5 THINGS I LEARNED IN MY FIRST YEAR AS A COACH

That Helped Me Go From Zero To Booked In Just 90 Days

Don’t you ever wish you could be a fly on the wall in someone else’s business? You know, to understand what really went into creating their success behind the picture-perfect snapshots they post on their Instagram feed?

Well, today, you’re getting an opportunity to do just that. (Well kind of.)

I can’t promise to turn you into a fly, but I can take you behind the scenes of my own business and pull back the curtain on the top 5 lessons I learned in my first year as a coach that helped me to go from zero to booked in just 90 days.

But first – hard truth. Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. businesses fail within the first year, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

So if you’re a new entrepreneur and you want to short-track your success by learning from the mistakes others have already made – and ensure that you set yourself up to not only survive, but thrive in your first year in business, you’re in the right place.

Grab a cuppa and let’s dig right in.

2) KNOW THYSELF

There are many ways to build a successful business – and there’s never a shortage of strategies to help you validate your idea, get booked with clients and scale.

The trouble is that at least 80% of the methods required to do that will make you absolutely miserable.

Hear me out.

It’s so easy to take a look at anyone you admire in your industry – and be tempted to model everything that they’re doing – believing that if you followed all the same steps, you’d also be able to create a similar result.

You might see your favorite fitness influencer/coach posting 10 reels to Instagram, taking 5 am snapshots of her breakfast, and responding to hundreds of comments – all in one day – and then making the false connection that if you followed the exact same steps – you’d arrive at the same result (which in this case is a profitable business).

And the truth is, you may.

During my first year in my coaching business, I invested heavily in mentorship and understanding the strategies required to grow my business.

I spent a fortune on coveted success secrets and strategies – and applied them like crazy.

And they worked.

The clients started coming in, first as a trickle, then with more flow – and finally, I started receiving more enquiries than I could comfortably handle at that stage in my business. The problem?

I was absolutely hating the way I was marketing my business.

As a highly intuitive, empathic introvert – you could say it was a fresh kind of hell for me to be waking up on a Monday morning to back-to-back sales calls for an entire day or being constantly accessible through social media.

I felt like a fish trying to climb a tree, and while I could ‘flex’ extroversion – the ruse could only last so long.

While things looked successful on the outside – I was miserable on the inside and feeling more and more despondent by the day.

But hey, at least I had money to wipe away my tears. Thankfully, my coaching business wasn’t going to fail because of a lack of profitability. Wink.

The moral of the story?

Just because it worked for them – does not mean it will work for you.

A key ingredient that’s required to build a thriving business is consistency.

When you market in a way that you love, and that fits your personality, you’re 10x more likely to stay consistent with what you’re doing – and see incredible results from your efforts over time.

When I finally dialled in on who I was as a person and stopped trying to be someone else (and market like someone else), my marketing evolved in a way that was more and more joyful and twice as profitable.

To make a start, I recommend taking an in-depth personality test, like this one, and making sure that your marketing strategy – and the kind of business you’re building, actually fits who you are as a person – and plays to your natural strengths and abilities.

Shameless plug: We cover this in-depth inside my signature client attraction program here. If you’re not ready to invest right now, there’s also a pretty cool free training you can grab on the same page.

Because at the end of the day, profit is sexy, but nothing looks as good as happy (and profitable) feels.

* Perception and self-awareness are everything. The same strategy (smiley face) applied in business can be almost effortless for one entrepreneur – and a living hell for another. *

3) GET A MENTOR

Like with anything in life, I find there are 2 ways we can accomplish something.

The first way involves a ton of trial and error (think trying to fix a car engine without any idea of what actually makes an engine an engine). There’s a lot of tinkering, and it’s likely that when you do fix something, another 3 things will break along the way. This method is time-consuming – and frustrating to say the least.

Growing your business this way might look like binging on all the freebies and watching hours of business growth content on YouTube while trying to piece together the puzzle on your own in a non-linear way.

The second way is faster and more efficient. It requires getting expert advice. Like calling your mechanic – who’ll tell you exactly which bolt to tighten so your engine runs like new again. The perk? Not having to spend hours, days and maybe even years figuring it out on your own because you get to piggyback off someone else’s experience and wisdom.

In the first year of running my coaching business, I made the decision to ask for help early on.

I invested in a business growth training program and mentor before I was ready (we’re talking about taking out 2 loans to make this happen) – and this was the single best decision I could have ever made.

Not only did I make back the money to pay off my loans within two months after putting in the work, but I also had my most profitable month that year not long after.

The lesson?

Leveraging other people’s experience will save you time and give you an unfair advantage in business.

And finally, when you think you can’t afford it, you probably need it the most. (And hey, watch it, we’re talking about business growth support here – not designer shoes.)

4) ADAPTABILITY IS THE NEW BLACK

In my first year as a coach, I learned a pretty hard lesson.

In my excitement to deliver an exceptional coaching program for my clients, I spent months creating an entire vault of video content and resources – obsessing over lighting, slides and details, while spending hours tweaking things in Canva – only to have no one watch the content.

Months of my life I’ll never get back.

Why?

Because as I got more experience in working directly with my clients in a close capacity, I realized that my content would need to evolve.

The program I thought I was going to run – ended up looking nothing like the program I run now.

But in order to let it evolve – to get even more powerful results for my people – I needed to let go of the need for everything to be perfect.

I needed to learn to love the mess, and be okay with putting out a ‘work in progress’.

I needed to get okay with the idea that things would evolve and change over time.

This meant not holding onto a specific idea until it was perfect. It meant releasing things before I felt ready, and having the courage to learn along the way.

The takeaway?

Adaptability is the new black in your first year in business.

Your idea/program/message (fill in the blank) is going to change.

Don’t hold onto perfection so tightly that you choke out a chance for your business to grow into something beautiful.

And finally, perfection is a false notion that protects you from the perceived pain of rejection or embarrassment. We think that if we only create what is perfect, we’ll get to bypass rejection, embarrassment and a whole host of negative emotions as we put our work out into the world.

The truth is, there’s no way to avoid rejection on your entrepreneurial journey. So embrace the mess and let go of the need to be perfect.

The world needs what you are called to share – perfect or not.

5) DO MORE, CONSUME LESS.

In a world with a ‘productivity, more is always better’ fetish, this one goes against the grain a little.

There came a point in my journey where I realized that more information wasn’t what I needed to reach my next level.

I got caught down a rabbit hole of consuming business growth content 24/7. I literally couldn’t take a pee without feeling guilty for not using that time to listen to some kind of resource or podcast that was going to help me succeed in business. I wish I was kidding about that last point.

I invested in course after course and wound up in total analysis paralysis with 50 competing marketing strategies fighting for space in my head – and despite having all this information – my business was not growing the way I wanted it to be.

You see it’s easy to slide into a habit of learning – instead of doing what’s actually going to move your business forward.

Yep – I’m talking about the messy, sometimes boring, hard work that people prefer to talk about – rather than actually do.

You see, learning is a powerful tool. At the beginning of your journey – you’re going to need to learn the skills to find clients, sell your offer, and deliver an amazing result to your people.

But the truth is, the results you’re looking for are only going to come from actually doing the work.

Putting the hours in.

Sweating it out in the metaphorical ring.

And sometimes learning gets in the way of progress when we see learning as a substitute for doing the work.

You see learning something new fires off the same dopamine reward chemical cocktail in our brains as having actually accomplished something does.

So watching that business growth YouTube video is going to leave you feeling like you’ve moved your business forward – when in reality, doing the work, and putting in the hours to master your craft and market your business, are the only things that will build the business of your dreams.

The key takeaways:

Don’t mistake constantly learning new information for progress.

Successful businesses are built on implementation; not information.

The business you want – is on the other side of the work you’re resisting.

JOURNALING & REFLECTION

* Here are some of my favorite reflection questions from today’s topic:

* Instead of asking, what would I like to let go of in my niche/business how about asking: What would I like to go big on?

* If I could choose just one type of human to work with for the rest of this year, who would it be? Who would I love to be a hero to?

* Am I solving a bleeding-neck problem for my audience?

* Does the way I am marketing my business and structuring my offer fit my unique personality or do I feel like a fish climbing a tree? What micro-changes can I make to bring things back into balance?

* Where can I ask for help on my business growth journey? What does that next step look like? (e.g. hiring a mentor)

* What am I depriving both myself and others of when I choose to hold onto things until they’re ‘perfect’ before releasing them to the world?

* Where am I using perfectionism as a coping tool to avoid uncomfortable emotions or experiences, like rejection and embarrassment?

* Where am I using consuming information as a substitute for doing what is messy and uncomfortable? (the real work)