Hello, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 196.

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, hey coach, I am so happy you’re here today, as always. And I have something fun prepared for you today. First of all, as promised, I’m going to tell you all about the Reimagine Mastermind and go through some questions that I’ve been getting from people around it. And because I want to be sure that, you know, this offer is for a small group of people. So obviously everyone listening, you’re not just going to want to hear the details or this might not be for you quite yet.

And so what you can do as you’re listening through this episode is really think about each of the questions that I’m going to go through and think about like, what would the answer be for you? And then at the end, for your offer, right? For like what you do as a coach. At the end, I’ll actually go back through the questions because I’m going to do them kind of conversation style.

Of course, I’m going to ask a question and then I’ll answer it around what the Reimagine Mastermind is. Some of them are questions that I’m like, this is probably what you want to know, and some of them are actual questions that I’ve received about the mastermind.

So I will answer all of them. But then at the end, I will go through and recap. I’ll just give a list of questions for you to consider for yourself as a coach to think through when it comes to your offer.

Okay, so if you’ve been paying attention over the last couple of weeks, I have mentioned that I have a new offer, a new mastermind called Reimagine. And I kind of made a mistake and let the cat out of the bag a couple of weeks ago, a little early and the links weren’t quite ready and all the things. I just jumped ahead a few steps.

So now I’m backtracking a little bit and I’m going to tell you all about it. I’m going to answer lots of the questions that I’ve been getting, give you some details, tell you why I made some of the decisions I did about the offer. So it’ll give you a little insight into how I make decisions and whatever, you can use that for your offer as well to think through, like, how would you make that decision for yourself?

And then again, at the end, I will re-ask all of the questions so that you can just jot them down or whatever and use them for yourself to answer for your offer.

Okay, are you ready? So the first question is just what is it? What is Re-imagine? What is the Reimagine Mastermind and how did I decide that I wanted to offer it? So the Reimagine Mastermind is a nine month what I’m calling like a full immersion coaching experience. So yes, I do consider it to be a business mastermind and it’s a little bit different.

I mean, I’m sure there might be ones out there like this, but it’s a little bit different than anything I’ve seen before where we’re going to have over the nine months, we begin in October and over the nine months we will have a kind of full, like we’ll be doing a full entire audit of every section of your business, looking at every piece saying, is this working? What’s working really well? What is working and I don’t really love it? What isn’t working at all? What changes do I need to make?

And just going through all of those pieces, really making sure that your business is set up in a way that just feels amazing to you. That feels like, yes, like this is aligned with where my life is right now and what I want to be doing, what I want to be offering right now.

And because of this, it is more for the experienced business owner because we are going to be talking through kind of the experiences that you’re having currently in your business. And one of the ways that I am kind of thinking about this, one of the reasons that this has kind of been on my mind, maybe like on my heart, if that’s the way I want to say it, if that makes sense to you, over probably the last year is this is so much of the work that I’ve been doing probably in the last actually like two years of my business.

And of course, since I’m doing this work with myself, then I start to notice other people struggling with these things or working through these things as well. So I’ve made some kind of big shifts in my business over the last year or so. Some of them may be very apparent to you, for example, this, right? Like a new offer.

And some of them might be not apparent at all, very much happening on the backend, or maybe the way I run some of my things, or the way I just work day to day, really figuring out how to take everything that I have learned up until this point, 10 years in of running this business and say like, okay, with 10 years of experience, are there any shifts I want to make now? Or kind of like, what’s the next thing? What am I working towards now? Is everything that I’m doing, does it fit with the life that I live, with the schedule that I want to keep? All of that, right?

So I keep hearing this from so many of you and coaching on it, even inside some of my containers where this thing comes up where it’s like, well, I’ve had this program for a while. And now I don’t really know what to do with it because maybe this shifted or this shifted, or something about the selling of it shifted, or right, like something has changed and now for some reason it’s like not aligned. This is just one specific example.

And then you ask me for help, like, what do I do with it? And I love coaching on this type of thing. These are things that I find so fun that totally light me up, that are taking, okay, here’s what I’m doing now, and just really transforming it into something that you are in love with, that you’re obsessed with, that you can’t wait to get up and do every day that you work.

And I want that for all coaches. I think coaching is so important. I think the work we do is so important. The work you do is so important. That’s exactly how I want you to feel about doing the work, right? About waking up every day and running your business.

So what is Reimagine? It is nine months. It is a different topic each month. And within the topics, we will kind of do a full cover of every piece of your business. We’ll be looking at your offers and the structure of them, the structure of how you run your business, your marketing, your selling, your content creation, your branding and visibility, your calendar schedule and structure. So kind of like the way you work day to day, month to month, year to year, right? Like the entire structure and schedule of how you work and like, is that working for you?

And then last but not least, of course, your client delivery, which is the piece where I’ve put so much of my focus up until now. And I’m really excited to blend all of these other things together. Over those nine months we’ll, like I said, have a different topic each month. Within each topic, there will be a specific structure. So the very first week of each topic, we will have a two hour call. I call this like the audit call. And this is going to be where a lot of the upfront work is done, right? Like the examining of, for example, your offers, the structure of your offers. Let’s just start with that one.

So we would look at that and do just a full audit, right? What are the offers you have now? What are the structures of them? What are the offers on your mind that you’ve been thinking of? And just doing a full like, what is working about this? Is there anything that isn’t working? And maybe you don’t even find things that aren’t working or that are not working. I don’t know if I’m saying that right. Maybe you don’t find things that stand out that aren’t working right now.

But what you might find is that you’ll feel either more solidified in what it is you’re already doing because you’re like, yes, this part of my business, I love it. Everything’s great. Or more likely, because this is what always happens with me, even if you don’t find something big that you want to change or any changes you want to make, you might find little tweaks here and there that can make your business run even smoother, that can make your offers more clear, that can serve your clients even better, right?

So we’ll be doing just a full audit of all of that. That will be on the first call. And also examining all the things that are getting in your way of making the changes, of having the structure that you want to have, or of making this change maybe that you’ve had on your mind for a while, and you’ve just been putting it off because you’re not quite sure how to do it or if it’s the right time or any of that. So we’ll be doing that.

The second call, the rest of the calls are just an hour. So that first one is two hours because it is a bigger thing, right? It’ll just take more time to do. That will be like we’re working through all of it, just bringing all the awareness up to the surface.

The second call within the topic will be who do you have to be in order to make the changes you want to make, right? In order to show up to your business and create the thing that you’re dreaming of, to make these small tweaks, to hire some people, to ask for support, to whatever it is, whatever we find. All those obstacles that are getting in the way, who do you have to become to be the person, the business owner who runs your business in this way that you’re imagining?

And the next call will be business coaching just on the topic, right? So whatever the topic is, let’s say we’re in the month where we’re talking about marketing, that call, the third call would be just coaching on your marketing and anything that’s coming up for you as you implement anything that we found in those first two calls.

The fourth call of the topic will be just an open business call. So that way we can be sure that we’re keeping up with the business that’s currently running as you are doing the audit. As you’re going through all of these things and making some changes or some tweaks or planning your growth for the next years.

So it will be open coaching. Anything that’s coming up in your business. Anything you’ve been working on. Anything you’re still working on, maybe from some previous months that we have worked through. Any of that. Like anything business related, bring it.

Then there will be two types of bonus calls. There will be coworking, like community calls. Those are not mandatory. Some people love coworking and those will just be scheduled throughout. So if coworking feels really useful for you or certain months there are times you want to come and get feedback on something or ask something or just hear what your fellow coaches have to say, that would be the time for that.

And then there will be guest expert calls as well, scheduled outside of the regular coaching time, the regular mastermind time. And those will be guests that I pick along the way that will really highlight and improve your experience in that one area, right?

And I thought about choosing these coaches ahead of time, and I do have some people in mind. I have a short list of people that I think would be amazing to come in and do this. But I’ll be honest, first of all, one thing I know about myself is I have so many connections, so many incredible coaches who are really good at what they do, or not even all of them are coaches, some have a certain area of expertise that’s very closely related to coaching, right?

So maybe like a copyright specialist or AI specialist or someone who can come in and teach something. But I will be choosing those along the way to be sure that they really enhance your experience. I’m not going to ask someone, a guest expert, to come in and teach you something specific if I don’t think it fits with what we’re working on and who the people are in the group. So y’all will have a little bit of say over that as well. And I’m really excited about that piece.

So another reason that I’m offering this, that was kind of like the structure and what it will look like. And one reason that I am offering this right now, I think you heard me talk about this a couple of weeks ago, kind of like some shifts happening in the industry. And one thing I said in that podcast is that I don’t think this is abnormal.

I think there are always shifts happening in the industry. Maybe if you haven’t been here very long, right? Or if you’re like a couple of years in, even four years in, whatever it is, you might think like, oh no, there are big changes happening. But to me, being here for 10 years, which by the way is such a long time in the online business space, right? Like think of what has changed in 10 years. You know that there are just ups and downs. That’s a part of it.

Right now we might be going through some very specific changes, but that will always be the case. And what I want every business owner to know and to learn over these nine months is skills that will help you shift to those changes no matter what. Right now, in the future, 10 years from now when it’s all happening all over again, right? Like at every point, for you to be able to meet kind of what the market is asking for, what your business is asking for, and even what your personal life is asking for, right?

I think that you might start a business, you build it one way, and then there’s a big change in your life. Maybe for me right now it is my kids are older, older like teenagers, tween to teen years. And there’s a specific thing that comes with that. Like I would love to have more time with them during certain times of the year, to be more available, to travel more, to just all of those things with them.

And so that’s something I’ve been thinking through personally and kind of restructuring parts of my business to kind of meet that moment of my life. And some of the restructuring, just to give you an example, isn’t necessarily like I’m burning something down and making something new. Some of it is, for example, The Coach Lab. If you’ve been on the podcast, if you’ve listened to the podcast for a while, you know all about The Coach Lab and it is a lifetime access program.

And so when I think about structuring my business so that it fits with kind of the schedule, like a family schedule or a schedule of something just that I want personally, I am not necessarily making changes to my program. So if you’re in it, you might not see, oh, there are all these huge changes happening all the time because Lindsay’s changing to fit around her life. I’m keeping the program structure the same, and then I’m solving it in other ways.

Now that’s just for that specific offer. In other offers or in other ways, I have really made big outward shifts that you would see kind of in the structure of the offer or the program. But in The Coach Lab, there’s still calls every week. There are still occasional guest coaches, just like there have always been, to show you all those different styles of coaching. It’s still all the same, right?

I don’t want to change that because right now that structure works really well. And so then I get to work on like, okay, well, if I still wanted to create this certain thing or create this certain thing, what could that look like without messing with the structure that is working so well right now? That’s just one example.

What can you expect from joining the Mastermind, from being in the Mastermind? First of all, you can expect, and I think this is something that is really important especially right now, especially for any coach that’s feeling a little wobbly, like some things that were working, they’re not working now. Or thinking like, oh no, I don’t know what I’m doing or I’ve lost my mojo. That’s something I hear sometimes.

And I think it’s important to know, to run a business where you feel fairly calm, grounded, and clear about what you’re doing and where you’re going all the time, even with the ups and downs, right? Even with the ground feeling a little shaky sometimes, just knowing that that’s all part of running a business and that you have the confidence in yourself as a business owner to know how to handle it and to know how to shift and to know what questions to ask yourself as you’re going.

Those are all things that I will be teaching you, and that’s probably the overarching result that I hope for you. But the other ones, equally as important, of course, or maybe they all play into that bigger result of just feeling calm, feeling grounded, feeling like a serious business owner, you know what you’re doing.

And when I say serious business owner, I mean just kind of like you’re running a grownup business instead of just playing business. And if you’re doing that now, then you know what I’m talking about, right? There is a shift that happens where all of a sudden you’re like, oh, it’s kind of like I know what I’m doing all the time, even when things are hard.

Not that you’ll never doubt yourself, because of course I still have days where I’m like, do I even know what I’m doing? Do I even know what I’m selling? Do I even know what kind of business I run? Of course, this is totally normal. It happens to literally everyone. If it doesn’t happen to you, then I don’t even know. Email me, tell me your magic.

But if you have been running a business for a while, I am positive you have felt those ups and downs. And I just want you to have many more days where you feel calm and clear than the opposite, okay?

So here are some other results you could expect from being in this container. Maybe it’s implementing something that’s been on your mind or that you’ve been wanting to change or that you’ve been thinking that you’ve been putting off and you know this thing is coming in the future. Maybe it’s that.

And this happens to me quite often in my business where I’m like, oh, once I get there, and we do this with all kinds of things, right? Once I get there, then things will be different. So once I get there, then I’ll be able to take a month off in the summer to take my kids on vacation or whatever, right? Things like that where it’s like, yeah, but someday. Someday in the future. Or I have to just keep going like it is right now, even though the schedule feels maybe too much and I feel drained and exhausted all the time. But once I hit this certain level or this certain thing in the future, then I’ll be able to slow down.

I want to help you do all of those things as you go, right? To not wait for the future. Maybe you have lots of clients. You really know what you’re doing. You’re making lots of money. You have this successful on the outside business, but maybe there are all these little pieces that the day-to-day of it is just wearing you down, right? Decisions you have to make, changes you want to make that you don’t really know how to do.

I am excellent at helping you implement these things and make decisions that you might implement now. Some of them might be now, some of them might be, okay, in the next year, and some of them might be part of a longer term plan, right? You might see kind of all phases of that.

That’s at least how I experience it. When I start to see, oh, here’s something I would like to change, maybe it’s a progressive plan to change it. Like I’m going to make small changes now and then next year, this added change and then the year after that. Or maybe some things that’s like, nope, this feels so clear, I don’t even want to run my business without making this change and you just do it right away.

And then there might be some that just feel like there are more decisions to make around it. For example, if I was going to make a major structure change to The Coach Lab, having so many clients in it, that’s not something I would do lightly, right? I wouldn’t just make the decision overnight and then just make the change and do that all the time because I don’t want my clients to feel confused. I want them to feel very settled in that container and kind of always know what’s going on.

You might work on redesigning some parts of your business to work around your current life. So maybe when you built your business, you were at a certain stage in your life and you had certain things going on. Maybe now some things have changed, but your business hasn’t shifted with those things. I can help you do those things.

I want to help you make your business feel more like you, working the way you want to work, right? So like working with your brain, the way you think, your quirks, your neurodiversities, any of those things that when you maybe learn from someone else and you learn their way, which can be a great thing, by the way, it’s what most of us do in the beginning. Let me go learn this thing. I’m going to learn how to do it your way.

But a more experienced business owner will usually start to see things where it becomes kind of like, that’s how I’m doing it now, but it doesn’t really work for me, or it’s creating lots of friction when I try to do this or I try to do this. And so sometimes it’s just making small shifts to your schedule, to the way you work, to the way you create content, to going from writing social media posts every day on the fly, to writing them all a month ahead of time. I’m not saying that’s what you should be doing, but just as an example. Or creating your podcast week to week versus deciding you really love to just set aside a day and batch four episodes at a time.

Just looking at all those things that are like, you know what you’re doing now, and this is how it’s going. And in the dream world, maybe it looks like this. How can we just restructure some of those things to work with you, your brain, your learning style, your working style, to make you really the expert of your business?

Some of you, I know this because sometimes you bring it to calls, you possibly left corporate America or corporate world, and you love the idea of having all this freedom and time freedom and creativity freedom, and all of that. And then you have built a business that kind of mimics corporate style, that has a lot of the same things that you didn’t love about being in the corporate world, because it’s the only real model that you had. That’s totally fine, but I can definitely help you unwind it.

Maybe you, let’s see, you’ll leave identifying areas that you might need support. So looking through, sometimes it can be really easy to say, I think I need to hire a social media person, versus this process that I’m going to take you through, really doing a deep dive audit, understanding the parts of your business that you absolutely love, that you could do every day without even thinking twice about it. And then finding and being honest about the places that you’re like, if I never had to do this again, it would be great.

And then just questioning it. Like, okay, am I in the position to hire someone to help me with this now? Do I want to create an org chart to be sure that I really understand all the workings of my business and everything that is required to run it, and then decide whose job each of it is?

Some of you may be coming in, since this is for the more experienced entrepreneurs, some of you may be coming in with a team already, right? And so we could even look at like, how is that working now? Are there any pieces of that that need to be reconsidered or restructured?

I just think sometimes with all of these things, probably the theme we are seeing is what I see happen a lot with business owners who’ve been in the game for a while, who’ve been running a business, sometimes it’s like you just put your head down and you keep going, right? Because there are parts that feel hard and you just have to get through these pieces. And then it’s like you look up and you’re like, wait a minute, this isn’t exactly what I thought it was going to look like here, right? This isn’t the exact experience I thought I would be having. Or, okay, like this is okay and I know how I got here. I see why I built it this way, but now it’s time to make some shifts.

That’s what I want to help you do in every area of your business. And mostly I just want you to wake up every day being excited to be a coach and to run your business, right? Just to be excited as a business owner, to remember why you got here in the first place, why you decided to build this business, what changes or what future goals you might have that light you up and just really leaning into all of that to just create a different experience for you as the business owner.

And at the end of it, what I want to leave you with at the end of the nine months is not only a business that possibly looks very different, maybe very different on the outside. Maybe it’s just internally, right? Maybe it’s more backend, like cleaning up the parts that just feel hard to you and the structure and the organization of it all. But then the offers and everything kind of client facing still looks the same.

But what I want to leave you with is not only those changes, of course, but also a roadmap of how to always ask yourself these questions and make these decisions. Whether that’s continuing to work with me or just on your own, right? I think that these are really important skills to have, to just be a calm, grounded business owner that is able to shift with all of the ups and downs, no matter what it is you’re doing, whether it’s in this business or even a different business.

Okay, here’s one question that I have had emailed several times. What does experienced mean, and why is that part of the criteria for joining the mastermind? So I don’t have a hard line of like, this is exactly what your business has to look like, or this is how long you’ve had to be in business or how many clients you have to have or anything like that.

But the way I think about it and why it’s important, especially for this space, first of all, it is going to be kind of a quick moving, you know, like I said, immersive experience. So if you’re brand new and you don’t have a lot of experience doing a lot of these things, it could be very overwhelming. So there’s that piece. It’s just not, it wouldn’t be a great fit. I’m always thinking about like, you know, I never want a client to come into a space and feel distressed over like, Whoa, this is way over my head. So there’s that piece.

But mostly because of the structure of it, because we’re kind of doing like an audit or going through how it’s going now, you need to have that frame of reference to be able to answer what is going well, what isn’t. So even if you’re having some blips in your business now, right, this is not like, I’m not – When I say experience, what I don’t mean is super successful every single minute of every single day. That’s not a thing. I doubt that any business owner really truly feels that that’s how their business is going.

What I do mean is you kind of have proof that it works. You know who you work with for the most part, even if there’s some changes that you want to make to that, some tweaking, right? But in general, you have proof of concept, as in you know who your clients are, you know what their problems are, you know why they hire you, you know how to sell coaching, you know what coaching is, you know how to talk about it.

Like all of those pieces, so that when you’re coming to the sessions and we’re doing audits, and we’re sharing ideas, and we’re really masterminding through parts of it, you feel like you have a lot of experience to wrap your mind around any shifts or changes you might want to make or any like, this is working really well, I definitely want to keep doing this, right?

Because if you don’t, then you’re just kind of making it up, which is okay. That is how it’s done in the beginning. But your brain will probably keep coming back to like, there’ll be a little panic happening. This is what I’ve seen happen in business spaces when this can be a thing. When it’s like a little over someone’s head, what will happen is your brain will just keep coming back to like, oh my gosh, but can we just get on with it? Like I need to know how to sign a client today. And that is not what we’re doing here.

Now, will you be doing that? For sure, I hope so. That’s definitely a piece of it, right? Like making money, working with clients, having an impact, all of that. Those are all pieces of running a business that we can’t leave out. So yes, we will be coaching on those things. But what I’m trying to avoid by offering this to the more experienced business owner is just that, slight panic happening in the background that sounds like a constant buzz that you can’t get rid of that’s like, okay, but I need you to just teach me how to sign a client today. Right? That’s totally fine as well. And it’s just for a different space.

Is there a live portion and can I attend virtually? So yes, there’s a live portion. And why? One of my main reasons for there being a live portion is because of this exact work that we will be doing in the mastermind. Because one thing I did not too long ago, where this offer really kind of came from, because it was already kind of playing in the back of my mind. I kind of knew it was there. I just wasn’t sure exactly what it was.

So what I asked myself was like, okay, what are all the things? Like if I could create the dream offer, my dream offer, and know it would work and know that I don’t have to necessarily include things that I don’t want to include, what would it include and what wouldn’t it?

And if I’m honest, a live portion was at the top of the list of what would it include. I just love it so much. I think it creates connections on a different level. I think that so much growth can happen in a few short days when you’re together in person with most of the distractions not there, right? With so much thought leadership in one room and problem solving and connecting and being with your colleagues and making new friends and all of those pieces has, if I’m honest, has been a really important piece of building my business. I’ve been very vocal about that on this podcast.

So those have been so important to my business. And not only do I love having that with my clients in smaller groups, but I love providing those spaces for you to have it amongst your friends and colleagues.

For me, this offer feels like a very, it’s going to be a very hands-on type container, right? It’s going to be a very different experience than, for example, like in The Coach Lab where there’s lots of coaches, lots of that’s more like self-paced, you know, all of that. This is going to be like, oh, I can’t wait to get in there and help you with all these things in your business. And those things light me up. And being in person, I think just offers kind of the next level of that and enhances the experience.

So yes, there will be a live portion. My hope is that it will be in Palm Springs. I have picked a date in February, which is on the information page. If you click through, the only reason I’m not saying 1,000% it is in Palm Springs is I’ll be honest, it’s going to be more, first of all, it’s included besides your airfare and some of your food and whatever extra spending. But the space and some of the meals and stuff will be included and it will be much more retreat style.

So I don’t want to find a house, I’m thinking like an Airbnb, where we all stay together, but I don’t want to find that until I know how many people there will be. And places like Palm Springs, there’s a limited number of spaces like that. And I’m super picky. Don’t worry, I’m really good at picking houses, at picking the space.

So I want to know first how many people there will be. I don’t want there to be, you know, five of us and then have a house for 30 people. Not that I would do that, but you see what I’m saying? Like that just doesn’t make sense. Or if there are 10 or 12 of us, I want to be sure that everybody has enough space as much as possible.

Okay. Oh, and can I attend virtually? No, the answer is no this time because of the setup, because of what it is, because it’s more of a retreat style. It just won’t make sense for me to, like it just won’t be set up for that type of joining, right. For joining virtually.

And a lot of the stuff that we will be doing, like part of it will be just that immersive experience. We’ll be doing some content creation and there will be some things that I teach there and some exercises we go through and some opportunities to actually create content for social media, for your sales pages, for like any of those things.

So part of it will be working and maybe we’ll have some cameras set up to capture some images for it, right? And just things that we can do live on the spot that I won’t be able to duplicate for virtual attendees. That’s just not the right type of event, right? It’s like, if I was going to go to a retreat at a resort or something, it’s a very different experience being there live versus saying like, oh, could I attend virtually? That just wouldn’t make sense in that specific type of environment. And this is going to be a little more like that.

Okay, what is the selling structure? Like when can you join? What does that look like? So right now, as you’re listening, if you are in The Coach Lab or if you are a previous client of mine, then you already have the opportunity to join. I am selling it first come first serve. There are 10 spaces available, possibly up to 15 for everybody that, you know, if there are 15 people that are a great fit, I would possibly open it up to 15, but nothing above that. That’s my promise to you.

And so right now it’s open to The Coach Lab. It’s open to previous mastermind clients. And then as this comes out, I believe this comes out on July 30th and or 31st or something like that, whatever 30th, I believe is when this podcast will come out. On August 1st is when we’re going to open it to everyone.

So right now, clients that have worked with me or that are currently working with me have an opportunity to join. So if that’s you and you didn’t know, surprise, it’s available. Just go to your inbox and find the emails because I’ve been sending a few of them. And if you can’t find them, just shoot me an email, I will help you out. But that is already open for you.

If you’re in The Coach Lab, there’s also a link in your portal that will take you directly to getting more information.

If you’re not, we’ll be opening this in a couple days. Get excited, get ready, make sure that you are on the mailing list. And actually, if you go to the show notes and you click the link, you can add your email just to be sure you’re on that particular list to be the first to get information on it as soon as it opens up. It’s first come, first serve. So you do have to fill out an application.

Oh, this is one question I get, is why the application process? So here’s how I’m thinking about it. I do want to be sure it’s a great fit for you, like I said, right? And a great fit for the group and for the space that I’m creating. And an application just helps me with that.

But what I’m not using the application for is I’m not going to wait till the applications come in and then look at them all next to each other and pick the best ones. I’m going to just do it on a first come, first serve basis. And if you think you belong in the room, then you’re probably right. There’s a high probability, as long as you’re not a brand new business owner, there’s a high probability that I am either going to just say, hell yeah, can’t wait to work with you, your business sounds amazing. Or I’m going to come back with just some more questions for you.

So don’t let the application scare you. I know that when I have to fill out stuff like that, sometimes I just want to know like, is this like a competition? Like, do I need to make myself look great? No, that is not what’s happening here. This is just like, I want to know a little bit about the structure of your business, a little bit about why you’re joining, what you’re hoping to get out of it, what your main goals are.

One, it helps me make sure you’re a great fit for the space. And two, it helps you think through some of those questions for yourself as well, right? Like thinking really specifically about what you want to get out of it. And then three, it helps me as I’m developing it all out, right? Even though that’s mostly done in my mind, it just helps me get really clear.

Like if every application is really specific about, I’m here to work on my marketing and that’s on all the applications, then it just helps me know, like maybe we need to spend a little more time on that section. Maybe I need to move that up so it’s like earlier in the nine months. Maybe that’s something I have an expert come in and talk about some things, right? It just gives me a way to curate it even more so that you have the best possible experience.

I think of things like these as like a highly curated experience. So it could vary from group to group. And I love running groups like that. Like that really lights me up. So that’s part of it. That’s like a really long answer to why I want you to fill out an application.

Okay. I think that’s all. And then the last question, because some of you are sassy and you think you’re funny and you’ve sent me emails about this, or you’ve texted me and said, uh, ma’am, I thought you weren’t a business coach. And some of you are doing this through the lens of you’re so excited for this offer and you can’t believe I’m offering it. And you’re like, wait a minute.

I just will call myself out. It’s fine. You’re right. I have said that so many times. We could probably do a mashup of, I wish I had the time in my life to do something like this or the skill because I don’t even know how I would do it, but a mashup of me saying, I’m not coaching you on your business, or I’m not coaching you on growing your business or whatever. Just all the versions, all the times I’ve said that.

This is different. And actually this is a great example of how I am constantly thinking about my business. I wait sometimes for something to be very apparent to me and why it’s necessary and why I would offer it. So just like The Coach Lab, I’ve talked about it many times where I’ve said, you know, it was kind of on my mind for maybe a year. I was kind of like creating it. I had a note section in my phone. I was always taking notes on it until it was so clear.

And the reason, it was like born out of a very specific need because I was running the mastermind, Coaching Masters and I’d run 10 rounds of it. And one thing that had become very, very apparent in that space is that I needed more of an intro foundational type program where I’m teaching all the things that people coming into the mastermind would need to know to all be on the same page.

This offer feels very similar to that to me. These are all the things I just keep seeing them come up over and over and over. And it’s gotten to the point where it’s like, I’m teaching coaching skills and, you know, very focused on the actual coaching, on the client delivery, on all of that. And over the last year, this has been on my mind. And I just keep seeing all these ways that it’s like, if I don’t weave this part in, it feels like I’m leaving something crucial out of my client delivery, of my client experience.

So there you are. Also, you were right. If this is you, if you’re one of the people who sent me this message, you were right. I was meant to be a business coach someday, I guess, but here we are. It’s a great example of what it looks like to make decisions for yourself and to do it your way. I’ll totally teach you that in Reimagine if that’s something you need to work on.

Okay, so that’s it. I hope I answered all of your questions. Check out the show notes, grab the link. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email me. I will answer anything you have.

Now I’m going to do a recap of some of these questions. I’m going to phrase them slightly differently so that they are usable for you, no matter what kind of coach you are, no matter what you’re doing right now in your business. Are you ready? Here you go. Write these down, explore them for yourself.

What is coaching? And you could replace that with anything. So my question was like, what is Reimagine? That’s what I was answering. But for you, maybe it’s what is coaching? What is fill in the blank coaching, whatever type of coaching you do, right? What is health coaching? What is marriage coaching? What is insert name of your program, right? And explain it as best you can.

Why am I offering this? These could be personal reasons. They could be things that you’ve seen after working with clients, right? Like why are you offering it? What does it include? Get really specific.

What results can your clients expect? Again, get really specific. Even if you’re a general life coach, make yourself answer this. You might have, I mean, when I did this, I went through some of them right here with you. But when I did it, I had like 30 things. Do that for your offer.

And then I have some that are specific to Reimagine, but I’m going to say them anyway, because there might be some version of this question that would be useful for you to answer. What does experienced mean? Or what does fill in the blank, some requirement that you have for one of your offers, what does that mean? Why is it a requirement? Why do you talk about it? Any form of that question.

What are the different portions? In my case this time it’s like, is there a live portion? But that could be, is there a group call? Is there a week off every month? Fill in the blank with any type of offshoot of your offer that you, you know, anything that’s out of the ordinary, like week to week. And why do you offer it?

What is the selling structure? So that could be something that you just answer for yourself, or maybe not. Maybe it is something you need to define for your clients, right? That would be like when I just went through, why are there applications? How am I choosing? How many people are going to be in the group? All of those things.

And then that last question, right, I thought you weren’t a business coach. What is that question for you? Maybe you’re a brand new coach, and you could just make this up, but what might someone be thinking? Or what has someone said to you? Wait, I thought you were a teacher, why are you doing this business? I don’t get it.

I thought you were a fill in the blank. I thought you were retired. I thought you were any of those things. Fill in the blank with your thing and answer it.

All right, my friend, I hope this was super helpful. I can’t wait to talk to you next week. I can’t wait to see you in Reimagine, for the small group of you that are going to join. And that’s it, have a great 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.