Make A Profit And Connect With Coaching

Profitability is an important factor in saving and achieving success in business. Women are often conditioned to save, but talking about profitability is often overlooked.   Finding the right balance between profitability and a passion for what you do is important, as there is an emotional cost to being an entrepreneur. Financial responsibility is also key, in order to ensure enough money is always available for regular expenses. To be successful, you need passion for work, a purpose behind it and proficiency in your work.   It is important to allow space and time for success to take root and prioritize what is most important to you. When striving for success, you must express and own who you are and what you are aiming for. And when setting up coaching sessions, having a system that triggers coaching, reminders and agendas for productive calls and a three-strike reminder system with disabled reminders for clients not attending are important.   

Full Transcript for Make A Profit And Connect With Coaching

Hey, Amanda here, and welcome to the show. I am so excited to welcome you back to Amanda Kauffman's show. Well, I'm Amanda Kaufman, and this week I'm gonna be talking to you about a few things, and one of those things we're gonna jump right into is talking about finding the balance to create profitability. I am an entrepreneur, and I have been for about six years,

but I have come from a long line of business women, and my mother was a businesswoman, my grandmother was a businesswoman, and my great grandmother was a businesswoman, which you don't really hear a lot of people talking about that having a long line of business. Women and I came back, came by a realization this week about how particularly women talk about or rather don't wanna talk about profitability in certain contexts.

So I'm gonna show you a little excerpt from a story that I shared earlier this week and we're gonna talk a little bit more about it on the show today. So what was the realization? We have a negative association with the word profit, but why do we that I can't really fit into a really short story, but what I realized is that I have had conditioning,

and I'm sure many of us have had conditioning, that profits are bad, but savings are good, and savings are, we're encouraged from a very young age to set aside savings, set aside money after we've spent our money in our family for our regular living expenses at the end of every month. What is profit? Profit is basically the same thing, it's just in a business context.

So we've been so conditioned that profit is probably hurting somebody. Profit is probably bad profit is probably because you're, you're some sort of a fat cat in a corporate setting, but the truth is, profit is simply savings. It's just written in a business context. So what, oh, okay. So that was one of my stories that I shared on Instagram this,

this past week, and it just really struck me that I've been talking a lot about profit in my communities and it kind of lands like a bag of hammers because I talk with a lot of newer business owners that are very early in their business journey. And it occurs to me that a lot of the time that when I'm talking about profit, it can be kind of a repellent topic.

In fact, one of my programs is called Let's Earn a Profit and it's, I, I call it leap for short and leap sounds good, but profit doesn't really sound good. So what I wanted to talk about today on the show is really like, how do we find that balance between creating profitability that's savings in your business and balance that with the passion for what you wanna do,

having a sense of purpose with what you're doing and balancing that again with what are you really, really good at? When I first started my business, I had this seam aversion to talking about money, discussing profitability, discussing some of the, some of these key conversation topics about profitability because frankly, I was feeling terrible and terribly treated in the workplace. I left corporate America during maternity leave and I was contemplating leaving during my my fourth and,

and last, well, I was pregnant twice. I have four kids. Stepchildren. It's complicated. The point is, is that I'm a mother and I ha I felt like there was so much conflict going on between my identity as a parent and a hardworking, intelligent woman and my desire to be very successful in my career. I would not be telling you the truth if I pretended that there wasn't a huge amount of emotions going on,

triggers going on b in my decision making to become an entrepreneur and all of that family stuff going on At the same time, there are a huge number of people that are starting businesses because they want to have the option of working from home and they want to have the option of being able to dictate their hours. They wanna have the option of being able to be present for their,

the important moments of their family lives, but they also wanna be able to dictate who they work with, how they work in their genius zone, all of those kinds of things. Now, there's also realities, Mr. Mortgage and Mrs. Visa don't wait for anyone. And so profitability is very much a reality. If your business is not successful, it means it's not profitable,

right? If you don't have anything left over at the end of the month or the year financially speaking, it means that it costs your money, your business, more money than it generated. And this is a huge problem for many businesses, whether you're running an Etsy business or whether you're running a a multi-level marketing business or whether you're running a coaching business.

And a lot of us mask the disappointment that we have around the performance of our business with, well, you know, profitability's not everything, or, you know, money's not everything or I don't need that much money to get by. And the truth is, yeah, you do. You do need that much money to get by because your rent actually costs something.

Your lifestyle costs something, your medical bills costs something, your kids school costs something, clothing costs something, everything costs something. So when it comes to having a thriving lifestyle, whether you're a man, you're a woman, or however you identify your lifestyle does cost something. And so it's really finding that balance of your ability to generate profit, whether that's through a career or through an entrepreneurship or a mix.

And it's finding that passion for what you do, having purpose behind what you're doing, having proficiency, meaning being good at it, and really investing in the skillset and the ability to do it. And then also having pride for what you do. Are you proud of what you do? I think one of the biggest things that really held me back from really going whole hog on my coaching and consulting career was that I felt quite a bit of actual shame for being an on online entrepreneur,

for wanting to be kind of on the forefront of, of working more individually with life coaching and high performance coaching and a lot of these things that are less traditional. I was really worried about what other people would think of me. So I didn't feel like pride in what I was doing. I felt a lot of shame. And so I really wanted to talk today in the Amanda Coffin show about like,

do you feel proud of what you're doing? Can you shout from the rooftops, Hey, I'm here and I'm doing this and it's me, I'm here and I'm doing what I'm doing. Or are you feeling like you have to hide it from your family and you have to hide it from your friends and you have to hide it from social media? One of the biggest tells that you may need to work in this area is are you feeling like you're,

you're curating each corner of your internet presence to make sure that only certain people are seeing what you're doing. If you're having to do that, you're basically masking your authentic, your authentic expression still. And that's okay because that's where you are. And the thing I'm gonna encourage you towards is that the more you can own who you really are and what you're really going for and how you really help people and why you're really doing what you're doing,

the more you can really own your space, the more ownership you're really going to have. And the more ownership you're really going to have, the more you're really gonna be able to step into the space and authentically connect with other people. The more you can authentically connect with other people, the easier it is gonna be to share your message, the easier it's going to be to authentically sell,

consciously sell all of those good things, and the more profit you're actually gonna generate because you're gonna be able to make the connections, make the sales, have the marketing actually work for you, and everything else is going to lift and rise. Which brings me into my next topic on the show today, which is allowing the space to succeed. So one of the things that I've learned over the,

the past few years is that when we really, really want something usually, and this is just human nature, we want it right frigging now, like we want it immediately when we decide, hey, I'm gonna go for it. I'm gonna like build this business, or I'm gonna launch this new program, or I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna change my life.

We often want immediate returns on that success, and that's actually a very good thing. I think that's a fantastic thing. But what can happen is, is that you really go for it and you, and you achieve it, you achieve that success. And whether it's making that first sale or whether it's achieving a new fitness goal, or finally proving to yourself that yes,

you can have the discipline, yes, you can show up for that routine, yes, you can do that thing that you didn't think you could do. The next step that I really wish that I was prepared for a lot sooner and I wanted to talk about on the show today is a allowing that space and that room for that success to really take root.

So what does that really look like? Well, let's say that you're trying to, trying to establish like a new, a new process for yourself. Maybe you are wanting to be more consistent about going for walks. This is something I'm working on in my life, right? I'm, I'm wanting to be more consistent about going for walks. Well, allowing the space for success is to basically hold at that new successful level for a while.

Like really hold it. Another really good example is let's say that you decide that you're going to be a high ticket coach. This is something that I help people with all the time in my business, is I'll help them with, you know, what's that, what's that premium program going to be? How, what's the sales process for that? How do you,

how do you generate leads for that? And what will very often happen is the first few sales will get made, and then the first instinct is to want to actually change everything. And that is like a really normal response because you know, let's say you've, you've mastered going for the walks every day. You've mastered making the first few sales, you've mastered the,

the, the let's just even go into the kitchen. Maybe you've mastered how to make a new kind of a meal. Allowing the space for success means holding that, that space for practice in that new ability. And so the reason why this is really, really important is when you actually learn how to do the new thing, our brain immediately sets like that next goal,

that next dopamine hit desire. Because when we're going for that new dopamine hit desire because we get so excited about like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I can't believe I actually did the thing and it be, and it became something that I can actually do our, it's called the hedonic treadmill. We're happy that we achieved the thing.

And so we think we need to achieve a new thing in order to feel happiness again. And so this holding space and allowing space for success is super, super important because if you don't do that, you become very addicted to the dopamine hits of always having to strive for that next hit, that next big move, that next big launch, that next big thing.

And you are not actually living in the fulfillment of the space of what is actually making you successful. Where this is particularly dangerous in business is when you've figured out a process or you figured out a way to get something done that's going to create a result for you, you can erroneously, you can accidentally stop doing the thing that's actually making you a profitable return and start doing something that's unproven and actually lose the opportunity cost of the thing that actually works for you and can help you with Mr.

Mortgage and Mrs. Visa. So the, the, the, the whole concept of allowing space for success is basically, you know, right down to maybe you're not used to having as much success in your bank account. Maybe you're not used to seeing that level of, of revenue come in and you're just used to spending, spending, spending, spending,

spending again, like holding that space and li just like not feeling like you have to react all the time, getting out of the pattern of reaction and just slowing that down to really like, hold that space and really experience your success and start falling in love with that, that, that journey rather than the destination. So that was, that was a thought that came up this week that I wanted to share with you,

connected with that. And this is all kind of the, if there was a theme in today's show, it's are we chasing the right thing? Are we chasing the right thing? Because, you know, I think, think we, we all kind of suffer somewhat from a need to react and living in a lot of reaction. I know I do.

And, and I'm just thinking about what a lot of my friends are going through, what, you know, some of my clients might be going through. And you know, what I just noticed in the world and one of the biggest, one of the biggest things that really helps me a lot is reminding myself, are you solving the problem you have or are you simply solving a problem?

So I love problem, problem solving. I love puzzles, I love learning, I love solving problems. I'm a big problem solver. And when I'm getting into problem solving mode, it's so easy for me to see opportunity to fix, you know, and especially when it comes to like business building, but it can also be, you know, just in my house,

I could be walking through my house and be like, oh, there's a dust bunny. Oh, there's a, there's a pile of paper that I need to deal with. Oh, there's, there's something that's out of sorts. There's something that's out of, out of alignment. And you know, whether it's body dysmorphia or whether it's like I said my house or whether it's even just like my digital world,

it's so easy to look at your surroundings, your circumstances, your life, and see something that is out of alignment. And to be able to go, oh, I need to give attention to that thing that is out of alignment right now. And when you're in a world where there's so much opportunity to be able to give your attention to so many things,

to put it back into alignment, you could spend your entire life fixing things and solving problems. And if you're a, if you're a service-oriented person and you like to help other people, oh my gosh, now you've opened up the, the floodgates, now you can really solve everybody else's problems, right? And boy oh boy, well, are they gonna be happy to just dump all of their stuff on you too?

So solving the problem you have is really all about taking the time to sit back and say, what is my biggest priority and what is the most important thing? And yeah, this is another flavor of me talking about my motto, which is do what matters. What matters the most to you in this season right now? And you know, when I'm working with my,

my clients and I'm, I'm working with people, particularly in a private setting, I love to ask, you know, what is the most important to you overall? You know, I, I teach a concept called the priority pyramid, and in my personal pyramid, I put myself at the very highest part of the pyramid. Depending on how you believe,

you may put your faith above self, you may put faith, you know, with self, I put it with. And so when you're looking at it for me, if I'm not good, if I'm not okay at a foundational level, if I'm really unwell, I can't help anybody else, right? I can't help my spouse, I can't help my children,

I can't help my, I can't help my clients, I can't help anybody else. So I have to be good and okay at the very, very top. And then after that spouse, after that, kids after that mission, right? You, and then after that comes all the other priorities. And that clarity of priority pyramid helps navigate all the other decisions that are coming my way.

And in terms of the problem that I, that I genuinely feel that I have when there's so much coming your way in terms of stimulation in from so many different directions of things you could put your focus on. And you know, dare I say, even the things you should put your focus on, organizing those different priorities in your mind to go, okay,

am I good at the center? Am I good? Are we good at the center? And again, this is, this is, this is where you're potentially tapping into much, much deeper levels depending on your belief system, depending on where, where you are. That's, that's the thing that, that, that probably matters the most is like, are you okay at the core then starting to radiate outward,

not sacrificing the self on the way. So when you are solving the problem you have, it's recognizing that not every solution is going to solve every problem and some solutions are a better fit for certain problems. Sometimes when we have a problem, we think that a solution is gonna be the fix, but really we're throwing a solution that might not be the right exact fit.

So for example, if you are accustomed to being like a real worker, like a major workaholic, and you think that the solution is gonna be to work harder to achieve your goal, that might be the solution. Another solution might be to implement a system to help you with the particular volume of the particular type of work that's causing you the most exhaustion.

Another solution might be to actually put measurement in place to figure out where your work is actually going, because your tendency is going to be to assume that the solution is always to work harder, but is it maybe, but maybe not. Another place that this tends to show up is changing your business model or changing the product that you're offering or changing something about how you deliver your product.

When you're a coach or your consultant, this is usually, you know, how I help people. So I'm gonna speak specifically to this. A lot of coaches come to me and they're like, ah, Amanda, I gotta change my curriculum. And the problem that most people have when they're working with me is they don't have enough clients. So why is it that they feel they need to change what's going on inside their curriculum when they don't have enough clients?

I'm gonna tell you completely for free, there's only three things going on if you don't have enough clients. One, you simply don't have enough leads. If you simply don't have enough leads, you don't have a curriculum problem, you have a marketing problem, you're, you don't have a system for making sure that you have enough traffic. That's, that's people seeing a message and advertising to be able to come into your world to be able to work leads.

So that's a marketing problem. Now, if you have lots and lots of leads and they're not talking to you or they're the wrong people, you have a messaging problem, okay? So that's a messaging problem. And so it's one of those two things. Now, if you, if you're talking to a lot of people but they're not buying from you,

you have a sales process problem. So it's one of those three things, and for most coaches that I speak to, it actually starts with the leads problem. And so that's why I designed the program that I have, which is Level Up, which is really all about solving the leads problem so that we can then work on the messaging problem and the sales problem.

But there's no point in working on the messaging problem or the sales problem if we don't first fix the, do you even have lead flow problem? And so solving the problem that you actually have is wildly important because most people are running, and I did the same thing. This is not me throwing rocks at glass houses. I thought that the problem was that I wasn't confident enough.

I thought that the problem was that I was too overweight. I thought the problem was that I belonged to the wrong demographic to be successful. I thought that the problem was da da da da. And I could come up with a million different reasons why I was not successful as a, as a coach online. And when it came right down to it,

it was like, well, how many people do you, are you, you having conversations with that want coaching? How many people are you having conversations with that want coaching? And are they saying yes? And when you solve the problem that you genuinely have, instead of throwing solutions at the problem first you wind up creating a whole lot more success. So solve the problem that you have.

Now, this takes a lot of courage, takes a lot of humility, takes a lot of, in my case, took some therapy, took a lot of energy work in terms of working with, you know, doctors to resolve a lot of the habits that I had around blaming myself around just habitual thought patterns that I had around not feeling good enough.

And when I got to solving the problem that I actually had, guess what, a lot more success came my way. Now, related to like all of this is a lot of coaches are afraid to really go for it because they don't have the confidence that they can coach, that they can coach great, that they can coach at a high price point that they can offer value.

And you know, at the core of it, they're, they're worried that if they create profit with their business, they're gonna be hurting other people. And so I thought I'd end today's show with talking about how do you build connection into your coaching and use systems to do it. So there's two ways that you can have your coaching business operate. And this took me some time to end trial by stupidity to figure out.

So I'm gonna, I'm just posting this on the internet for free, don't mind me because I want as many people to have access to this information as possible. There are two ways that you can have connection built into your coaching system, it your coaching business. And I recommend the system approach. You can have coaching triggered purely by emotion or you can have it triggered by system.

When I say it's triggered by emotion, I mean you can leave it up to your client to call you whenever something happens, good, bad, or ugly, and you can just leave your phone number available twenty four seven to have them call you whenever. And I gotta tell you that that approach is not good for the client and it's not good for you. It's not good for the client because if things are going badly,

they're not gonna know whether it's okay to call. If things are going well, they're not gonna know if it's okay to call. And if you leave it up to them and an emotional reason to call, they're going to do so according to whatever they seem or deem fit. And I think it's a much better arrangement for both the coach and the client if you have outstanding communication at the beginning of the relationship.

Hey, here's how a coaching relationship works. Here's when we're gonna jump into a coaching call. Here's what's gonna trigger that systematically. So you can set up, like when you're gonna have coaching calls together, you can set up reminders for when those coaching calls are gonna occur. You can set up an agenda for what is going to occur in those coaching calls.

You can set up, here's when you call me, here's what constitutes an emergency. Here. You can set up all of those parameters for some reason, even with like genuine medical emergencies, like when, when I was pregnant with my babies, for example, I got all of that set up with like my doctors and specialists. Even when I had complications with my pregnancies,

I had total clarity of understanding about how I was going to engage with my medical practitioners. But for some reason in the coaching industry, we really struggle with having real boundaries around when we're going to be engaging and what the nature of our relationship is going to be. Friendly or not. Your goal as being a coach with your clients is to be friendly.

And it's, that doesn't mean that you don't have boundaries and that doesn't mean that you're not going to provide excellent service. I will tell you though, that if you don't set up some kind of a trigger or a reminder system for your clients, just because they pay you doesn't mean that they're going to remember to show up. And even if they do pay you,

and even if they do remember sometimes there's emotions going on in the transformation process that they might actually feel a little bit of withdrawal or shame or sadness or anxiety that's causing them to maybe feel hesitant about actually booking calls with you. So I'm a big fan of, use a system to actually set up when those calls are going to occur, what the reminder sequence is going to be.

And if your client insists on not coming to the calls, then use a three strike type of a system. Not to, not to bully them or guilt them or anything like that, but send three kind reminders if they're go about the call coming up and if they're not going to come, then turn off the reminder system and stop hassling them. That,

that's what I would suggest that's gonna lead to the most connection. That's gonna be you showing up with a lot of responsibility. And then after that they've made their investment, they know what the terms and conditions were of your agreement, assuming you laid that out really nicely. And your, your responsibility of as a coach is super similar to any kind of other professional service.

So do keep that in mind when you are building a profitable and amazing and awesome coaching service. Well, I hope you found this to be helpful and I had a lot of fun on the Amanda Coffman show this week. So thank you so much for joining me and we will see you again next week.