to do with enjoyment and enjoying the process.

I thought that was so fun, but I didn’t expect it. Honestly, I thought the answers were mostly going to be things like, I want to make this amount of money or move here or go on this crazy vacation or write a book or you know just things like that, like your typical, what I would consider typical answers that I’m used to hearing. And because of that call, that’s why I’m recording this episode because I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m obsessed with this. Of course you’ve heard me talk about it. I talk about it all the time.

But this brings me to the first very important ingredient to creating the business you want, which is enjoying what you’re doing, enjoying your business, making sure that enjoyment is never the reward for hitting the goal. It’s like the reason to hit the goal and also the strategy to get there. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, it’s just a business that feels miserable to show up to.

And of course, again, I’ve said this before, but you’re not going to enjoy every single piece of every single thing that you do in your business. But I’m talking about like big overall business strategy. Let me show you what I mean. So many of my clients, especially newer coaches, when I ask them what they, when we’re talking about their business strategy, they’ll say things to me like, so I market my business on Instagram, but I don’t know, it’s not creating clients.

It’s very outcome only measurement. Or I don’t know, I just started a YouTube because supposedly that’s where my best clients are. Or I’m on TikTok because that’s what everyone else is doing and so I just figured I’d try it. Or something along those lines, or I’m going to all of these networking events because I know that that’s like what you’re supposed to do.

But here’s what I rarely hear them saying. I love fill in the blank. So let me figure out how to make that work. Like I love having conversations with people. I know that’s where I come alive. And so I’m wondering like where can I do more of that in my marketing? Or I love making spreadsheets. Like that just lights me up. It’s so fun. How do I incorporate more of that into my marketing, into what I do with my clients? How do I just do more of the parts that naturally light me up, that feel great, that I truly enjoy doing?

Even with sometimes the same clients that tell me the examples I just gave, I will say, okay, you’ve had a handful of clients. Like where have they come from? And they’ll tell me. They’re like, okay, well so and so came from this meeting I went to. This other person came from a networking event. This person came from, you know, you know, I met her, she’s like a friend of my cousins or whatever, a neighbor. This is as an example, obviously. And I’ll learn like, oh, it’s from people that you’ve met in your life. So you’re right now you’re trying so hard to use Instagram and make this work. But when I ask you where your clients come from, every single one of them came from real conversations that you just had in your life, not these other strategies.

But what happens is, we all do this. We discount those things. We think, yeah, but that’s not repeatable. That’s not a real strategy. That’s not what the Instagram ads are teaching me to do. And then what happens is when you think it’s not a real strategy and you discount that that’s the thing that’s working, you never explore, wait, like why is that actually working? In this case, maybe it’s because that person thrives on back and forth conversations. It lights them up.

They could do it all day and one reason that it doesn’t feel like any kind of strategy or worth looking at is because it doesn’t feel like effort. It feels easy. It feels natural. It feels like maybe you’ve thought this before in this situation or in different situations, maybe you’ve thought, yeah, but that’s just something I do. But what I want you to know is that’s not luck. That’s just enjoyment. That’s you enjoying a thing showing you like, hey, this is actually your advantage. That enjoyment, you can turn it into data. You can say like, okay, this is what I love to do. How can I leverage that in my marketing?

And then do it over and over and over. Right? Not just, oh, I love conversations, let me just like go into the world and have good vibes and talk to people. No, but how can I actually use this in my marketing in my business? Because I love doing it, my energy is different. It is the cheapest source of consistency that you could ever have. Think about that. I’m going to say it again.

Enjoyment is the cheapest source of consistency you could ever have. If you love doing something, you’re not going to mind getting up and doing it every day. It might not, in most cases, even feel like you’re working. Now, it might feel like work when you start to turn it into an actual strategy and you say like, okay, how can I include more of this in my marketing? But it’s fine. You’ll love the work if you love what you’re doing.

Now what you have to mix with this is the other ingredient, the second ingredient with enjoyment, you need hunger. Because enjoyment without hunger is the kind of wandering around the world, just having conversations. So like, I don’t know, I mean, I know I like this. Let me just like see what I could do.

Hunger without enjoyment would be the example of like grinding on YouTube because that’s where you think your clients are and it’s exhausting and you hate it and you’re like, okay, but someday someone will maybe do this for me. I can pay someone or I can reuse my content or whatever. I won’t have to keep doing this, but for now, I must grind. That is no good, which is why you need both.

Each of them without the other, you can get them to work. Right? Like you can go out in the world, you can have a lot of conversations and eventually, if you’re talking about your coaching, that will turn into clients. It probably won’t create the number of clients you want, but it will, like you will probably get some clients.

And let’s say grinding on YouTube, that can also create clients. That could actually, if you’re using a great strategy and you’re able to like fake it till you make it and just keep showing up, you could create a good number of clients. But what I know, because I’ve seen it, even sometimes with quite successful coaches, if you don’t like doing it, it is not sustainable. So at some point, it will stop working. Both of those things will stop working or will just like work like a trickle.

So the enjoyment sounds like, what do I love doing? And the hunger sounds like, how do I do this 50 more times on purpose? Hunger isn’t just the grinding or the doing more. It’s wanting it enough to stop kind of being precious or stop protecting how it happens and to really say like, oh look, this is actually the part that is working or that feels like it’s starting to work even if you’re brand new. Right?

Maybe you don’t have the every single result yet, but you’re like, oh, people are leaning in. I can feel it. Or I love being on camera and telling stories. I feel it. I feel different when I do this. So when you find those things that you really enjoy, then you ask yourself, how do I make this repeatable?

For example, if you love conversations, if you love that back and forth, how can you make that repeatable? You can have podcast conversations. You can go on people’s podcasts. You could have your own podcast and have conversations on there. You could make recorded conversations that you clip and use on Instagram or YouTube or the places that you think you’re supposed to be showing up. It doesn’t mean that you can’t use any of those platforms or do any of the other things, but you just think about like, what is the thing I love and how can I take that and make that happen all over the place?

For example, if you love writing, if that’s your thing, amazing. Go on Instagram. Go on other social media platforms, LinkedIn, and figure those out. Where can you write in more long form content? Maybe that means something like Substack or a weekly newsletter where you just get to write and write and write. Maybe that’s for you. And it won’t feel like work if you’re like, I just get to write every day. This is amazing.

The more you lean into it, the more you’re going to find your voice, the more you’re going to figure out, oh, if I just keep writing, I’m going to get more information and I’ll start to see, oh, people really liked it when I talked about this. People really liked this thing. People love this topic. How do I talk about more of it? Let me write and write and write more. Maybe I write a short book that I give away to clients and that’s part of my marketing.

But you see where I’m going, right? It’s like finding those things that you enjoy and asking yourself, like inviting in the hunger and saying, how can I do this a hundred more times? That puts you in control. It gives you so much more control than it does when you are just like, I don’t know, people said I should be on Instagram, so that’s just what I’m doing.

I’m doing all of these Reels and like taking an Instagram course and trying to get better at it. I don’t know, if I just keep going, it’s probably going to work or I’m such an introvert, but I know that going to networking events every week is where it’s at, even though it’s truly exhausting me and I really don’t want to do it, but I just, I’ll just keep showing up. Like that’s great. That’s an amazing work ethic and I can always appreciate that. And it’s a hundred percent the thing that will burn you out before, sometimes before you even create any results that you want to create.

So, look at what is in your control. Look at what you enjoy doing and then invite in that hunger that’s like, okay, now how do I just do more and more of this? That will help you work consistently. It will help you show up. It will help you have so much more fun before you even start creating any results. I will say, I do think, I’ve been doing this for 10 years.

When I think about these two things, I can look at my business over 10 years and I can see, look back and remember or even see the parts where one of those two things dropped, where the hunger dropped and maybe I was just kind of phoning it in for a bit and I stopped showing up as much as I wanted to. And so I corrected that. I don’t know that I would have said it always in the moment, but I would correct it. And part of the way I corrected it was really pausing and saying, okay, wait, what do I love doing and how do I do more of that?

I can probably also look back and see like, oh, these were really hard seasons. I was doing things I didn’t love. The enjoyment dropped. I’m betting if I went and like made a graph of it, there would be a direct correlation between my revenue and how much I loved what I was doing and how hungry I felt for the results I wanted to create.

And yes, hard seasons will always be there. I don’t think I’ve talked to any business owner that’s been in business for more than, I don’t know, six months that aren’t like, yep, there’s been dips. There’s hard times. But finding what I love and doing that on purpose over and over and over and then asking myself, okay, how do I make this, how do I do more of it? How do I put this into my marketing?

One of the marketing strategies that worked so well for me, I haven’t done it in a while, but I’ve actually been considering bringing this back. One of the marketing strategies that worked so well for me was realizing, oh, my favorite thing to do in my business, my absolute favorite thing is coaching. So how can I use coaching in my marketing?

And when I asked that question and I think back to all the things that I’ve done over the years that worked the best, the answers that came from that were, I can host, you know, monthly workshops where I’m just coaching. It’s not a webinar, I’m not teaching, I’m just coaching. And yes, I did that even before I was coaching coaches. So don’t use that as an excuse. Sometimes I hear you say that, some of you are like, yeah, but your clients know what coaching is. They didn’t then. I had to teach them. That’s fine. It’s part of your job.

Always teach your clients what coaching is. Even working with coaches, sometimes I have to teach them what that means. The other thing is Coach Week, a full week of me just showing up and coaching, hours of coaching, a little bit of teaching, more coaching. Those are the two things that created the most results as far as my marketing efforts in my business. And those all came from the one question, what do I love doing the most? What do I want to do more of?

So that’s my challenge for you today is to ask yourself, what do you want to do more of? What do you love doing more than anything in your life and your business? Sometimes you might have things in your life that you love that you are like, yeah, that’s my life. That has nothing to do with my business. It could be interesting to be curious about that. If you love art, for example, if you love painting and you’re like, but I’m not like a coach for artists. What does that even mean? How would I incorporate that? Who knows? Get creative.

Can you make videos? You know how people make videos of like putting on makeup and they’re talking? Amazing. Make videos of you painting on a canvas or whatever art you make while talking about some concept that you talk to your clients about. And I could keep going. I could come up with so many ideas. That’s another thing I love doing is coming up with ideas. What do I do often now in my coaching? I help my clients with this exact thing, coming up with ideas. I could just keep going on and on and on.

Yesterday, a client of mine, shout out to Seth, gave me possibly the highest compliment I’ve ever received in my business. He said, during our mastermind call, he said, it just seems like you’re having so much fun. He said, I listened to, I don’t know, one of my recent podcast episodes, he said, I could just hear it in your voice and then seeing you here, you’re just having so much fun. I want more of that. First of all, thank you and I want that for you, for all of you. Please do not wait. Please don’t think that once I’m making a certain amount of money, I’ll be having fun or once I’m doing this thing in my business, then it’ll be fun.

Don’t wait for it. Create it now. Find the enjoyment. I have had years where I’ve made more money than I’m making right now. And this year, I am having way more fun in my business recently especially than I have in a while. So what does that tell me? It tells me the money does not determine how much I’m enjoying running my business. Let that be proof for you too. I know sometimes it can feel counterintuitive, but I promise it’s not. And fun really can be an amazing business strategy.

Okay, if you needed to hear this today, hopefully it landed and you want to listen to it over and over again. I promise I’ll be back next week with the real planned episode next in the Unfinished series. But for now, I’ll see you next time. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. See you next week.