Ep #201: Exactly How You Elevate Your Income

You are listening to episode 201 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where I break down the exact steps of elevating your income. All right, 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.

Hello coaches, super excited as always. How’s everybody’s September going? I hope it’s going fabulously. I know mine is and, if you’re listening to this, I hope you’ve been very active with us in Play More, Sell More. That is my completely free Facebook group, because we are just finishing up a week of 90 minutes a day.

I’m going to touch a little bit just a smidgen, a tiny, tiny smidgen on 90 minutes a day in this episode. Youl be talking more about it in the future, but if you don’t want to wait to find out what 90 minutes a day is all about, I invite you to come back and to the Play More, Sell More group, because that’s what we’ve been doing for the past week.

Now I’m recording this before the week starts, so I don’t actually know what’s going on in a group. I’m just going to assume it’s fabulousness and there’s all kinds of amazing stories to tell. I actually you know, let’s make that happen. So last week’s episode, I mean I hope you felt the tonal shift.

Commonly, coaches, Amy Latta Coaching, the work that we are doing around here has shifted to an evolution, an elevation of your business, of your income. I broke down so much of it last week, but I want to get to the nitty gritty of like, okay, I talked about it conceptually, but what does that actually mean?

And a week from today I’m starting the very first Elevate your Income 8 Week Group Intensive. So, it is a group, a group program. That’s 8 weeks, very different than, say, a 6 month or 12-month mastermind, right, it’s an 8 week, a topic a week, plus extra bonus, extra marketing and implementation sessions.

So, a weekly you know the content a weekly call, but with I can’t remember 3 or 4. I will have that 100% nailed down by the time this episode comes out Like 3 or 4 implementation sessions as well. So that like, if you’re vibing with this and you love this and you want to do this, then let’s fucking do it, am I right? Am I right?

Elevate Your Income is the theme of all of my coaching programs. So, you’ve got Free to Paid Coach still exists. Now Free To Paid Coach, it’s going to its own makeover. That’s launching first week of October. So, if you are a brand-new coach, the 8-week marketing intensive is not for you, but I still invite you to stay and listen and just kind of start thinking about some of these answers for yourself.

Even if you’re a brand-new coach Now some of it might be you may not be able to answer it because you don’t have the answers, and I wouldn’t expect you to have the answers at this point. This is why Free to Paid Coach is the best place for you to be.

The 8-week marketing intensive is for all women entrepreneurs, all innovative women with audacious ideas who have put their crap their crap. I was going to say put your shit as in your good shit, and it came out the word crap. Like you’re really good crap. No, I got to say shit. I got to say good shit because good crap just doesn’t sound right.

You’ve put your amazing shit out into the world and people are picking up what you’re throwing down. You’re making money, right? So Free to Paid Coach is like you’re learning how to make money. It’s about how you actually become a paid person in a service oriented, non-tangible industry like life coaching.

Once you’ve figured that out and you’re getting paid and you have a variety of things that you know work and don’t work like, maybe you fleshed out what hasn’t worked. Maybe you haven’t fleshed out what has or hasn’t worked. Really, it’s so much more about you’re making money in your business.

You know people want your shit and it’s time to superpower that growth and the focus becomes less on can I sell clients and my stuff period, and more on, how do I make this an income creating endeavor? How is this the business that’s going to create income for me?

This is what I mean by elevating your income that it’s not just spending as much possible in as many ways as possible to hit these revenue goals, which may or may not actually cover the lifestyle that you want to live, but actually taking what you’ve created, your good stuff, fine tuning it, narrowing focuses. It’s like throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. It’s about identifying what has stuck and using that as your growth activity.

Your growth activities, your marketing activities that you’re going to fine tune and if you have been selling aspirationally and inspirationally amazing. And also, it’s time to get more specific. It’s time to be time to be so super clear about who you are and who you are in the industry.

And again, remember from last week’s episode elevating your income isn’t just about making more revenue or signing more clients. It’s income by putting your ideas and your innovations into the marketplace, ideas that revolutionize thinking, ideas that transform communities, and it’s achieved by nourishing your audience and your community and not extracting from it, and its income that elevates your life.

So, if you figured out how to make income or how to create revenue in your coaching business, but you’re exhausted or you’re working all the time or you are working in a way that seems incongruent with who you are, this is what elevating your income is also about. So how do we actually do that? I don’t want you to just see the conceptual, is it?

But like, how do you do that? It’s eight, eight weeks and it’s eight things. So, number one, some of this, by the way, some of this you’ve heard, but now you’re going to see how we put it all together Right. So, right out of the gate, we’re going to define why you and no one else this was coach unleashed at the beginning of January and we’re talking about September. Right?

Who are you in this industry? Who are you not Right? How do you want your clients to feel when they’re engaging with you? What are the unique ways that you work? You’re unique in your focus, your uniqueness in your strength. What are your differentiators?

For me, when I think about why you and no one else, it’s like if people are talking about the industry and your name comes up, what does he want them to say about you? What is it about the work that you do? What about the vibe of your company? You are a person. Why you and no one else? We’re also establishing your company mission, your company vision, your values, because once you have those nailed down, you can then answer any decision in the future by coming back to that place.

Once you have a mission, vision, values down, all your decision making becomes so much simpler. Because what do you stand for? What do you want to be known for? What values do you want to lead with? Know what these things are now, and it just becomes the single most solid foundation that you can have for your business. Once we have the why you and no one else and there’s going to be some crossover, because why you and no one else also comes into nailing your messaging?

Number two, who is your bestest client? Their demographics, their psychographics, what’s really important to them? What do they love? What do they hate? What do they wish that they had right now that they don’t? What do they wish that would change withstanding in their way? How is this actually showing up right now?

We’ve talked about Tuesday at 1pm problems, right? How specifically are your clients showing up right now that they wished that they weren’t during specific days and times during the day, during the week, was standing in their way? What are their agitators? I’ve been playing around with that word instead of what are their problems.

What are their obstacles? I just think about, like, the things that are causing friction in their life their agitators, right. How can we help them solve that? How can we help them think differently about that? How can we help them stand up for themselves? How can we help them speak what they need to speak and how do we help them get there?

Our process, our method, because when you have these things, you’ve just come up with your core messages, because really your messaging, nailing your messaging is about your core messages, your hot topics and the shit that makes you cool. So, when you can define your ideal client, the unique ways that you operate your unique process, their main agitators and how you help them solve them, we are creating content buckets of core messaging the same things that you talk about over and over and over again.

Again, you’re going to see how each of these things kind of flows one into the other. This also goes back to when people say your name. They’re going to be like oh yeah, she’s the one that always talks about X. So why you and no one else have more to do with your values and your mission? On what over here? But over here it has to do with the things that people know you for talking about. So, what are people talking about when they’re talking about? You are going to stretch across these different topics, right?

So, when you have your core messages, that’s specifically about your people and how you help them and why you and no one else. Those are all part of your core messages. Your hot topics, your hot topics are going to be the things that are tangential. I’m saying that word totally wrong running parallel.

So, for instance, me talking about ADHD that’s a hot topic. I am not going to personally help you with ADHD. I’m not an ADHD specific coach. However, it’s one of the hot topics and you’re going to hear me talk about it and you may or may not relate to that specific hot topic, but it’s going to help. You see, like, oh yeah, that Amy, she’s the marketing coach. It’s always talking about patriarchy and ADHD.

She’s got really unique ideas. She talks about unbelieving all the time, right? So, like, this is where we’re talking about, like core messages. One of my core messages is how to unbelieve something you want to disbelieve, right? ADHD might be a hot topic that I talk about, and this also comes up with just like shit that makes you cool. I coach in movie lines. I coach in movie lines. I talk about music all the time.

I’m a foodie. It’s like just things that make me very unique, that have nothing to do with my coaching. But you like, if I’m constantly quoting movies and you know nothing about movies, you may or may not care, but it might be something that’s good for you to know.

So, I also want to make sure that when we’re talking about nailing your messaging that we are selling to their possibility and not their relief, that we’re selling to their desired outcome and not necessarily their pain points. So, this is also coming into nailing your messaging. Another piece of your messaging is we’re also just talking about your vibe and your tone. Right, you can have the same core messages.

Like one of my most recent mentors, Kelly Diels, her work has really been so beneficial for me I’m even looking at further ways that I can keep working with her. We talk about so much of the same stuff, but we have a different vibe. We have a different vibe. We speak differently. We have a different tone. We have a different presence.

Neither one is cooler than the other. She is so freaking cool, but in a very different way than I am, so that it’s also part of your messaging. Is your tone and your vibe and the way that people and that’s also part of like shit that makes you cool right, your tone, your vibe, your word usage what people can expect when they’re interacting with you?

Because then we have nailing your messaging and then we’re going to move into your nurturing, your nurturing plans. This is where you meet people, how you meet people and how you nurture that relationship, how you are going to invite people to continue conversations with you.

The thing about nurturing plans is. I see a lot of winging it in this department and my hand is raised here, and what happens is that when we wing nurturing plans, we’re constantly recreating wheels. We’ll just be at a complete loss. Why this thing that everybody else seems to do that works really well isn’t working for you, but have you actually created a nurturing plan? This is also lead generation, by the way.

Okay, a nurturing plan is just an Amy Latta way of describing, alert, a lead generating strategy, and what that is how do you go from person who’s never met you to person who’s a client? Do you know Inside, elevate your Income? You are actually going to create a visual model of what that looks like.

Now, that doesn’t mean that you are like oh you know, jane is in step four of my nurturing plan. It’s a way for you to visualize how you nurture relationships while also treating the person going through your nurturing plan as the human being that they are. And I think this is one reason why so many life coaches, especially, don’t really think about lead generation strategy, because when we do, we feel like that pendulum swings to.

This is all just about numbers and we’re not seeing them as humans. Nope, we’re going to marry the two, because two things can be true at the same time. What I say that all the time.

Alright, so far, why you and no one else? Nailing your messaging and visualizing your nurturing plans? Because the number four, that we’re putting it all together. Week four, you’re coming up with their content plan and your marketing strategy. Can you imagine that, like within a month, you’re going to have a fully fleshed out content plan?

Because what we’re going to do is we’re going to take that a nailing your messaging with your content buckets, your core messages, your hot topics, that shit that makes you cool. You’re going to know exactly what those things are, the what you’re talking about, and then we’re going to put it together with your growth actions, and that is, you know, every time I do this thing, I make money.

This is where we’re looking at the spaghetti on the walls. We’re looking at the spaghetti that’s on the floor. What’s on the floor? Kick it out of here. What’s still sticking to the walls? Ah, those are my growth actions Podcasting, guest speaking, live events, recorded video, live video, free trainings, webinars, email marketing, content marketing and even within content marketing, you’ve got, you know, Instagram stories versus Facebook posts versus LinkedIn, right?

Do you know what those things are? Every time I engage with people in this way be really clear, because I had somebody bring this up, you’re like, well, didn’t you just say we shouldn’t be transactional? But you said every time I do this, I make money. I don’t mean each individual time. I’m talking about consecutive actions, right?

So, this doesn’t mean I put out a story on Instagram and I expect clients within four hours. That’s transactional. But I know that if I am in my stories on a regular basis and I’m showing my face and I’m giving content and I’m providing ways to interact with me, I know that that leads to making money, creating income. Do you know what those things are and are they on your calendar? We’re going to get there in just a moment.

So, really, your content plan and your marketing strategy is the marriage of your content buckets and your growth actions. What are you talking about and where are you talking about it? Do you have those things down? You will by week four. Week five we’re going to talk about pricing for income.

By the way, every single one of these could be a separate podcast topic, and they probably will be a separate podcast topic pricing for income. I have to thank Mark Butler and I need to thank Kelly Diels and I need to thank Daniel Cohen for really helping me put these 27 different ideas that I’ve had for pricing and put them together in one place.

Now, I haven’t worked with the three of them all at one time. I have worked with three of them and it’s been a marriage of my brain and their brains have come together. We’re going to start. You are going to learn how to price your coaching to create income not revenue, but income. And also, you may not be creating that income depending on where you are right away, and that’s okay, but you’re going to see the plan, right?

We’re going to talk about your business models, your pricing for activism. If you want that built in, you know, if you want to be giving away free coaching, you need to make sure that that’s built into your coaching. Again, this is all. Of these topics are so worth their own podcast episode, but one of the most important things that I heard my coach, Kelly Diels, say is if the feminist running the business isn’t flourishing, then it’s not a feminist business, and I will be the first one that will tell you that.

My pendulum has swung too far to both sites and I for sure, in an effort to run a more feminist business was definitely not pricing for income and that is not helpful to anybody. So, if you want to give away coaching, you need to, or you want to do a sliding scale, or if you want to do scholarships or anything along that, along those lines, that’s wonderful and that’s amazing. And also make sure that pricing is built into your pricing model.

So, we need to know what your business models are. You know what kind. What are your personal expenses? What are your business expenses? You know how many hours are you actually going to work during the year.

Computing an hourly rate and then and then actually configuring that means that this coaching package should be priced at this and also I have it laid out so that you can see if that number scares the holy crap out of you because it’s significantly higher than you’ve ever charged will have some pro-rated rates so that you can see this.

As you know, price pacing, where we’re actually seeing this as a three-year goal to work yourself up to what you are actually valued at. And also, I mean you might find out that you are undercharging. I don’t know, let’s find out right. But when you pair the why you and no one else and the nailing, your messaging and how you nurture people, like that’s going to help your pricing for income, too right.

When you can truly differentiate yourself out in the marketplace and be so super clear how you help people, you can offer a variety of coaching models and packages and prices if you need to.

So that was week five. Week six we’re going to talk about calendaring for income. We’re just going to talk about calendaring in a way. I’m sure I’ve talked about it on this podcast. I mean it is episode 201. I guarantee you I’ve talked about it in a totally different way than I would. Now we’re totally going to be rethinking your calendar and this deserves like a week of podcasts, not just one separate one.

So, number one we need to make sure your growth actions are on your calendar. You know, the spaghetti that sticks to the wall is that actually like? Not only do you need to identify it, but you also need to make sure that it’s sitting in your calendar that those are regular actions that you’re taking. This seems so obvious when I say it out loud the mother trucker if I’ve had huge chunks of time or the shit that makes me money in all my calendar.

So, we need to make sure your growth actions are on your calendar. But we need to make sure play is on your calendar and rest is on your calendar, right. We need to make sure that what fuels your act, your creativity and motivates you is on your calendar right.

We need to make sure that what adds dopamine to your day hello, fellow ADHD years or anybody with any neurodivergence right, where’s your playlist? That was a whole podcast episode that I did. Right, like we got a. Like screw eating the frog. I cannot eat the frog. I cannot do the hard thing first thing in the day. I need some dopamine priming.

I need to get a sense of accomplishment with a bunch of small tasks on the front end of my day. Maybe you don’t, but if you want a calendar for income, you need to make sure that your calendar, in the way that you are operating during the day, is actually helping you create the income and that you’re not punching yourself in the face. This right here between the pricing and the calendaring for income, you know a lot of this is where you’re really going to see what’s unique to you.

You know, my plan is for 10 to 20 people to be in this eight-week group. I would not want to see everybody with the same damn plan. You shouldn’t have the same plan because you are all very unique and individual.

I’m also introducing that 90-minute a day. I need to give a shout out to Ali Irwin who, in my Facebook Live that I did just today I was trying to explain where I came up with 90 minutes a day and I was like it’s kind of an arbitrary number, but I just feel like 90 minutes, you know we’re going to do like 90 days to paid and free to paid coach.

That’s what’s coming in October, by the way. You know, you just kind of hear like the number 90, you know, and I was thinking to myself that I know when I sleep, I need to sleep in 90-minute increments. And she goes yeah, that’s an ultra, and I don’t know if I’m saying this word right, please, I may not be saying this word right Ultra D in rhythms.

So those 90-minute cycles during the night that you’re supposed to sleep in. I just found out literally today I’m literally recording this literally hours after Ali said this Like that’s how we functioned during the daytime too. I was like what? So, it’s a made-up number, but it’s not at all.

And so, calendaring your time for 90-minute chunks of time on your calendar and that you are devoting at least 90, a one of those 90-minute chunks to income producing activities, activities that create clients, something that’s from your nurturing plan, something that’s from your content and your marketing strategy.

Are you doing that? Are the things that make you money on your calendar? And if you dedicated 90 minutes a day, two days a week, five days a week, how much farther would your business be? Holy cow? Talk about elevating your income, elevating your income, elevating your everything.

Weeks seven and eight I was hesitant as to whether or not I was going to add more topics to those weeks or if we were just going to do the last two weeks and really implementing the first six weeks. So the first six weeks, I really want to make sure you guys nail and are understanding and I also understand that there might be some people who would benefit going through the intensive more than once, like you totally could right, you could totally just nail, like the first level of stuff, the second level of stuff.

So, in week seven and eight I wanted to create more kinds of reference points. That’s not really the word that I think I’m looking for, maybe it is. So, week seven, I’m going to introduce some feminist marketing swaps, and basically that is one of the things that I’ve had to learn in the past 18 months.

Again, this is 100% going to be its own podcast episode. One of the things that I’ve learned in the last 18 months is you can remove a lot of the shady business practices that I’ve been talking about, but something needs to go in its place, and do you know what those things are?

So, I’ve come up with a grid of really, really simple and easy feminist marketing swaps so that you’re taking what is extractive, what removes your audience’s autonomy and agency from them, the things that create urgency, the things that create FOMO that you know.

But wait, there’s more. And if you buy in the next 10 minutes and the doors are closing, like, if you take that shit out, what goes in its place? And because here’s the thing I did a whole reel on somebody’s book launch recently that he’s being lauded as like the next greatest thing, and to me it was just full of shady business practice left and right, and I just you know they’re the tactics of the people who are selling shit on.

You know, I was about to say TV after dark. It’s infomercial sales tactics, right, but we’re not selling slicers and dicers. So, should we be using the sales tactics of people selling slicers and dicers, you know, like the big rotisserie chicken thing?

Set it and forget it and the whole crowd is chanting and but wait, there’s more, it’s slices and dices and it makes great fries. Like we’re selling life changing, transformational work. We’re selling innovative ideas that transform your life, your clients life, your community’s lives. I’m not selling a vegetable slicer or a rotisserie chicken cooker, right?

This is not an infomercial. This is not a product display at Costco. This is life-changing work and often it’s at a high investment level of your clients.

So, let’s treat it that way, and I think a great way is this resource oh, my God, that was the word I was looking for when I couldn’t come up with it before Feminist marketing swap. It’s going to be a resource that’s included in elevating your income.

And then, in week eight, another resource that I want to include, and I don’t know if this is going to be more resource, more conversation of full disclosure on the first week of September. I have not hashed out week eight of the program yet, but the idea here is elevating your business practices right, your scope of work, your refund policy. Are you offering payment plans?

We’re just talking about the practices of your business, knowing what they are, establishing them, having a conversation about what you do and don’t want to include. We may talk about terms of use, but that’s more of a lawyer conversation but some elements that are included in terms of use, because what I really want to offer to you don’t know if I’ve said this on the podcast, but when it comes to legally, a lot of things that we hear people talking about, how they think the life coaching industry is shady and they think these things are gross and they should be illegal.

But here’s the thing they aren’t. Most of the things that you see people out there rallying against, speaking out against legally is okay, and part of the elevating your business practice is about just having the conversation where you answer some questions for yourselves, which is really helpful.

If you’ve done number one why you, no one else, your mission, your values, your vision right. If you know who the fuck you are, it’s so much easier to decide. These are the practices I am and am not going to do and, if you want to change them in the future, if you establish what you want now and change it later. It’s totally fine, but it’s really important to know, do you know what the scope of work is?

Do you want to handle refunds? How do you want to hand payment plans Any of? How do you want to handle? Well, some of this will also be in the feminist marketing SWAPS resource as well. But elevating your business practices so that by the end of these two months, you have nailed why you and no one else. You’ve nailed your marketing. You know what your nurturing plan is.

You’re going to have a content plan in hand. You’re going to know how to price for income, you’re going to know how to calendar for income, and then you’re going to be able to explore feminist marketing SWAPS as well.

As elevating your business practices so that you walk away with a business that is I mean, its fucking life changing. It’s focused, you have a vision, you know where you’re going, you know who you are not, you know what you are not doing, you know what you stand for and you know how to talk about it, and you’re putting your innovative idea and your transformational work into the marketplace and people know who the fuck you are.

Because you know who the fuck you are. Maybe that’s why I should rebrand all of it. Know who the fuck you are? That’s what we’re doing. We start a week from today. I know I do want it. Before I wrap up, I do want to offer to you that I am also doing this in a one-on-one setting. So, if you have a, there’s not really like an income level where one is better than another.

Obviously, the investment for you know, one-on-one work is going to be entirely different than group work. The group investment is going to shock you, but I’m really excited to put it out there. So one-on-one work, we can do the exact same work in which we can either do it in a fast-track day, where you’ll get a lot of this way beforehand and we will just hammer this shit out in a day.

We can also do it over the course. So that’s like a fast-track day. You’re going to walk away with a plan, six months of one-on-one coaching. You’re going to walk away with a plan plus the six months of support and the actual implementation of it. I’m super excited about that work.

And also, the one-on-one of the fast-track days can also just be open, for maybe you’ve already freaking nailed your business and you just want to relaunch in an entirely new branding. Maybe it is rebranding, maybe it’s launching a new idea, maybe it’s pivoting, maybe it is. I’ve worked with a one-on-one client.

She just wanted to figure out how to make the same amount of income Her messaging, her nurturing plans, her content plan, her marketing strategy, nailed. But she was exhausted and that’s what we spent our six months working on is how can we replicate the same income with less exhaustion? This is where that pricing for income and calendaring for income and knowing who you really are and setting boundaries comes in. So that’s work that we can do on a one-on-one level.

What I shared with you in this episode is what we’re going to be doing in the eight-week marketing intensive. Are you ready? I know it is so exciting. So, if this is, if you were like, yes, hot damn, sign me up, send me more. Whatever, sign me up, send me more, amylatta.com/elevate group.

That will send you to the page. At the time of this recording, that page does not currently exist, so let’s hope it exists by the time this launches. Actually, just amylatta.com, work with me. If you just go to amylatta.com and you click on work with me, you’re going to find links to free to paid, coach and the eight-week intensive as well as the one-on-one, but if you want to go straight to the group intensive, you want to go to amylatta.com forward slash elevate group.

I’m so excited, by the way, I’m so excited about the episode that’s coming next week. I’m bringing back a past guest and pretty sure they’re going to rock your world and it all fits into the conversation that we’ve had. It all fits into all of the conversations that we’ve had, but it definitely fits into this program and where it’s going, and so it’s going to break down each of these things for the next eight episodes, but we have a really killer interview coming that I think, I just think you guys are going to love.

Not only do you need to go check out the elevate group, get ready to listen to next week’s episode too. All right, my friends, all right. I can’t wait to see what you create. I can’t wait to see what you put out into the world. You are all audacious, brazen women with nerve. I love it. Your innovative ideas are going to change the world. I’m so excited to see what you create, and I’ll talk to you next week.

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