This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
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you’re listening to the sweet life entrepreneur podcast Simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business, mental and entrepreneur activator a probe Age. Hi there. And welcome back to the show. I’m April Beach lifestyle business development expert for women, and you are in the right place, especially if you’re ready to grow your business, continuing to grow your business and you want to leave your 9 to 5. Today’s show is about how to build a six figure coaching business while still working your 9 to 5.
And this is a perfect episode for those of you guys who are in phase one or phase two off my lifestyle Entrepreneur Road map. My lifestyle entrepreneur system. That is a five step process that takes you from the idea of having your business all the way through arriving company. That gives you a lifestyle freedom. And if you don’t know where you are in the Lifestyle entrepreneur road map, then cruise over to sweet life co dot com forward slash quiz. Or you can simply text the word Sweet life, which is one word to the number 31996 and you’ll be sent a short link where you could take a short self assessment.
And that’s gonna tell you exactly where you are right now in business development, and you’re going to get the complete map so you’ll see the whole entire overview of where you’re going and a list of what you should be working on right now. So again, this episode is for those of you guys who are in face one or in phase two of my lifestyle Entrepreneur Road map. This is also a great episode for those of you guys. They’re still working your 9 to 5, and you want to launch your own business.
You want to break free and you don’t really know how. And here’s what you can expect. At the end of listening to this episode, you’re gonna know three simple steps to launch your new business. While you’re still working your old job, you are gonna understand what you can offer and sell While you’re still working your full time job, you will know how to grow your email list while you’re still working your full time job. How to serve clients, which is tough, especially when you’re still working here full time job,
and you’re also gonna know how to get over your fear of charging high prices in the very beginning so that you can, in fact, realistically replace your full time job. But before we dive into today’s episode, I want to make sure that you have an opportunity to join Sweet Life Launch, especially if you’re looking for support and a step by step plan toe. Leave your 9 to 5 Sweet Life Launch is our signature business launch program for women Just like you. It’s a 90 day business launch program with coaching private mentor ship group Mentorship.
Plus, you get an extra month of support, so it’s actually a four month program that gives you the exact steps toe. Launch your six figure business and leave your 9 to 5. No more being lost or confused or not knowing how to start or what to do or what’s a good use of your time. Sweet life Launch is my signature program, and it only opens a couple times a year, and that program is opening here in the month of February. If you’re listening to this podcast live visit Sweet Life launch dot com For all the details in today’s listener,
shout out Goes to Jamie, Fight with Jamie Fight Nutrition Jamie, thank you so much for being crazy. Amazing faithful listener of this podcast for showing up to almost every single one of our Instagram lives for connecting with us. Commenting on our stuff in sharing this show faithfully, You guys check out Jamie Fight Jamie Fight Nutrition Jamie is also ah, private client of mine. She’s been in my private business mentorship program and in Sweet Life Launch and this woman is a go getter. This woman is one of the hardest workers I have ever met Mom of four daughters and she just released her first book.
So, Jamie, thanks for being an awesome listener. And if you would like a shout out on this show, just leave us a review on Apple or on our Facebook page, and I can’t wait to highlight your business as well. Okay, on today’s show, we have a really awesome guest. Louisa Joe is here, and I loved talking to her because everything we talk about, she followed this step to a T. Louisa Joe is the creator of the employees to entrepreneur system, which teaches people how to leave their do don’t day job and start their own six figure plus business working for themselves.
She’s helped thousands of students, including health and business coaches, designers, copywriters and consultants launch your own business that generate anywhere from 30,000 to $100,000 in less than a year. Her advice has been featured in numerous online and print publications, including Forbes, Entrepreneur, Success Magazine and More So. Welcome to the Sweet Life Entrepreneur Podcast Louisa, give yourself an intro here. Somebody knows who you are. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. So, guys Super brief intro About six plus years ago, I was in 95.
I was struggling Thio replace my income and build my own business. And through a series of mistakes and lessons which we’re gonna talk about today, I took my job skills at the time in digital advertising and use that to build a coaching business which broke six figures before I turned in my notice. After that, people start asking me, Hey, how’d you do it? And I I was thinking, you know what? It took me so long, so many mistakes. I’m gonna help you. And so that gradually transitioned to my current business,
which I’ve been in for going on 56 years now. And what I do is help people go from employee to entrepreneur. So awesome. Great. We’re gonna get dive through this system here today. Let me ask you a question. What did it feel like? Still being in your job? Like, what were some of those initial triggers? When you’re like, I have got to get out of here, let the heck am I gonna do because we are talking. I mean, in the grand scheme of time,
this is a short period of time. But in online business, this is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. 56 years ago, online business was just, you know, up in coming. And a lot of people in online business now have only been here for the last 24 months. So when we’re talking five or six years ago, how on earth did you come up with this idea? Because still very few people had this business model agreed back then, coaching I what I remember.
So before that I spent two or three years thinking, you know, I need to leave. I needed a have more control. I don’t want to be like in another 10 years like my v p s v p pushing like doing power points in the same old same old. Yeah, but like you said, drink time coaching was not really that comment of a thing. And so all I saw, the only examples were like, you know, do you affiliate stuff or, you know, learn to be a copywriter and make a few $100 a month.
And I was sitting there thinking, There’s no way that could replace my income. I’m gonna have to go,
I don’t know, moving with my parents or something on I. I wasn’t going to do that. And so I just remember researching so long.
Just Google searches. Whatever I could think of online business, you know, leave job, whatever. Until one day I started seeing coaching,
I can remember the first coach I saw. It was, I think was very gradual, like I didn’t hit me the first time I saw some Microsoft Excel coaches.
I saw some career coaches and I tried doing that a little bit myself and I got some clients through those which made me realize,
Oh, whoa, coaching is a thing. And then I saw one or two people who said, Hey,
I built a six figure multiple, six bigger coaching business. I thought, All right, I can do this to let me figure this out So it’s a very gradual process 11 and I want a diamond more to the emotional side of it,
because I think it’s so important. But let’s dig into the strategies first. So somebody’s in there 9 to 5 job,
you know, They’re thinking, Oh, my gosh, this is me. She’s speaking my language, but I don’t know how to exit out here.
You’re gonna walk us through those steps today. So Step one, you actually say, Start with the coaching itself.
Talk a little bit about that. Yes. So the key is with building a business while in your job,
you need a few things. You need something that is relatively higher value, so you don’t need to sell like 1000 products every month to replace your income.
You also need something that allows you to do it while working a full time job so it can’t take 80 hours a week on the side.
So what I did was I realized, OK, the coaching model fits beautifully into this because if you start out,
you sell something for 1000 1,502,000 or more, right? You. Let’s say you need to make $5000 a month,
or for me it was a little bit higher. Let’s say 10,000. Alright. At 2000 pop, five sales a month gets you to 10,000 month.
That’s doable. It ISS so really just taking. The number’s not building this big, huge thing, but just being really clear about what you’re offering and actually start with coaching people in a higher price,
usually to start out. Is that what you’re recommending? Yes, exactly and what this also does. It makes a massive difference because then when you are starting out,
you’re not relying on a beautiful website or how good your copyrighting remarketing is because no one starts out good at any of those.
All you’re doing is talking to people and sharing with them what you know and helping them so that they understand.
Oh, this person’s legit. They know what they’re talking about? I trust them enough to hire them,
right? And what I think is so cool about this is so most new entrepreneurs there sketched out about charging higher prices.
But the fact of the matter is, if you actually want to leave your 9 to 5 job, you need to create a valuable offer and you need to position yourself is valuable.
So the technical truth is by starting out with a really well priced coaching offer, you kind of don’t have anything to lose,
right? If somebody’s like, okay, I’m not paying youth two or $3000 you know, No big deal.
You, right now you want to get out of there, but you still have your job. It’s not like some other entrepreneurs were like,
Oh my gosh, I have to sell this program where we sea establish entrepreneurs like cutting their prices down if you’re still in your non.
If I Is it fair to say, start where you want to be exactly. I love that you said this because it’s such a flip toe.
How many people in John ob stink and how I thought to where I thought, You know, I need to be out.
I need to be out. But that’s the truth. I came to gradually realize. Oh, yeah.
If I don’t make a sale, it sucks. But I’m still gonna have food on the table. I move,
but I have a roof over my head. Right. So let’s make the sale with the perfect client.
That the price I want to sell it for. I think that’s so awesome. Okay, so and the second thing you talked about is leveraging groups.
So what does that look like when you’re new? A ce faras to coaching a consulting? Yes. So the beauty of starting with coaching people one on one is you know what?
You know, whatever that is. Health, relationship, career, whatever. Any industry, whatever you know,
however, what you don’t know is how other people will respond to the way you teach, right? So things that might seem super obvious to you.
You could have a client saying, Well, what can you slow down and talk me through it? So coaching a handful of clients one on one helps you develop your process for communicating what you know to them and helping them get the results.
And then after just I started seeing the systems and the parents after I would say about three clients, so it doesn’t take that many.
What you’re able to do is say, Okay, here’s my system and then transition into a group type model,
which were essentially, you still can do a lot of one on one coaching, but the biggest bottleneck for one on one.
Coaching us after you having to do like one call a week per client. You group those calls into one group call a week.
So you’re allowed. You’re able to take on more clients while spending about the same amount of time. And then,
instead of spending that called teaching the same material the time you can say, Hey, here’s this Google document I put up that I created through coaching my one on one clients,
right? I love that, and one of the things that we didn’t mention here, and I think that we need to hit on is you’re talking about building a business that somebody already has a skill in.
We have a lot of listeners that are trying to launch a business, and they’re also trying to launch a business in a new skill set.
Yeah, super hard. It’s definitely doable. Listen, ladies, you could do whatever the hell you want to do,
right? You can do anything you set your mind to. But what leases talking about and what you did is your first coaching business.
You launch by coaching other people with the skills you were doing at work. Yes, and I love that we’re talking about this because look,
even back then, I knew I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life talking about adds it just did not appeal to me over what I thought about was at the time.
What’s my primary goal? It wasn’t necessarily that Build a business that I was gonna do forever. It was to build a business I enjoyed enough.
And that gave enough value for Mita be able to replace my income. And then you couldn’t say Okay,
What’s next? Exactly? Okay, that’s super cool. All right. And so in step number two,
we’re talking about scaling, right? So it’s creating this first course courses, air really popular. Not only are they popular,
so you have to identify that we’re kind of in this little bubble here, even though we think we’re in this huge world that saturated you guys.
When we’re talking about online business, we’re like, not even a drop in the bucket to what online business will be 5 10 years from hell.
And so people don’t really speak this language. Courses in membership sides and all those things are common to those of us that are in this space.
And for our listeners, they’re either very commoner. They’re becoming more common. But, you know, toe outside people that are not in the business online business,
space courses, air still like, Oh, wow, I can take an online course to learn how to do,
you know, Facebook ads. Or I can take an online course stiff, you know, learn how to meal plan on Sunday night or whatever in so courses are not saturated.
I say this to save courses are not saturate, and they’re an amazing way to skill your business. And so what you did is you created the course like what kind of course did you create And how did you roll that out when you were still working?
Yes. Okay. So something I’m gonna share both how I created it. And then like we were talking about earlier How I do not actually recommend that exact thing anymore.
So what I did was I took just like we talked about the stuff that I had put into documents from working with a handful of clients.
And I basically put it in your course. And it’s important to note I didn’t put up a fancy course website or anything like that.
I basically had some Google documents and PDS and put people into a Facebook group. And I knew that was gonna be great because I only charged a few $100 for it.
But also, I knew the value was gonna come from me showing up and basically like providing so much coaching and value,
just two people that they wouldn’t care. That wasn’t fancy pediatric or sight. And so I sold my first course that way.
Now, as we were talking about earlier, I hustled my butt off cause I didn’t know better. And I did an open and closed cart.
I said, Okay, I’m gonna start on the state after this day. You cannot buy it. And so I I just talked to so many people.
I you know, I made some sales, thankfully, but it was really stressful. So at this point,
what I recommend is a slightly different thing where you do the same, you know, systematize ation group coaching course material,
but do it in ongoing enrollment. So there’s no stress for all. I have to make this many sales by the state,
right and love that and and I’m I’m really glad you hit on that. Thank you so much because there are these open include,
like, I don’t recommend open and close launch courses for entrepreneurs that have, you know, kids and that you travel a lot.
There’s just really a lot of pressure and last year, doing like a big affiliate launch. And those were really for signature courses and not what you’re talking about here,
which are foundational courses. It’s really hard to fill a course if you’re a new entrepreneur. And so I’m glad that you should,
on the difference between just having it open for people to join as your business grows versus being like OK,
No, you’re out. And everybody is like putting all your eggs in one basket during one point in time.
Okay, so one of the things that I want you to hit on is your strategy for building your business to $1.1 million in sales in the 1st 11 months.
How exactly did you do that? Yeah. So basically, I did what we just talked about not recommending doing,
but again, there was a very specific situation, and I also again didn’t know better. So I worked with what I knew,
which was I’m good at connecting with people. When I do a live stream or a video, they connect with me Really?
Well, my content starting to gain traction. And so I did a massive course launch, and I went all in.
I don’t have kids, so yeah, putting that right out there like literally joining my launch. That’s all I did.
And I did a big program launch, and, you know, before I tested a few smaller launches,
so I knew my numbers. I knew how much to spend on cold traffic, my existing audience. If I was gonna have a Phillies,
I had all of those things mapped out. And so through one really big course launch, we ended up doing about $800,000 in sales.
That was the result of having like a first A $10,000 loans than $100,000 launch and then scaling it up.
And then those previous launches in that year. Plus, my coaching brought me to over 1.1 million. Yeah,
that’s so awesome. It’s so impressive. So for those people that are still listening to the 95 they’re like,
they’re in the 95 they’re listening to this, they’re like, OK, I don’t need to be at 1.1 million Know what Oh,
I need to do right now where I am Obviously Step one, We said, start actually coaching people.
You talk about creating this first package, and we talked about that and making sure that first packages is a higher price.
And then you talked about creating like a mini horse or a smaller course so people can get your information with you scaling your time.
So you’re not trading, you know, dollars for hours. Now what did they do? They’re still there,
and they’re like, OK, this process might take a little while. What’s the next step they do after that?
What’s coming next? Yes, so after that, it really is Look, you’ve got your product in place.
You know how What content to put out, To get people to talk to you. You know how to do sales and you’re starting to build some testimonials and social proof online.
So then the big focus is not on creating new products or figuring out some, like, distracting things like that.
It’s so how can I get in front of more people? And so there are a few different ways depending on where you are in your existing assets.
So for some of the people I’ve worked with over the years, they have a massive existing network. I didn’t.
But some people d’oh and so literally they can sell out their programs. I’m a very common example. Is career coaches right?
You’ve built up your career. Your network knows how good you are at it. You say I’m gonna be doing career coaching.
It could be relatively easier. Still not easy, but relatively to sell that out through that network. Another option for most people who don’t have the network is to start on social media right where you’re building up your own.
Let’s say Facebook community, instagram community, whatever that looks like and really connecting with people better than you can do through email or traditional formats so that your for me a connection faster.
You’re building a two way relationship, and you are really driving more sales. That personally made a big difference for me.
I was on Facebook. I wasn’t other Facebook groups. I created my own, and I was just talking to people in there all day,
whenever I had my lunch break before after work, just showing up and building that and then another source.
That makes a big difference, but it takes longer. Is organic traffic you to blogging that I don’t recommend?
You don’t necessarily need to be able to replace your income. Instead, What I teach and what I did as well is using hate traffic.
Now the key is not to spend a ton of money up front or anything. It’s on Lee. After you’ve gotten clients organic,
not gambling on social media or through your network. You know what sells and you have a feel for who your audience is and proven data for all of that.
You take all of that, you drive ads and you know you can do an e mail system funnel.
You can do a webinar, really? Just taking what you’ve realized people want and need to hear before they’re ready to hire you.
Putting it into that putting ads in that, testing each process in approaching it methodically with the data you’ve gathered to then be able to know.
Okay, everyone, dollar I spend, I make this much money and then you scale that I love it.
I love it. And I love you. Said that to paid ads. And again, a lot of entrepreneurs starting from scratch don’t necessarily have that ad budget.
But those guys that are still in your 9 to 5 have a little bit more, you know, inventive instead of your little started right.
And there is such a difference between, you know, paid ads, earned media and sweat equity. And although all of them are important to do in the big picture of your business,
the fastest way to grow your audience is through paid ads. And frankly, when you’re working 9 to 5 job,
you don’t have the extra time to put in all this. What equity to be sitting there doing, You know,
all these live streams, all day long and hanging out. You know, especially for those of our listeners are like,
Oh, shit. I have, like, five kids and I’m travelling commute two hours a day. How on earth am I gonna do this,
girls, By the way, we know you could do this. And that’s why Louise and I are here talking to you about this on the show.
We have got your back. Tell our listeners where they can find you. Had it connected to your energy is awesome.
I just love what you brought to the show today. Oh, thank you so much. So, yeah,
there are a few places Thio connect with me. The first is out through my website, right. So And I have ah,
special pdf for your listeners, which is a pdf on how to build your own online six bigger coaching business.
And that is at Louisa joe dot com slash gift. Now, let me spell my name really quickly because it’s not spelled out.
It sounds It’s l u I s a z, as in zebra, h o u dot com slash gift.
And then if you get that, pdf you’re gonna be added to my email list. You’re gonna learn about my programs.
You’re gonna get lots of amazing content from me. So that’s how well, the best way to stay in touch.
I’m also on Instagram. I’m loving instagram right now. And on my count is Luisa Dodge. Oh,
so same thing, just a dot in the middle. But those are the really two best ways to connect with me right now.
I love it, and then we should do fun. Instagram live for this show. If you guys are listening to this this week,
tune in and it will promote this up on instagram for you guys to All right. Thank you so much for being there.
And we’ll make sure all of those links are in our show Notes. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Sweet Life Entrepreneur podcast.
I’m a pro beach. I’m so glad that you were here. This is episode number 1 61 So everything we talked about and all the links can be found by visiting suite life podcast dot com forward slash 161 I’ll talk to you next
That’s all folks!