Why would a successful Business Coach and E-Course Creator 'pivot' and start offering Social Media Management instead? "Surely coaching and online training would pay you far more and in less time!"
It's summer and for the last month I've been out and about, road tripping around New Zealand, catching up with friends and making new ones.
A couple of weeks (or so) ago I was chatting with someone, we got talking about what we do for work and after sharing my background and what I do now I was asked what made me go from coaching and online training to offering Social Media Management because "surely coaching and online training would pay more far more and in less time!"
I adore this person for asking this question because truth be told, yes. When I was working 1:1 with clients I was able to charge more for my time and the same goes when I ran my online e-program, the FB Revolution.
But the thing is, money isn't what gets me out of bed in the morning. Whilst I love it and the opportunities I have in life because of it, what truly lights my soul on fire is being able to help clients in a way that feels good to me. When it feels good to me I feel excited, I feel energised, our clients get the very best from me and my team gets the very best of me. Using my skills, knowledge, expertise to serve others encourages me to want to help more people and as a result my income grows.
Whilst I love 1:1 coaching, and I still work with a couple of clients now, I felt like there was a limit on how many people I could help at one time, whilst remaining balanced and living life in alignment with my values.
Yes I could have grown my team to help with the business side of things, but the actual coaching was heavily reliant on me and if I was going to make the impact I wanted in the world then I needed to look at other options and find another way.
My e-course was launched, the perfect solution to being able to help more people without finding a way to clone myself - or so I thought.
There were challenges, lots of them! But I didn't stay down for too long, after chatting with a couple of friends about my situation they shared that they were looking for some help with their online marketing and would I be interested in doing theirs for them. I took a couple of days to think about it, approached one of the members in my team to see if she'd be interested in joining forces and offering a new service WITH me instead of working for me.
15 months later here we are .. Louise Stephens Business Coaching is now Social Renegades Digital Marketing.
We've gone from a team of 2 Digital Marketers to a team of 5 (which cat of the bag is about to become 7) that includes a Graphic Design team, Podcast Researcher + Pitcher, and an HR consultant who specialises in small business.
Sure in 1:1 coaching I was charging more per hour than I could ever charge for our Social Media and Content Management clients now. But just because my hourly rate was higher didn't mean I was "successful". In fact, I was far from it!
Today, I've had the opportunity to build an amazing team where we all work together to achieve the clients goals. We work with the most fabulous clients who challenge us in more ways than one, but I wouldn't have it any other way as this is how we continue to grow and deliver an out of this world experience. The business feels more balanced and my LIFE feels more balanced than it did previously and... we've made more in revenue and profit than I ever did solely working as a coach.
I'm not saying I won't ever coach again, I'm not saying we won't ever launch another membership program or e-course again, what I am saying is the WHY of this business is to serve our clients in a way that serves ourselves and the $$ takes care of itself.
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