Ep #194: The Future of Your Coaching Business

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 194.

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, I am so happy you’re here today, as always. And I have something really exciting to talk about, or I think it’s exciting. What is actually going to happen is I’m going to tell you about a new offer that I promised I would do, I think it was last week maybe, on the last episode. But I’m not going to do that first.

First, there’s going to be a regular topic, a regular episode that’s going to lead into an offer. And some of you have messaged me or emailed me already saying you’re excited, wanting to know what it is. So that will be coming at the end of this episode. I feel very excited to talk about it, but first, and these two things of course are related, so that’s why I’m going to start with this other thing first, which is really just kind of talking about the state of the coaching industry. Some shifts that I see happening.

I have been asked to record this episode or talk about this topic many times, and I honestly have been putting it off because I really wanted to give it some time and really think through the changes that I am seeing and why some of them are good and how they can be challenging possibly for you and for you as a business owner and a coach. And how you can use some of those things even when they feel hard, even the things that sometimes feel hard, as a way to learn and grow and improve as a coach and as an entrepreneur.

So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. A lot of you have expressed this opinion to me or I’ve seen you talk about it in other places or I’ve overheard these conversations around just some kind of changes happening in the coaching industry. And the first thing I would say is I totally agree.

I have been watching, and I think some of them are really great. I think some of them are probably feeling very frustrating for some of you. And for some of you, you might not feel super affected by it, and I’ll even get into, on this episode, why that could be and why maybe some of the things that you’re doing that are really good and that are kind of keeping you shaded from some of the changed happening or some of the things that are affecting some coaches.

So, I want to be really clear, I’m going to talk very broadly about some of this. Some of it may feel very pertinent to you, right, to the listener and some of it may not. Some of it might be like, oh, I hadn’t even thought of that or I hadn’t noticed that. So don’t take any of these things as like, oh no, this is all bad, because some of these shifts, honestly, I think are great. They are just things we need to think about and think through as we are deciding what kind of coach we are and how we put our work into the world and how seriously we take ourselves as a coach and an entrepreneur.

So first off, I just want to say I think I’ve heard this one talked about quite a few times. So you’ve probably heard this before, but I think something that is important to know is that right now there’s a lot of talk about like, well in 2020, right? Like in 2020 Covid happened, and obviously it’s still around, it hasn’t gone anywhere, but that’s when it really had a huge effect on the whole world, really.

And a lot of things happened during that time. All of a sudden people were home. A lot of people really needed more support, more mental health support. They weren’t leaving their home so they had a lot of time to spend on self-improvement I’m going to say in quotes, or just learning new hobbies, all the things, right?

And yes, this is true and I think that that had a big effect on the coaching industry. But I also want to acknowledge, and I’m guessing for those of you that have been in business much longer than 2020, you will probably nod in agreement around this.

So I’ve been in business since 2015, and I actually had a business before that too. But just talking about coaching in general, I’ve been in business since 2015. I’ve owned this business since 2015. And a lot of coaches, what happened is a lot of coaches started their business in 2020 or kind of went all in on their business in 2020.

So maybe they had been just watching and considering it, and then 2020 came and it was great timing. Or they were already kind of dabbling in coaching, it was like a side gig, a side hustle, and then 2020 happened and it was like, oh, this is a perfect opportunity to go all in.

And the message that I’m hearing a lot right now is that, oh, right now it’s just harder to sell coaching and it’s like some of these changes that I’ll talk about in a minute are happening and this is a really bad thing because it’s making it a lot harder to sell coaching. But my experience is actually a little bit different than that.

What I think really happened, and first of all, I want to be very clear, I think it’s so normal, and I’ll get a little bit into this. But I think it’s so normal for businesses and for industries and for economies and all of that, all of the things, all of the factors that go into this to just have ups and downs.

There’s a cognitive bias, I can’t think of what, I’m so bad about this. I should Google these things before I start recording these episodes. But there’s a cognitive bias that happens that it’s like whatever is happening right now, like the state that we’re in, we think it’s going to be permanent, right? Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

So in 2020, when lots of coaches were making a lot of money and having a lot of sales, I think the thought was like, oh, I’m just really good at this, right? Like this is like made for me. I’m doing a great job. I’m killing it in this industry. And now that’s kind of slowed down a little bit because of some things that I’ll talk about. And then people are like, oh no, something’s wrong with the industry.

What I actually think happened, watching since 2020, or even before that just watching the coaching industry when I was just a client and just paying attention because I was intrigued by it all. I actually think there was just a huge spike in 2020 and now it’s kind of normalizing back out and we’re trying to figure out what’s the new normal.

Now, if you are someone who’s really having a hard time in your business right now, I don’t want you to hear that and think like, “Oh great, like this is just the normal. And it was just good for a couple of years. And now this is the norm.” That’s not true. I just want to point out that I don’t think it’s as dramatic.

And I especially see this message from a lot of newer coaches, a lot of newer business coaches who maybe haven’t been in the industry for very long, who had a lot of quick success in 2020 and then kind of were like, “Oh, I’m really good at this. I should be a business coach.”

Not that that’s a terrible thing, right? I don’t want you to hear that. But to just notice if that is you, what your thoughts are about the state of the industry now, because a lot of the negative things that I hear are from, or when I’m on social media or whatever, the loud voices that are saying things like that are coaches who haven’t been in the industry a super long time, maybe have or haven’t owned businesses before. And the kind of message is like, oh, it was so good and now it’s not.

And I just want to say, and hopefully this feels encouraging for most of you, especially if you’re having a hard time right now, that no, that’s not true. All businesses have ups and downs. All industries have ups and downs. There are definitely some changes happening. So I’m not saying that there aren’t, and I will go through each of them, the main ones that I see.

But I really just want to acknowledge that it isn’t as doom and gloom as some people might have you believe, right? That this really is an effect of like, oh, there was actually just a huge spike, I think, in the amount of people hiring coaches and the number of coaches entering the industry for so many different reasons in 2020.

So now let’s go through some of the changes that I really do think are happening in the industry. None of them are necessarily bad, they’re just things to consider as a coach and as an entrepreneur and kind of think about like, okay, how does this affect me? And like, what do I want to do about this for my business, for my coaching and the way I speak to my clients and all of that?

And hopefully after this episode, you will have some, just at least a little more clarity around it. Instead of thinking it’s something you don’t have control over, I hope to show you that a lot of these things you do actually have a lot more control over than you think you do. And even if, let’s just assume there is a little bit of a dip right now, for some of the reasons I’m going to talk about, in the number of people buying coaching, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

You might just have to get a little more creative. You might have to be willing to pivot in your business and to, instead of just thinking like, “Oh, this is terrible. I have to just wait to be on the other side of it,” which I’ve totally had that thought. Don’t worry. So if you have, you’re not alone. But to really say like, okay, that’s not actually true. I just need to really look at what I’m doing, how I’m talking about it, what I’m offering, and does it match the moment, right?

Like, does it match the kind of cultural moment that we’re having right now, which might be different than the moment we were having in 2020, when I think it was a little easier to sell coaching. You could get away with a lot more as far as being a little, I don’t know what the – I want to say sloppy, but that sounds kind of mean. I don’t mean it in a mean way, but just a little like, you know, your copy didn’t have to be as clear and you didn’t have to be as clear about what coaching is and how you help your clients.

So a few of the things, a few of the reasons I think this is happening, the first one I’ve already touched on a little bit, right? In 2020 Covid happened. The world kind of shut down.

Everyone was looking, was like kind of scrambling for, you know, over 2020, even 2021 for like, what do I do now, right? Whether that comes in the form of like, how do I support myself? So people were probably looking to hire coaches. Plus a lot of more people were just home. They had more time to hire coaches, to be on Zoom calls, to be in coaching sessions, because what else were they going to do, right? This might be a great time to work on some of these things I’ve been putting off, right?

And not only that, but so many people were just home sitting with themselves, right, seeing all the things. They didn’t have as many ways to buffer or distract themselves that they normally would by just being busy and staying busy with regular life, right? Which helped many things bubble to the surface.

So there was that piece where people were just hiring more coaches. I also think that a lot of people were, even if they were still working, but maybe they were working virtually, it really landed an opportunity for, oh, I kind of had this side hustle, or I’d been thinking about starting this business. Why not now? Now’s the time, right?

When people started to realize, oh, this isn’t like a two-week thing or a two-month thing even, like this is going to last a little bit. So I mean, if I’m going to start a business, now’s the time. Or even people that all of a sudden found themselves without a job or for some reason couldn’t, maybe they were still getting paid, but they weren’t going to work or there were just so many different circumstances.

And so it became the perfect time to start a business. And then you mix that with kind of big name, I remember kind of seeing this happen, kind of big name coaching platforms, like seeing that moment and stepping up to it, right? And saying like, oh, if you’re looking for a job that you can do virtually, that you can do from anywhere, from home, that’s really in demand right now, here’s how to do that. Here’s how to become a coach, right? And using ads and whatever.

I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing or that that shouldn’t have happened. It was just kind of the perfect storm, I think, of when a lot of industries were having a really hard time and a lot of industries were scrambling to figure out what was going on. I think the coaching industry was perfectly poised to step in and really take up a lot of that slack and just say like, “Oh, we can help. We can help as coaches. We can help give you jobs. We can just help in so many ways.”

And I think for people that entered the industry in that moment, you might not have really seen that. And even some of you that have been around for a while, you might not have really thought about it like this. But I do think that that was just a big boom in the industry that then lasted for a couple of years, right? That had really ripple effects moving forward.

And so now, four years later, I think we’re having this moment of some people trying to figure it out and getting a little frustrated, right? Entering the industry in 2020 and either having a hard time from the start building a business, which felt very frustrating for them and still having a hard time now and maybe still haven’t figured it out.

And now that the world is back, you know, it’s not 2020 anymore. The world is back to revolving just the way it was before. Everybody’s back at work. So if you didn’t figure it out, now you have to go back to work. You only had a certain amount of time. It’s just kind of, I think there are just so many factors that play into some of the frustrations happening with people trying to build coaching businesses in this moment or that have been trying to build them for years and are just feeling very frustrated.

So I think just acknowledging that, that that was a thing, that it was a moment that the industry had that kind of was a boom, hopefully that kind of somehow reassures you that this isn’t like doomsday. Like nothing has gone wrong. It is now just the industry, I think, kind of course correcting, right?

It’s kind of saying like, okay, like let’s look at everything that we’ve created over the last couple of years as an industry and just reevaluate a little bit. And that’s what I feel like I’m seeing, is just as a whole, the industry reevaluating and just saying like, oh, are we headed in the right direction?

I keep finding more and more proof for that. The more that I’m watching, the more things that I see, the things that I see that are really working versus things that I see that really aren’t, to me, it just feels like the industry just kind of saying like, oh, okay, well like that was happening then and now the world has changed. People have changed. People are back to work. Now what, right? Now how do we move forward?

But I don’t think that that has anything to do with coaching not being in demand or not being just as valuable as it’s always been or any of those things. I think we just have to start looking at it a little differently. Not for those of you that it’s like working and it’s working really well. You don’t do anything, it’s the rest of you that are feeling very frustrated or feeling like it’s not working.

And trust me, there are plenty of coaches who have businesses that are working very well and coaching practices that are thriving and so many clients that they’re helping. I see that every day, right? So I work with so many clients. I see so many coaches. I hear so many different stories that I just don’t fully believe it when people tell me like, oh, everyone’s struggling right now. That’s just not true.

So there’s that piece, right? There’s like kind of the recovering from 2020. I think linked to that for similar reasons, I think there’s just a little bit of self-improvement burnout right now. That’s what I would call it.

And I don’t think that that’s happening just right now, I think it’s been happening for the last year, maybe even two years where people did spend that, and again, I’m using people as a very broad term. I know this wasn’t everyone’s reality, but just a lot of people spent more time at home, spent more time focused on themselves, on their health, on hobbies, right?

I remember how many people I knew just watching on social media, how many people that I knew that started baking or started just doing things that they had never done before that they were like, I guess I’m just now a sourdough bread maker, right? Or whatever. And just doing things that were out of the ordinary and having new exercise routines and having just new things. Part of it was just to cope with all the extra time and kind of a loneliness that people were feeling.

And within that, just like I said a minute ago, came the hiring of therapists. I think therapists had a boom in 2020 as well, right? Therapists, anything like mental health adjacent, I think was so important. And I don’t just mean boom, like people were bored and they were spending money, but also it was just really important, right? Some people really needed it. And some people just had more time to focus on whatever the reason is they were hiring a coach, for example.

But now, so that all happened, people were kind of stuck at home. But now that we’re not stuck at home, I think there’s this kind of shift towards, okay, I’m ready to just be out in the world. I’m ready to be around people. And again, not right in this moment. I think this has been happening for the last year or two, right?

Think about how many coaches you see now launching retreats and just different things that weren’t necessarily actually happening as much before, even before 2020, where it’s just all about connection and being together and having fun and doing that, right? So when it comes to self-improvement burnout, I don’t think that that’s necessarily a problem when it comes to coaching.

I think it might just affect, and I’ll get a little more into this, but I think it might just affect how you talk about coaching. How you sell it, what your offers are. How can you frame it in a way that in 2020 it was very like, I can help you. I understand it’s hard right now. You’re lonely. You’re struggling. You don’t have a job. You’re looking for a job or whatever it is, right? So many changes are happening and I can help. And I think now the message just has to be a little bit different.

So part of that might be kind of you as a coach taking a step back and saying, okay, like that is the messaging that did work, but like what works now? What do people want now? How do I rise to this occasion, to this moment that we’re having in the world?

The next thing, as I’m recording this in 2024, is the economy, right? It’s an election year in the United States. There’s just lots of stuff going on in the US and in the world that are affecting the economy. And I’m not going to get into an argument over whether we are close to a recession? Are we not? Are we whatever?

Overall, I just think even the message about the economy, I don’t necessarily think, I do think some people have been very affected by the economy, definitely. And some people have been positively affected by some of the things going on in the economy and all of that. So I don’t think that it’s all terrible news, but there is a little bit of a message around, oh, we have to be careful. You know, some things are more expensive right now.

That does feel true. Even in my own life, I would say that feels true, just when it comes to bills and utilities and all the things. It feels like everything has kind of gone up a little bit. And so what that creates isn’t necessarily that, oh, now no one has money to buy coaching.

But what it does is it makes people protect their money just a little bit more, right? Just to make decisions in a different way. To say like, is this really something I need right now or can I do it later? Does it feel really clear like why I would be buying this thing? Do I really need it, right? Just to question it more, which I actually don’t think is a terrible thing.

Again, for the industry, it’s just asking us to step up a little more, be a little more clear about what we offer, about the problems that we help our clients solve, about the goals that we help them achieve. And we just can’t be lazy with our messaging or with our just message in general about what coaching is and why it is so important.

So my summation of that is people are still buying coaching. A lot of people are still buying coaching. I just think they’re being a little pickier, right? They’re being a little more conscientious about the choices that they are making.

And then the last thing, and I do think that this plays into it a little bit, especially depending on what kind of branch of coaching you’re in, right? So if you’re a business coach or if you help people with their copy or copywriting, any of those things that are very business-oriented or business strategy-oriented that has anything to do with marketing or copy, I think that’s being affected by AI, right?

There’s so much stuff that AI can do now that’s pretty incredible. And I do not think, I don’t have a fear of it taking over or of coaches being not as useful because I don’t think that that’s a thing. I think when you lean into it and say like, okay, this is here to stay, the question I’m always asking is like, okay, what is AI great at and how can I use it in my programs and for my benefit and all of those things?

Like how can we use it to fuel what we’re doing? And what is it not great at and why am I still necessary, right? Why is coaching still necessary? So for you, if you’re in any of the industries that are more affected by that, you could just pause and say like, okay, this doesn’t mean that what I do isn’t valuable because in my opinion, at least at this point, AI cannot do things as well as we can. Although if you put a lot of time and attention into it, it certainly can be pretty amazing and helpful.

But if you are someone who feels a lot more affected by that, I think that that is normal too. I think that that is a piece of what’s going on right now. And in general, for me, all of it is just calling for, okay, let’s examine all of this, right? Let’s re-imagine it. Where’s the industry headed? What are we here for? What are we doing with it?

And then the last thing, last but not least, very important thing is just, how do I want to say it? I think it’s a kind of social awareness, right? Or prioritizing, which I love this by the way, I think that this is overall a huge win for everyone. But I think just a prioritizing of taking care of people and being good humans.

Or at least that’s what I like to hope. Maybe that’s optimistic, but that is what it feels like to me, is how do we make sure that we’re delivering on what we’re offering, right? Or that we aren’t just charging people a bunch of money and not helping them create results.

I have been saying this for years. I’ve been shouting it from the rooftops. And now it feels like a lot of other people are saying it too. And so for me, it’s actually kind of fun to see, but I also know it can feel very frustrating if all of a sudden things aren’t working that used to be working or it’s like, okay, it feels like I have to try harder to sell this thing or to figure out where my people are, how to sell to them.

Or to even maybe realize like, oh, through 2020, 2021, somehow I got into a niche. And I know I used the example of business coaching earlier, but I don’t actually think that’s even the only one that’s affected like this. But maybe I got into a niche that was in very high demand then that has somehow changed or shifted, or maybe for whatever reason isn’t in as high demand or is calling for more expertise in the area.

That’s what I see happening a lot right now with business coaching, right? That people are like, no, but I really want you to know what you’re doing if you’re helping me with my business, which again, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think this is a call for all coaches to be more clear about who they are and what they do. To be more clear about who you help and how you help them.

I want to say, as I say that, I know what some of you just heard is you need to define a niche, which I don’t think is true. But I do think you need to get more clear first in your mind and then allow it to come out in your marketing, in your copy, whatever. Just more clear around the problems you solve, right? The goals you help your clients achieve, the results that your clients have gotten in the past. Like what are you really good at?

And alternatively, what are you not very good at? I think that one of the reasons that especially the first few years of my business, when I was just growing a one-on-one coaching practice and I was a general life coach, one of the reasons that I think people hired me is because I was just so honest when I was talking to them about how I could help.

I was so honest about like, oh no, coaching doesn’t actually help with that thing, or I don’t help with that thing, but I can help you find someone who does, right? Or no, coaching is not great for that, but here’s what it is great for.

Or yes, you might think you already know what the solution is, but what coaching does is comes in and gives you just that extra support and help along the way as you implement and fail and try again and try again and try again, whatever the goal is that you’re working towards, right? I was just so honest that I think it’s a breath of fresh air.

And what I see a lot of coaches doing, which I totally understand why you do this and I know it can be hard sometimes not to, is just kind of convincing yourself or pretending like, sure, I could help with that. Instead of just saying to clients, I can help with that, but here’s how I help.

Or I can help with that, I don’t have a specific strategy, but I will coach you. I will help you research strategies. I will help you come up with your own strategy, right? And just being so honest that someone can’t help but believe what you’re saying.

And then the last thing is just being more specific, I already said this a little bit, but just really being much more specific when you talk about the results that you offer. So when I watch all of the coaches in my spaces, right, in The Coach Lab, mostly in The Coach Lab, and then in my more advanced offers, I just don’t have a huge pool of that right now, most of my clients are in The Coach Lab.

When I watch them, what I know is working is the coaches that are offering or are very clear, very, very clear about the specific result that they’re helping their clients create, right? So I think we’re just having a moment of like, it’s not enough to say, I’m a business coach. I’ll just help you grow your business. Or I am a marriage coach or a relationship coach or whatever. Or I’m a general life coach. I can help with anything.

It’s not enough to just say that. You have to be so clear about specifically how you help, specifically what coaching is, and what, again, it comes back to what are you good at and maybe what are you not good at, right? Like if I’m hiring a business coach at this point in my business, almost 10 years in, can we just have a moment for that?

Almost 10 years in business feels like a huge thing. It will be next year. I should definitely have a 10-year celebration, right? I want everybody to message me, tell me what kind of celebration I should have. I want you to be there. I don’t actually know if that’s a thing, but we’ll see. There will definitely be a celebration. Will it include everyone? I have no idea, but that could be fun. I’ll start thinking about it now.

Sorry, that was a little tangent. I just got really excited. It blows my mind every time I think about it being 10 years. It just really blows my mind. But when I think about the offers that I see that are working so well right now, they are offers that are just super clear. Here’s how I help.

Now, it doesn’t mean that they have to be super niched. Notice I didn’t say, here’s the specific person I help. I said, here is how I help. Here are the specific results I can help you create. And the difference, and that might sound like, oh, I help women have healthy relationships with their new partners after divorce or something, right? That’s very, very specific.

You can be a general life coach, coach people on any single thing that they bring you, and you can still describe it in a way that’s just as specific. You could say, I help my clients achieve the goals that they want to achieve. So in the beginning, we set goals. We make a plan. We figure out all the obstacles that are going to get in the way. Then they start to take action. They come back every week. We evaluate, how is it going? What do we need to change? Are you going to keep going?

Just all of those things. Like you can say it in a way that you can literally take any topic and plug it into that equation. I talk about this all the time inside The Coach Lab and actually even in my other offers. It’s a thing that comes up for coaches, I think, at every single level. Like how do I get more specific? How do I get better at talking about it? So that’s a thing.

I don’t think that all of these, all of these changes in the industry, I don’t actually think they’re bad. And here’s why. I want to point out all the good things that come from what I just said. I think it’s raising the bar in the industry. I think it is, like I’ve already said, a call for making sure your coaching is valuable, making sure you know what you’re doing, making sure that when someone hires you, that you really believe that they are going to get the results that they hired you for and that they believe it too and then it happens. And if it doesn’t, you know exactly why.

Coaching is a human science, there is no perfect equation for it. And so I’m not saying that every single one of your clients has to get five times the results that they were hoping for every single time. Sometimes that’s not a thing. You can’t control your clients. You can’t control other humans. Everybody moves at a different pace.

But a great coach is super clear about if it’s not working, why is it not working and what are we going to do to fix it? That’s one reason, right? I think it’s raising the bar.

The other thing is, I just feel like this is real business. That’s my experience as someone who’s owned this business for 10 years, which in the online space, let’s address it, is a very long time, and someone who’s owned other businesses before and I’ve been through these ups and downs. To me, this is like, oh, this is just part of business.

And what I see happening is it’s really pushing coaches, especially coaches that came into the industry when it was maybe a little bit easier, maybe in 2020, when it was a little easier at the time to just kind of jump in and get going. It’s forcing them to kind of level up a little bit. To level up their business, to level up their client care, to level up all of it. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

The next thing is, it’s teaching business owners and entrepreneurs how to pivot and course correct, which I think these are things that you have to know how to do.

One thing, I know I’ve been talking some about coaches that are newer that have entered the industry in the last few years, but the other thing I see happening is coaches that have been around for maybe a long time, who’ve been even longer than I have been a coach, longer than I have had my business, and they’ve been kind of doing the same things for a while and they’ve been working and working and working, and all of a sudden, they’re not working.

Some things are broken, and I see them getting very frustrated and kind of this thought of like, this is so much work. I shouldn’t have to be doing this now. Like, I thought I was through this. I already figured this out.

And I think what happens when you’re kind of forced to address some of the things that are changing or some of the things that feel hard, is you come out the other side actually a much stronger business owner. So much better at delivering the things you say you’re delivering. It really kind of forces you to put some attention on what you’re doing, why you’re doing them, all the reasons you’re doing them, deciding if any changes need to be made, right? Like all of those things.

I will say that I have learned, I haven’t had a terrible year over the last year, but I certainly haven’t created the results in my business or helped as many clients as I have in the past over the last 12 months or so.

And one thing I would say about that is I have learned more about business and more about myself over the last 12 months than most of my years in business combined. Or at least that’s what it feels like, right? Like I’ve learned so much about myself and it’s really allowed me to take a step back and to reimagine and reinvent pieces of my business.

One thing I think that happens as entrepreneurs and as coaches, is you come into the industry, you’re brand new, you don’t know what you’re doing. So maybe you hire a business coach or you download a bunch of free webinars and materials and whatever, and kind of put it together yourself.

But you start following people, right? Watching what they’re doing. And you kind of, maybe you don’t copy it exactly, but you kind of copy it, right? Either because they’re teaching you to, like, here’s the structure, here’s what you have to do, which I think is totally normal. That’s absolutely what you should be doing in the beginning. In the beginning of your business, there’s never a reason that you need to reinvent the wheel, right? Like do what is already working.

But then what happens as you grow is you start to realize, oh, like I did this thing before just because somebody told me to. I don’t really know why I’m doing it that way, so let me re-examine it, right? Let me look at it. And maybe it feels a little tricky to untangle it.

So I’ve spent the last year kind of doing some of that myself, really looking under every rock saying like, okay, let’s examine this part of my business. Like, am I loving it? Is this how I envisioned it? Is this how I wanted it to go? And there’s something about my business not being quite as busy as it has been over the last few years that’s allowed me to kind of take a step back and say like, okay, well, if I’m going to make changes, now’s the time. Let’s do it, right?

So it’s given me, even though sometimes it does feel a little painful, and of course I still have a business to run and I want to always be sure I’m taking care of my clients. So there’s this piece of making sure I’m taking care of my clients while examining all the things, right? All the pieces of my business. And I would say after kind of a year of doing this, it feels like such a gift.

Now, did I need to do this five years ago? No, probably not. I wasn’t at the place in my business then. And actually I have done this in some ways several times over and over and over. I think you have to a little bit as a business owner. But right now, if you find yourself, if you’ve been a coach for a while and you’ve had a business and you’re like, things just aren’t working now like they were a year ago or two years ago, three years ago, maybe use it as a moment to just re-imagine it all, right? To think about it.

Don’t throw it all out. That is definitely not what I’m saying, but to keep the parts that you love and re-imagine the rest, right? And to say, okay, here’s the vision. Here’s what I could see in three years. Is what I’m doing now, does it align with that? All these kinds of pieces that I’ve cobbled together over the years that I’ve learned from all these different people and all these different places, or that I’ve made up on my own, do they all still make sense?

So hopefully this has been really useful. Hopefully I addressed all the things that you were hoping I would when you think about an episode like this.

And the last thing I will say, and this is what I was teasing at the beginning of the episode is I have been doing so much of this work that it really has, there’s been this offer that is, if I’m honest, it has been on my heart for probably the last year. And I just kept telling myself like, no, this is like someone else. You’re not the person to do this. This is kind of a little bit outside your niche. Although I do disagree with that a little bit now, but those are kind of some of the things that started coming up for me as I was thinking about this.

So I do have a new offer and I can’t wait to tell you about it. And the last time I felt like this, I felt so just like a knowing. Almost like it is my responsibility to put this offer into the world. Like almost like I’m not in charge, something else is in charge of this. The last time I felt like this was when I was launching The Coach Lab. When I gave into that feeling of like, okay, I’ve been thinking about this for pretty much a whole year, I just have to do it and it feels so scary.

And thinking back to The Coach Lab, what felt so scary is I knew it was amazing, and I’m only sharing this in case it feels helpful for anybody listening. I knew it was like my calling almost is what it felt like, but I was really scared to put it into the world because what if people didn’t agree, right? What if nobody liked it? What if everybody hated the idea? And then I had to face like, oh, maybe I was wrong about that.

So I say that to say, if you ever have that feeling, I mean, you don’t have to follow every single one of them. You don’t have to, you know, maybe give them some time to incubate. That’s what I call it. But that is kind of where I am right now. And I do have a new offer.

It’s called Reimagine. And it is based on exactly what I was just telling you, the work that I’ve been doing in my own business over the last year, and the work that I’ve done over and over several times before in many different forms of just really looking at like, okay, what have I created up until this point? And does this align with where I want to go, with what I want my business to look like in a couple of years?

So I’ve made a lot of changes. Some of you may have noticed some of them. Some of them are very visible, very on the outside. And some of them have been very kind of behind the scenes or just things that I’m working on that you haven’t seen yet. But changes in branding, in the way I show up on social media, the way I talk about coaching. Not changes in The Coach Lab, because it’s amazing and my clients in there are incredible. So don’t be scared. There are no changes coming for that.

But Reimagine. It is a nine month mastermind and small group, 10 to possibly 15 at the most, if everyone is a great fit. And what we will be doing is I will be guiding you through the work that I’ve been doing over the last year, where this is kind of my first business mastermind offer, but it’s business my way. It’s business really focused on creating and growing a business that you feel in love with, that you are so excited to show up for every single day, or on the days that you work, not every single day.

This is a more advanced offer. This is not for beginners. This is not, if you are a brand new coach, you just get out there and sell some coaching. The world needs you. This is for coaches that have been, I would say probably a coach for at least a couple of years. Although I know some people have very fast journeys, so that might not necessarily be true for you, but coaches that have sold some coaching, right?

They kind of know who they are in the industry, like what they do. And they’re just kind of ready to examine all of the pieces and say, does this align with where I want to go? Are there any changes I want to make and how do I get there?

So the way I’m structuring it is every month there will be a very specific topic. Again, it’s nine months. So the topics are all business related topics. Okay, this isn’t going to be in order, I’m just going to go through the list that’s in my head. But it will be first really focusing on you; time management, your schedule, like starting there, right? Then moving on to your marketing, your selling, content creation, branding and visibility, client delivery. I think I’m missing one.

But every month we will have a new topic, one of those things I just said, I think I’m missing one or two again, and we’ll just be focused on where are you now, right? Kind of like an audit, except way more fun. I was just writing the sales page for this, which obviously we will link either the sales page or a waitlist link in the show notes if the sales page isn’t ready.

But I was just writing the sales page and I wrote audit and I was like, who wants to have an audit? That sounds terrible. So then I was like, okay, maybe like a makeover or like a home renovation, whatever form of that feels amazing to you, but with experts guiding you the entire way.

And by experts, I mean myself and some other guest experts who I will be having pop in to talk about very specific topics that, yes, I might be an expert at in my business only because I’ve been doing it for 10 years, but they are really an expert as in it’s the only thing they focus on, right?

So I already have some of those percolating in my mind. They will probably be announced at some point. But it will be a nine month experience of really looking, examining every piece of your business, saying my offers, my price, my schedule, how I show up every day, how I run my business, not only my daily schedule, and to be clear, I’m not saying we’re going to create strict daily schedules. I’m going to say finding the thing that works for you and maybe making some changes if that’s what you think you need, but also your yearly schedule, right?

Are there times you would like to be a little less busy throughout the year because you have other stuff going on? Are there certain weeks that you would like to take off or ways that you would like to rearrange your schedule and you just don’t know how, because maybe you feel stuck by the way you have grown your business up until this point, right? That’s just a really specific example, but those are the things we will be talking about.

So at the beginning of every month, we’ll have a two hour call that will really be like the audit call or the makeover call, I don’t know what we’re going to call it. But the call where we really dig in and examine that topic in your business right now. In that first call we’ll be really examining it, looking forward and saying, okay, what do I want it to look like two years from now, three years from now, five years from now, wherever you can envision.

And then deciding, okay, what changes can I make right now that align with that? What changes will I be making over time? And what am I going to keep? What am I loving? What do I want to keep the same and really just re-anchor into, right? And just remind myself like, oh yeah, this part of my business, I love it. It’s great. How can I do less of the things that I don’t like to do?

That’s something I have been asking myself over the last year, which is really fun. And it’s not that I just stop doing them, right? So for example, one thing that I don’t love is to write a bunch of launch emails. To sit down and be like, okay, I’m launching this new mastermind. Now I need to write all these emails and I just need to sit down and do it right now. I don’t love that. My brain freaks out and is like, no, you know, we can think of 1 million other things that we want to do.

So it’s not that I’m never sending emails again, but the way I think about it is, okay, how do I solve that? If I don’t love that, if that is a part of my business that I don’t love, what are all of the options to do it differently, right? I could hire someone. I could structure it differently, the way I’m doing it. I can do it in a way that I’m often using older emails. Like there’s so many options. There’s no right one that I’ve come to yet. And again, this is just a specific example.

But just really looking at every single piece, looking at in a dream world, what would this look like, right? Part of this offer, me offering this right now is because this is the question that I asked myself, in the dream world, what would this offer look like? This offer where I’m pretty high-touch with clients, where I’m really helping them dig into their businesses. What would that look like? How long would it be? What would the structure of it be? That’s how I got here to offering this thing.

So we will be doing all of that in every piece of your business from start to finish, from top to bottom until, by the end of nine months, you have the business, or at least have the blueprint or the plans for the business over the next couple of years that really sets you on fire, that really lines you up to deliver to your clients, maybe in a way that you aren’t right now, right? Because maybe you have more time, more energy. You feel rejuvenated and just juiced by the people that you’re helping and what you’re doing.

Okay, I think that’s it. That’s my big announcement. It is called Reimagine. We start in October and there’s a live event. Why? Because I asked myself, what is the perfect offer for me right now? And it includes a live portion that will be, this will be a small group, again. So this will be more like retreat style. It will be in February. I don’t have the exact dates or location, although mid-February in Palm Springs, I’ll just throw that out there is what I’m thinking right now.

I love Palm Springs. If you’ve never been there, you must go at least once. It’s so fun. But that is kind of what I’m leaning towards, but it will be, so we begin in August and then that event won’t be till February. So we have lots of time to work through so many things. And the way I’ve structured it is that event will line up with content creation.

So it will be a bit of a content week, or it won’t be an entire week, like seven days. I think it’s going to be four days. Three days of really working and creating some very specific things that you’ll be walking away with, assets that you’ll be able to use in your business for years to come with a built-in fun day and lots of relaxation and fun the whole time, because it will be very much retreat style, not like conference style.

So that’s it. I want you to join. If you are intrigued by this, we’re going to put a link in the show notes that will give you all the information that you are looking for. If you have any questions, please let me know.

And I am serious, we’re keeping it small. This is the first time that I’ve done something this specific and it’s a new offer. And even if I could sell more spots of it, I want to be sure that this blows your mind because I could not be more excited.

So that’s the goal, it’s going to blow your mind. Therefore, we are keeping it small to be sure that I have the time and energy to get in everything that I want to do and that everyone feels very, very taken care of and leaves the nine months feeling just completely transformed and reinvigorated, re-energized by their business, their coaching practice.

Okay, and this offer could be for, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. This offer could be for someone also, because I know a lot of you listen to this podcast, that has kind of a coaching adjacent business, right? So you might not call yourself a coach, maybe you’re a copywriter, maybe you’re a branding expert, maybe you’re a website designer, right?

Like the structure that I have figured out, which is already completely mapped out, which feels so fun to me. But the structure that I have mapped out really could be for any similar type of service-based business. But I’ll be asking everyone questions as you join to be sure that you’re a great fit, because I want to be sure that the room feels very curated and like everyone is very taken care of and fits right in.

So that’s it. I hope you join or at least put it on your bucket list for next year, because I already know I’m going to love it. Hopefully this is an offer that I have moving forward. Thank you so much for being here today. Let me know if you have any questions, otherwise I will talk to you next week. Goodbye.

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.