Ep #109: $100K Actions

You are listening to episode 109 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you’re going to define the actions that you’re going to take to create $100,000. Let’s go.

Welcome to The Confident Coaches Podcast, a place for creating the self-confidence you need to do your best work as a life coach. If you want to bring more boldness, more resilience, and more joy to your work, this is the place for you. I’m your host, Amy Latta. Let’s dive in.

Hi coach, how are you doing today? It has been a time over here at Casa Latta, it’s actually Latta. Casa Latta has been– There’s just been a lot going on, but I am happy to say that I’m here. I’m really, really excited about this episode, this is a topic that I’m so passionate about. And it’s so much the coaching that we do inside the mastermind and I cannot wait to bring it to you today. And I know it’s something that a lot of you want to know about.

If you have the question, I don’t know what to do, what should I do? This is the podcast for you. So, if you are just dropping in on this episode randomly know that this episode is part two in a three part series. We are currently enrolling for my paid program, which is the Confident Coaches Mastermind.  And this three part series is the three part process that I teach all of my students in the mastermind that is their path to 100K.

So Confident Coaches Mastermind is for any life coach who is ready to create their $100,000, their six figure business. And I have created these confidence tools that are your path to 100K. This is the exact work that I did to create a $100,000 business, the process took me about 15 months to create my first $100,000 in a year.

Yes, that’s right, it took me 15 months to make $100,000 in 12 months, if that makes sense. So this was the process that I used. I am going over each of the three steps of the process in three separate podcasts. So if you have not listened to episode 108, The Mindset of 100K, you’re going to want to listen to that. It’s not a prerequisite, but the work we do in this episode is going to be so much less effective if you don’t listen to the first one.

Because here’s the thing, the process is very simple. It’s mindset plus action plus evaluation. It’s not a complicated process, but the thing is, is that you all just don’t want to do the process. What’s so funny is so many of you want to do just this step right here. And we’re going to find out why momentarily, why that doesn’t necessarily work.

But here’s the thing, the process is simple, it’s easily replicable – replicatable, replicable? I’ll let you decide what’s the right word. And here’s the thing, It’s the process that I used to create my first $100,000, and then the next one, and then the next one. And it’s the same process that I’m using. It’s the same process that I’m using to create my first million dollars in a year.

Now, I’ve created a million dollars in the course of my business. And now I’m working on doing it sooner, faster. And I’m using this process. So this three part process you will use at every step of your business. So you might as well learn it and master it and get comfortable with it now.

And it is the process of confidently building your business. Because confidence is not waiting for you at the end. You will never feel confident, it does not matter what is in your bank account, it does not matter how many clients you have, you will never feel confident if you’re waiting for something outside of you to bring the confidence. But the confidence guarantees the result that you want. It makes the result that you want inevitable.

Now, before I dive in today, I have to give a shout out to a relatively new listener. So Shauna the self-love coach, hi Mama. So super fun. I made her top five podcasts on Spotify for the year. And if you’re a Spotify listener, you know you get your wrap up every year. It’s so fun.

And she shared that with me and then she also shared this with me. And so these were the words that she said to me and I just wanted to give her a shout out with this. She wrote, “Thank you for your podcast. I just recently found it and I’m obsessed. It’s pure liquid gold in the form of audio.” Oh, Shauna, you’re amazing. I think you’re pure gold in human form. I love you.

I love all of my listeners out there. Seeing these recaps from the year, as a podcaster you get your own recap from the podcaster’s standpoint. It’s just so powerful to know this podcast is reaching 59 countries. 59, I don’t even think I could list 59 countries off the top of my head. I could probably eventually get there, but it would take me some time. And there’s over 1,000 of you tuning in every single week. And I just want to thank you for being awesome.

And now I’m going to happily return the favor. You got your pens and papers? You got your notebooks out? You’re going to get some good, good stuff to chomp on in this episode. Okay, so last week, we talked all about mindset. And the actions are the topic for this week. And here’s the thing, actions are actually pretty simple. It’s not that hard, really, to know what to do next.

So really understand, what are actions? They are what you are doing and what you are not doing. Inaction is an action, not doing what you said you were going to do is also an action. So when you want to take positive action in your business, because actions, what you do will ultimately create your results. We’re just talking about what you are doing. Like on Tuesday at 1pm what are you doing? What actions can you be taking?

Now, when you enroll in Confident Coaches Mastermind you get this fabulous workbook, it’s your path to 100K workbook. And there’s like pages of ideas of actions that you can take, all based on your comfort level.

Actually, I’m looking at the workbook right now, there are a lot of pages there’s four pages. Four pages of different actions that you can take. Things you can do in person, things you can do online in the social media space, things you can do in a funnel email, things that you can do over the phone. I know, who uses a phone? Some people still use a phone.

So what you actually do, you know, post on Facebook, you know, post a workshop, a Facebook Live video, texting to old clients, weekly email to your list. These are all things that you do, those are all actions. And then there’s what you’re going to talk about in that post, in that action.

Actually, as I am flipping through here, I think this is, yeah, this is eight pages. There’s eight pages of different things that you can talk about in the workbook.

And it’s also a pretty standard list. You’ve got your introductory posts. You’ve got your share a coaching tool that you use, or share the steps of your process, the process that you take all clients through. First we do this, then we do this, and then we do this. You can share a client story, you can share a part of your story.

You can share something you know for sure. You can share a topic that came up recently in a coaching session, obviously keeping confidentiality in mind. You can share a little bit of your behind the scenes, even if it’s just you getting ready for your workday. People love behind the scenes. People love, love, love behind the scenes. You can share something interesting that happened to you and relate it to your coaching.

Some fun stuff that you can just share stuff that’s super signature to you. Like favorite quirks that people associate with you. Like people know I love live music. People know Amy is a live music person because I’m always sharing that kind of stuff. You can bust a myth in your industry. You can give a fix to one of their struggles. You can share the top three struggles that you help with. You can share the three different kinds of clients that you work with.

There really is no end to that list. Here’s the interesting thing, so many of you all, and I know this because I’m coaching you, will say, “I just don’t know what to do next.” And I want to offer you that what you do, the action, the action is actually the easy part. It’s the thing that you do.

And you can see why, as I was listing all of those different ways and all of those different subjects, the matrix of that, the Venn diagram of all of that, there’s like an endless number of combinations from what I’ve just listed there. And yet so many of you will say, “I don’t know what to do next.”

So you can see why that mindset part, last week’s episode, why it’s mindset and then action is so important. Because once you just pick something, your brain will feed you all kinds of reasons why it’s not a good idea, or why it won’t work, or why you don’t really have anything to say.

So really challenge like the first lesson, actually, if you get anything out of this podcast, I want it to be this right here. Anytime you hear yourself say, “I don’t know what to do.” Just be willing to call yourself out on that lie. That is a lie. I don’t know what to do, that’s a lie. And really be willing to call yourself out.

It’s not true, I could do any number of these actions with any number of these subjects. There’s just something in my thinking right now that has me blocking me from even being able to make that decision. Yes, I do. I can take a quick selfie and write an Instagram post right now.

It’s not the action that’s the problem, it is the thinking. There’s something blocking me from doing that. And I wonder what that is? Because it’s not that I don’t know what to do next. When you’re thinking about action you’re like, “I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know what action I should take.” Really start honing that muscle of wait a minute. That’s not true, Helga brain.

Remember, that Helga brain is that primitive part of your brain that’s trying to keep you safe, and she’s a lying mofo. She will lie to you all day long and say that you don’t know what to do. But really, what you want to do is you want to find out what you’re afraid of. This is all the mindset work we talked about last week.

And I know that so many of you want to focus all of your time and energy here in the action. And even better if I just tell you what to do, right? Just tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do. But it’s a lie that you don’t know anything that you can do. And there’s just the reasons why you don’t want to do it. And why I will coach your mindset first, every single time. Because then the action part becomes so much easier.

But that’s not specifically what this podcast is about. I want you to remember that always, but the rest of this episode is really once you’ve done the mindset work, this episode is about teaching you to take better action than you have been taking. Because some of you have the first problem, I don’t know what to do.

And then there’s another fraction of my clients who are like, “I take action all the damn time, and nothing’s working.” So I want this episode to be about taking better action than you’ve been taking. Take a better selfie than you normally would, with better writing than you normally would, bolder, more daring, et cetera. I want this to be about you taking the actions that you’re already taking and elevating it.

Now I’ve done a separate episode on more daring offers. And there’s a little bit of overlap with the more daring offers episode. So hopefully in the show notes we can link to more daring offers. But it’s going to be a little bit of a different conversation, but it is going to be similar because it’s about taking bolder, better action. But we’re going to talk about just a little bit different stuff in this episode.

So what I want you to think about is taking action that influences their action. You, as the coach, taking action that influences the actions of your ideal client and your target audience, the people that you want to work with. Understanding that we can’t actually control what they do, we can’t actually control what they do.

But what we do becomes a circumstance in their life, and what we do can then influence how they think and feel, and thus act. It is still their conscious choice of how they’re going to think and feel. We aren’t controlling their thinking and their feelings. But what we do can influence them.

So how can you influence their action? First of all, this is going to seem so obvious, but I’ve just read too many posts to know that it’s not true. And I remember doing this myself. One way to influence their action is to freaking tell them what to do.

You need to be really clear about what your call to action is in your actions and what you do. If you want them to get on the phone with you, you need to tell them that. Don’t assume they know how to get on the phone with you. Don’t assume that they already have the link or that they will actively go seek out your website and figure it out themselves.

Don’t make it any harder for them. Don’t assume that they know, “Hey, let’s talk” means click this link and schedule a call with them. You need to be very clear what you want them to do. Don’t assume that they know how to schedule a consult call with you just because you’ve talked about it 100 times. Talk about it 100 more.

Remember that we have very short memories as a consumer. I can read an email and it can outline very specifically what to do, and half the time I will still be unsure as to what to do because there’s so much going on in my head. Make it so super easy for them make it so super obvious for them.

Don’t make them have to hunt for anything because as soon as they do, they probably aren’t going to do it. I mean, some people will, but you will lose people if they have to go seek out the way to schedule a call with me.

And do not assume they know, let’s talk. Don’t assume that they know that this post that you’ve made that tells this amazing transformational story and that it’s possible for them too, don’t assume that they know how to make make it possible for them. You have to tell them, “Hey, it all starts with a call.”

Which also leads to a different way of telling them. This week, the week that I’m recording this I’m promoting my free training. And I’m not suggesting people sign up. I’m not hinting at it. I’m not writing a long post and then just including the link at the bottom. I’m telling them, “This is the training you need to be in. You need to register for this.” Thinking along the lines of this is the call that starts your change in your life. It all begins with this call, this is all possible for you and it all starts with a call. This is the training you’ve been waiting for.

Being willing to tell them and be overt about what you want their action to be and just flat out telling them, “This is the action you do need to take, this is what you’ve been waiting for. This is the solution that you’ve been waiting for. This is the fix to the struggle that you’re having.”

You can see why the mindset work is so important, right? Because some of y’all are like, “Ah, that sounds really overt and painful.” Just these two things right here, your actions will become so much more powerful because you’re going to stop beating around the bush. It’s going to be very clear to them. They won’t need a decoder ring to see what they should do next.

And speaking of steps, in every step along the way, so as a for instance, if you’re trying to post to get them to get on a consult call with you, there are steps between reading your post and actually being on the phone with you. And so you’re going to want to think about be super clear at every step along the way.

After they sign up, make sure they know exactly how the phone call is going to work. Are you going to call them? Are they supposed to call you? What do you need them to do? Make sure, even if it’s like, “I’m going to call you from this phone number at this time, make sure you pick up the phone, look for this phone number.”

One of the things that I’ve done when I was still doing lots of one on ones is I would send a short video message, like 15, 30 seconds from my phone saying, “This is the phone number that’s going to call you in X number of minutes. Hi, this is my face.” Do you see what I’m saying? That action will influence them to pick up the phone when I call them.

In other words, they’re not signing up for a consult call two weeks ago to be on the calendar today. And have you sent them a reminder? Have you helped them make sure, again, influence their action so that they actually do the thing? You need to tell them, you need to be overt. You need to be very clear with them.

And I’m sure, given everything that I’ve just said, you can now see why that mindset is so important. Because y’all need coaching on like, well, I don’t want to be too direct. I don’t want to be too overt. I don’t want to be too in their face.

So make sure you’re getting the mindset coaching before you take these actions too, so that you’re super clean and super clear. And it just become so much easier to be like, “This is what you got to do, my friends. Let’s get on the phone. Here’s how it’s going to go down. I’m going to send you this, you’re going to do this, it’s going to be a fabulous time.”

Okay, so how else can we influence the action of others? One of my favorite things to do is I have my clients get into the models of their ideal clients. What is their current thinking and feeling? And what do you want them to be? Think about this, what is your ideal client? They’re scrolling on Facebook and they see your post. What is their thinking and feeling where their action line is not taking you up on your offer?

Have you considered that? Like you could just think nothing I do ever works. But I want you to ask yourself, “Okay, why aren’t they– If it’s not me that’s broken, I’m not broken. I know good things. I have good ideas. Why might they not be taking me up on this call to action? What might be preventing them? What are they thinking and feeling that has their action not scheduling a call with you? And what do they need to be thinking and feeling so that their action is to schedule a call with you?”

This is very powerful work to think about here. You can influence the action of others by anticipating their thinking when they come across your stuff. Are they thinking, “You know what? Nothing ever works for me.” You might write brilliant posts, but they’re just like, “Nothing ever works for me. I’ve tried before and I failed. I’ve already spent so much time and money on this.”

They might be thinking, “I don’t even know what’s wrong with me.” It’s also possible that they’re thinking, “I don’t really understand what she’s saying.” That’s a possibility too. But you want to think about what are all of the different possibilities that might have their action line not signing up with you? What are they thinking?

Each one of those thoughts is creating a feeling. What are all those different feelings? And now you have some meat that you can now go solve for that. If you are anticipating they might be thinking that, how might you change how you tell that story? Or how you share that before and after. Or how you share that fix to their problem. How might you tweak it just a little bit to address that they might be thinking that way?

Think about somebody is thinking, “Nothing has ever worked for me. And I’ve tried before, and I failed.” And they’re feeling discouraged. You can write the greatest shit on the planet, but if it’s not addressing that. However, what if they’re thinking, “Wow, she’s reading my mind. She is in my head. She said the thing out loud that even I haven’t said out loud. How did she know?” That’s a very different energy.

You want to think about whether you’re offering a solution to their problem. Are you describing their problem better than they can? And are you offering a solution that sounds refreshing and possible, so that they might be thinking, “Wow, she gets me. I think she can help me. I can’t not look at this a little bit further. I think I really need to schedule this call and just find out more. I cannot not work with this woman.”

We can’t guarantee what they’ll be thinking through what we do, but we can use our skills of coaching. Use your skills of coaching to anticipate what they might be thinking and be willing to address that and clean up your copy a little bit. Look at your post and if somebody’s thinking that, what might help encourage them to schedule that call?

Use your skills of coaching to anticipate what they might be thinking and then what we want them to think. Because that will help you determine what you do. 

So just a few other things to consider. First of all, newsflash, no one actually wants to get on the phone with you. Listen, I remember growing up in the 80s, that phone would ring and you’d be like, “Oh, is it for me? Is it for me?” But this is not the 1980s, no one wants to get on the phone. I would rather throw my phone out the window, than actually answer a phone call.

But if how you show up and what you say to them has them thinking in a way that they can’t not get on the phone with you, they will. Do you know what I’m saying?

It’s like I don’t want to get on the phone with just anybody. But if I think this person has a solution to my problem and it’s different than anything I’ve ever heard before. And I think it might actually work for me. And I’m feeling very inspired and I’m feeling very motivated. Even if I’m a little fearful, I’m much more likely to answer that phone. I’m much more likely.

I work with a population that struggles with confidence. That’s why I added that little video that I text to people because it’s just this little nudge that’s like, “I see you and I hear you and I understand that this is scary. But don’t worry, this is an ease free call. No worries.” I addressed that, I know my audience.

And you want to do this for every step. What do they need to think and feel to schedule a call? What do they need to think and feel to answer the phone when you call? What do they need to think and feel to say yes on the phone with you?

Something else to consider, and this might actually be the second most important. I know the first one was like way, way at the beginning. But this one might be the other one. And this is just I’m just going to lovingly call each of you out, that so many of you have the longest introductions in your posts and in your videos. Stop it.

Stop it. Stop writing three sentences before you even get to the idea, even remotely get to the idea. You want to stop burying your lead. You want to practice getting better at what I call the scroll stopper. Are your posts scroll stoppers? Or do they have to read five lines in before they even remotely have an idea of what you’re talking about?

You want to lead with your most powerful sentence that grabs them. It’s crowded out there, man, it is really crowded. They are holding that phone and there’s 50 different things vying for their attention. You coming on camera and going, “Hey. Hi guys, I just thought I would hop on real quick. Is this light okay? How are we doing? Oh, hold on a second.” They’re gone.

Or like when you post a video and you are just sitting there. Now I do know Facebook Live sometimes it’s a little hard to tell when you’re actually live on camera and when you’re not, so your first few. But once you kind of get the hang of it, jump right in there, man. “I just thought I’d hop on real quick and blah, blah, blah. Oh, and don’t mind me and how I’m looking and…”

Throw all that out the window. Throw all that self-deprecation and all of that out the window. Jump right in and be like, “Hey coach, I’m going to need you to stop burying your leads.” Which is very different than, “Hey, I thought I’d hop on real quick because there’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, and I see a lot of my clients do it. And I just thought that a quick video here to talk about how it seems like a lot of you take a long time in your messaging, in your posts.” Do you see? You’ve already lost them.

Hey, you got to stop burying your leads, is way better than that entire introduction where you get around to talk about burying your leads. You want to think about every sentence is selling them on listening to or reading the next sentence. You want to cut out the fluff. You don’t need long explanations. Be really crisp, really clear.

Be very aware of long introductions that are extra wordy. Let them know right away why they need to read the next sentence, why they need to watch past five seconds. And be really willing to suck at this entire thing that I’m talking about right here.

Be willing to be not that great at this. Sometimes I still will start a video three times because it’s such a habit to offer this buffer. And that’s really what we’re talking about. Remove the buffer to your content. Stop burying the lead, and stop buffering your lead. Jump right in with the most important thing that they need to know right away. Grab their attention, catch them off guard. You will get better at this, I still do it sometimes too.

I love the if I was them litmus test. So a great activity to think about after you’re listening to this is pay attention to the posts that stop you in your tracks. Pay attention to what catches your eye. Pay attention to the ones, like actively spend some time thinking about other people’s posts. Go look at a bunch of other coaches stuff. Are you identifying which posts kind of put you to sleep? Which ones kind of lose you in the first couple of sentences?

I guarantee as a customer you’re doing this. So start paying attention from that lens. And if I was them would my posts stop me in my tracks? If I was them would I watch past five seconds? And you can tell a lot of that by paying attention to your own behavior and other people’s stuff. Just start looking at sales messages that are out there. Which ones grab your attention? Why? And how can you then incorporate those things that grab your attention into your own posts?

And again, you can see how important the mindset is first, because a lot of the reasons you aren’t being bolder, you are burying your lead, you are buffering your content with pleasantries up front is because all of the thoughts you have about yourself and being too bold and being too overt.

I mean, friends, if I had a dollar for every time somebody said they didn’t want to be too sales-y in their actions. Focus on how you want to feel writing your posts, and how you want them to feel reading your posts.

Now, we deep dive into this during our three day live event. So every Confident Coaches Mastermind starts with a three day live event. In 2022 we’re going to be doing them in person, I’m so excited. There will be a virtual option. But we’re doing an in person three day live event in St. Louis in February.

And during that live event you’re going to actually write some content. This about broke the brains of my July and October group. It’s something I added in at the very last minute. I wasn’t going to do it, it ended up being the thing that broke brains.

It ended up being the thing that like, oh my gosh, it was awful. There was crying. There was tears. It was magnificent because we hit one of the biggest struggles head on. The difference between action and just doing something for the sake of doing it, and action that’s bold. Action that’s daring. Action that influences other people’s actions. We’re going to do this during the live event, and you’re going to get coaching on it.

And then we’re going to spend the next six months together helping each other with the mindset, and the action, and what’s coming up in next week’s episode, which is evaluation. You’re going to have a team of peer coaches who are going to be there with you helping you critique your work. Helping become more bold, more daring in your action. And there to coach you week to week when stuff isn’t working and not working, so that you can figure out how to continually make it better.

Now we are open for the February group right now. By the time this episode goes out, we will be open. There will be applications, and now see, you’re going to see me tell you exactly what to do. What you’re going to want to do is go to amylatta.com/mastermind. There’s an application to fill out.

If you are all in on doing this work and you’re ready to go and you have a coaching business, after you submit the application you’re going to have an opportunity to schedule a short call with me. And that short call is just going to guarantee that we’re both a good fit. And you’re going to know right away what your next steps are going to be.

And if you qualify and you apply and we get you in by the end of this year, January, we’re going to start up the Facebook group. You’re going to make your plans to travel or let me know if you’re going to be virtual. And then we kick off the first week of February.

And that’s going to be the beginning of your path to 100K. So if you’re ready to start that path, and know this right now, I’ve been launching four times a year. We’re now only going to launch two times a year, two groups in 2022 and from here on out. So don’t wait to do this work for the next round because you’re going to be putting it off another six months.

If you’re ready to start your path to 100K right now, then you’re ready. Go apply at amylatta.com/mastermind. And next week, my friends, we’re going to be talking about evaluation. And I love you guys so much. So until next week, let’s go fuck shit up.

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In this free training you’re going to learn exactly how you over-complicate confidence, what’s creating that, and how to stop it. Here’s the best part, all of it less than an hour. Less than an hour of your time. You will feel more confident in less than an hour. Yeah, friends, this is the best training I’ve ever done. So visit amylatta.com/podcastgift to get yours. Again, that’s amylatta.com/podcastgift. Go now and feel more confident in just an hour.

Thanks so much for listening to The Confident Coaches Podcast. I invite you to learn more. Come visit me at amylatta.com and until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.