If you want to be of service to others, the first step is seeing the world from their perspective. Today’s guest argues that the most important quality of a coach is the ability to meet your clients where they are and employ empathy as you work together. Only then can you lead your mentees to the kind of creativity and innovation that fosters success.
Yvonne Smyth is a business mentor and life coach who seeks to help people Flourish – to develop empowering mindsets, to align their businesses with their values and beliefs, and to ultimately live lives of joy and fulfillment. Her greatest strength is working with people to create a compelling vision for their future, then supporting them on the journey. She is a certified NLP Practitioner, the Entrepreneur in Residence at Catalyst Inc. HQ as well as the co-founder of The Unlimited Human.
Yvonne had a successful career as a managing director of a hotel and spa, but she didn’t feel like she was doing anything well. She felt guilty that she couldn’t spend more time with her young children, and despite having the career, family, and home she thought would make her happy, she was stressed out of her head. In 2013, she took the leap into self-employment and developed a coaching business with the intention of helping people flourish and thrive. Today, she shares her secrets to landing new clients, advice around pricing your service, and her intuitive approach to onboarding new clients. Listen to understand how empathy serves as the foundation of a strong coaching practice.
Key Takeaways
The most important quality for a business/life coach
Yvonne’s secrets to landing new clients
Yvonne’s intuitive approach to working with new clients
Yvonne’s advice around pricing your service
How to adapt to clients that don’t fit your program template
Resources
Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
Connect with Yvonne Smyth
Many aspiring entrepreneurs get overwhelmed in the face of a very long to-do list that includes designing a website, building a customer base, and establishing trust in order to draw traffic to your site. If your business involves the sale of a product, the logistics of manufacturing and distribution get thrown into the mix as well. What if there was a platform that would take care of the majority of those things for you?
Adam Hudson is the founder of Reliable Education, a resource for entrepreneurs that teaches its clients how to establish reliable online income streams via the Amazon platform. Adam developed these strategies in the conception of his own homewares brand; its products are sold exclusively through Amazon in more than 30 countries. A serial entrepreneur who has built a number of multi-million dollar companies, Adam also leads an Amazon marketing services firm. He has been featured in countless national publications, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek.
Adam’s interest in online entrepreneurship began when he was running an animation studio in California. He realized that selling his time was not the optimal business model, so he started looking for opportunities to generate reliable income through product development. He discovered the Amazon platform and realized its potential as the go-to site for consumers. Today he outlines the reasons why Amazon is a good fit for new entrepreneurs, how to choose a product for sale, and the process of selecting a manufacturer. Listen and learn how to make your product stand out on the site and generate reliable income!
Key Takeaways
Why Amazon is a good fit for new entrepreneurs
How to choose a potential product
How to differentiate your product and avoid oversaturation
Adam’s advice around choosing an industry
The next steps once you’ve selected a product
The process of packaging and shipping
Common mistakes made by novice sellers
Adam’s best advice for potential Amazon sellers
Resources
“The Lazy Seller” Interview on WebRetailer
Connect with Adam Hudson
‘I want to help people, but I also want to be happy doing it.’
In a perfect world, we wake up every day motivated to do our work because it’s something we love. As online entrepreneurs, we are at an advantage: If we discover that we are no longer eager to get down to business, we have the freedom to shift our focus to something we are passionate about and make money while we’re at it! Today’s guest is on a mission to help solopreneurs generate passive income by monetizing their passion.
Ronisha Shead founded Bizzell Development Solutions with the intention of assisting online entrepreneurs in developing eCourses and workshops. An authority in the area of digital product creation, she has ten-plus years of experience creating online courses for companies like IBM, Dell, and United Healthcare.
Ronisha began her career in academics as a professor of composition and writing, developing classroom and digital courses. After seven years, she became weary of the college scene and transitioned to corporate training. Eventually, Ronisha realized that she could make more working for herself, and Bizzell was born! Her newest venture is the Moms That Hustle blog, an enterprise that seeks to help moms start a side hustle or add passive income to their business with a digital product. Today, Ronisha shares the lessons she has learned in developing her business, how she landed her first clients, and her best tips on connecting with your audience. Listen and learn to monetize your passion with a digital product!
Key Takeaways
How Ronisha landed her first few clients
How Ronisha’s pricing model has evolved
Common challenges people face in creating content (i.e.: online course, ebook)
Lessons Ronisha has learned in developing her business
Ronisha’s tips for connecting with your audience before a product launch
The benefits of being a solopreneur
The importance of self-reflection
Resources
Connect with Ronisha Shead
The beauty of freelancing is the freedom it affords you to set your own schedule, and for busy moms, that is a necessity. But taking care of kiddos is a full-time job in and of itself, so how do you carve out the time to write your blog, for example? And how do you make decisions about what really HAS to be done?
Emily McGee is the founder of My Adaptable Career, an online business that advises freelancers and solopreneurs on best business practices and intentional business growth via innovative time management solutions. She works specifically with moms looking to monetize their blogs and avoid returning to a nine-to-five.
Emily began her career as an English teacher before her husband’s job took them overseas. It was then that she began freelance writing in the education sphere, finally niching down to curriculum development. In January of 2016, she founded My Adaptable Career to offer general advice to other freelancers before finding her expertise in time management. Today Emily shares her best ideas for juggling business and baby, how she handles ‘mom guilt,’ and why freelancing is a good fit for stay-at-home parents!
Key Takeaways
The benefits of niching down
Why focusing on a particular industry makes you a better prospect
Why Emily made the shift to blogging
How Emily made the transition from freelancing to blogging
Emily’s target audience
Emily’s advice for juggling business and baby
How to handle ‘mom guilt’
Why freelancing is a good compromise for new moms
How Emily carves out time to work
Emily’s greatest challenge as a business owner
Emily’s #1 tip for aspiring business owners
Resources
Free Time Management Mini Course
Connect with Emily McGee
As freelance writers, most of us have dreamed of seeing our picture on a book jacket. But the process of finding a publisher and securing a literary agent may seem intimidating. How do you pitch your book idea to an agent? What is involved in the submission process? What’s the difference between traditional and digital publishing? It’s time to take the ‘aspiring’ out of ‘aspiring author’ with today’s guest, who answers your questions about the publishing world.
Megan Close Zavala is a literary agent at Keller Media and the creator of Turn the Page Book Coaching and Editorial. She began her career in the film industry, working in the business and legal affairs department for companies like E! Entertainment, Comcast Media Group, and NBCUniversal. After a layoff and a year in India, Megan went on a mission to land a job in publishing that would allow her to read for a living, and she became an editorial assistant at Keller Media.
Megan was quickly promoted to literary agent, and she has been working with authors in that capacity since January of 2015. Since then, she has worked with New York Times best-selling authors and spoken at writers’ conferences across the country. Megan came to realize that many writers needed additional assistance beyond what she could offer as an agent, and Turn the Page was born to provide editorial and book coaching services to authors at various stages in the writing process. Today she takes the mystery out of publishing, explaining the role of a literary agent, how to submit a proposal or manuscript, and how to establish a working relationship with a trustworthy agent. Listen in to get Megan’s best advice for aspiring authors!
Key Takeaways
The pros and cons of traditional vs. self-publishing
How to establish a relationship with a literary agent
The role of a literary agent
How to choose the right publisher
Megan’s tips for choosing an agent
Megan’s book coaching service
Common challenges of aspiring authors
The benefits of working with a book coach
Megan’s best advice for would-be authors
Resources
Connect with Megan Close Zavala
‘The waters of the internet are infested with sharks!’
By virtue of having a website, online solopreneurs are vulnerable to lawsuits and scammers. Many of us stick our heads in the sand and hope it will never happen to us, but there are a number of protections we can put in place to minimize the risk. Today’s guest is prepared to arm you with the information you need to navigate those shark-infested waters and understand the fundamental legal aspects of online business ownership.
Internet business lawyer Lin Eleoff is the founder of Cover Your Assets Online, a service that teaches solopreneurs to cover their ‘assets’ without having to spend an arm and a leg on legal fees. She offers a DIY Legal Toolkit that allows online entrepreneurs to prepare key documents themselves, as well as done-for-you services and consulting.
Lin never wanted to be one of those ‘billable hours’ attorneys in the corner office; she was looking for a new way to practice law. She saw a huge need in the area of internet law for entrepreneurs, so she became an entrepreneur herself and created an online coaching venture to empower business owners with crucial legal information. Today she shares the common mistakes made by online solopreneurs, the legal documents you can prepare on your own, and her best legal advice for online business owners. Listen and learn why scammers target small business owners and how to protect yourself from a lawsuit!
Key Takeaways
The legal fundamentals of online business ownership
The common legal mistakes made by online business owners
Legal documents you can prepare yourself
How much it might cost to put legal protections in place
Why scammers target small business owners
Lin’s best legal advice for online business owners
How to approach legal aspects of online business ownership
Resources
Connect with Lin Eleoff
Perhaps you dread going to the office every day because you simply aren’t inspired by what you do. Or maybe your heart isn’t in the traditional 9 to 5 anymore because of little ones at home that you are missing. Either way, today’s guest has been in your shoes, and she knows how to launch a business as a virtual assistant that will afford you the opportunity to be the parent you want to be and develop a career that you love.
Abbey Ashley was looking for work-from-home opportunities after the birth of her first child. A friend recommended that she look into becoming a VA, so she did some research and determined that it would be a good fit. She leveraged her background in marketing to help small business owners with various administrative projects, and within four months she had to bring in subcontractors to help with the overload of work!
In March 2016, Abbey founded The Virtual Savvy to help other women launch and grow their own virtual assistant businesses. She is on a mission to empower women to enjoy the freedom and flexibility afforded by a work-from-home VA career. Today she discusses the most in-demand services a virtual assistant can offer as well as proven strategies for landing clients. Turn passion into profit and launch your VA career today!
Key Takeaways
The role of a VA
Abbey’s guidance for ‘repackaging’ traditional job skills
The most in-demand VA services in the current market
How to land your first client as a new VA
Why it’s better for VAs to offer general services in the beginning
Abbey’s best strategies for landing new clients
How to make your proposal stand out
Abbey’s number one tip for new VAs
Resources
Connect with Abbey Ashley
Traditional leadership training is difficult to implement because it’s tough to access that seven-step conflict resolution process in the middle of a team meltdown! Today’s guest is a leadership coach with a different approach. She is on a mission to develop leaders who view management as a collaborative process, who share their vision and then walk alongside their team members on the way to realizing big picture goals.
Judy Lair started out on the ‘other side of the couch.’ As a client, she recognized that her counselor was employing the strategic thinking skills that she considered a personal strength. She applied to graduate school and earned her Master’s from Ashland Theological Seminary in 2002. For the past 15 years, Judy has operated a successful private practice, Counselorplace Christian Counseling, in Worthington, Ohio.
In June 2016, Judy expanded her business to include leadership coaching. She leverages her accreditations as both a Certified Business Coach and Certified Life Coach to help clients become insightful, inspiring leaders and effective problem-solvers. She offers 1:1 personal leadership coaching as well as Masterclass Leadership Development group coaching workshops. Judy is the author of four books, and today she shares advice about writing as well as business ownership. Listen to understand why Judy chose private practice, how she determined her ideal clients, and how her business grew to include leadership coaching.
Key Takeaways
How Judy made the decision to start her own business
Judy’s strategies for landing the first few clients
How to approach networking
How Judy determined her ideal clients
How Judy got into coaching
The difference in marketing strategy for counseling vs. coaching
Judy’s ground-breaking approach to leadership development
The secret to team management
Judy’s writing advice
Resources
Free Viewpoint Leadership mp3s
Connect with Judy Lair
If you’re just getting your feet wet with the whole online business thing, it is likely that you have been working as a generalist, taking on a wide variety of projects for a wide variety of clients. Perhaps you are starting to figure out which projects you really love – and which ones you hate with the fire of a thousand suns. If that’s the case, it may be time to niche down and build your expertise in the areas you truly enjoy, and make more money while you’re at it!
Alexandra Ramirez got her start on the platform fiverr, making just five bucks per gig! She moved up via Kimra Luna’s Freedom Hackers, meeting entrepreneurs in need of a VA in the Facebook group. After a few months performing a wide range of tasks, Alexandra discovered her love of sales funnels, email marketing, and course creation. She changed her title to reflect this role as a specialist, and Divine Business Management was born. Now Alexandra specializes in helping entrepreneurs automate their marketing through sales funnels to attract ideal clients and generate passive income.
Alexandra is here to explain the specifics of a sales funnel as well as the benefits of email marketing. Listen and learn how she transitioned from generalist to expert – and boosted her income in the process!
Key Takeaways
How to use Facebook groups to land clients
How Alexandra transitioned from a generalist to an expert
The advantages of email marketing
The vocabulary of a sales funnel creator
The nuts and bolts of a VA’s role in online course creation
Alexandra’s key tips for entrepreneurs who are just getting started
Resources
Freedom Hackers Mastermind Group
Connect with Alexandra Ramirez