35 | Behind the Scenes: An exciting new chapter in my business

Speaker: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to Women in

the Coaching Arena podcast.

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I'm so glad you are here.

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I'm Jo Lott, a business mentor

and ICF accredited coach

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Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone):

and I help coaches to

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build brilliant businesses.

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I know that when you prepare to enter

the arena, there is fear, self doubt,

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comparison, anxiety, uncertainty, shame.

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You can tend to armor up and

protect yourself from vulnerability.

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In this podcast, I'll be sharing

honest, not hype, practical and

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emotional tools to support you to make

the difference that you are here for.

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Dare greatly.

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You belong in this arena.

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Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone)-1:

Hello, welcome to the 35th episode

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of women in the coaching arena.

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I am so glad you are here.

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Today is going to be a slightly

different episode because I feel like

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I am shifting slightly and I want to

share the behind the scenes with you

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so you see what a business shift can

look like and feel like, because I

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wish I heard more behind the scenes

stuff from other business owners.

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So I hope this will be useful for you.

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Last week I signed up with a new mentor.

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I have been with my previous

business coach for 18 months now.

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And so this one just came

out of the blue really?

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I wasn't kind of seeking another program.

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But you notice, like you get swept up in

the emails and what I really liked about

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him, because it's what I value massively.

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And I haven't seen out there.

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So I think.

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We always create what we want.

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And what I want is someone to

genuinely care about my success.

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And in a personal capacity, as

well as a business capacity.

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And for them to be

personally invested in me.

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And that connection is something I

seek massively to provide my clients.

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So to find someone who I feel

like will be able to do the

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same for me, feels so exciting.

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We have only had two calls so far.

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But I've already implemented loads

of the stuff he's talked about.

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And I think that's actually

a really good reflection.

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That it's actually quite easy when you

are further along in business for a really

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small thing to have a massive impact.

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Because you've already done

the hard work of building.

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So many of you are in that initial first

two years stage or something when it's

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just an uphill battle to build your

audience, to get your clarity, to know

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what you're doing in this marketing world.

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It really is the hardest part.

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And when you're out the other side,

it can get so much easier because

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like one small thing he asked me to

do resulted in a really big impact.

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Because I've done the hard work.

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And he knows that.

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It's why a lot of mentors work with

people further, along in their business

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journey, because then it's really

easy to get those big results because.

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They've already done the hard

graft before you've got to them.

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I think what, having a new mentor who

really feels invested in me, and I feel

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like we have got so much further to go.

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But already things have just opened up

and I see so many more opportunities.

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So I'm excited to see what comes of that.

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I'm actually going away for

five nights to the French Alps,

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depending on when you're listening

to this, I may already be back.

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And that is with the mastermind group.

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So it's kind of, you get mentoring, but

it's also part of a group program as well.

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So it's a bit like how I run my program.

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I think there's 10 of us

going to this amazing place.

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Um, we are going to be doing

business building and hot seats and

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obviously having a good time as well.

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So I'm so excited to be able to

hang around with other business

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owners in a similar stage to me.

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So I think that's going to

be a real pivotal moment.

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I've never been on a retreat and

lots of people talk about that

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true transformation that can happen

when you're fully away from home

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in a completely different country.

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So I will keep you posted.

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The next exciting change in

my business just this week is

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that I incorporated my company.

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So far I have been a sole trader.

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If you have been debating the

sole trader limited company thing,

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I loved being a sole trader.

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I really didn't want to incorporate my

company, but at some point, people start

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saying, oh, it's more cost-effective.

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So I thought the time

was right to do that.

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It feels really weird to finally

incorporate my company years on

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from establishing my business.

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And again, it's just that

new beginning new chapter.

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It makes me feel like I have got new

possibilities to build this business on.

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I'm the true model for what I always

talk to my clients about, which

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is start now get perfect later.

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So all of this stuff that many coaches

love doing, which is like incorporate

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the company and design the logo and

get the website and do the branding.

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It's all stuff I haven't really

prioritized massively until recently.

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'cause I'm prioritizing

getting fee paying clients.

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Like that's the thing that's going

to grow my business in order to be

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at the position of being able to pay

an accountant every single month to

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run my books and file my accounts.

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I think often these things, earlier on in

the journey, can be a real distraction.

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Obviously there is a whole legal debate

about sole trader limited company.

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But personally, I absolutely

loved being a sole trader.

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So if you are early on in

your journey that's an option.

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The next exciting thing that's

been happening in my world is

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I trademarked this podcast.

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So I've trademarked women

in the coaching arena.

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We were driving on our holidays and in my

car, I, went on the government website,

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figured out how to do it applied and was

excited to receive my trademark this week.

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Lots of coaches talk to me about whether

they should trademark their program name.

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Again, it's not really something I

would probably waste my time or money

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doing at the early stages, because

two months in, for example, you

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might decide to change that program.

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So, you know, I have had

this podcast now since March.

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So it was kind of like about time,

because the risk is that if somebody

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else decides to take the name, I

might have to take my podcast down.

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So it's about evaluating that risk.

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And if you are fairly early on

in business and you haven't got

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anything super established, then

it's probably not such a risk.

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I think in business, it needs to be fast.

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Messy action.

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Otherwise you will get frozen and take no

money generating activity action at all.

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So as you can probably tell from every

episode I record, it's all about helping

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real paying clients that can help you to

do the work you're here for rather than

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getting too stuck in all of the admin.

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So whilst yes, in some

circumstances, it's a great idea

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to trademark things, weigh up.

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What's the risk.

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What's the time involved?

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What's the money involved.

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And is that right for you right now?

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The next super exciting thing I have

done is created a coach's planner.

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I am so excited about this because it's

something that I need myself to really

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plan out what I'm selling each month.

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To note down my social media stats so

I can track how they're growing each

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month to note down names of people.

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I want to keep in touch with, to

note down my niche, my offers,

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my strategy to keep me on track

pretty much, because I think most

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entrepreneurs are shiny object people.

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We love creation and therefore selling

one thing at a time, which is what

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I genuinely believe it takes to be

clear in business is a real challenge.

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So it's on sale now I will share the link

in the show notes and you can grab the

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pDF fillable copy and fill it in online.

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If that's your style, you can print out.

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Or there is also a copy on

Amazon, so you can actually

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order a proper shiny copy too.

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I will leave all of those

links in the show notes.

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So you can transform your

qualifications into clients and

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plan for your best year yet in 2024.

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So it feels like a new and exciting time

to be leaving my mark with a registered

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company, trademark for my podcast, a

tangible book related to my business

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available on, Amazon and electronically.

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It's exciting that all of the hard

work and it has been hard work.

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Has led to the place that now I feel

like, yes, I have a proper business.

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I have a virtual assistant, Jo.

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Who's amazing.

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I have a social media manager.

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Nicole who's amazing.

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And it feels so good to be supported.

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I would love to have more help because

currently I run all of my own tech stuff.

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So all these funnels and emails.

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If you're on my email list,

you'll know what I mean.

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And they are complex to

do in the background.

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So next step will definitely be some sort

of tech VA to take the ins and outs of

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the backend of my portal off my hands.

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Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone)-5:

But saying that the benefits to you

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of learning how to do these things.

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And for me of learning how to do these

things is that you really understand?

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And then it feels less scary.

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And, you know, if you hire someone,

roughly how much work there is to do for

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the amount, they might be quoting you.

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So, it's such an amazing learning

journey having a business, before you

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get ready to really effectively delegate.

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Now I would love to reflect on the journey

that has brought me to where I am today.

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And that includes the ups and

the downs and the changes.

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And I had a really great coaching

session just now about how attached

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we can get to what we have created and

what we've done so far in our business.

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Even if what we are attracting is

not what we thought we would be

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doing in our coaching business.

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I started off doing executive coaching.

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At that time I'd left an organization that

I wasn't happy in its very controlling.

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So I think after many, many years

within that organization, adjusting

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who I was meant to be, what was

meant to say how I could keep in

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the good books, essentially at all

times with all people was exhausting.

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So when I started coaching

within organizations.

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I found it really stifling.

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To hear, I guess, where I had

been reflected back at me.

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So feeling like they had no control

and they had to stay at this

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organization because the holiday

was good and the pension was good.

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And I was just like, thinking, gosh, C'mon

there's a whole world out there because I

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had discovered this whole world out there.

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All I'm saying is it

just didn't bring me joy.

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It wasn't what I wanted to

hear about when I was into

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this world of entrepreneurship.

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Loving the fact I can do anything I want.

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I can create anything I want.

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There is no ceiling.

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So I soon realized executive coaching

was not really what I wanted to do.

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Which led me to career coaching, because

then what I obviously loved is helping

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people leave those jobs that they

hated and get into work that they love.

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And I absolutely love career coaching.

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It was a super hard

decision when eventually.

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I moved into business coaching.

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Because if someone's literally going for

an interview that next week, or you can

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do their CV and have such a massive impact

on them in such a short period of time.

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So I really adored career change.

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Obviously, sometimes it was way slower if

people were actually completely changing

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career thinking about what they want next.

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Sometimes it was years before

that actually happened.

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Then it's a bit more like just loving

watching that discovery and the journey.

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Because I was very visible and I did

lots of talks and run career training

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and organizations, and did lots

of ones, one with an organizations

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on career stuff specifically other

coaches started asking me for my help.

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So that is how two years ago

now, I started my business

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coaching program on the side.

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So I had my career business as well.

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And like I say to anyone that

works with me on this podcast all

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the time, it's really difficult

to do two things really well.

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So at some point you

probably will want to choose.

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So you are running one business

with one ideal client, one offer,

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and one message rather than

completely frozen into what to post.

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So I think I posted nothing for four

months because I was in this quandary

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that many of you find yourself in.

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I have not really knowing who

I was talking to, what business

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I was trying to attract.

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And that is why it can be so

helpful to choose one ideal client.

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And then you will never,

ever run out content.

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Because when you know, your ideal client

inside out content is just everywhere.

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So I took that brave decision

eventually to go all in on

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my business coaching venture.

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And I've absolutely loved every moment.

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I think many of us are trying to

provide the solution that we want.

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And so it's a real joy to see

people go on that journey, see their

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confidence, grow massively and see

them charge for coaching, raised their

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prices, massively all of the things

that can come from having a really

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good mentor client relationship.

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So wherever you are on your journey

right now know that it's not wasted.

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Those two years I spent in the career

and executive space have really helped me

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massively in my business now reflecting

because I have my own learnings to share.

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And also, I talk a lot to my

clients about behind closed doors,

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you can do all sorts of things.

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Like for example, I have

three of my clients currently.

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Doing a project for me running

workshops and doing one-on-one coaching.

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So it doesn't mean that you have to say no

to any work that is outside of your niche.

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It just means in your marketing that

you are super clear, super specific.

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I would love to hear your

story, your milestones.

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What has been your

biggest learning so far?

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Please do drop me a message

on linked in and let me know.

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So with that I will do a quick recap

on what I covered in this episode.

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So how important a new mentor can be?

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And what shifts it can

really open up for you.

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And I'm excited to share more about my

journey as I continue this relationship.

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Then I talked about the fact

my company is now incorporated.

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So I'm getting official.

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I have trademarked the podcast again,

another little tick in the official box.

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I have created a coach's planner.

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You can either buy the downloadable

PDF fillable copy, or you can go on

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Amazon and buy yourself a hard copy.

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I will put links in the show notes.

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It's called the coaches planner.

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So thank you for being part

of my business journey.

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It's going to get a whole lot

more exciting because I have

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run my main flagship program.

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The business of coaching

for over two years now.

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And so I'm excited to think

about my next offering.

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And so watch this space.

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And like I say, at the end of every

episode, trust yourself, believe

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in yourself and be the wise Gardner

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.