WW 194: How I Made a Full-Time Income From Financial Coaching (Mistakes & Lessons) - Solo Show

I’ve shared my story of becoming a money coach before, but in this episode I want to focus on how I actually took my financial coaching business full-time. I’m sharing the big mistakes I made, how I eventually made them right, and the lesson that you can take away from each so that you can build your thriving money coaching business in 3 days instead of 3 years! 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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Resources FROM THIS EPISODE

Recommended Listen: Episode 164: How I Became a Money Coach
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A Quick Recap from this episode

I’ve gone pretty detailed into my “coming up” story in episode 164 sharing the journey of how I became a money coach. The story contains lots of ups and downs, trials and tribulations, ideas and doubts. I share how it took me over 3 years of “trying” to build a full-time coaching business, before I really built a full-time coaching business.

Mistake #1: I KNEW the expert advice that would get me results, but I’d only implement it halfway (i.e. conducting market research and asking my niche what they wanted).

I knew I had a good idea, but I didn’t go far enough in validating my niche and having them co-create an offer with me.

I was so afraid of reaching out and asking for help from my ideal clients. I didn’t know where to find them or if they’d be willing to talk to me, I assumed the answer was “no” so I just didn’t even attempt. Plus, if I got them to talk to me, what would I ask? I didn’t really know that I needed to be focusing on creating one solid offer instead of trying to do all the things.

HOW I DID IT: I had to get over my perfectionism and fear a bit. This didn’t come easily to me and definitely didn’t come right away. I spent a little over a year paying a business coach who I hardly listened to. Eventually, I found someone who was able to point out the things I was avoiding doing, and lovingly pushed me to just do it.

Lesson: If you get advice from someone who has carved their own path to success, understand that there’s a difference between “knowing” and “doing”. If you’re wondering why you haven’t gotten the results after knowing what you need to do, ask yourself if you’re really doing what you were instructed 100%?

Mistake #2: I focused far too much on what everyone else was doing, and tried to copy them. Rather than asking my ideal clients what they need and how I could best support them.

Comparisonitis and shiny object syndrome was exacerbated. And I’d end up building a bunch of bridges half-way, never sticking someone out after getting initially dismal results.

Again, because I was more focused on trying to do what everyone else was doing (and honestly, what seemed easiest at the time) I wasn’t focused on creating one solid signature offering that I could validate and use as the foundation of my business to then expand from. This hurt me… far too much hopping around, not enough focus on the one thing.

HOW I DID IT: I got serious about my high-touch coaching offering, because I finally realized that was how I’d make the biggest impact and be able to make the money to bring in a full-time income.

Lesson: Where focus goes, energy flows. I know how tempting it is to want to build the lower-barrier to entry online courses and monthly subscriptions - but it will take an equal amount of effort to sell those, with a lot less return on that energetic and time investment. Plus, it’s way harder to validate and get your clients amazing results when they are a tenth of the amount invested AND probably getting a tenth of the attention and support from you. Focus on one solid signature offering first. And keep that first and one thing, the one thing.

Mistake #3: Thinking building an online business was going to be easy, and not being willing to get uncomfortable (i.e. trying to make everything - even selling, a passive process - just skip right over anything that would pull me away from my safety behind the screen).

HOW I DID IT: I somewhat forced myself to get over the fear of rejection and knew that I just had to keep pushing, persistence and patience was going to pay off eventually.

Lesson: We are ALL terrified of rejection. It’s a primal instinct to be accepted and a part of our tribe. So exposing yourself to the threat of being rejected, say on a sales call, is something you probably naturally avoid at all costs. The truth is, the faster and quicker you are to get rejected (and willing to do that) the faster and quicker you’ll be able to get feedback, iterate, and find success the next time. It’s a lot like dating. Would we all save a lot of time and meet our soul mate a lot sooner if we didn’t stick around to find out if that one flakey person really liked us or not? (Only to find out that they weren't interested in a relationship and were just stringing you along?) but we’re so afraid to ask the direct question because… rejection hurts!

Mistake #4: Being everywhere and everything to everyone. Because I didn’t do the best job at validating my niche, I didn’t know where I needed to put my energy and time in terms of showing up. So I just tried to show up everywhere. It was exhausting, and not nearly as effective if I had laser focused in one place, creating focused content, and driving people to one signature program.

HOW I DID IT: My success came slowly because of a lot of the mistakes that I made along the way (they built on each other) but there were a couple things I did right that allowed me to still build a booked-out coaching business.

After becoming exhausted, I decided to pull back at trying to be in all places and offer all the things, and narrowed my focus to podcasting and instagram primarily and my signature 1:1 money coaching program. People trickled in from other places, but these were the places.

Lesson: Consistency and persistence really pays off, and I think that’s one of the few things I did right, despite all the many mistakes I made through my 3+ year battle to finally have a full-time coaching business. Patience was not something I was good at having, I really wanted the short-term gratification of building a passive-income style program that just *worked*. What’s funny is that now I realize passive-income isn’t so passive. It’s built over time and through consistent and persistent efforts.

Short-term gratification can help in other ways. You can have a launch that works out, but there’s also the long-game that you have to play if you’re hoping to make a full-time income from money coaching. Most coaches don’t get there because they give up before seeing their traction and efforts reap the rewards.

Don’t forget that if you’re ready to keep your pricing simple and get some help making more sales, then it’s time for you to grab the Online Coach’s Pricing Workbook below!