122 | The Truth About Building a Coaching Business That Lasts

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I built a six figure business,

working school hours, term time only.

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No hype.

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No fake deadlines, no ads.

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Just consistency, clarity,

and a lot of quiet courage and

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commitment behind the scenes.

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And here's the truth

that nobody tells you.

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Success in coaching isn't about

flashy content or feeling like you

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know exactly what you are doing.

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It's about doing the work that no

one sees and doing it again tomorrow.

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Welcome back to Women

in the Coaching Arena.

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I am Jo Lott a business coach

and mentor to qualified coaches

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who want to grow a sustainable

business with honesty, not hype.

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I am here to pull back the curtain

and share what really works, so

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you can build a coaching business

that fits your life and values.

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So let's start here.

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The part that you don't see, which

is the early posts that get no

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likes and I'm desperate to delete.

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The webinars or workshops that

you have prepped for, and only

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three people have turned up.

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The times that you kept showing up

when it felt like no one was watching.

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That is not failure.

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That is the work, and it's exactly

what builds a business that lasts.

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It's so easy for my clients to perhaps

hold a webinar and feel like it was a

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failure because only six people showed up.

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My first webinar, I

had two people show up.

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So ever since that day, I've

always paid for a virtual assistant

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to come to the workshop with me

to at least engage and attend.

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Even though now I have 150 plus

live show up at that webinar.

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I still have that fear

from that first time.

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But imagine if I had never got the

courage and threw my toys out of the

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pram and said forget it, it doesn't

work, which is the sort of thing I

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hear from people all of the time and

it just doesn't work the first time.

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Like my first one, I had two show ups.

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My second one I might have

had six to 12 show up.

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My third one, I had 50 show up and

now years on I'm gaining 150 plus

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live show up on my webinars, but it's

taken a really long time to get there.

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So what I wanna start sharing more

is that business is a long game.

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Have you ever watched Dragons Den?

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If so, you will know that they go

through their first three years going.

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Year one, 200,000 loss.

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Year two, 150,000 loss.

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Year three 50,000 loss.

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Year four profit, 10,000.

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And the dragons are

nodding like, oh, great.

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It's starting to work now.

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No one's thinking This is shameful.

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This is embarrassing.

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And because that's what it

really takes to build a business.

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And we are so lucky that our

businesses are not product-based

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businesses where you do lose a

lot of money in those early days.

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We are lucky that generally we

don't really lose any money.

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You can start an online business

with next to Nothing investment.

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So we are so lucky, and the reality

is that it takes longer than we think.

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And it's not because you are doing

it wrong, it's because you are

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building a real business here.

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If you were a local shop, as I've

mentioned on this podcast before, a local

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shop has opened about five houses down

from me, and I am so desperate for them to

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succeed that I shop there all of the time.

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I want to support my

local community business.

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I know they have spent hundreds of

thousands on that property building it up.

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It was shut for 18 months while they

paid builders to get it all ready and

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they have had to buy all of this stock.

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So if they are making the extra effort

to get fresh baguettes in, to get

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fresh sausage rolls in, then I will

be shopping there and supporting them

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so they can continue to provide that

amazing service to our community.

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So just remember that you don't

have to knock on doors anymore.

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We have it so easy and you can make

this work with actual hard work.

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And listening back to Melissa's case

study episode I shared a few weeks ago.

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I love when she said.

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You've just got to put your

back into it, and that's

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exactly what you have got to do.

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It isn't easy, but it is much easier

when you are surrounded by people who

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will give you the support to do that.

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The inspiration to do that, the feedback

to do that, and you will gain so much

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courage from actually taking those steps.

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Okay, now let's talk about

the elephant in the room.

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So most of the big money you see in

coaching is coaches selling business

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coaching to other coaches, and I don't

mean coaches like you probably are

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leadership coaches, career coaches.

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It's generally all of these seven

figure business owners selling to

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other business coaches who are going

to just do and clone exactly what that

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business coach is telling them and gain

those same clients into their practice.

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But if you are a leadership coach, career

coach, wellbeing coach of some sort.

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The sort of methods they are teaching

might not suit who you are trying

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to attract into your business.

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You have to meet them in their world.

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You need to create messaging

that makes them stop scrolling,

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but not because it's loud.

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With my clients, that is

exactly what we work on.

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Building a business that reflects who

they are and giving them the clarity

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to speak to people who need the most

and not in a hyped up way that uses

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shameful marketing of like you are

missing a trick, et cetera, et cetera.

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Just helpful, amazing ways of helping

people feel seen, understood, helping them

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create insights, take steps forward, all

with value-based marketing that really

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does change lives in just your marketing.

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I know through this podcast, I have

changed many people's businesses

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and lives because I receive messages

all of the time telling me that.

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So that is the type of

marketing I want to do.

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Marketing that is actually a

part of my business that actually

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creates value and that doesn't

leave people in real scarcity.

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I listened to a podcast a couple of

weeks ago, and I must admit to feeling

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in real scarcity mindset ever since.

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It was very hyped up saying

the world is changing.

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You are no longer gonna be

able to sell to individuals.

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It was like, really black or

white thinking of no one's

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buying, no one's ever gonna buy.

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No one's got money.

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It was not true because I know

that through my own work, through

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my own client's business, it's

not true that no one is buying.

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There are plenty of people buying.

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Why otherwise would my leadership coach

client have 30 K months for example.

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Why would I, sign consistent

clients each month?

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Why would so many of my wonderful

new business owner case studies

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that you can hear on this podcast

sign clients in their first year

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of business if no one was buying.

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So I don't like that type of

marketing that puts a stop on your

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dreams because yes, it's hard.

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Yes, it takes commitment.

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It takes you as a person committing

to marketing your business, committing

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to mastering the skill of keeping

up to date with the world and

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all of the things we are doing.

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And yes, that's hard, but guess what?

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I do it even though I don't feel like

I'm the smartest person in the room,

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the most disciplined person in the room.

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I've been wanting to get fit for so

long, and all I need to do is commit

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to getting my kettlebell out for 10

minutes a day and I cannot do it.

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So all I'm saying is.

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If I can do this without having the

head space, the time, the freedom,

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like I've got kids that I run around

to every single club under the sun.

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I do every drop off, I do every pickup.

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I've got a lot of clients and I

still manage to keep up to date and

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try my best in running a business.

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Then all I know is that you can too.

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A story I don't share often because

I cry every time I share the story.

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And my clients will know that

because I do share as part of a

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Getting to Know You exercise in

my Business of coaching program.

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That, the reason I have such

strong willpower and belief that

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you and I can build businesses.

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It is because my parents built

their business from Absolute Zero.

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Came to London with no

qualifications, no money.

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They were from Ireland.

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So in those days they had signs on the

windows saying, no blacks, no Irish.

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So they weren't even welcome.

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And yet they built a business

and they showed up to it every

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single day for 30 plus years.

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Even though I have no idea how they

manage, because we lived in pubs

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in southwest London and there was

hardly ever anyone in, and I used to

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think, my gosh, they're having to pay

someone to be behind the bar, like

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while we have our dinner and stuff.

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And you know, there'd be a two

or three guys sitting in the bar.

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And pretty much every single

weeknight was like that.

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So it was all banking on having a

great Saturday night, which fortunately

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they did have most of the time.

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But the amount of times I used to say

to my dad, shall I go out leafleting?

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There's loads of lovely

houses around here.

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Maybe they just need to know we exist.

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I'm so grateful that he retired

as things were becoming so, so

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hard for publicans to get by.

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So if you are thinking it's hard

to build a coaching business,

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just know that it's hard to build

any business, but it's possible.

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And if they can do it with no

qualifications, no money, no family

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nearby, then you can do it too.

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So let's redefine success right now.

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So for me, success is really

freedom of my calendar.

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It is always being able to do

the school pickup without panic.

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It's voice noting my clients from my

favorite health club, so I actually get to

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have one or two days where I exercise each

week and work from a beautiful location.

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It's not living by someone else's idea of

ambition, but it took time to get here.

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I had to walk away from my career

and executive coaching business

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that I'd worked so hard to build.

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It was a really hard decision at the time

when I started my business of coaching

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program on the side of my career and

executive coaching business, and I was

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making the same mistake that I see so

many of my clients make by trying not to

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make a decision on whether I retain my

career coaching business, which was doing

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well at the time, or whether I fully step

into promoting my business of coaching

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program, change my website to very clear

entrepreneurship and go all in on what

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I was super passionate about, which

is people building their own business.

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And I don't say that easily.

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I do think it's actually easier

to work for other people.

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I now look back on my whole career when my

family was so desperate for me to always

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have a really stable job that I stayed in

pretty much two employers for my entire

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20 years of work because my dad was so

obsessed by me gaining holiday time,

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pension and when I started my first job,

he said, you've got a job for life there.

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And I took it literally.

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I genuinely intended to stay there

till I was 60 or god knows what age

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it is now and retire because, I,

as my husband now tells me, was on

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a gravy train with biscuit wheels.

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I've never heard of the saying before,

but in other words, I had it easy.

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But easy is not always the best

because easy can feel exhausting.

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Being bored, being unfulfilled, not

realizing your potential is exhausting.

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It's a bit like when you sit around

all day at home, you just feel more

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tired than when you go out for the day.

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And yes, you are kind of exhausted,

but you are also exhilarated.

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So leaving felt like a huge

risk, but it gave me space.

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It gave me the push to have to show

up, to get to know myself, to have to

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figure out how I could help others.

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To be able to focus, to be able to

commit and a way of working that

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felt aligned with my values, which

my employment definitely wasn't.

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So if you are in the messy middle,

I want you to know that you don't

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have to be perfect to be trusted.

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You don't need 10 K followers

to find paying clients.

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You don't need to push all of the time,

but you do need to keep showing up and

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commit to yourself and your business.

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I call it with my clients, their

constant marketing protocol, which

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sounds pretty exhausting with the word

constant, but what I mean by that is

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I want my clients to create a business

where they say it's just what I do.

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It no longer drains them of energy

thinking about posting on LinkedIn.

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It's just something that they do.

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So that's what I mean when I talk

about your constant marketing protocol.

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What are you committing to do constantly?

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For me, that is showing up

on this podcast once a week.

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It's showing up on LinkedIn

every weekday, Monday to Friday.

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It is emailing my list once a week every

Thursday, and it's holding a few online

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workshops or in-person workshops each

year so people get that opportunity

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to take a no risk step towards me

and figure out if they do want to

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work closer together in my program.

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So thank you for listening

to today's episode.

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If this landed with you, do send me

a message on LinkedIn as Joanna Lott

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or Instagram as @joannalottcoaching,

or please hit the share button and

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share this with someone building their

coaching business the honest way.

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If you are not already subscribed to

this podcast, please do hit subscribe

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and rate and review the podcast so

it shows up in your app next time I

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release an episode and like I say at

the end of every episode, trust yourself

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believe in yourself, and be the wise

gardener who keeps on watering the seed.

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Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone):

Thank you so much for listening to this

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episode of Women in the Coaching Arena.

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I have a mess of free resources on

my website joannalottcoaching.com.

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That's Joanna with an A

and Lott with two T's.

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joannalottcoaching.com.

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And I'll also put links in the show notes.

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Let me know if you found

this episode useful.

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Share it with a friend and

leave me a review, and I will

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personally thank you for that.

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Remember to trust yourself, believe

in yourself and be the wise Gardner

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who keeps on watering the seed.

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Get into the arena dare, greatly and try.