We don’t lack information yet we scour the internet in an attempt to crack the code on success.
Believing that if you just find the next funnel, viral post strategy, call setter or social strategy guru… you’ll finally reach success.
All to fall into the same pattern of disappointment when that strategy fails.
Once again.
These peaks and valleys…
The hope that the next thing tips the scales in the direction of success followed by the trough that comes when it doesn’t is the roller coaster of unrealistic expectations.
Putting them in check is a matter of understanding why they exist and how to shift your thinking from opportunity-seeking to committing to do the work.
The right work.
I know, sounds simple right?
It’s supposed to be.
But here’s the thing.
Business is relatively simple.
Especially as a coach/creator.
You don’t have to worry about products or inventory.
You get to work from home on your schedule.
And you also get to do something that lights you up AND helps others.
While all of this freedom and being on the path of purpose is extremely satisfying, it also comes with its own set of problems.
Where most coaches run into problems
If you’re staring down the barrel at any of these things, most likely you’re in a place where it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Some of these are outwardly obvious while others are more internal blockers to success.
- No clear strategy other than to do as much as possible as fast as possible and hope that you don’t burn out before you make enough money to hire support.
- Giving into distraction at the cost of accessing flow states that produce great work.
- Having a handful of half-dug holes in skill acquisition… kind of good at video, okay at writing, and decent with social media. But overall a jack of all trades, master of none.
- Overly obsessed with needing to get to the goal and not enough on the process.
- Stuck in mindset work, elaborate morning routines, and healing instead of just getting into states of deep work and recovery.
- Too many goals – Trying to do too much at once “hoping” that something works.
- The fear of making mistakes to the point where you play it safe and don’t take any chances or put yourself out there in a way that would invite even the smallest amount of criticism.
- Caring too much about what other people think to the point of not forming a strong opinion about anything.
- Getting too hung up on the details and overthinking every decision.
- Lacking clear boundaries, giving away your time (usually for free), and depreciating the value of your service as a result.
- Wanting to control everything, holding everything you possibly can in your business to the point where it’s hard to trust others to support you.
- Hurrying, rushing, trying to move too fast which is making you miss the intricacies along the way. I’m all for fast action. But that’s very different than constantly being in a rush.
Here’s the interesting thing about this…
None of these are bad.
You right now…
But Jeff, you literally just said they’re problems! WTF?!
Hold your horses, dear reader.
These are problems that exist when there’s not a predictable baseline of known activities that generate revenue.
If you’re constantly shifting gears and strategies without giving them the time and focus needed to asses the sticking power and income potential you’re most likely stopping three feet from gold.
Why you need grit, trust, and endurance more than anything else
I remember watching this video of Will Smith where he was asked what makes him different than everyone else.
His answer…
I will not be outworked.
He goes on to say…
You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me. You might be all of those things you got it on me in 9 categories but if we get on the treadmill together there are 2 things. (1) You’re getting off first or (2) I’m gonna die. It’s really that simple.1
Right now you’re probably trying to work smart instead of hard, looking around every corner for the next solution that will solve your biggest problem (at least, the way you see it).
Here’s the thing though…
Building a solid foundation in your business is less about attempting to build through things that scale and more about doing things that don’t scale.
The qualities most needed to succeed as a coach or creator come down to just a handful of things:
Discipline
Consistency
Structure
Being bold
Recovering quickly
And getting back in the game
The more you can focus on these essential items and the right activities, the faster your path to success will be.
This means having a clear dashboard of what needs to be done and progressing toward your goal(s).
Consistently and systematically.
Structure could be your best friend but you avoid it like the plague because you value freedom and flow.
But freedom and flow without consistent cash flow is just stress.
Here’s what things could look like…
- Having a crystal clear strategy that yields predictable results even if that strategy is a systematized set of manual activities (it often is in the beginning).
- Protecting your attention so you can regularly access flow states on demand and create focused blocks of time with single objectives.
- A clear plan for skill acquisition. Choosing mediums (video, writing, podcasting, etc.) and developing to a point of mastery in one before making another one a major focus (and signing a bunch of new clients in the process).
- Softly focusing on the goal, keeping it in plain sight, but getting obsessed with the process knowing that the goal is inevitable.
- Getting to work and knowing how to move through slumps in energy, motivation, inspiration, and mindset without having major setbacks.
- Developing supportive routines that make getting into flow and managing stress easy.
- Being comfortable with uncertainty, knowing the next few steps, and taking them while trusting yourself to know what to do next as the need arises.
- A small, focused set of goals with clear objectives and steps while knowing when to pivot to something else because it’s genuinely not working.
- Cultivating a better relationship with failure. Knowing that every mistake is a new distinction and that it means nothing about you as a person.
- Staying in your lane and allowing yourself one of the greatest freedoms… the freedom to believe and act as you choose.
- Taking clear decisive action once you have sufficient information and LONG before overthinking is even possible.
- Maintaining ultra-clear boundaries, protecting your time, and building the value of your service simply by how you conduct yourself.
- Relinquishing control enough to let yourself and others make mistakes. Getting very good and giving grace where grace is needed.
- Knowing how to slow down in order to speed up. Embracing seasons in your business and planning for them so you can take decisive swift action on the regular and also take a week-long holiday at the beach.
I realize this can sound idealistic.
But it’s far from it.
It’s a set of standards.
Ones that will shape who you are and how you run your business.
The trick to making them stick is being okay not being perfect.
Look, you’re going to fuck up. The more you can embrace that, the better off you’ll be.
Just get back on the horse and keep moving forward.
The only way you’ll fail is if you jump off the treadmill before the other guy.
Here’s where to start… Focus on shit that doesn’t scale
There was a very clear line in the sand for me personally where I stopped focusing on things that scaled and my obsession with automation and started focusing on a baseline of activities that would predictably bring clients in the door.
The result is now a 200k plus business annually where I’m focused on taking what has worked, putting systems behind those, and testing different approaches on top of that baseline to see what works.
Realizing this didn’t come without pain.
This pile of furniture was my last attempt to make the ads -> webinar -> booked call -> group program funnel work.
After months of trying to get my ads to work, this was my last ditch effort to toss a few thousand dollars at the problem.
But it didn’t work.
This time in my life and business tested my resolve. If you’ve ever been at a point where you’ve “tried everything” and were left with what felt like nothing, then you know what I’m talking about.
I honestly had no business being in this program though. I didn’t have an offer that I felt even remotely confident about and in a lot of ways was still getting my business off the ground.
What came next was the ruthless elimination of almost everything and going back to the basics.
The path to income
Before joining this program and sinking everything I had into it I was hosting a podcast for a few years.
When I was running the show, my angle was that almost every author I brought on had just come out with a book.
So I was reading a book a week and then interviewing the author of that book.
And I had some exceptional guests on the show like…
Mark Manson
Charles Eisenstein (1)(2)
Gay Hendricks
JP Sears
Mo Gawdat
Dr. Zach Bush
Kelly Brogan, MD
Rick Hanson (1)(2)
Gretch Rubin
Interviewing great people like this, it could have been VERY easy to justify continuing the show but something was nagging me that I couldn’t shake.
It was time to move on.
This was one of those big pivots.
It was the start of discovering the system I’ve used personally to grow my coaching business to where it is today and now help coaches do the same.
I stopped consuming countless books and started rereading the ones that deeply resonated more than once.
I discovered the power of messaging and offer creation.
I got really good at conducting sales calls.
The biggest realization came when I understood the one thing that’s more important than anything else and always comes before a sale.
A conversation.
The following coach and creator framework is what I train my clients on and what I use myself.
You don’t need paid ads.
You don’t need complicated funnels.
You don’t need a fancy website.
And you most certainly don’t need those all at once.
This framework is built on one main premise.
To generate the right kind of conversations you need a few key ingredients.
You need to…
- Know who you’re speaking to and the problem they’re trying to solve.
- Have a crystal-clear offer that helps them solve that problem.
- Craft your messaging to speak to the person and the problem.
- Know how to initiate and convert conversations.
- Have an offer that solves their biggest problem and deliver on the promise.
The bigger moving pieces here have previous articles linked to help you get those things dialed in if you’re not there yet.
If you are, this next section is going to walk you through how to work this matrix so you can start booking calls and converting the right prospects into clients.
The 6-Figure Coach/Creator Framework
These 6 Components can be seen as steps but they’re not always linear.
- Avatar – who your message is for (who you serve best)
- Offer – how you support them to solve their problem(s)
- Messaging – what you say and how you say it
- Conversations – Commenting, DMs, and calls with prospects
- Conversions – transitioning those conversations into calls and then sales
- Delivery – Onboarding and working with your clients to support them in getting results
When you have these 6 Components dialed in, you can pivot and test every strategy under the sun.
In that case, it’s going to be more about what strategy and style fits your brand more appropriately.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
The components of this matrix are pretty straightforward. And the articles linked will give you a deeper dive into each.
Let’s look at how to use this as a feedback system.
How to work it
Let’s say you’re right around 50-75k annually in your business.
Maybe you have a handful of different offers.
Maybe some of those are freelance-type offers where you do the work for your clients.
Maybe some are straight-up coaching where you’re mainly hopping on calls and supporting in between.
You may even have a group offer that supports the individual on mass.
Possibly even a retreat.
And others are courses and digital products.
Overall it looks like your business is doing pretty well.
And it is.
With a BUT…
It’s impossible to hit your goal of 10 or even 20k months going from one thing to the next.
It’s even harder to refine each of those so you can scale.
The reality is, that each of these could be its own business.
Build deep then wide.
It’s the same tendency but applied to one thing at a time.
Example…
Refining your avatar
Continually refining how you speak to your ideal client and how you paint the picture of the problem and the dream outcome they want is one way to attract a higher-quality lead.
If you’re currently getting the “I can’t afford it” objection on your discovery calls or just people who aren’t at the level that you want to work with, start here.
- It’s a person with a set of problems that is causing them pain. Get to know the problem and the pain deeply.
- Do the same with the dream outcome they want once those problems are resolved.
- Start to look at the level of awareness they have about that pain and problem. Are they problem-aware or more problem-unaware?
- The better you speak to that problem and the consequential pain, the more the right person will resonate with your message.
- Playing on the scale of problem awareness and how you paint the picture of the problem and the pain is one way to evolve your messaging.
- Craft posts and videos speak directly to different levels of awareness.
Expanding your awareness on the spectrum that exists for your potential clients will also help you see that maybe you’re speaking too much to a particular trait that’s drawing in the wrong type of person.
Your new level of awareness will inform what you include in your offer, new potentials for opt-in offers, and even courses or programs you could create to better serve your clients (eventually).
Continuing similarly, refining the other 5 aspects of the matrix will continue to elevate the foundation of your brand.
Here’s the kicker…
Direct your potential clients to a single offer. This typically starts off with one-to-one coaching and evolves from there.
When you have a solid foundation, you can start testing all kinds of strategies that will allow you to scale.
But trying to focus on scale and constantly searching for the next strategy that will tip the scales in the direction of success is only clouding your perspective of what’s necessary to grow.
You will have to do shit that doesn’t scale to get to the point where you can see clearly what specifically you need to scale to build the business you ultimately want.
Continuing to refine the 6 components of the coach/creator framework is how you create more sustainable and predictable results.
It’s when you’ve gotten into the grove of messaging, generating conversations, and converting those conversations into clients that you begin building out systems to streamline your processes so you can free yourself up to do more of the high-level things in your business.
You don’t need a ton of followers to start bringing clients on more clients either.
I have a mix of private coaching clients and DFY marketing clients. My DFY service serves influencers with larger audiences (100,000 plus).
I have clients all the time who have just a couple of thousand followers and they easily generate 10k per month or more.
Once you have this more manual mechanism on tap, you can test and iterate with different funnels, webinars, mini-courses, opt-ins, etc. All the things that lead to more conversation while delivering tangible and specific support to the person you serve best.
This will give you an appropriate gauge of your earning potential and a set of realistic expectations of when you’re firing on all cylinders, what’s possible.
This is the work most coaches avoid (refining the 6 components).
Getting in touch with these regularly will help you exit the rollercoaster of unrealistic expectations, putting them in check by shifting from opportunity-seeking to putting in the work.
They’re also the core of what will get you to your goals.
It’s not some silver bullet strategy.
The problems you’re currently experiencing in your business only exist when there’s not a predictable baseline of known activities that generate revenue.
Go deep then wide.
Until next time,
Jeff Agostinelli
- [Jaime Willis]. (2011, June 17). Will Smith – Not Afraid to Die on Treadmill [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doqS35FfcUE
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