WW 200: 20 Major Lessons I've Learned From My Financial Coaching Business - Solo Show

It’s the 200th episode, it’s the end of 2020, and it’s been 4 years since I started my financial coaching business. As a result, I thought I’d gather the 20 biggest and best lessons I’ve learned from my journey recording 200 episodes, navigating 2020, and scaling and pivoting my business to get to this place. Loving this episode? Take a screenshot and share it on Instagram! Tag me so I can send you some love (@Tess_Wicks)

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A Quick Recap from this episode

It’s the 200th episode, it’s the end of 2020, and it’s been 4 years since I started my financial coaching business.

As a result, I thought I’d gather the 20 biggest and best lessons I’ve learned from my journey recording 200 episodes, navigating 2020, and scaling and pivoting my business to get to this place.

Done is better than perfect (Progress > Perfection)
We get so caught up in making things perfect that we never actually move forward. With your online business, you just have to ship your creation. You have to stop worrying about it being perfect and know that you can make it better the next time around.
People aren’t paying THAT close attention
This ties in with the first one, but do the thing you’re worried about, and don’t feel the need to explain yourself. The only person that matters when it comes to what people think is yourself. You won’t confuse people just because you pivot.
Be clear, not clever
If it feels like a stretch, it’s a stretch - if you have to explain it, it’s a stretch. Just because you want something to sound cool or use alliteration, if you have to explain it, it doesn’t work. First impressions are everything.
You can decide to just show up on one platform and neglect all the others and still end up with a 6-figure business.
I think I’m finally proof of that. I say finally because for so long I was trying to show up everywhere, and my focus was so split that I couldn’t convert clients.
Let’s normalize building a 5-figure business or side hustle and celebrate hitting 1k month milestones.
If you’re shooting for 10k months, ask yourself why? Because other people are doing it, or because you know you NEED 10k to reach your goals? It’s amazing to make $100 the first time. It’s okay to celebrate the “small” wins (that aren’t actually small - they’re huge!)
People aren’t paying for your time or the number of videos, they are paying for the transformation you help to facilitate for them.
This is again where we have to separate time=money. It’s really value=money. There are so many different ways that you can quantify your coaching and the value you provide. People pay for that, not for the specific amounts of time/resources.
If it sounds too simple, it’s probably the most effective way to go and you’re just trying to overcomplicate it.
This is something I had to learn the hard way, and I struggled because I grew up with the notion that success means you work hard. Labor intensive work doesn’t necessarily equal success, and you don’t have to put in tons of hours and stress to be successful.
The riches are in the niches.
Niching will set you free, no matter how much you tell yourself otherwise. It’s another boundary - who are you willing to work with and who are you not? When you set that boundary and stick to it, you’ll feel so much better from a stress perspective but also from the perspective of running a sustainable business.
Open a separate bank account for your business.
Even if it’s still a personal bank account…even if you don’t know if your business is going to make it…deposit all business income there, and spend all business expenses from there. (If you have to fund it from your personal account, that’s okay.) Just keep the two separate!
If your client isn’t following the budget or doing any of the other work, it’s time to go deeper and ask what’s getting in the way?
It’s no longer a money problem at that point. It’s a behavioral problem. That can be hard for the money coach that’s very focused on systems, but you may have to go through the discomfort of challenging your client on this. Find out what’s getting in the way, because you’ll be a way better coach if you’re willing to go a little deeper.
If you don’t know how to find your ideal client, then you don’t know them well enough.
I know that’s hard to hear, but it’s true. Get on every social media platform, find groups, or find hashtags, then ask them for an interview so you can ask where they hang out! The more specific you can get with your client, the easier it is to actually go out and find them.
One big investment > tons of smaller investments
Better to make one big investment into a coach who has done what you want to do, than to make lots of smaller, scattered investments (that rack up to basically the big investment) into different experts teaching different techniques without any congruent plan. Avoid the shiny object syndrome so that you can focus instead on the bigger picture that you want to build.
You can’t edit a blank page.
There’s a lot of tone policing and canceling happening right now. It might scare you out of doing anything, but remember, better to stand corrected than to never stand at all. Stop editing yourself before you even start.
What others think of you has nothing to do with you.
Instead, it’s their projection of how they would feel/be/act/think if they were you. This goes to that fear of what people will think if you put yourself out there as a money coach. I had these fears too. Your opinion of you and what you’re doing is the only one that matters.
Taxes are actually fun to pay…
…as long as you’re setting aside 15-20% of every dollar you make so you can actually pay them. When you get to a point where you owe taxes for your business, it’s good news! It means you’re profitable and running a successful business.
I know you think you can do it better, but you can’t. Hire someone to help you.
Maybe you can do it better, but it’s not worth the time, money, and effort if you don’t like doing it. Yes, that means paying someone, but do it sooner than you think you need to. When you can free up your time and energy so you can focus on the things you really want/need to be doing, that’s when you’re business will really start growing.
Fears, challenges, and problems won’t go away when you hit a certain income or other tangible achievement threshold, they’ll just change.
Your best bet is to expect them so you aren’t so shocked every time it comes up. New things will always come about, so take the mindset that you’re expecting some things to happen and know that you’ll have to work through them.
Ignorance truly is bliss.
There are people who will make far more doing far less. They’re not better than you or smarter than you, they’re just willing to take action and not get in their own way. We know you don’t want to be like them, but your perfectionism to be 100x better will also keep you from achieving like them. The fact that you care, shows me that you’ll be doing enough.
Vanity numbers and money shouldn’t be a reason to keep doing things that make you miserable.
Here’s looking at you, YouTube. There are parts of your work that you may not like, but if they make you miserable and pull you away from your humanity, it’s not worth it. Be willing to course correct and know that there’s still plenty of opportunity out there for you.
You need a mission and vision that’s bigger than yourself.
Along those same lines, you don’t need to overcomplicate what that is. Wanting to help people with their finances is a mission. It helps people change their lives and makes the world a better place. You need something bigger than yourself to make you want to show up everyday.

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