Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 199. 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.

Hello, hello. I am so excited you’re here today. Today I have someone on. We are going to do a special interview around something that is happening in her coaching business in real time because I thought it could be super useful for you all to hear. Literally in real time, like her process through creating a new offer and kind of the evolution of an offer. Going from a general life coach to maybe potentially niching down a little bit and just her thought process, how she made some of the decisions that she made, and just all of the genius that she has to share.

I thought it would be super useful. So, I hope you love it. Without further ado, let’s get to my interview with Kimberly Mathis.

Lindsay: Hello, hello. I am so happy you’re here today. You’re back. You’ve been here before. You are a listener favorite, and I’m having you back today for a very specific reason. So glad you’re here. Tell everyone who you are and what you do.

Kimberly: Hi, I am Kimberly Mathis, and I have been a general life coach, as of recently I am a life coach for neurodivergent brains. And yeah, I work with clients one-on-one, and I guess where they can find me, I’ll put it at the end. Is that right?

Lindsay: Yeah.

Kimberly: Okay, so that’s it.

Lindsay: Yeah, but they can find you on Instagram and all the things, but we’ll give specifics at the end.

So this was perfect timing. You and I, just full disclosure to everybody listening, you and I are friends. You’ve been my client for a while, but we’ve become close, and we were just texting. You have this new offer. You were telling me about it, and then you were telling me how well it’s going.

And I just happened to already have this topic picked out for today’s episode, and I just thought, instead of me just talking and talking about my offers, how fun it would be kind of in real time, because it’s happening right now, you just recently created it. To kind of just break down how you created a new offer, how you thought about going from general life coaching, which I don’t actually know if you’ve changed your niche. That’s a question we’ll dig into. And just kind of talk through it all for anyone that is doing something similar. Sound good?

Kimberly: Sounds great.

Lindsay: Okay. So I guess first let’s dig into like, have you officially changed your niche, would you say? And I don’t want to put you on the spot, because like I said, this is happening in real time.

Kimberly: That’s actually a really interesting question. I feel like, okay, when you ask if I changed my niche, I don’t feel like I had a niche, really.

Lindsay: You did. Listen.

Kimberly: Oh my gosh. Okay.

Lindsay: Sometimes I have to say this inside The Coach Lab.

Kimberly: Oh my gosh.

Lindsay: It is a niche.

Kimberly: Okay. Well, I have really resisted niching the way I see a lot of other coaches’ niche because I love the variety of general life coaching. And as I just go through my life and my own stuff, and I evolve and I learn about other things, I have different interests. And those things tend to be things I talk about online and in my content, and so it brings in clients that are wanting to work on those things. And I just have loved the variety. So I really, really, really have resisted niching down.

And even thinking about it as a niche, I guess I do think about it as more of a niche now. But I kind of think about it, I guess, as like, I’m niching into a type of client, you know, like a client who has a neurodivergent brain, and we can coach on things specific to maybe a diagnosis, like ADHD. But I also just want to do general life coaching, like help them with whatever is going on through the lens of I have this brain that kind of moves through the world in a little bit different way than other brains.

Lindsay: Yeah. I love that distinction too between, you know, some people niche into a very specific topic, right? Like a relationship coach for blah, blah, blah, like someone very specific, versus just thinking about coaching a type of person on anything. Like still keeping it very general.

Kimberly: Yeah. So I know we kind of talked before we jumped on that call about why this all happened. And that is a funny story because one of the things I was thinking about before coming on was I do not want to sound like everything just clicked. Like I did something new and everything just clicked. Because it has been a hard ass couple of years, 12 to 18 months at least, where I felt like I’ve been struggling in my business.

And now, yes, just in the last few days it feels like everything is clicking. But it’s been a long road to get here. So I don’t want anyone listening to this and thinking like, oh, if I do it “right,” everything will just fall into place. But the reason I kind of landed on this was because I was actually thinking about ways to meet more people locally and in person. And I work with a lot of neurodivergent clients, it’s just kind of happened, even without me trying for that.

And so my thought was, I haven’t seen any like neurodivergent groups. There’s a lot of different Facebook groups that meetup, and I hadn’t seen one for people who are neurodivergent. And after leaving a comment about something in a local Facebook group having to do with ADHD, someone was like, oh my gosh, we should have a group. So I was like, you know what, that’s a great idea.

So I decided this was going to be like my project over the summer, was to create a local Facebook group for neurodivergent individuals. And I was on a call with some coach friends, some froaches, as we say. And I mentioned this and one of them was like, it was Teresa. One of them was like, “So are you niching? Like, is this becoming your niche?” And I was like, “Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no. Like, I don’t want a niche. I like being a general life coach. Like, no, it’s not really what I’m considering. It’s not what I want to do.”

And the next morning, this was percolating in my brain, her question. And the next morning I texted her, it was like 8am, I texted her and I said, “So when you said that.”

Lindsay: Which is late, actually, for your morning texts.

Kimberly: Okay, well, we don’t need to. I have a kid that gets up and gets on the bus at 6:30, so okay. But I texted her and I was like, “So when you asked that yesterday, were you thinking that I should niche?” And she immediately responded, like there was no lag in the response. And she was like, “Oh my God, I was just about to text you about this. I had just picked up my phone to text you and tell you, we should talk about this. I think you should.”

And that’s really what kind of got the ball rolling, funny enough, was her question and her comment. It felt like permission almost as we talked about it.

Lindsay: I love what you said in the beginning, which is like, I don’t want people to hear this and think, oh, this just – I forget your exact words, but like this is just magic, right? It just landed on me and it worked. That’s actually the point of, I think, me wanting to record this episode and why I thought it would be really powerful to do it with you, is to kind of say like, I’ve been a general life coach, there have been times that’s worked really well. There have been times it’s harder.

And thinking through for people that are like, I’m a general coach and I don’t know, and they spend a lot of time thinking about what should my niche be? Where can I put all my attention? I didn’t see you doing that. But I do think unintentionally, you were building that niche out over the last however many years.

Kimberly: Yeah, well, I didn’t get diagnosed myself with ADHD until probably 2021, the summer of 2021. And even with a background in psychology and marriage and family therapy, I had to do a lot of research. And I had to learn a lot about what this looks like in women and adults. And so it has gone into some of my content. That’s kind of just my brand, I guess, anyway, it’s like, I’m very open about what I’m going through. I share a lot about myself, not just my work. And so it kind of started coming out in my content over the years.

And without even trying, I think one of the reasons that Teresa’s question really got me thinking is because I had seen this happening and I just hadn’t, it’s like I was not wanting to use that data. But I knew that it was there. And probably 90% of my clients in the last year or so have all either had a diagnosis or considered themselves to be neurodivergent, or it’s something that has come up in sessions, and they get diagnosed while we’re working together.

And it has just become a huge piece of what I’m doing. It’s like I’m sharing, we might be coaching on all sorts of different things, but things come up about like, oh, well, your brain might be wired to experience that this way, or think about things this way, or have trouble with this and this and this. And I have knowledge to share with them about that.

And I love it, honestly. I love coaching those types of brains. So it just kind of, it was like it had been there. Yes. And I had to get out of my own way a bit. I had to give myself permission to say like, it’s okay if I do want to do that.

Lindsay: So before we, I want to dig more into that, and before we do that I want to back up just a little bit for people that are listening that are like, “Yeah, but like, when do I get to find mine,” right? Because I think watching as your friend and as your coach and watching you, hearing you talk about your business and watching you on social media, I saw this happening. I knew that that was a lot. You were posting about it a lot. You were talking about it a lot.

I had a similar experience when I started my coaching business, where I was pretty much out of the gate coaching entrepreneurs. I was a general life coach, I was coaching them mostly on their lives. But because that’s just who I was before I was a coach, I was already an entrepreneur, and so it was like, I just naturally spoke that language. I was talking to them even though it wasn’t on purpose. And when I was sharing about my life, that’s what I was talking about. And that’s kind of what I saw you doing. Was it intentional or was it just like happening?

Kimberly: Was it intentional that I was talking about all those things?

Lindsay: Yeah. Like, were you like, I’m talking about it to speak to my – And there’s not a right answer, by the way. I’m really just curious.

Kimberly: No, I think it’s kind of a mix. It’s kind of middle of the road because I was intentional about talking about it. And I think my reasons for that were I just want to normalize this. I want to share my experiences. I want people to have more information about it.

It was not intended to move into a niche. Like it was not intended to do something for my business necessarily. But it was more when I think about overall branding, I guess, is the best word. It was in line with the kind of branding I wanted to have, which was bringing a lot of myself into my work.

Lindsay: Yeah. Yeah, and I think for anyone that’s a personal brand, that’s naturally kind of what you do, right? And I think just watching you, and even watching you learn more about yourself over the years, which then turned into you sharing more about it and your brand becoming even more you and representative of who you are, it has just been really fun to watch.

I guess my message is, for people listening, instead of obsessing over like, what’s my niche? I want to address this before we move on because now everyone’s gonna be like, oh, I need to do this too, right? But just like leaning into what are you naturally thinking about? What are you talking about? Like sharing those things.

Kimberly: When I think about people trying to figure out their niche, sometimes there’s that thinking. And I know I have had it at times where it’s like, if I could just figure out the right niche that I’m supposed to be doing, all of this would work, right? But you can know that, like you can decide on a niche. You can love it. You can know that you are doing great work with clients. You have great sessions. And that’s coaching. Marketing and selling are a whole other skill set.

So I think if you aren’t sure that you have a niche, you’re kind of trying to ask yourself like, do I have one? What would it be? What do I like? I think while you’re doing that, you can still be asking those questions. And you’re still going to have to learn how to sell. So if you’re already coaching and you’re a general life coach, like there’s still work for you to do there. It’s not all dependent on answering the niche question.

Lindsay: Yeah. Like how many coaches have we seen that are like, I landed on it, right? Like I found the thing. And then nothing actually gets better like they think it’s going to, because it’s not actually the secret weapon, unfortunately. If it was, it would make it so much easier. If it was, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. It would be like, just pick one and move on. Everything will be great.

Kimberly: Problem solved.

Lindsay: Yeah. Okay. So I’m curious about this, I haven’t asked you this separately outside of the podcast. Do you think that your background as a therapist helps you in this niche? Like, do you think it gives you like, did you work with clients?

Kimberly: I think, honestly, that is so dependent on the client themselves because some people care and some people don’t.

Lindsay: Yeah. I meant from a coaching perspective or from a like, do you think you have knowledge about it that other people wouldn’t?

Kimberly: Okay, I have to think about this. I was about to say, honestly, no, I don’t think it does. But I think that what’s probably more true is like when sometimes we’re talking to coaches and they are coaching, maybe a client, someone who has never done anything with coaching and there are these very like “basic” concepts or ways of thinking or questions that we have gotten so used to that we don’t even really recognize them anymore.

I think probably that’s more the case, is like there are things that I do know, I have knowledge about that seems like such basic knowledge to me that I forget other people don’t know that. And it’s also true that when I was going through graduate school, the focus in my marriage and family program was not so much on diagnosis as it was like what’s happening in session with people, a lot of like systems, knowledge about family dynamics, dynamics in couples.

And so when I got diagnosed, I had to learn a lot, a lot about ADHD. I did not have a lot of knowledge about that in particular. And even since I was in graduate school, if I had known, there’s been so much more research coming out and so much more understanding about ADHD, not just in adults, but in women in particular, that there was going to be a big learning curve anyway. That was a very long answer to your question.

Lindsay: No, I love it. I was just curious about that. There wasn’t any direction I wanted that to go. I was just, you know, it was just something I had thought about. So now let’s just dig into the offer.

So you sent me the sales page and I was like, “Yeah, this is it.” Right? And tell me, so who’s it for? Just give some details of the offer.

Kimberly: Yeah. So it is a one-on-one coaching offer. So I’m not doing a group. It’s just individual sessions and it’s weekly sessions over four months. And we start with what I’m just calling a startup session, which is going to be 90 minutes because I noticed there was so much I wanted to know about clients to basically set up our coaching container in terms of their goals and just information.

So I was just like, it’s the first time I’ve done it, but I was like, I will just do a 90 minute startup session. And that’s where I want to figure out, like, what is their particular flavor of neurodivergence or ADHD and we can create goals. And the thing that I really spent a lot of time thinking about and trying to articulate, and honestly, it was one of the reasons that I resisted going into this kind of niche is I feel like there are so many ADHD coaches. So many, like my social media feed is just covered with stuff.

And so it was like, ugh, like there’s so many already. You know?

Lindsay: Oh, you mean, oh my gosh. I thought you meant coaches who have ADHD, which is hilarious. I was agreeing with you. I was like, oh yeah, definitely. Just entrepreneurs in general.

Kimberly: Yeah. I mean, entrepreneurs in general, I think there’s some statistic like 60 to 70%.

Lindsay: Yeah, makes sense.

Kimberly: Yeah, that is funny. No, I was thinking of people offering, coaches offering coaching. And I was like, I don’t just want to do tools and strategies. And that’s a whole other can of worms. Like when is it coaching? When is it consulting? When is it mentoring?

But I don’t, I have a lot of tools and strategies, but for me, I realized like what I think makes my package, my coaching container different is I’m wanting to help people think differently. Like almost utilizing their brain that thinks outside of the box and teach them how to problem solve whatever is going on in a way that is not just like, oh, well neurotypicals, like everyone else just says. Like, you do this, you plan it this way, or you organize things this way.

We can use the tools and strategies, but they don’t necessarily work the same way for everyone. And so I want people to be able to figure out like, what is it that would be the best fit for me? And even if it’s like, okay, I’m going to pull this tool, I’m going to pull this tool, like in what ways might I need to tweak it to fit me even better?

So there’s the thinking piece that I think is different about what I’m doing. It’s not just focused on here’s some tools and strategies you should know.

Lindsay: Yeah, I think what I loved about it when I was reading, I haven’t told you this, but one thing that I thought was really funny is it’s actually kind of similar to my business offer, which is in a way that’s like, I don’t tell you how to build your business one way. I don’t give you like, here’s the cookie cutter, this is how we build a business. I teach you how to use your strengths and all that to make it work for you. And to take like, okay, you’ve learned all this, like you made it work. Now let’s make it yours.

And your sales page reminded me so much of that, which I thought was funny, like in the best way. I think, to me, and neither is right or wrong, but this is just my preferred way of coaching, is like to help someone find their way, not to just teach them my strategy.

Kimberly: I’m sure some of that has to do with the fact that I have tried to do things the way that so many people have told me to do it. And I feel like I don’t follow through with it. It doesn’t seem to work the right way or work as well. Or, you know, there’s just some piece of it that I’m struggling with. Or even like demand avoidance. Like, I don’t want to do that just because you want me to, like I shall not, I shall find my own way.

But I don’t want to, it’s what I gravitate towards. And I don’t want to kind of put that on someone else, you know?

Lindsay: Yeah. I love it. Okay, so for someone that’s like, but tell us exactly how you picked this offer, is there any, like the timeframe, any of it, any thought that went into it? Or was it just kind of like, let me just pick something?

Kimberly: Yeah. I can tell you some of my thoughts. I will say, I think sometimes, I know prior when I’ve been in other coaching containers or just in circles with other coaches, thinking about a new offer was almost like I have to have a completely different offer. If I’m going to launch a “new” offer, it’s got to look nothing like what I’ve been doing. It’s got to be totally different. And I don’t feel like this one, in terms of the structure, is totally different than what I’ve been doing.

I’m still doing one on one. I’m still doing weekly sessions. And I also take one week off a month for other things. So I have for the most recent long stretch of time in terms of like what I’ve been selling, I have gone with six months. And I think just based on kind of what I’m seeing, and some of it could be my own thinking. I know there’s a lot of talk about changes in the industry. But I was just like, what would be easy for people? What would feel less intimidating?

So I cut the timeframe back to four months. And to get really technical, it’s really like 12 sessions, plus a startup session. But because I take that week off, it ends up stretching out a little bit. So it’s four months, 12 sessions, one startup session.

And I think the other thing I thought about was in terms of the pricing, I also want to make it really easy. And a big, big value of mine when it comes to business is safety for my clients. So payment plans, I’m offering those. I’m letting people pay in full if they want to. And I also, like recently I talked about my refund policy in my stories, because I mean, everyone’s different.

For me, I don’t ever want someone to feel like they’re stuck with me. So if they’ve paid in full, if they’re on a payment plan, whatever, and they’re like, this is not for me, I want to know. My policy is like, I’ll give you money back for what has not been used. Because I don’t want that there, you know? I don’t want that energy there.

So being upfront and transparent about all of that, I’ve kind of always been that way, that’s not changed. So I don’t know that it’s really, there’s a couple of things that have changed with the structure. But it’s not really like a brand new, totally different offer. I think what’s different about it is just the way that I’m talking about it and like showing up, as they say.

Lindsay: Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought when I read it, is like, oh, obviously. Almost like, this is what you’ve been doing the whole time, you just didn’t know. And now it’s just so much more clear. And it’s specific, specifically for that person, which I know you have maybe some clients that are outliers of that. But it seems to me just from coaching you on your coaching, right, and on all of that, when you’ve been in my containers, that your clients tend to fit into this box anyway.

Kimberly: Yeah. And some of the stuff I had to kind of coach myself on and figure out what my thoughts were about it, get out of my own way in a sense where things like, but I love coaching on people pleasing. I love coaching on people being more themselves. I love coaching on big decisions and big transitions.

And I think prior, I’ve been trying to figure out how to say all of that. And I don’t know that I do have to say all of that. I can know that all of that is there. But I just made it a lot more simple. Like I know that that can all be a part of it. And maybe I do talk about that in like an email or some post or something, like that’s a piece of it. But I don’t have to try to work all of that into the sales page.

Lindsay: Yeah, I actually think that’s a great distinction between, and it’s great to talk about both, like here’s what we’ll be working on and here’s who it’s for. But sometimes I think, and I’m curious what you think about this. Sometimes I think it’s like clients don’t actually know what they need coaching on. They know the results they want, usually. And they know they might identify with who this is for, but to say I help make big decisions or I help you whatever.

Kimberly: Right, they might think like, well, I’m happy in my marriage. I’m not wanting to move. I’m not changing careers. What big decisions could there be?

Lindsay: Right. Yeah. So just to me, really all that happened is just a lot of clarity around what you do, who you work with.

Kimberly: And I kept it on lockdown too, I will say. Like I didn’t ask you a damn thing about it.

Lindsay: No, you were like, I’m launching it right now.

Kimberly: Yeah. I wasn’t asking any other friends. And I think that is because I loved it so much that I, like it felt so vulnerable.

Lindsay: Yeah, this was going to be my next question. I think this is such a good tell or sign for anyone that is thinking about like, should I do this thing? Because I have this, every time I’ve launched something that has gone really well, it has felt exactly like this. So describe what you felt when you were like, okay, it’s ready, right? Like the sales page was all ready and you sent it to me. And I think you said like, I’m supposed to be launching this today, but I’m going to throw up or something.

Kimberly: Yep. No, I worked on it for probably, like putting together the sales page and like setting everything up, I worked on that for maybe two or three weeks. And there are a few people that I maybe said, I’m thinking about like, I think I might come up with something new, or I think I might kind of transition. It was very like vague. You know, I think I might maybe kind of transition over to this.

But then I didn’t want to get feedback about it that I didn’t like, that was part of it. And I don’t know that I was even conscious of this at the time. Looking back now, I think I wanted to get really clear on it and be like, yes, this makes sense for me. Yes, I like this, without that getting kind of swayed by other people’s opinions, who are not in my brain, who don’t work with my clients, who maybe wouldn’t say things the way that I would.

And yeah, and then when I put it out into the world, I was excited. And I think some of when we were texting about it that day, when I sent you the sales page, I was also texting Jess Johnson, I was doing some tapping from one of her YouTube tapping videos, and doing some of my own self coaching because I was stalled. I think I texted you and said, “Here it is. I want to send it out today. I told myself I would.”

But it was like, I have so much to do. Like when I started getting into it and writing an email, it’s like, well –

Lindsay: Oh yeah, this is so good. People need to hear this.

Kimberly: Yeah, when people click on it, like, but I forgot to upload like the coaching agreement that they can sign electronically. And I don’t have any of the automated emails ready to go out. And I haven’t set up this other thing. I started finding so many things, which was then stressing me out because in my mind I was like, today’s the day. I’m going to do it this afternoon.

And then the window of time started closing. It’s like, oh, I’m never going to get it done. And that felt like it had just been happening over and over. And it kept getting pushed out. So that’s when I was texting you. And I realized, from us talking, from doing some tapping, just noticing my own thoughts, it wasn’t that all that stuff actually had to happen. It was that I loved it so much, I wanted it to succeed. And in my mind, the safest way for that to happen is if it’s all perfect. Then it’s more likely that it will do well and it’ll be okay. Because if it doesn’t, I’m going to feel just like gutted.

That’s what was happening. If it’s not perfect, then it might not do well. And if it doesn’t do well, I don’t know if I can handle it.

Lindsay: And then you sent it to me and I was like, get that out there. That’s amazing. Did I scare you when I said, would you like a couple edits or something, something like that? Were you like, oh, no?

Kimberly: No, not really.

Lindsay: Okay. To be clear for the listeners, they were just copy edits. I didn’t change anything because the offer was amazing.

Kimberly: And you said that too. I think you said that too. Just like if I see a typo or something like that.

Lindsay: Oh, yeah. Get consent first.

Kimberly: Yeah.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Kimberly: But you also gave me such good feedback. And that felt really, really good. Because I think your eyes might have been the first eyes to see it, actually, before it went out. I don’t think I had sent the final like, here’s the sales page to anybody.

Lindsay: Have you ever had the experience, and maybe not. I definitely have, so I’m curious. Have you ever had the experience where you’re creating something new and you don’t feel that way? It feels like the opposite or like, just very different than that?

Kimberly: I don’t know about the opposite, but it didn’t feel that way. And I think it would have been easy for me to interpret that as like, it’s not as good because I’m hiding it. Like something might be off, or I’m not confident in it, something like that. But it just really felt like focus. Like I’m creating this cone of safety, this like force field around my offer while I work on it and I don’t want any distraction. And then we’ll put it out.

Lindsay: And part of that that I love is you taking care of yourself and your brain and the way you work and knowing your tendencies and what you might do otherwise. And just knowing like, no, I need to like, kind of head down, create this thing, put it into the world.

Kimberly: I really did not, I want everyone to know I did not really see that I was doing this at the time. I was just like, nope, not telling anyone about it. I’m just going to work on it. And from prior versions of myself, not even talking about business, I did a lot of polling, is what I think Glennon Doyle calls it. Like polling as in like, what do you think of this? Like, I’m going to think about every little version, I’m going to ask everyone for feedback on every little thing, because I’m not confident in it and I’m wanting to see if it goes over well with everyone. And that’s a nice thing for me to notice, is I didn’t do any of that this time.

Lindsay: Yeah, the two things I notice when someone isn’t confident in their offer is that, right? Like asking everybody, talking about it, kind of sprinkling it out there seeing like, do people resonate with that or not or whatever? Or the exact opposite, like keeping it to yourself, but not because, and this takes a lot of, I think, self awareness. And this is the one I do. So I’m like, very familiar with it. Now looking back, I can’t always tell in the moment, but looking back I can definitely tell which of my offers have been which one. And the ones that work are always the ones that I feel like it feels so personal and like I can’t wait.

But the other one is the opposite of that, which is like, I can’t tell anyone, because they might tell me it’s a bad idea. Because deep down, like, I know there’s some bad idea here, like I’m rushing it, or I created it from, I’m like being reactive to something instead of proactive, right? Like there’s something going on that I’m like, I can’t get coached on this.

Kimberly: Yeah. Oh, I never felt that. That’s interesting because I never had the thought, “This is a bad idea.”

Lindsay: Yeah. And I see, I know this is a thing. I mean, I know it happens for me and I see it happen with other coaches. And I’m always like, oh, you didn’t get – I can see it, literally, they’ll put an offer out. And I’m like, you got zero coaching on this. I can see all your messy thoughts. Like

I can read copy and see all the messy thoughts. And this isn’t putting anyone down. This is like, I’ve done this, I can go back and read copy of mine and be like, whoa, okay, like, what was I thinking? I can find all my thoughts that weren’t aligned as I was launching that.

Kimberly: Something else I’m thinking of as we talk and that I want to make sure I mention is that, and I know you were going to ask about how it’s going and all of that. I think that one of the reasons it has gone well, is because prior I would kind of put out a new offer or just try to sell. And it’s like, I’m just going to toss it out there and we will cross our fingers and hope for the best.

And this time I was like, I’m going to sell it. Like I’m going to sell it. I’m not just going to put it out there and see how it lands. I’m going to write some emails, I’m going to do some posts. And I still have, I’m not hustling, you know, and I am not like, I’ve got everything all planned out and written ahead of time. I’m just not that person. But I’ve still been doing more than I’ve done prior. So I think that’s a piece of it.

Lindsay: Yeah, I think it’s the difference of the deep down belief and connection to the offer and the knowing that people will want it and need it, whatever. And, you know, that it will really, truly help people. And because you’ve spent so much time thinking about your clients, like you’re already doing this work, you’re so connected to it, you have a personal connection to it.

It’s the difference between that and then like, again, kind of like being reactive and just throwing something out there like, okay, well, whatever I’m doing isn’t working. So I need to make money, so let me just throw this thing out there.

Kimberly: I’m also like, I’m just excited about it. And it’s easy to talk about and find pieces to talk about, different things to talk about, because I’m feeling excited about it. And I’m so clear.

Lindsay: Yeah. To me, it almost takes all the things that I see you talk about normally anyway, and wraps them up in this package of like, and it’s so connected to the work I do.

Kimberly: Yeah. Yeah. It’s fun. It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind.

Lindsay: So let’s dig into what has happened.

Kimberly: Yeah.

Lindsay: People love it. Turns out the offer was very aligned.

Kimberly: Yeah, turns out.

Lindsay: You’re signing some clients.

Kimberly: Yeah. How specific do you want me to be? Like, what do you want to know about it?

Lindsay: I mean, you don’t have to get too specific, but just kind of pretty much right away people were responding to it.

Kimberly: Yeah, I think, I’d have to look. I think I sent it out, the first email, to my email list. I didn’t even post about it on social media. I sent it to my email list first. And my email list, y’all, it is like 150 people, okay? Like it is not a lot of people. So I want to say that. So don’t go thinking it’s like, you know, 5,000 people.

Lindsay: Yeah. No, that’s amazing clarification because –

Kimberly: 150. I do not have a funnel. I do not have a freebie. It’s just like when people click on links, oh, they can sign up for an email list. I do not email every week. So I want all of that on record. Let’s make this very normal.

And I sent it out to my email list maybe last Tuesday. And immediately, I got an email back from a friend who was on there that was like, this looks amazing. I got a text from a former client saying, I just saw the email. I love this. I’m probably going to sign up. I had a consultation booked from someone and a text message from another former client I’d worked with who wanted, she was like, I’m basically in, just want to have a call to talk about timing.

And I’m trying to remember. I think I had a consult with her, signed that client maybe Thursday, Wednesday or Thursday of last week. And then over the weekend, y’all, my car broke down. I was super stressed about this. And I was like, okay, but I wanted to spiral so bad. I wanted to spiral so bad into like it’s not working.

Lindsay: Oh, I think this is a good point. Yeah. Let’s pause here. You wanted to connect your car breaking down to –

Kimberly: Yes.

Lindsay: Right? It’s like your mind immediately went to like, oh no, it’s somehow going to wreck my offer.

Kimberly: Yeah. Yeah. Because this other circumstance happened, and now it’s stressing me out about money in particular, like, oh no, now I’m feeling more pressure for this to work. And I just tried to like – It was really just like mantras all weekend long. Like it’s going to be okay.

Lindsay: You did other things too, and maybe we could be a little bit specific about that because you also didn’t just put this offer out and rely on solely that.

Kimberly: Yeah. So yeah, I’m a contract coach, like a 1099 position for a large organization that provides coaching services to employers. And the employers include coaching in their benefits package for employees. So I don’t ever work on weekends, ever. I take that back. I will do things on weekends, I’m not seeing clients on weekends. And I opened my availability and I reduced the window you have like so many hours before the appointment. There have to be so many hours. I reduced it to like four and so I had like 11 sessions booked over the weekend.

Lindsay: Like in a day or something?

Kimberly: Yeah. Yeah. And did that.

Lindsay: Yeah. So you just started taking action towards like – It wasn’t like this offer or bust. You took other actions.

Kimberly: I was like, I’ve got to be resourceful. Yeah. And I also was like, okay, I want to make sure I’m still doing emails. I want to put some stuff in my stories. Also, y’all, full disclosure, you know how on Instagram stories you can have like the question box and there’s also like an app or something where people can do anonymous questions? Y’all, if I’m not getting questions, I log on into another account that I have and I ask myself a shit ton of questions.

Lindsay: This is amazing.

Kimberly: Just so you know. Yeah, because I think maybe some people, maybe they have questions and they like didn’t type it in. Or maybe they thought of something or they would have asked, but stories are only there for 24 hours. So then I go through and I answer all the questions I asked myself about my offer or my work or whatever. And I post them in my stories, but then that’s also like I save all the videos so I can use them as content later.

So I did that while I was walking my dog. So I was like 45 minutes and I had all this content. So I was trying to do stuff like that. Thinking about the questions I was asking myself was like, what would people maybe be unsure of? What would they not know? What would keep them from signing up? How could I reassure them? How could I make something more clear?

So yeah. So initially it was just a couple of emails. Then I started, I think I made some posts on social media. And then just in the last two days, today’s Tuesday, the last two days, I’ve had like, I’ve sold four spots.

Lindsay: And a couple more consults coming up.

Kimberly: Yeah, I have a consult coming up. I have some other people that have said they are interested. And I also set a goal for myself. I don’t even know why I set this goal. I just picked 10. I was like, I have 10 spots in my schedule. We’ll go with 10. I could have 10 one-on-one clients. I have no evidence thus far that I’ve gotten close to 10, which is why I say I’m not really sure why I picked that.

Lindsay: But can I push back though? Why did you pick it? Like there had to be a reason. Some reason, some thought behind it. I know you well enough to know that you say this a lot. Like, I don’t know why I did this thing. And then when I probe, you’re like –

Kimberly: I think the thought was just like, I can do it.

Lindsay: You have room for 10, I assume.

Kimberly: Yeah, I have room for 10.

Lindsay: You looked at your schedule, figured out how much room you had.

Kimberly: I knew what I had room for. But instead of being like, well, the most new clients I’ve ever had in a month is X, Y, or Z. Or the most I’ve ever signed is blah, blah, blah. So maybe I could do that and like one or two more. I just picked 10 and I think I was also like, I knew I could spiral out that other way. But part of me was just like, I love this offer and I’m just going to figure it out. Like I will just figure it out. I will sell 10.

Even if it’s not within the timeline that I wanted. There’s not like a cutoff date. So I think that also helped too. It’s not like I have to sell 10 in two weeks.

Lindsay: Yeah, I think whenever I talk about goals, right? It’s like the whole point of setting a goal isn’t just to hit it in whatever time frame you say so that you get like gold stars. Gold stars are fun. But also, it’s really just to show you, like where do you want to go? What is the ultimate goal? And who cares if it takes eight weeks instead of four? You’re still way closer than if you hadn’t set the goal at all.

Kimberly: When I opened my email, I was on a coworking call with some other coaches that I’m friends with this morning. I opened my email to get started working on something and I saw another, like you’ve made a sale.

Lindsay: Oh yeah, and you’re selling them without sales calls or consults. People can sign up for them.

Kimberly: I’m offering them.

Lindsay: But they can also just check out.

Kimberly: Yeah. So out of five, one has been a consult.

Lindsay: That’s another good sign of how you know it’s a really aligned offer, when people are like, “Oh yes, that makes sense. I’m in.”

Kimberly: I had my video on even though we were all muted. And I just started dancing around and my face was like, oh my God. And so they unmute and they’re like, what’s happening? And I told them like, I just sold another one. And we have a group text, so as it’s been happening I’m like texting them. And as soon as I told them, and even like thinking about it right now, I got so teary. I just started sobbing because it felt so good. It felt so good and not like a fluke.

Lindsay: Yes. These are all the reasons I wanted, I was like, we have to talk about this like in real time, as it’s happening, because there’s so much goodness here that I think, you know, a lot of podcasts that I listen to or whatever, it’s like, oh, I sold 100 spots to this whatever program and blah, right? But this is like legit real life. I’m struggling a little bit. I really, like things were working. Something has changed, I got to figure it out. And you just really committed to figuring it out.

Kimberly: Yeah, I feel like I have connected with something again that I’d been struggling to connect with. And I know it’s not a fluke. I mean, part of it I do think is just me wanting to believe it’s going to work. And there are so many times I could have quit and felt like quitting. And I was like, nope, like, I’m just not, I’m unwilling to do that. And I can see what I have done in just the time I spent working on it, the sales page, the emails.

And it hasn’t been all that many emails. Like, I’m not sending like two a day. The posts, and that’s a whole other thing is I posted on threads and it’s gone insane about it while I’m also signing clients. It’s just crazy right now. It feels a little crazy. A little bit crazy.

Lindsay: I’m like, what question do I need to ask to get you to cry on the podcast?

Kimberly: No, I almost did.

Lindsay: I know, I can see it.

Kimberly: We don’t need to. I mean, yeah.

Lindsay: You’re just so grateful, I know. And hopefully just really proud of yourself. You’ve been working so hard.

Kimberly: Don’t make me cry. Yeah, I mean, just relief, relief. And yes, proud of myself. And it just feels so good because it doesn’t feel like I’m faking anything or like I just tried to come up with something I thought would work because other people are doing this. It feels so connected to who I am and what I love to do. So that also feels so good.

Lindsay: Okay.

Kimberly: Still didn’t cry, ha, ha, ha.

Lindsay: Oh, I saw it coming. I decided that we didn’t need to cry today. I’m just kidding. No, I’m so excited for you. And literally the second I saw the sales page, I was like, this is about to get really good.

Kimberly: Yes. I don’t even remember, but I think I screenshot what you were saying about it because I was like, I’m going to have to remind myself of this because this feels so good. You said something to the effect of like, I forget what you said exactly. But something along the lines of like, clearly it’s clicked. Like this is the offer. And I was like, what?

Lindsay: And not that your offer wasn’t great before, it was. And you signed clients and it was working and had ups and downs, I think, like we all do, which is totally normal. And yeah, there was just something about reading that sales page. I was like, oh my gosh.

Kimberly: You were like, you’ve hit it. Like this is, this is it. Like everything is clicking. And I think I said like, I don’t feel like this has happened before. Like I’ve had good offers. Yeah, I’ve had really good months. I’ve done well. Like there’s so many things that I am proud of in my coaching and coaching business. And it has never felt like this.

Lindsay: And you even said that before one sale came in. Like when we were just first talking about it you were like, I just feel so different about this.

Kimberly: Yeah.

Lindsay: Okay. I’m going to give you, so for people listening and they’re like, I want to do that. I’m just going to go through my top takeaways from things that you’ve said, just I wish I’d been taking notes, but I wasn’t, so I’m just going to do it off the top of my head of the things that stand out to me. And then we’re going to see like, what do you have to add to it?

Okay, so my first one, I’m going back to the beginning of the interview. I’ll do it hopefully chronologically in order. We’ll see. I like to pretend like I can do stuff like that and then my brain has other plans.

But I think the very first thing is to just really lean into who you already are, what you already love talking about, what you love spending your time thinking about, what feels natural to you versus the opposite of that, right? Which is what I see lots of coaches trying to do. When there’s some perfect offer out there, it always feels to me when I watch them, like they’re kind of pushing it, right? Like pushing, trying to go way outside of some box or comfort zone versus no, your genius is in your comfort zone.

Kimberly: Like they’re not letting themselves talk about stuff because they don’t have it figured out yet.

Lindsay: Yeah. That was going to be my next one. So my first one was that, the second one was, which we didn’t really talk about this, but I want to say it just in case it came up for anybody. Because I don’t know if this came up for you, so I’ll let you talk about it after I say this. But just not being afraid to like, there could have been a different direction this went, which was who am I to talk about this?

Like who am I to be the expert on neurodiversity? Did that come up for you at all while you were thinking about it?

Kimberly: Not really a big concern. Did I think there might be some people who are like, well, have you had an ADHD certification? Have you gone through training? And it was just like, knowing that that might happen, I mean, okay, what would I say? And it’s just like, no, I have not. And here’s all the other things I’ve done.

And if they don’t want to work with me, that’s fine. Like there’s plenty of other people. But it’s never felt like a deciding factor.

Lindsay: I love that. I’ve just had people say to me like, oh, but who am I to talk about grief? For example, this was a conversation I had with someone recently and she said like, all I have is my own experience.

Kimberly: Yeah.

Lindsay: And I’m like, well, what?

Kimberly: That’s great.

Lindsay: Right. Like, I mean, not great. Sorry, you had that experience. And, but if that’s what you want to talk about.

Kimberly: Yeah, I’m just like, why would I want to work with someone who hasn’t actually experienced the thing that I’m talking about?

Lindsay: And I think it’s just two different types of help, right? And sometimes it’s like the difference between maybe coaching and going to see a psychologist or a psychiatrist or whatever. And when I think about your sales page and something that felt so powerful about it is how honest it was. And I think people probably connect to that.

There was no, like there was nothing on it, not that I think you would do this, but there was nothing on it that was like you pretending to be someone that you’re not or be some type of expert at some specific strategy or tool that you’re not. It was just like, here’s what we’re going to do. It was so clear.

And there’s a line on it that I’m obsessed with that I wish I’d looked up because I can’t remember, but it was something like we’re going to – I don’t know if it’s on your sales page or if it’s been in your marketing, but it’s like, we’re going to take your – Oh my gosh, we have to find it before we end this because it’s so good. It’s almost like the tagline for like everything that you’re selling. It’s like, basically we’re going to take the thing that you think is –

Kimberly: I won’t try to fix your neurodivergent brain, I’ll help you embrace it. Is that it?

Lindsay: Yes. But I think you said it differently that I was like, boom, like, this is like the line.

Kimberly: We’ll teach you how to stop thinking neurotypically and more divergently?

Lindsay: Yes. It was that. That concept of like, I’m not going to teach you how to think neurotypically, which I think is what some people think they need to do, right? I’m not going to teach you that, I’m going to teach you how to think neurodivergently and use that to create what you want, which is totally different. So powerful.

Kimberly: Yeah, thanks.

Lindsay: Yeah. Okay, what’s my next one? Okay, this is now out of order. To have people that are going to cheer you on, right? To have that group text that celebrates every sale that you make, whether that’s your colleagues, your family or whoever it is, but like only cheerleaders.

Kimberly: Yeah.

Lindsay: No negativity.

Kimberly: I can text them and then text them an hour later and then text them 20 minutes after that, and it’s all saying the same thing like, “I sold another one” and they’re still just as excited. It’s not like, okay, I get it.

Lindsay: Yeah, I just feel like that’s so important. What else? What did I, okay, what did I miss? Fill in the blanks because I feel like I skipped a big chunk and missed a lot of stuff.

Kimberly: I don’t know. I mean, the things that I think about that I want people to know is like, it’s not overnight. It can be hard. It also does not have to be perfect.

Lindsay: And sometimes the results feel like they’re overnight and you have to remind yourself, no, I’ve been working at this for, right, like you having four or five, however many sales in less than a week is like, that feels probably pretty incredible to you. And you’ve been working so hard.

Kimberly: Yeah. Yeah. And just like, sometimes I think the working so hard, it can even look like not much is happening, but you’re not giving up on it.

Lindsay: Exactly what I meant. Yes.

Kimberly: Because there’s so much emotional work with like, I’m going to keep going and I’m not going to quit.

Lindsay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, most of the “hard” work happens in your brain, right? Like the, just believing you can do it, that it’s going to work, that you can keep going. Even when your muffler breaks in half or whatever happened.

Kimberly: Yep, totally did. It’s two pieces. Okay, yeah. Still not fixed, but that’s fine.

Lindsay: That’s okay. We’re working on it. We’re getting a second opinion because that price was ridiculous.

Kimberly: Ridiculous, yeah.

Lindsay: If anybody knows how much it should cost to fix a muffler, let Kimberly know, we need to know.

Lindsay: Good Lord, yep. Yep.

Lindsay: Because certainly not how much they told her it was going to cost.

Kimberly: Yeah. I also want to say, like just because it’s fun and it’s fun for me to talk about, like I don’t know what counts as going viral. I don’t know. It feels like viral to me in my tiny little –

Lindsay: I get like 20 likes on something and I’m like, I went viral today.

Kimberly: Oh my God. I haven’t checked it, actually. Let’s check. I don’t even get on threads that much. Most of the time I’m on Instagram. I click a button, it’s like when I post something on Instagram, do you also want it to post to Facebook? Yeah. But I don’t really post on Facebook that much. Mostly Instagram. And I got on threads yesterday while I was sitting at the mechanic.

Lindsay: Was this an Instagram post that you just posted?

Kimberly: No.

Lindsay: This is the kind of stuff we need to know because this popped up on my thing the other day and I was like, I don’t know. Do I want it to? Is this the kind of stuff we post on threads?

Kimberly: Yeah. I posted it, I just opened up threads. I don’t even know why. I don’t really, like I’m not there every day. And I just started typing and just started. I created a post and on threads you can kind of drop another, like when you’ve reached the limit of characters, you can comment on your own one. So I did that.

It was maybe four posts about ADHD and like changes that happen as you get older and burnout, perimenopause, and just like dealing with your diagnosis.

Lindsay: Kind of why more women are getting diagnosed around a certain age.

Kimberly: Kind of feeling like it’s harder. Like, is it worse?

Lindsay: Oh, that’s what it was. Yeah.

Kimberly: It wasn’t always so hard, I used to do better at this.

Lindsay: I used to be able to override.

Kimberly: Yeah. This was not a content plan, to be clear. This was not something I planned out. It was literally me just sitting in the lobby, thinking about my clients. And now very specifically, because of this offer, like thinking about my clients and things that they’re saying and things that we’re talking about. And it was just like coming from a place of like, here’s what I want you to know.

I didn’t put anything about my offer in there. There was no CTA, nothing. And my phone starts, like I went to the gym after that and finished my workout. And I’m like, oh, I’ve got a lot of notifications on threads. That’s interesting. And then I was like, wow. I like told the person I was with, like, look, I’ve got like, you know, 200 likes, something like that.

The rest of the day, I ended up having to turn off my notifications because every few seconds I was getting a notification for hours. It was either like a comment or a like, or a reshare, something like that. And I think I maybe had 300 followers on threads. And as of right now, I’m looking at it right now. I have 1176 since yesterday.

Lindsay: Oh my gosh, okay.

Kimberly: Up from like 300. And the post is now at like 5.6K likes and 462 comments just on one piece of it. 340 reshares, 471 sends. Exciting.

Lindsay: You hit a topic. I mean, this is all, it’s like you almost hit all the main things that are being talked about. Not all the main things because you didn’t talk about politics in the post, I assume. But when it comes to how our brains work, women, women’s health, all of that, like there are a few things, at least that I see, being talked about a lot right now. And I think you did such a beautiful job of kind of linking them together and saying, here’s why it wasn’t a problem before, but it is now. It was just very informative.

Kimberly: It does feel like a fluke. Like that does feel like a fluke in some way. Like I think part of it is the algorithm, all of that. But I think what wasn’t a fluke was I just was thinking about what I want to tell people, you know, like information I have that I want to share.

And I will also say like, I was really excited about it and also started feeling very exposed. Like part of me was like, I’m so glad it’s doing well. Oh God, it’s doing well. Like there’s a like shrinking back, like part of me wanted to. Like, oh, I want to be successful. Wait a second. Do I?

Lindsay: Have you read all of the comments?

Kimberly: I’ve read a whole bunch of them, but it got to a point where like, I couldn’t keep up because there’s comments on people’s comments.

Lindsay: Right.

Kimberly: And it’s like, it’s a whole thing now that I can’t even keep up with.

Lindsay: Has there been any negative comments or?

Kimberly: There were maybe one or two. One, like someone shared it and posted something basically like, it’s not ADHD, it’s like the microplastics or something like that. And I was like, okay, well, I’m just removing. Turns out you can be like, I don’t want you to use my stuff and I could like remove it from their post.

And then there was another one that was like, this is all good, but next time don’t use, yeah, but next time don’t use a source that’s AI, something like that. And it’s because I had put a screenshot.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Kimberly: I put a screenshot just to summarize what I was saying. Like AI now, if you Google like it summarizes all these sources. So I posted a screenshot and at first I was like, okay, well, I just want to delete your comment. And then I was like, well, actually I love AI and I’m going to be using it all the time and I continue to use it. So that’s just what you will see here.

Lindsay: And we’re just both going on the record.

Kimberly: Bye bye.

Lindsay: But we’re going on the record, being nice to AI just in case when they take over, they’re going to love us.

Kimberly: Welcome to the human slave encampment.

Lindsay: No.

Kimberly: Oh Lord.

Lindsay: This is an edit. Okay, let’s get it back together.

Kimberly: Yeah. It makes me think of that success intolerance that people sometimes talk about where it’s like you can want it and it feels really good. And it can also kind of disrupt your nervous system a little bit. It can be a mixed bag. I definitely had that coming up.

Lindsay: Such a strange feeling, right? Because you’re like, this isn’t how I thought I would feel when this happened. I talked about it when I launched The Coach Lab. I was very vocal about it because people were like, oh my gosh, how’d you feel? Is it amazing? And I was like, nope, it was terrible. And I was laying in my bed with my covers over my face.

Kimberly: Yep. Very similar.

Lindsay: Well, thank you for doing this last minute. I literally texted you today and said, hey, do you want to hop on and talk about this?

Kimberly: You didn’t even say, no, you didn’t even say what we were talking about. You were just like –

Lindsay: No, you want to hop on and record a podcast? And you were like, yes. It’s like, I knew you would say yes, perfect.

Kimberly: Yeah. I like talking. Yeah.

Lindsay: That’s so good. Okay. Well, is there anything else? Did we miss anything? Did we leave anything out? We talked about the offer. We talked about how you created it, where it came from.

Kimberly: I will add, I used a lot of AI to create it. Like I love Chat GPT.

Lindsay: Probably not to create the offer. Be specific, what do you mean?

Kimberly: I used AI to help me sort out my own thoughts about it. And I think for me, AI has been so helpful because of my brain and I can come up with a bazillion things and then I can feel overwhelmed because it’s like too many and I don’t know where to start and I don’t know how to choose. You know, I don’t know how to get started.

So AI has been great because it’s like, if I can see a prompt, if I can see an example, I either know straight away like, oh, this is, yes, that’s exactly what I was wanting to say. I’m just going to change a few things, put them in my own words, hone in on it even more. Or absolutely not. Like, no, that is not what I meant at all. And now I’m really clear on what I do mean.

So I use it kind of like something to just bounce ideas off of so I can get clear.

Lindsay: And to speak to who you are speaking to in your offer, I do find that AI is super useful in just helping you organize your thoughts, which is as someone who may have different types of neurodivergence, right, like that is very valuable, can be a very valuable tool.

Kimberly: Yeah, I’m probably going to include it in my coaching, honestly, or do a workshop on it or something because it’s a great tool. But I have no problem telling people. Like I know there’s lots of opinions. I’m just going to fall in the camp of like, yeah, I used it and it’s great.

Lindsay: Yeah, it’s really interesting that if you think about that comment, right? It’s like, well, what’s the alternative? I googled this, here’s the results that I got. Or I searched this whatever, googled it. Here are the results that I got. And this just speaks to transparency and honesty, right? Which is like, you just took a screenshot and posted it exactly like that.

Kimberly: Also, I know how many brains like mine are going to get lost for hours going down the rabbit hole of research and reading all the things when something could just summarize like, what’s the information I need to know from this?

Lindsay: And it was something very basic. It’s not like it was giving stats or statistical, you know, scientific claims or anything. It was like pretty basic, like –

Kimberly: Former me, though, would have been like, oh God, like, I have to take it down. And like, oh my gosh, like, how do I say something that makes that person feel better about it and explains blah, blah, blah? And so that’s also a nice shift to notice just my own evolution, like, oh, I don’t need you to like it. That’s fine. I mean, I don’t have to hide it or explain it or any of that.

Lindsay: I love it. All right. Well, where can people find you, especially if they want to see this incredible offer or just check out your sales page. See what we’re talking about.

Kimberly: Yeah, just go to Instagram. It’s in the link in my bio. And I’m on Instagram @theKimberlyMathis. I’m also on threads with the same handle. And you can also go to my website, which is KimberlyMathis.com.

Lindsay: Love it. We will link all of those in the show notes. Thank you so much for being on today. This was so fun.

Kimberly: Thanks for having me.

Lindsay: Of course. I’ll talk to you later. 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.