Ep #172: Absolutely Thrive in a Changing Industry

You are listening to episode 172 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where we’re going to embrace how this industry is changing. All right, coach, 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 Amy Latta, let’s dive in.

Hello, my amazing coaches. I’m so excited you’re here today. So I want you to know that at this recording, I have heard so much feedback with my interview with Mark Butler a couple of weeks ago. All of these things are recorded a week, at least a week in advance, if not more. So when I recorded last week’s episode, I hadn’t heard your feedback yet, and I have never received.

This much feedback on one episode. If you have not listened to episode one 70, my interview with Mark Butler, please make sure that you tag that as a must listen. And also this is a, so what are we going to do about that? This is a little bit of a follow up to that. All of these episodes that have been coming out, one after.

I like to think of it as when you love something so much, you’re going to call out what as not okay. And then follow that up with. So here’s what we can do, right? So like it’s one thing to be coming out, and I’ve had a series of podcast episodes about a lot of the shady business practices that we’ve seen.

And not just in my inner circles, but like I’ve been in online business for over 10 years. And there are some we have seen big shifts in the online business industry and there, it’s not even just the coaching. industry, and I just was really thinking about really going back to my roots of my corporate marketing background, my business degree, those kind of fundamentals of business.

And I make it so clear I could do an entire podcast episode on just two things being true at the same time and the one thing that I want to focus on in this episode really stems from my belief that we can, and I am embracing this role that I have put myself in, of calling out what I have seen, what isn’t.

Okay, what needs to change. Because I love it so much and that these conversations aren’t to get under your skin and be like, oh and undermine your confidence in this industry or in your ability to do business, but to help you trust your instincts, trust your intuition, what I think doesn’t work, might work amazing for you.

And so it’s so much more about the conversations of undermining who you are. Because I love the industry so much because I love entrepreneurship and business and life coaching and online business so much. It’s because of. That I’m going to speak up and not just, here’s what I see that’s not working in the industry, but here’s what I see that’s amazing about the industry, so much of these podcasts lately have been about asking big questions, questioning the things that we have been taught, and we just take his truth without it really running it through our own personal filter and being like, do I agree with that?

Is that how I want to do? I think it’s important that we do talk about all the coaches who are getting left behind because they feel like, oh, if I’m not following this, it worked for me, so it should work for you plan. There must be something faulty with me and how those business models just don’t cut it for everyone.

It’s so important to know there’s so much good going on in the industry. There is so much goodness, and I talked about in last week’s episode, we have that haters math thing going on where our mind is actually valuing the negative more than the positive. And so it will see it more and focus on the negative more than the positive.

But there’s always more love for you than hate and there’s always more going right in the coaching industry than not. There are always more coaches showing up in all of their fabulousness for their clients than not, and really understanding that as you are paying attention to what vibes with you and what doesn’t vibe with you know that there’s so much more out there in the goodness.

And so let’s sit in that for a moment and let’s really savor what we love about coaching, why we are here, why we are doing this, how many coaches show up every single day in full integrity to themselves, to their businesses, and to their clients. That’s what this community that I am leading is all about.

It might look a little bit different for you than it does for me. You see some things and be like, that just doesn’t, that just doesn’t bump for me. I don’t bump up against what Amy’s talking about there. I’m not as worried about that and that you agree with everything that I say as I am in helping you trust that intuition, trust that inner knowing that you have to understand what does land for you and what doesn’t.

Before I dive in, this episode is not about this book, but I have been reintroduced. This is a book I bought, shoot. I bought this book seven, eight years ago. I know I bought this book before I found the Life Coach School podcast and became certified as a coach. It’s called The Prosperous Coach by Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin, and I reread this just recently, just a couple of weeks ago, and it got me thinking about I think about all of the coaches who make my 10 year career look like a baby career, right? I think about the principles in a book like this, and I think about the coaches who’ve been doing this for not just 10 years, but 20 years, 30 years.

Like before online business was even a thing. Like I’ve been doing this little bit, almost seven years since I was certified as a coach and actually really got into the mindset behind everything and really learned how to market myself as a coach those first. Three plus years were, three to four years were a little bit of Amy all over the place. I can tell you that. And I was introduced to this book and while I understood the general concepts of it, I did not have the life coaching tools I needed to really wrap my head around what to do with it. But this is really tapping into more of that what true business.

Looks like what true business owners and true life coach entrepreneurs have known since the dawn of time that no matter what’s changing in the industry, and we’re going to talk a little bit about this industry is 100% changing right now for sure. The online business industry is changing.

Online marketing is changing. Coaching industry is changing. So what can we learn from the Steve Chandlers and the Rich Litvin’ s and the coaches who have been doing this since the eighties and the nineties, and even longer than that? Don’t know who the first life coach was, but there have been people who have been helping other people, set and meet goals and achieve goals for forever and ever, and there’s so many people out there. Who have so much to teach us who’ve been doing this for six months are just a couple of years. Or someone like me who’s doing it for only 10 years. and I want tohave this conversation because this industry is shifting right now. I have heard this from top earners.

I’ve heard it directly from top earners. I’ve heard this directly from million dollar coaches as well as talk through the grapevine. I’ve heard this from parallel business partners, people who work with coaches like Facebook ads, people, marketing people like business management, vA type people, website, people, advisors, that what’s been working may not be working right now and nothing’s necessarily come into its place. , right? So in the coaching industry right now, so right now means February of 2023. There’s a whole lot of coaches who are changing up how they sell their coaching.

People who have tried in true formulas are suddenly doing trainings they’ve never done before. They’re suddenly introducing products they’ve never done before. I’m doing some of that, and that’s because there’s a shift going on right now, and this happens. This happens . So for instance, like Amy, what are you talking about? Give an example.

For the past, 10 years or so, Facebook ads were like an endless slot machine. Like you could just put money in and once you figured out how to get it, to spit money out the other side like that definitely always has taken some finesse and some nuance. But once you got that figured out, it just cranked out, cranked right out.

It was like a slot machine, my friends and the same methods. We’re not getting the same returns as we used to. This is across the board. I’ve heard this, I heard this from my Facebook ads manager. I heard it from another Facebook ads manager. I heard it from somebody else’s Facebook ads manager that even, they’re like, we’re not entirely sure.

It’s not that they don’t work, it’s just it’s not quite worked the way that it has and nothing’s really come and become the hot new thing, it’s. For some people, Instagram and doing this, and this always works and now those things haven’t always, aren’t always working. It’s not even just, oh, it’s working for her and not for me.

Just across the board, things are shifting. So many of the launch models have become so tried and true, and everybody’s this launch model just always works. Copy it, normalize it, use it over and over again, and now those suddenly aren’t working. This working as well. And again I’ve heard this, I’ve had this conversation with no less than 10 to 15 people in the past eight to 12 weeks.

It’s really astounding, like when you hear it from one place and it’s not even coming. One circle. It’s coming from people who aren’t even associated with the coaching groups that I’ve been in. Cause I’ve maintained a lot of those relationships that are outside of those coaching groups and they’re like, yeah, it’s just different out there right now.

And those coaches that have been around for 10, 20, 30 plus years, these prosperous coach type coaches who were doing this thing before online business was even a thing they have a lot to teach us. Anybody who’s owned a business, even if it’s not coaching, has a lot to teach us right now. They’ve seen the ups and the downs, and they’re still here.

They understand that this can be normal. Do you want to know how they are still here? It’s because. They had to put this this is where we get to put our entrepreneurial hat on our business hats on. And listen, you do not have to be a business major or have a business background because what’s going to help you in your business is less business skill.

Do this, don’t do that. That’s where hiring a business coach and even Mr. Google can go so long if you aren’t ready to hire a business coach like me. But the best business person knows this. all business has its up and downs and sideways, like across the board. All businesses ebb and flow. All businesses have highs and lows.

All businesses can be cyclical and will go through cycles. No business starts at zero and just grows upwards. There are always downturns and that’s not abnormal. That is actually normal. It’s normal that what has worked extremely well may stop working so well. And out of nowhere this thing that we’ve always done, it’s not working anymore.

And it doesn’t mean, oh shit, this isn’t working anymore. I don’t work anymore. But this mechanism isn’t working anymore. It’s run its cycle. People have seen it too many times. People have adapted to it already. People have heard that same message over and over again, and they’re not listening to it anymore.

I want you to think about any major business that you’ve seen. With the exception of maybe like the jingle bell Hershey Kisses at Christmastime, running the same ads they were running 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, or 30 years ago. A lot of companies aren’t running the same ads they were running six months to 12 months ago.

So why should we think we find the one thing that works and we never have to change it? and that even the one thing that works for a lot of different people for a lot, for many years might eventually stop working. It’s the nature of marketing and advertising and business. The this is fundamental truth that I’m sharing with you here.

This is about engaging the most important business skill that you need, which is flexibility, your ability to change as a truly confident coach in the marketplace isn’t about finding that person who has the proprietary formula that’s always going to work because it may or may not work for you, and even then it may stop working even for the person that it worked for it, right?

Does that, is that too meta ? I don’t think so. That your ability to detach yourself. And your business is worth and your value as a human being. This is all so much of the conversation we have with Mark. This is so much of the conversation that we’ve been having across this podcast for literally months.

Your ability to detach from that external validation is so powerful for you. This is how you can embrace the changes in the coaching. right now and not make it mean that you can’t figure this out and you don’t know what you’re going to do. Like I think about it right now. Somebody coming in right now is like, where’s the tried and true formula guys?

The tried and true formulas aren’t tried and true anymore. They’re not even working for some of the people who created them in the first place. And so the skills that I’ve been teaching about your ability to be adapt, and to adjust and to figure out what works for you. And even once you land on something, your willingness to do that again and again.

So I don’t really know what to call these things that I’m getting ready to introduce to you. And it’s not even so much introducing, I’m going to be reiterating a lot of information that I’ve put across the past hundred 70 episodes into one episode right here that are just business basics that never go out of style, that never not work, right?

That if you can master these business basics, this will help you create whatever formula that’s going to work in this moment, and this is what these coaches from 10, 20, 30, 40 years on have to teach us. These are the business basics that they have always understood that allow them to still be in this industry.

I think about Zig Zigler, I don’t, I’m probably even saying his name wrong. Dale Carnegie. Are these really like old names that have been around for forever and they still have, valid messages. How do they have longevity for 40, 50, or 60 years in an industry? It’s because of these business basics that never go out of style, that never go out of cycle.

So first and foremost, it’s about starting conversations and having conversations you engaging with other humans, you as a human, engaging with another human, not as a coach, selling coaching to a potential client, but as a human, engaging with another human, listening to what they’re telling you, offering information that can help them if they’re open to it and it makes sense to do that, inviting them into further conversations.

And of course the most important thing about all of these conversations is that conversations without the need for them to end in a yes or a sale. So many of you, this is where you’re getting caught up, is that you want every conversation to directly lead to a paid client, or you think this isn’t working as opposed to just engage in conversation and it’s not a waste of your time. First of all, you’re going to hear what people are telling you. People are going to tell you what they’re struggling with. They’re going to tell you what they think they need. You’re, you can engage and help with them in that moment.

And you can take these things that you’re hearing from the other humans in the world, and you can sit down in the privacy of your own home and write solutions that match. What do you know that can help those people? And whether you go back to those people again. I’m, hold on, I’m going to get to step number two in just a moment, or whether you’d use that information to help new conversations.

Your ability to have conversations in person, online. One, human being, engaging with another human being. You can’t lose with that business strategy right there because when you are engaged in conversation and you’re not needing it to directly lead to a paid client. It becomes about establishing a relationship.

There’s our second business, basic that never goes out of style. Your willingness to build relationships with people, that you nurture those conversations that you’re having and you stay with them, you engage with them, whether it’s just one conversation or you are following on Facebook you continue to engage with.

Just, even the act of hopping on your Facebook or on your Instagram or on your LinkedIn or your whatever, and you just scroll through and you’re just like, Hey. , you’re commenting on somebody’s oh, happy birthday, Bob . I don’t know if anybody has knows anybody named Bob, oh, I love this cat video you posted.

Oh, I totally understand. And you’re not doing it disingenuously you’re literally, because you’re not looking at that person as a sale, you’re looking at them as a human to engage in conversation with and to potentially help and to, to again, engage in information exchange with. , you’re building that relationship and that is never a waste of your time.

You don’t need every conversation to be a sale. You will be willing to build relationships with people and not because eventually that relationship will become a client. That’s because you believe in this third business basic, that never goes out of style. That what you put out into the world comes back to you and you don’t really know.

I don’t know that this is a business basic that, you know, mentors that have been around for 30, 40, 50 years have ever necessarily articulated. But when you just watch how they operate into the world, they just have a very, I’m going to give out without expectation of return, and yet it always returns in some form or.

I think about clients who are like, I have no idea how this person came to me. I can’t trace the line. And I’m like, yeah, but you’ve been literally sewing seeds all over the land. . That sounds a little risque, that you’re planting seed all over, you’re laying seed all over the land. You could misconstrue that, that you are literally just planting seeds of possibility everywhere with every conversation and every relationship you nurture and you have no idea how they are going to germinate and grow.

I just really ran with that gardening analogy right there. , we don’t always know how it’s going to come back to us. Yes, we can evaluate. We can test. We can see if this tactic works or this one doesn’t. But nothing beats. Just knowing in your bones that if you keep putting out usefulness into the world, it’s going to come back to you and it will come back to you.

If here’s a business basic, that never goes out of style. Number four, you are making direct offer. You can’t just plant seeds. You do have to tend to your crops. What’s the word? I’m losing the gardening metaphor here. . Harvest. Oh my God. You have to be willing to harvest. I don’t know how this became how this became a gardening show.

Trust me, I’m the last person who should be hosting a gardening show. So we’re planting seed, we’re buying seed, we’re nurturing seed. We planted all over the place knowing we’re going to reap goodness somehow, even if we don’t know how, and now we’re going to harvest it. I’m just going to run with it. Okay?

You’re having conversations, you’re building relationships. You’re believing that it’s all going to come back to you, and you don’t need this person to say yes, but the opportunity presents itself. You make an offer to them. I can help you. Do you want my help? I can help you. And if you’re ready for. Here’s the next step to take.

Does this sound like you? Let’s have this conversation. So many of you are planting so many seeds, but you don’t do this fourth thing. You don’t make direct offers. You talk around to the subject. You engage in conversation. You engage in light conversation, you engage in deep conversation, but you never quite crossed that line over of saying, I can help you.

And I’d love to help you. I would love to be able to help you with this. Now, sometimes you’re doing this in posts and you don’t know who’s reading them, and sometimes there’s a human being attached. Realize that the how you are doing all of this might look very different for everybody. There are some people who have built their businesses and they’ve never been online in their entire life.

There are other people who will never talk to somebody face-to-face, and most of us are doing a combination of the two somehow. But your willingness to actually ask for them to take the next step, which is a specific phone call, where you are going to offer coaching with them or offer coaching with them, I can help you.

I offer coaching. These are the results that you’re talking about. We, I can help you get there. It’s so much money for so much time. What do you. Obviously how you say it is totally going to depend on the circumstance of the conversation. But point number four, so many of you are missing, so many of, you’re missing a variety of these things.

You’re hesitant to start conversations. You are hesitant to build relationships. You are looking for a direct thing. But this is probably one of the biggest frustrations that I see in coaches now, how you make those direct offers. They, again, they might come through a variety of circumstances.

We’ll also come up with and brainstorms new ideas, and this is really the fifth business basic that never goes out of style, which I’ve already mentioned, and we’re circling back around again, which is your adaptability, your flexibility, your willingness to learn, because how you invite. might change that, might need to adapt.

And this is, this conversation is circling back around. So many people have been in, meeting people, nurturing people, planting tons and seeds, and making direct offers through a Facebook ads funnel. And maybe that’s not working as well as it used to work, the fundamentals stay the same, but you might need to try something different.

I just had a conversation with a really great friend of mine. She’s a seven figure coach, and her webinars suddenly weren’t working anymore, and this was always how she doesn’t like to engage in that really personal one-on-one. That kind of, the real gardening situation where you’re in DMs.

But she had established this really amazing Facebook ad funnel. All that just was, like I said, it was like a slot machine for her, and she used webinars and it just wasn’t working anymore. And so the first four points were always there, but she needed this fifth point to be adaptable and flexible and willing to test.

When something stops working, trying something different, trying up the language. Maybe it’s a different format. This is really based on believing so wholeheartedly that you have everything that you need right now. You aren’t missing information, and you’re always going to learn and continue to grow and improve no matter where you are in your business.

She’s a seven figure coach. She has spent the past, I don’t know, three to four months trying to figure out how to get this thing that once worked to start working again for her. I’m actually going to drop in here. Originally this was just a list of five, but as I’m talking, I have a bonus sixth one popping up.

That’s kinda like business basic that never goes out of style is to not freak out when things stop working. I didn’t have that in my original list, but that’s, as I’m sitting here talking about my friend, I’m thinking that’s something really important that she did. She didn’t freak out when her revenue started taking a decline.

When people stopped signing up for this thing that this nurturing sequence that had worked so well for her for literally years, and it stopped working so well, she didn’t freak out. This business model isn’t working anymore. She pivoted. And here’s the thing, whether it was willing for her to test it or try something different or to pivot, sometimes a business model, you don’t just need to pivot.

Sometimes you might need to burn it all down and build something new in its place. And now that I’m thinking about it, and I’m thinking about those kind of business mentors who’ve been doing this for forever, they know this for sure, that sometimes businesses come to an end and a new one needs to go in it’ s place.

And it’s so easy to do that when you are selling coaching. And if a business model isn’t working anymore, you can always burn it down. You can always pivot. We had that conversation just a few weeks ago. Are you going to burn it down? Are you going to double down? Are you going to do a combination of the two?

But that really it’s not freaking out when things stop working, not freaking out. When revenue does take a decline. This is a normal part of business coaches who’ve been out in the field for years, for decades. They know any person with any longevity of any kind. They know all of the above are possible, and it doesn’t have to make any difference.

It doesn’t have to mean because this industry is changing. But here’s the thing, it’s always changing because at its heart, the coaching industry, it’s a business like any other business. Your ability to engage in conversations and build and nurture relationships and stay adaptable is what’s going to keep you going.

No matter if Facebook ads are working today and not tomorrow, whether you’ve gained massive followers on TikTok and reels, and suddenly they start falling flat, whether or not Instagram’s going to keep messing with their algorithms like they did all of 2022 if you’re freebie to email, sequence to webinar to offer, suddenly stops working if they suddenly start working.

All of those things, that’s all fixable. That’s all doable . Your ability to know that you’re going to keep having conversations and you’re going to keep building relationships and nurture those relationships, keep testing and trying. You will always have a business that’s working for you if you always remember these business basics that never go out of style, you’re going to be just fine coach, and we are going to be just fine. Even with the shifts going on in the industry, there’s so much goodness here. And just focusing on why you started this in the first place, what you believe so passionately about. How has coaching changed your life for the better, less stress, less overwhelm, less insecurity, more calm in your life, better relationships.

I don’t know what it is for you, but whatever that list is for you, keep your sights set on that. Know that in your bones. There’s so much goodness, and you were just going to keep putting it out there.

All right, coaches. So this work that we did here, these are the foundational concepts of all of the coaching that we do. If you do not know how to do the things that I outlined today, these are things that are never going to go out of style. You’re always going to need how to know. And I can teach them to you. Free to Paid Coach if you’ve made less than 10k. Path to a 100k if you’ve made more than 10 k, and if you want to work with somebody one-on-one, I’m one of the few business coaches out there that has reintroduced one-on-one.

If I’ve got a spot for you, I would love to give you some business coaching or deep dive coaching through a feminist lens. Hit me at @iamamylatta and every week when you see this podcast episode, hit s social media. What was the point you needed to hear today?

Here’s the question I’m going to ask you … of the business basics that never go out of style, which one do you feel really good at? Or answer the other question, which one do you really want to work on? I would love to hear either one of those. Tag me at @iamamylatta on social media. Share what you needed to hear. I can’t wait to hear from you.

I’m so excited to see what you create in the world, coach, and I’ll talk to you next week.

Coach, it’s time to sign your first free client, your first paid client, your next client, and to learn how to do it consistently and having a hell of a lot of fun along the way. This is exactly what you’re going to do in Free to Paid Coach. It’s the only program giving you step-by-step what to do to become a paid coach and step-by-step how to handle the roller coaster emotions that come with doing what you need to do to become a paid coach.

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Visit www.amylatta.com/ftpc to join us right now. See you inside. Let’s get paid, coach.

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.