[00:00:00] Welcome to the Abundant Coach. I’m your host, Lauren Brollier Newton. This is a weekly podcast about creating full spectrum success with a thriving coaching business while making a profound difference in the world. Each week you’ll discover insights, strategies, and inspiration to help you attract your ideal clients, facilitate real transformation in their lives, and grow your coaching business while living your purpose with true freedom and fulfillment.

Lauren Brollier Newton: Hey, hey, hey. Well, let me just tell you that today, this is like my favorite topic of all time because it’s something that I hardly ever, like never do I hear this discussed in the coaching community online, especially. And here’s the thing. So much of what coaches think they should do is what they’re seeing other people do online in particular in Facebook ads.

And the thing is, that’s not what the beginning coach or the coach who’s wanting to scale to a hundred thousand or even 200, 000 [00:01:00] annually. The things that you’re seeing in other people’s funnels and other people’s Facebook ads. are actually not what’s going to create success for you. So part of why I love this particular topic that I’m going to take you through today is it dispels so many myths that keep so many coaches stuck and it really helps you see how you can start making money now in a way that has impact on people without having to do everything fancy schmancy.

So this episode is two coaching client pathways. The online path or the community path. And when I say coaching client pathways on both paths, you’ll probably serve the clients on zoom or something like that, but it’s really like, how are you going to attract your clients? Are you going to do your marketing all online, or are you going to do your marketing in your community in person?

And the thing that I hope is very like solve to the soul for some of you is you do not have to use a ton of technology to have a successful coaching business. And so if you’re someone who’s like, I love technology, I love building stuff. I like [00:02:00] coding great do the online path. But if you’re someone that doesn’t like technology, gets frustrated with it, doesn’t know how to do basic technology things for the love of God, can we stop ruining ourselves and just go on a path of least resistance, which is you don’t need to use a ton of technology to have a successful coaching business And I hope you feel relieved already. without even hearing the next things I’m going to say. So our quote for today, super simple, and I love it. It’s to the point. Smart people focus on the right things and that’s by Jensen Flang. So let’s get going here. Like I said, no one hardly ever talks about what we’re going to talk about today So there are two client pathways that I would suggest you go down. This is client attraction mainly that I’m talking about here. Marketing. If you want to call it that. The first one is what I call the community pathway. So the community pathway is you become the coach for your city. Like you’re the life coach in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or you’re the real estate coach in Miami, Florida.

Or you’re the NLP [00:03:00] practitioner for New York city or, you know, whatever it’s a small town or not. I live in a town of 10, 000 people done a ton of business here. So it doesn’t matter if it’s a big town, small town. The idea with doing the community pathway is there’s several different benefits to it.

One, you don’t have to use a ton of technology. In fact, the technology is minimal. And this is a very affordable pathway because it’s going to be more of your sweat equity and less investing in online funnels and things of that nature. So first and foremost, you’re the coach for your city and the greater area.

So for example, when I started my coaching business, I was primarily networking, marketing, doing all that stuff in half moon bay, California, which is a small beach town in Northern California by San Francisco. But I would definitely go to the surrounding 25, 30 mile radius, right? It’s kind of like, think about a restaurant.

You’re on main street. Everybody’s going to know about you, but people are going to come from the next town over in the next town over. So I want to make clear on the community path. You don’t have to have a brick and mortar. It’s not like you have to set up an office and [00:04:00] set up shop. You don’t have to do that.

It’s just where you’re marketing to, who you’re marketing to, who you’re speaking to is that community. And the cool thing about the community pathway, or I sometimes call it the in person pathway, Is that the community itself becomes your niche. In other words, you don’t have to be so niched down like you do online because you’re the life coach for that community, or you’re the spiritual coach for that community, or you’re the business coach for that community.

One of the things that can be very powerful on this pathway in terms of advertising, I’m just going to go off on a little bit of a tangent here, because it’s coming to my mind. You might think it’s helpful for you. Get your business on Google, get a couple of reviews from clients who like you. And that way, when people Google life coach.

Sacramento, California, your name is going to come up. So the community coach, you go out there, you network, you do whatever you want. Great news about this. You only need two pieces of technology. If you don’t want to have a brick and mortar, which I don’t recommend actually for anybody, but I mean, some people like to have an office or whatever, but if you don’t want to do that, if you don’t want to see clients face to face, and you’re primarily on the community path, all you need [00:05:00] to know is how to run a simple zoom meeting.

Okay. So even if you’re not great with technology, if you can get on a simple zoom meeting, you’re good to go there. The other thing you’re going to want to have on the community path is a very, very simple website. Nothing fancy. It could be a drag and drop. It could be Wix. It could be Squarespace. It could be anything that’s just easy to put up there.

It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be connected to a funnel. It’s just as a nice looking simple website so that when you meet people in the community and later they go home and they try to find you, they can find you Okay. Let me get really clear on this. I don’t want you wasting time building a fancy ass website.

Especially on the community path. This is something I want you to put together in a day or two. Put some nice pictures up there. Use a pre done template on Wix or on Squarespace or one of those drag and drop places. And you’re good to go. And I know the tech gurus and the people who are wanting you to buy funnels and all this stuff will convince you that you need otherwise, but they’re talking to the coach whose primary attraction line is online.

And if you decide to be the [00:06:00] community coach, it doesn’t need to be that. Okay. So that’s one thing. They’re very important. Now, if you’re a brave thinking Institute coach, we train and certify coaches. And You have a website that we gift to you once you become certified in our coaching program. So use that done.

Okay. Now the online pathway, the online pathway means that the primary way that you attract clients is online, meaning yes, you are going to have to run some sort of a funnel. Okay. And if you don’t know what a funnel is, let me break that down for you. where it funnels people to your coaching services. So think about a funnel where you would make, I don’t know, like a funnel that you would have in the kitchen.

That’s big on top and it gets skinnier on the bottom. Lots of people come through the top of the funnel and then a few become clients. Okay. So here’s how an online funnel works. Usually you give away something free, a free meditation, a free website, a free checklist, a free ebook, a free five day challenge, a free something in exchange for their email address.

You give them value, give them value, give them [00:07:00] value along the way. You’re inviting them to their coaching services. They enroll in the coaching services. Sounds easy peasy. Online funnels are really not for the beginning coach. And here’s the thing that really makes me sad and frustrated. You create an online funnel.

If you don’t really know marketing and you don’t really understand funnels, a lot of times these tech companies or these marketing companies will set up the funnel for you, but they’re not great on the strategy for what the actual content is. So if you don’t know winning marketing content, starting with the funnel is going to waste a lot of money.

So I want you to think about the online pathway. If you’re someone who’s loves marketing, loves sales knows and is willing to get trained in the type of funnel content wise that will actually work to convert to clients. That’s willing to hire a tech company. And I would suggest willing to learn enough of the tech yourself that you can oversee the tech company.

Cause what I’ve seen happen with a lot of coaches is they don’t understand the [00:08:00] tech at all. They don’t know what content they’re supposed to be using. They don’t know the tech. They don’t know what questions to ask. Now there’s this funnel that they don’t know what to do with. And they don’t know how to change running in their business, but they don’t know what to do with it.

I don’t know if you can tell my passion, my like, Oh, putting my head down on the desk. There’s just, I’ve seen so many coaches waste money on this upfront. I’ve been one of them. I’ve probably wasted. I don’t ever believe in the word wasted. I actually believe everything is an investment and everything is a learning experience.

I probably invested 75, 000 in my coaching business in funnels that didn’t work. And I was on the higher end of the skill scale when it came to tech and content. And I still didn’t know what I didn’t know. Now, I don’t want to chase you away from the online path. I am just suggesting that you don’t spend a ton of money up front doing the fancy schmancy funnel.

If you’re someone who likes using technology, likes working online, is willing to learn, you can build a very simple funnel on your own that will get people downloading your free stuff online, You reach out to them. You [00:09:00] enroll clients. I’m not suggesting you don’t do a funnel. I’m just suggesting that if you’re going to go that route, you’ve got to love working online, be willing to roll up your sleeves, do the do.

So what I’m inviting you into is the path of least resistance, the path of least resistance. I personally didn’t, when I started my coaching business, I chose the community path because I wasn’t a big social media person or techie person. I was used to being with people in person. It was the path of least resistance to me.

It was what I felt comfortable with So I started building my business that way. I think about my friend, he has a big, big following online via his podcast and his social media. That was the way that he started his business because he’s like, I don’t want to go in person.

He’s like, you know, seven or eight years younger than me. So like that generational difference between the millennial and then the next one down, he was way more comfortable working online. That was the path he took and he was successful. So like I said earlier, for the love of God, can you pick the path that you actually will enjoy doing rather than trying to bang your head against the wall and be something that [00:10:00] doesn’t feel comfortable to you in the beginning?

Because here’s the thing, you can build a six and seven figure coaching business either way. But if you’re not good at tech and you’re trying to tell yourself that you have to be something techie to build a coaching business, you’re constantly going to be banging your head against the wall and vice versa.

If you’re the coach that primarily likes working online and you’re good with rolling your sleeves up and building things yourself and figuring it out and trial and error, and you don’t love being in person. Why would you force yourself to that option? So I really want to encourage you whatever is your pathway That you’re going to pick the one that feels more like getting to you and don’t shame or blame yourself If you’re not good at one or the other or you don’t love one or the other so I think that most people these days are trying to be online coaches not because that’s their dream At least for the clientele that I serve which is usually You know, eight mid thirties plus, I would say are feeling like they have to go online, even though they don’t love that because no one told them there’s another option.

So I want you to know you can choose either [00:11:00] option and you can be highly successful. My first, probably 300 to maybe 400, 000 in revenue. Was the community path. And then there came a point where I was like, okay, let’s scale bigger. Let’s have a bigger reach. And then I started doing funnels and Facebook ads and things of that nature. 

Lauren Brollier Newton: So community path, online path on both pathways, like I mentioned for the community path, you’re going to have a zoom account because that’s probably how you’re going to serve your clients is via zoom. You’re going to have a basic website for the online coach. You also don’t need a fancy website because you’re going to be way more focused on what we call landing pages.

And that doesn’t need a fancy schmancy website, you need a landing page to do that with. So like I said, if you’re a great thinking Institute coach, we’ve given you a beautiful website that has everything you need. If you’re not simple website, both for online coach and community [00:12:00] path. So you’re going to have a zoom account, you’re going to have a simple website, and then both pathways are, you’re going to start building an email list.

An email list is an online database. Think of it as an address book. But it’s online and people have given you permission to email them as part of this newsletter or email list. That’s going to become important because even if you’re going out in your community, you’re networking, people are giving you their business cards.

People are coming to your events. You want to have something that you can connect Keep connected with them with, so you can ask them permission to be put on your list and build that email list. If you’re an online coach, it’s your funnel where you’re going to collect email addresses. It’s that free ebook or free something up front that’s going to collect the email addresses.

So on both pathways, you’re going to want a simple website, a zoom account, and building an email list. Other than that, the community path, you don’t need a lot of tech, the online path, of course, that’s going to be your way of marketing. So that’s what you’re going to do. All right. So let’s talk about social media on both pathways.

You don’t have to be super, super high [00:13:00] skilled at social media. You don’t have to be a Tik Tok star or Instagram famous or excellent at Facebook, even with the online path. Cause here’s the thing you’re going to have an account of course, because that’s, you’re likely going to be running ads. to get those leads likely if you’re on the online path, but even so you don’t have to be an expert at posting on social media to do that.

If you’re in the, on the community path, you might utilize some social media, but it’s not a must. Now, if you are going to use social media, which I would recommend if you’re willing to do it, do it. But like I said, don’t get yourself stuck, not coaching. Because you’re not sure how to do something or because you’re scared of doing something, go do the things that you’re good at first and foremost.

Now so I do think social media is awesome. I think it’s a great platform to be on. I just don’t want it to stop you. Now if you’re going to use social media, this is my personality and my recommendation now, but if you’re resonating with what I’m saying, then this will probably resonate with you for the love of love.

Do it right. And what I mean by [00:14:00] that is five or six years ago, you could just post inspirational quotes on social media. And get a lot of traction on your business page, or maybe this is 10 years ago, you know, on your business page or on your social pages nowadays, everything online has to feel personal and authentic.

If you want clicks, corporatey looking things, just inspirational quotes are not the way that organically you’re going to grow your business and your following. Now what do I mean when I say the word organically, for those of you who don’t know, it’s a word Organically means I didn’t pay for the advertising.

I just made a Facebook post, right? I just posted on my personal page or I posted on my business page So when you’re doing social media as part of your client attraction method on either one of these pathways, you really, really want to think about what looks personal selfies or personal pictures of what I’m doing or personals Facebook lives.

And when I’m talking about something as personal, posting someone else’s inspirational quote is no longer going to attract business to your coaching business. So when you’re using social media, you [00:15:00] want to be authentic. You want it to look and feel as personal as possible. Think about what you would post on your personal page and then think of ways in which you can do that in your business.

Now with that social media, the other way to do it right is if you’re going to talk about something that’s business related, but it still feels personal and authentic, you want to do what we call a call to action. Tell the client what step to take next. The step could be comment yes, if you want a copy of this ebook, if you’re a community path, comment yes.

If you want an invite to my next workshop in Toronto, okay, so you want to be giving them the next step to take if you’re going to be using social media, authentic, personal, that’s the way to go now with social media. So let’s talk for a moment about why I suggest picking a pathway. I have had coaches push back and say, well, I could do both.

I could have the community path and I could be doing YouTube and I can do lead magnets and I could be doing this. Of course you could. And I don’t want to stifle you. If that feels like getting to you, go ahead and do it. What I’m sharing is our [00:16:00] master coach here at Brave Thinking Institute, Kirsten Wells.

And she is master in energy medicine. She’s been studying it for more than 30 years. She sits on the board of coaching at the medical school at Harvard, just really, really has the chops. She likes to remind us that in physics, there’s a principle and it’s that the system with the least diversity. conducts the most energy. So what does that mean? We’re not talking about diversity, like gender diversity or racial diversity. We’re talking about, you have a water pipe and it’s pumping water and it’s a pipe and the water has a lot of momentum behind it.

It’s powerful. Just going down that water pipeline. If you poke holes in that pipe, that water is going to disperse. The energy is going to disperse. That’s what I mean, the system with the least diversity, if it’s one pipe and water going one divert direction, it conducts the most energy. If the system is too diverse, meaning there’s a million holes in that pipe.

the energy disperses. And so we think about that with our coaching business. If you’re trying to do everything, you are poking holes in your pipeline. There’s not enough momentum because you haven’t [00:17:00] given yourself the time to get really good at something. So I’m not suggesting you don’t have, you know, a little bit of social media and then do the community path.

That’s fine, but do not spread yourself so thin that you’re trying, you’re throwing spaghetti at the wall everywhere. First of all, don’t do that. You’re not going to have momentum. Second of all, you’re not going to know what really works because you’re doing everything. The founder of Brave Thinking Institute, Mary Morrissey when she started the Institute back in prior to that, the couple of years prior, like 2004 to 2007, she did one thing and she did it really well.

She went all around the country and did speaking engagements and invited people into her coaching business. And she generated nearly a million, no, she generated way more than a million dollars because she was at 750, 000 annual earnings as a coach doing one thing really well, speaking and inviting people into her coaching programs.

So everything she did. So now you’re probably saying to yourself, yeah, well, when she was speaking, how did she get people to those speaking engagements and this and that? Yes. She had to network. She had to market, but everything was about those speaking engagements. She’s networking, inviting people that speak engages.[00:18:00] 

She’s networking to get speaking engagements. She’s marketing to the speaking engagements and she’s really good at speaking. And that brought her to nearly it was three quarters of a million dollar annual, very little technology, very little help. And the reason she was able to do that is because she was focused on it.

I also built my business in a similar fashion. I built my business through having workshops and speaking on other people’s stages. And I ate and breathed and slept those workshops and I didn’t get super distracted. Now, if I did post on social media, it was about the workshop. If I did post on social media, it was to get on the email list so I could advertise the workshop.

There’s a, a pipeline happening there. That’s really, really powerful. Now, if you start trying to do everything, I’m going to be on Tik TOK, YouTube. I’m going to do a podcast. By the way, TikTok, YouTube, and podcasts all operate under very different rules. Podcast is long form. TikTok is short form. YouTube is more long form.

And yet there’s some short form skills you have to know. So here’s what I’m saying. If, how am I going to master all of that and be good at it? Master one [00:19:00] thing and put everything into that one thing and make sure that one thing converts into coin. So I hope what you’re taking from this, the opening quote was smart people focus on the right things.

I hope what you’re taking from this is that you can be highly successful. Very Morrissey is a perfect example of that, how she started her business doing community coaching. Now I call her as community coaching, even though she was going all around the country because it was an in person pathway. You can do online if you love that, but don’t feel like if you don’t have fancy schmancy online stuff that you cannot be successful as a coach, you can absolutely be successful.

In fact, some of the greatest coaches I know started just that way. This is the other thing I’ll say before we conclude. If you’re looking at someone like Tony Robbins or Amy Porterfield or Mel Robbins or Mary Morrissey. And you’re noticing that they do a ton of online advertising. Let’s not forget that Tony Robbins is probably 30 years in, if not more to this coaching business.

He wasn’t starting with that. Mary Morrissey certainly didn’t start with that. don’t start your business [00:20:00] looking at what some guru’s business does, thinking you have to do that to be successful because that’s not where we start. If I was going to give advice to the person who’s saying, I’m not sure if I should do online or in person.

here’s the thing. Yes. It’s which one you love. I already said that I personally would do community until I’ve gotten about a hundred thousand dollars annual revenue so that I can have the money and the cashflow to start putting into the online stuff. Cause that’s going to be more at the level of fact than it would be to just go out and network, speak in your community, meet people, invite your warm market, do the whole community thing, put yourself on Google reviews that’s going to be way more cost effective.

It’s going to convert higher, by the way, anything in person converts way higher than online. Then you can start going. The only reason I would change that is if I was talking to a person who was highly tech savvy, really new marketing, really knew how to do funnels, was willing to learn and had the cash flow to be able to do it.

So what path are you going to take? And are you willing to get [00:21:00] focused so that you can generate what revenue and really help people? Because that’s what this is about. The system with the least diversity conducts the most energy. So am I willing to channel my passion, to focus my passion into one of these pathways so I can greater serve the people who are waiting for me.

So I love y’all very much. You are awesome. Let’s do this thing. Let’s go make a difference. We’ll see you on the next episode. 

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