From Corporate Executive to LinkedIn Coach: Building a Business Around Your Voice with Josefine Wanner

What if the key to growing your coaching practice on LinkedIn isn’t chasing virality, but building real human connection?

In this episode, Cam sits down with Josefine Wanner to explore how coaches and consultants can leverage LinkedIn to build authority, attract ideal clients, and create scalable offers. Josefine shares her journey from a high-level corporate banking career into entrepreneurship, unpacking the identity shift that came with leaving the “golden cage” of corporate life behind. They discuss why consistency matters more than perfection, how coaches can simplify their messaging to stand out, and why meaningful engagement in the comments often matters more than vanity metrics. Josefine also breaks down her approach to content strategy, sales mindset, and relationship-driven business development on LinkedIn.  

Biography

Josefine Wanner is a former corporate executive with nearly 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, including senior roles at Big Four firms and major Swiss banks. After transitioning into entrepreneurship, she built a business focused on helping coaches, consultants, and service providers turn their expertise into scalable online offers while building engaged audiences on LinkedIn. Josefine is passionate about helping entrepreneurs simplify their messaging, strengthen their authority, and grow through authentic human connection.

Links

Connect with Josefine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josefine-wanner/  

Learn more about Josefine's work: https://www.josefinewanneracademy.com/linkedin-leads 

Use code AC20 for 20% off Ninety by clicking here!

Join our free LinkedIn community: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/16297012/ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This episode is brought to you by Amplify, a team of fractional CFOs helping business owners finally make sense of their numbers. If you've ever felt like you're guessing your way through financial decisions, you need to talk with these folks. Amplify helps with forecasting and scenario planning, but what really stands out is how their guides walk alongside you with clear reporting that shows the next best step for your business. Their forecasts are dynamic, so you can actually see how future decisions will impact your cash in real time. I've also been loving their framework called Cash Flow Mountain, which visualizes how cash moves through your business like water down a mountain. It's a great way to see how your scorecard connects to the VTO through your financials. Head on over to Amplify.business to check it out or schedule a free call so you can stop guessing about your numbers and start making confident decisions about the future of your business. Welcome to the Ambitious Coach Lab, powered by Nike. I'm your host, Dr. Pam Law. Each week we explore the real tactics, tough conversations, and breakthrough moments that drive coaching success. Let's jump into today's episode. Hello, friends. We have Josephine Woner to O with us today. She is a former corporate executive with nearly 20 years in the financial services industry, holding senior roles at big four firms and major Swiss banks. Following a personal wake-up call in 2019, she transitioned to entrepreneurship and now specializes in helping coaches, consultants, and service providers turn their expertise into scalable online offerings while building a highly engaged audience. So welcome to the show. I am so excited for this conversation today.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Hi, Kim. I'm so excited to be here too. So thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Absolutely. Well, let's jump in. I know I kind of alluded to a little bit, but can you just talk a little bit about your journey? Because as we've been able to talk, but I'd love for our guests to be able to understand a little bit more of your background because it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Thank you. Yeah, so I never really wanted to become an entrepreneur ever. My dad was one, and I saw him struggling with the whole kind of sales thing and finding your niche and things like that. So it was never really on my plan to become one. I was fairly happy in corporate until, you know, life goes on and you start climbing the corporate ladder. And the higher up you get, the more kind of very toxic the environment gets. And it starts to, or it started to get to me. And I started to think about, you know, how what if, you know, I could start a business where I decide on the corporate values, I decide kind of the hiring and firing, if that's what it has to be done. And started to think about these things, but I didn't dare to test it out. I even spoke with four different potential corporate partners that we could build something. We spoke about building something in consulting, we spoke about building something in interior design, you know, all over the place a little bit. But we didn't even dare to test the idea. We got stuck in the whole SWOT analysis paralysis, if you want to put it like that. And then I started to explore a little bit more personal development. And, you know, it's like it's a little bit like, you know, I talk about the golden cage, like all these bars that hold us inside of our golden cage. And then one bar got a little bit stretched, and another bar got a little bit stretched. And I started to see what's outside of that golden cage. And then one day I had what I call my very hard and very real wake-up call, where I said, is this really it? I mean, if I pursue this path and do something that I, you know, I started counting my days until retirement. And I was like, if I stay here for another 20 years, and then maybe if I'm lucky, I get another five years. Because my way with Cop Call was that my father passed away very, very fast within just six weeks, and he was 70 at the time. And that was what I said, this can't be it. So I actually handed in my resignation without a backup plan and didn't even know what I wanted to do next. And I wouldn't advise anyone to do exactly what I did, but at the time it felt as if that was the only way out of there.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Wow. And so then you have transitioned out of, I mean, very successful career, and then found a way into helping others kind of find their voice and be able to promote and sell themselves and sell their services. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, it is. Yeah. And actually, the, you know, the the my former career within financial services, that was actually one of the things that I was thinking that if I'm successful doing what I'm doing now, doing something that I'm not really passionate about, imagine how successful I can become when I do something that I'm really passionate about. And it sounds as if like it was an easy, you know, easy jump, but it has it has been a journey. I don't think that anyone starts their entrepreneurial journey and knows exactly what they're doing. And then, you know, within, I don't know, a short period of time, they find, you know, their their niche, they find what it is that they want to do. For me, it has been a journey of five years since I since I quit my corporate job. So it is, I think we learn as we go along. And I have also invested a lot in myself and in my personal development and also in having the best coaches and having the best mentors so that I find my path a little bit faster.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah, that's so good. Did you have a I the word that comes into my brain is identity crisis? But was there a little bit of a um maybe mental shift as you transitioned out of a corporate career into working for yourself?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

And when I quit my corporate job, I was still in the employee mindset. I was still applying for corporate like banking jobs, even though I knew this is not really what I want. But I was so stuck in this whole employee mindset that we had. And also like the first few years after I had quit my job, I almost had a bad conscience that I didn't sit at my desk at eight o'clock in the morning. Because that was that is how you've been trained since you were a little kid, since you went to school, actually, to be, you know, you have to be ready at eight o'clock, the day starts, and I don't know, whatever time it ends then, right? So it absolutely, and in my case, probably also a little bit of a midlife crisis, to be honest. Like the kids get older, I had turned or I was about to turn 45, and you start thinking, what's next, right? Is this really it? So absolutely a kind of like a little bit of a midlife crisis, a little bit of a 100% an identity crisis. Because if you're no longer a banker, if you're no longer a person who has been pursuing a career for 20 years, who are you now? And to be honest, I didn't even dare to tell my mom like the first. I I told her like two weeks after my father had passed away, and I had quit my job before my father actually passed away because I that was so hard, my wake-up call that I was like, I need to get out of here now. So it absolutely has it has been a journey. And you know, I came also from a very hard and very analytical world and ended up in coaching, which is super soft and super kind of like understanding. And that's not me either. So I had to find my way back somewhere in the middle where I where I am now. I'm still very analytical. I'm still very kind of like, but I but I also have, you know, the soft empathetic sides that as a coach has. But I'm more of a business mentor and business coach and not not the life coach that you might um that you that we are trained to become, like the first coaching degrees there.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah, it's definitely a balance because I mean, coaching is deeply human work. I mean, you're bringing all sorts of bad the client is bringing all sorts of kind of baggage into a conversation, both personally and professionally, and then we're also trying to execute on goals. And so it's this really combination of all of that that you have to manage. But I think there is a level of value per se in some of that origin. I mean, it we have to execute, we have to go after this, and being able to have that as a coach, I think is so valuable. But having that balance is, I mean, critical to the success of a coach. So let's talk a little bit about. I mean, you've gone into kind of this the social media aspect of helping coaches and consultants and other service providers, right? With how they utilize that. Can you talk about how you framed your offering or found that niche, if you will?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Mm-hmm. So when I started out, I was so afraid of social media. Also because in the bank, we had been told we cannot post anything on social media or you might get fired. Like very, like very hard terms. If you post the wrong thing, you're out of here, kind of. So I was super afraid of social media. Uh and when I started my career or like my new career building my business, I actually started on Instagram first because that's where all the you know the successful online coaches were. So I think I thought that is the way to go. It also felt freer and more relaxed than LinkedIn. So, like everyone else, I started to post there. I had a business coach at the time who said, You need to utilize stories. You have to be on stories every single day. You have to go live on stories. But as I was so afraid of social media, I I hardly dared to post at all. And LinkedIn felt like very corporate. It's also where my past network were my old colleagues were, and I wasn't really afraid of being judged by them, like now, you know, turning a successful banking career into something very soft and a little bit people don't really understand what it is, maybe. But then I started to move over a little bit more to LinkedIn, started to show up there, started to post about, you know, what I believe in, my offers and things like that. And people started to notice me on LinkedIn and they st they started to reach out to me. And we started discussions in the comment sections, and I actually found a little bit what I would call my tribe, uh, which is not to kind of be confused with an engagement pod or anything like that, but more supporters. And after a while, people actually started to reach out to me and say, Hey, I see on LinkedIn. I want you to teach me LinkedIn. And I was very reluctant in the beginning. I said, no, no, no, you should go to the big gurus instead. And they were like, No, I want to be learned from you. So by finding that niche, I would say it actually found me. So it wasn't something that I searched for. Um, had you asked me one and a half years ago if I'm going to teach LinkedIn, I probably would have said, no, that's not what I do. But you know, listening to what my audience really wanted, and then actually testing the market to see if there is an interest here, uh, if there is a demand, and putting together a masterclass and then taking it from there. And that is one of like the big learnings. You just test the market. Ask what people really want to hear and what they need, and then start building from there.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, I would say there, you know, if you're in business coaching, you're gonna have a LinkedIn, right? Like that's where you go to put your content out, connect with people, network, I mean, all the things, right? But I would say a lot of coaches that I talk to, right, they instinctively know that they need to utilize LinkedIn, but they feel really lost, right? What would you say when you're first starting and working with somebody? I mean, what what are some of the maybe mindset shifts or maybe approaches to just get started? Because it can be a little overwhelming because you see these people that are cranking out great content, and that's years and years and years in the making, then it's like, well, I gotta start, but where do I start? What like how do you kind of coach people to get moving?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

So, what many of my clients and my audience also think is that you have to be different on LinkedIn. And as you say, it looks so many seems to be so professional on LinkedIn. And I would say, well, it's not really Facebook and it's not Instagram. We don't post pictures of our food. I don't even know if people do that any longer. But you also don't compete with everyone who posts about their kids' dancing um shows, or my my father-in-law posts pictures of his holidays, right? Which people do on Instagram and they do on Facebook. So you have you have over a billion people on LinkedIn, and only 2% of us actually use it to post content regularly. And with regularly, I mean once per week. So you don't even need to show up every single day. You don't need to show up and post stories and reels and do dancing and you know, whatever move movements or try to find um trending music and things like that. You actually only need to show up and be you and make it short and concise. And many of my clients are also multi-passionate, so they are like, I don't really know what to focus on. And here's where we need to start with one thing, because if you are all over the place, then it will be confusing, both for yourself but also for your audience. So try to find one topic and then you start writing about that topic. And I think it's just, you know, to get started, get going. And the first post can even be like an introductory post. It doesn't have to be a big thing, but just to get out of there and just to get going, that is so important.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

That's great as far as um kind of getting started because I see a lot of coaches, and they sometimes, even if they're working for a larger, you know, maybe they're part of a franchise organization of a coaching organization, and the the organization puts out, you know, content that they can share. And it's funny. I have a very unique position being at 90, where I work, where I'm talking to hundreds of coaches every year, and I'm connected to a lot of coaches. It's funny when you see from a corporate standpoint, all of them get something that they post and they all post it at the same time. And it's just like, and then they kind of cannibalize each other and they're just interacting with one another. And there's not a lot of thought behind it, and there's not a lot of passion behind it because you mentioned that a little bit of kind of finding those things that you're passionate about or the things that resonate with you. I think authentically you comes out a lot, and I think it's a little bit of a buzzword now, but I understand it and I think there's value to it. But I mean, how do you coach coaches on getting to that right? Maybe do you work on kind of figuring out the offering first of what they're going after? What's your approach and kind of helping them realize what content they should post about?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Yeah, so that is that is a great point that you're making. And if I could just grab the piece you said before about um they post the same content, and I see the same trend too. And I think it's because you know, some of these gurus they share, you know, they share the templates, they have these um engagement pods, so their their people actually get hundreds and hundreds of likes and comments on their posts. But that doesn't actually tell them whether their real audience, which are their, you know, their prospects and their clients, actually resonate with that content. So it looks good on the outside, you know, you have loads of likes, look, loads of comments, but deep down you don't really know if it resonates with your audience, the people that you want to help and support and who actually wants to invest in your offers, not your buddies, but your like real prospects. So that is why it's so important to exactly like you say, to find your messaging. What we go through there is because you know you can do niche, niche exercises. We've all done the niche exercises, finding your niche and identifying your niche over and over and over again. And you, the more you actually put out there, the clearer you will become on it. So we do, we I do have like a like a clarity session where we try to identify the one, what is important for you, what is it that you want to talk about? Because also people want to work with the specialist. They don't want to go to a generalist. They want to, even though you or the person as a coach knows that, oh, you know what, it just means I can coach people that are teenagers and I can coach people that are 95-year-olds on, I don't know, um love matters or getting a job or what like everything in between, right? But they don't believe that. They want to work with the specialists. So that is why it's so important to actually identify one problem and one audience, and then you start writing to them because then it will also be so much more easy to do the content and create the messaging around that. So that is important. What we then also look into, um, I call my five different buckets of framework where we look into first of all content that converts, like what are the different types of content that you can do. Um, then we look into engagement and connecting with the right people so that we don't have these engagement pods, but real people that actually are your supporters or collaborators and your audience. Because there are, as I said, 2% of everyone posts, right, and and create content. But that means that we have 98% who's not doing that. They are not creating content. And in those 98% is most likely the ideal audience. So, how do we then bring them out? How do we connect with them, right? Well, you have to create content that really resonates with them so that they might not like, they might not comment, but you can be sure that they actually see what it is that you're doing. So that is why it's also so important to connect with the right people. And then we have of course an optimized profile because if someone lands on your profile and they are like, this person isn't for me, or this profile looks totally almost a little bit like dead. So optimizing the profile is also really important. And then what we also talk a lot about is the sales mindset. Um, and we don't pitch, we don't uh oh pitch, like the we use the word invitation instead. We are helping someone to solve a problem they already know that they have. So we work on that sales mindset because many of us come from a corporate role where we didn't really have to sell our services. So it is a step then to actually move into that sales is service. We're actually helping people through selling. So those are a little bit like the things we look into.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Man, that's I I love that you point that out because I see this time and time and time again when I talk with coaches who have transitioned out of a successful career, and it's incredible. I mean, they have so much wisdom and knowledge and experience that they can pull from, but a lot of times they have had somebody that can do biz dev or set their calendar or even have a brand that's established that then just commands respect or even just lead gen just out of proximity to that. And then when they go out on their own, they're wearing all of those hats. They have to do their biz dev, they have to do their practice management, and that's really where this show and this concept of the ambitious coach is like you have there are aspects of being an elite coach that you have to do that. I think a lot of coaches they know that, but the actual practice and execution on that can be really hard. So I'm so glad you say that because it is you do have to relearn that a little bit, where I gotta go out here and do biz dev, and I have to learn how to find the pain points and ask questions and figure out that. So, I mean, that's uh I just I see that I resonate with that because it's a struggle, I think, for a lot of coaches. So, like, can you talk a little bit about how you can utilize LinkedIn in a biz dev motion, a business development motion for coaches to really find those right fit, whether that's through content or engagement or even messaging, because I know I get a lot of those LinkedIn messages where it's most likely a bot doing it for them, and that's frustrating. And so, you know, can you kind of talk about just some of the right ways to go about biz dev on LinkedIn?

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Yeah, so I mean, there are bots, and we do use we do use AI for content creation, but I wouldn't use AI uh for you know commenting or absolutely not or for DMing. I mean, that is how you connect with the people. That is what you how you learn what really drives the people. If you use a bot to do comments for you, or if you use a bot to do um prospecting for you, or to do um DM for you, you totally lose touch with the real people, right? And the question is, how many clients do you really need? Like how many people do you really need to achieve the revenue that you want to achieve, right? So instead of trying, you know, pumping out as many comments or DMs as humanly or like AI possible, right? Instead of focus on real connection. And I think that is so important. One of my clients, he has a post that has gone viral currently. It's 130,000 views on that post. And he has had a post going viral before, but that was before he worked with me. So what do we do now? Well, we use those views, so you can't really do much with the views. But you can do a lot with you know the likes and engagement. So now he actually sends DMs to all of these people that have that seem to be a good fit. You don't have to sell send it to everyone, but that seem to be a good fit. He sends personalized DMs to them, he connects with them to start the conversation there. And now he has calls booked based off of that viral post. But you don't have to have viral posts. It's not about, you know, getting a post go viral. It's actually how do you follow up on the engagement? How do you follow up on the likes and comments and things like that? That is where you know everything changes to just be human and just be there for when they are ready to invest. So you have to show up and you have to like share what it is that you do and how you do it. And then when they are ready to invest, they will come knocking because you have been there and be a top of mind of the people so that they see you, they see your content, but they also get messages from you in the DM and not like I have someone now sending me video messages and voice messages and things like that. That's just annoying. Like be a be a real person instead and send thoughtful comments and thoughtful messages.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

I was gonna ask you about some of the I always call them vanity metrics, right? Everyone loves like how many views did we get? It's like, okay, cool. Like, does it really matter? Like it maybe is a nice little ego boost. Yeah. But um, I mean, that's that's an interesting approach to go after, all right, hey, so-and-so has commented on the last five posts that I've put out. They're clearly interested in this. Why not open up the conversation and reach out? Like, hey, I've heard, I mean, how would you uh uh go about approaching that kind of message to somebody that maybe has sort of raised their hand subtly, not directly, but how would you approach a message like that?

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Yeah, so what I the sales strategy I have implemented in my own business is that I have a I have a free masterclass that I invite people to the free masterclass so that they can also see him in action and how I talk, what it is that I teach and how I teach. And so I first of all use those invitations for LinkedIn so that we we actually use the event for that to just invite people to to that particular event. And then when people register for my event, if either I already know them or if I don't know them already, I try to find them on LinkedIn and then I try to start the conversation there because those people, as you say, who have taken, they might have liked or commented on five of your latest posts, they might have registered for one of your webinars or one of your events, then they have actually taken a step closer to being interested in what it is that you're doing, and then you can ask them about it. You I wouldn't I would never send a DM saying, how is your LinkedIn journey going? Things like that, because that is just so used, and I don't know if that even works for anyone, it's just annoying. Treat your people like the smart people that they actually are, because it's so you you see that if you you kind of feel it if someone is going to pitch you immediately. Like sell the way you want to be sold to. So, what I do is one if someone has um showed up to my to to my webinar, to my masterclass, I say, Hey, I uh do you have any open questions? How can we support you? Um, my program is now open for enrollment. Are there any open questions there? How can we help you? How can we support you? And then you you get met with these objections. It's time objection or price objection, or but then you actually have the opportunity to meet those objections there, right? So you continue the discussion um after the masterclass or after the event, or in your case, or in any case, actually, when you've had someone reaching out say, would you be interested in jumping on a call? And it doesn't have to be like a big thing, right? Treat people like you would treat on at a networking event, talk to people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yeah. I mean, there's a it's like the golden rule. I mean, treat like you wouldn't want to get just an overwhelming amount of messages that are spammy, salesy. It's like I comment on somebody's post and immediately after that I get a message about, hey, let's pop on a call. Like I would never do that to somebody. That's not that's not, I wouldn't want that. So, you know, but there are, I think I love it's almost a transitional call to action. That's not a huge lift where I think you see that a lot in marketing, where it's, you know, the the first thing is like, let's pop out a call and talk about it in a sales motion, or it's like, well, I'm not quite ready for that yet. But a webinar.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

They might not be qualified. I mean, you would be also spending a lot of time with unqualified leads. If you want to jump on calls with everyone who's not qualified, that is a lot of your time too. So try to qualify them first, see if they are even ready for what it is that you have to offer and whether you even want to work with them. I think that is also so important, especially as coaches, um, consultants, um, because we work very close with our clients, to think in terms of do I really, really want to work with this person? And uh where can we take it from here? And they might not be ready for your exclusive offer. Maybe they are ready for a course or like a scalable program. Then you can always invite them to that instead.

unknown 27:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

I think that tiered approach and offering is just such an excellent approach because, all right, hey, uh, it I don't like good, better, best, but it's an easy way to kind of explain it. Um, but you know, you have all right, here is a base level offering that you can come in and get value, and then it goes up in value, which obviously increases cost, but then there's you know more commitment, all that kind of stuff. But having that low barrier of entry in your offering, I think is an excellent move for a coach. But you've talked, I mean, you have worked with lots of coaches. Can you talk a little bit about what you see on maybe the top performers on LinkedIn, what they do differently, how they drive engagement, drive content, all of that. Can you just talk about what you see in that?

SPEAKER_00 28:24

I think the first piece that we, and and you hear it, it it's it's again cliche, but is consistency. It is to show up. But you don't have to show up daily, right? Or show up. You have to show up daily, but you don't have to post daily, let's put it like that. Um rather do engagement if you have a day where it's like I I you know, I just can't post today, make sure you show up for the comments, make sure you show up anyways, because I've gotten clients from seeing these in someone else's comment section. And that doesn't mean that I comment to pitch in someone else's comment section, absolutely not. But it means that even though I didn't post on that particular day, they saw me anyways, because they saw me in a comment section instead. So have a set up a schedule that really works for you and it can be posting on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for example. And then when you are there, make sure you show up before uh before your post goes out so that you a little bit like warm up the algorithm, and then you are there commenting and responding back to the comments that you get. If you don't have any comments in the beginning, or even now that I have quite a significant number of engagement on my posts, I always start by adding a few, three, four comments. First of all, because the post I've been thinking about is I wasn't there is so much more value to say about that post. So add additional value in the comment sections. And when people see that, oh, I'm not the first one to post or to comment here, it makes it easier for them to comment. So don't be afraid of you know engaging in your own post, but engage in your own post, comment, add value, add value on other people's posts. What I hear a lot is, oh no, but they are my competitors. Well, that's perfect. You share the same audience. So go there and comment, and you're actually helping that creator too, because then they get engagement on their post, and you two get to share audience. So I think don't be afraid of commenting on your kind of competitors or peers posts, but actually show up in their comment section too.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Yeah, good friend of mine. I don't know if he's the one that came up with this, but he said LinkedIn relationships are one in the comment sections, not the inbox. And I love that because I I can I'm I'm a testament to that. I mean, the people that interact with my posts, I had a a guy, we didn't end up moving forward with him, but he really was intentional about really meaningfully engaging with my content, and I appreciated that. You know, you kind of get to know, and I'm not like a massive, you know, I don't have a massive following, but like I get engagement on things, but you start to see trends. It's like, okay, I've seen this person's name, and I sort of feel like I know him, you know, in a weird way. Then when he sent a very intentional message to me, I immediately responded because I felt like we had somewhat of a relationship versus the person that just sent me five spammy messages. I never even thought about responding to that because I didn't feel like I knew them and I felt like they wanted he was meaningfully helping me. And so I think that's the mindset shift that coaches have to go through because it can be so easy to just go, okay, well, let me get an AI bot that's gonna just mass send messages and just shotgun approach and hope for the best. It's like, well, I think you can be a lot more intentional about figuring out, okay, here are the target clients that I want to go after, identifying those on LinkedIn, and then start engaging with their content. And if they're not posting, then you have the other side where you're putting content out. So you're getting it from lots of different angles. We always call it business development levers. You want to have lots of different levers that you put can pull to get things moving, because it can't just be one thing. You don't want all your eggs in one basket. You gotta find people where they're at. If that's the comments, great. If that's through content, great. So it's it's a multifaceted approach.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

It absolutely. Because if you only try to find your ideal clients, you will not get any engagement on your posts. For example, if you're a relationship coach or if you're a financial coach, for example, people might not want to raise their hand and say, Oh, I have trouble in my marriage, or um, I want to, I don't know, improve my finances. So you really need to find an audience or supporters that are commenters themselves too, so that you engage in their content and they come and engage in your content. And through that, the right people will actually see your stuff too.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

If you had to start over with, let's just call it, let's just make it an easy number, zero followers, building things from Sketch, what would you do in the first 30, 60, 90, however long days to get a profile off the ground? And how would you focus on things?

SPEAKER_00 33:33

So I think when you just start out, you don't really know what I am doing, who am I doing it for, why am I even doing this, right? But you're like, I want to be doing something, I want to share something. So I would try to find something that I am really passionate about. Some people might think that, oh, I read an amazing book lately. Share about that book. Make it easy for you, don't make it too complicated. And I remember one thing that really, really held me back was what if I share, what if what I'm sharing is not valuable enough? It will always be valuable to at least one person. And I think that is like the the mindset we need to have. And I've shared posts where when I shared them, I didn't think much about it. But people have come to me afterwards and said, That post is still, you know, I still remember that post. So share, I think you need to be a little bit personal without being private, and don't share when you're at the bottom of whatever you might be, because don't treat your audience like um like a therapist, right? Because you want to build authority, you want to be seen as the expert. And we can't do that when we only get pity, right? So if you're really in a deep hole, wait with sharing until you're at least, you know, on the way out. You can always share about that later down. But I would say just I would I would probably spend like the first five days or something like that to study others. What are others doing? What is it that they're sharing? What is the engagement that they are getting? And then I would start commenting on those people's stuff to get seen, and I would at the same time also start sharing myself, not copying because you still need your own style, but look at them, see how they have done it, and then you do something similar because it's always easier to learn from someone who has done it already. So I would definitely, you know, then just start doing. And then when you you will find your way the more you do things, but you can't find your way in a vacuum. That's just not possible. So that is that is how I would start doing it.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

That's that's really good. I think there's a lot of coaches out there that, especially in our network, that that want to get started, but it's a little daunting. I mean, it's a little overwhelming to try to figure out where to go about. So I know this conversation has been helpful. So, in in kind of conclusion, I always like to ask guests two questions. If you could go back and start out into coaching with what you're doing now, but let's say you have all the knowledge and experience you have now, what advice would you give to your rookie self just starting out?

SPEAKER_00 36:16

So, one thing I did, which was a huge mistake, and I pursued it for way too long. And I had a wake-up call again, or not a wake-up call, but a light bulb moment where I realized that, oh, I've been doing this mistake over and over and over again, because in my head, I was thinking, it can't be this easy, it can't be this easy. So, what I did was I constantly reinvented the wheel. I reinvented a new problem to solve, which means I needed a new ideal client, which means I needed, you know, a new sales funnel, which means I needed a new masterclass and things like that. And when I had my light bulb moment where I was like, oh my God, I had been creating so many new offers over and over and over again, which made me a specialist in creating offers, but it was exhausting. So I was at the end of 2023, I had had over 41 to 40 one-to-one clients, and I'd constantly like created scalable offers, got people to enroll in the scalable offers, then threw that aside, created a new one, threw that aside, created a new one. So if I could go back and like turn back time, I would say find one ideal client, identify one problem, and then you do rinse and repeat of that process the whole time. Because what happens then is also that those people that you help actually you get to see the results of the problem that you solved. But since I was constantly reinventing the wheel and with a new offer, it never really gave me, you know, the satisfaction of seeing how far these clients had actually gotten, right? So now with my my LinkedIn program, which I've run over a year now, now I get to see, you know, what happens to those people that started a year ago, the amazing things that they have experienced and achieved. And I didn't see that before because I didn't give myself the chance to actually see it. So it is as easy as as it can be if you focus on one problem, one ideal client, one sales strategy, and one solution, and then just rinse and repeat that. Give yourself that that chance. That's what I would tell myself.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Yeah, that's a that's such a good word. There, there's a a level of uh we we always call it uh there's a flywheel approach where where it starts, you you it takes a little bit to get it going, but if you're constantly changing and putting a new one in, you know, it's gonna take a while to get moving. So and then last question I always like to ask is what is a lesson that you're in the middle of learning in this current moment?

SPEAKER_00 38:56

I think my biggest lesson, and you know, when I was in in corporate, you know, we had a very structured day. So when I quit corporate, the first thing I was thinking, I'm free, I can do whatever I want. So I really didn't want to have any structures or any like solid time slots. I didn't want to have any recurring meetings and things like that. But what I've also learned throughout these years is that structure actually gives us freedom. I haven't yet found my perfect structure. I still struggle with, you know, focus. I still struggle with um, you know, my my weekly schedule. So that is absolutely a lesson that I am continuously learning and um studying others, trying to figure out which times are like my times, which times are the days, you know, the the hours when I have my client meetings and things like that. And to actually stick to the plan. So those are the things that I uh that I focus on currently, sticking to the plan, not reinventing the wheel, not creating new offers, but just sticking to the plan and then also get the structure in so that I get the freedom that I actually um that I'm um I think we all want, really.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Yeah, it's it's it sometimes we think structure puts up walls and boundaries that that will keep us from, you know, getting the freedom, but I think it's actually the very thing that provides the freedom.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

It's 100%. It makes everything so much more planable, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:30

It's yeah, and and predictable and it it allows, I think, your brain to tap into a higher level of creativity when the structure is what's driving just the logistics and those things. It allows me to tap into that higher brain power and really think strategically or creatively or whatever I need to in the moment. So that's a really good word. I appreciate you sharing that. What let's say someone wants to get in touch with you. Maybe they want to learn more about some of your work or pick your brain on some things. What's the best place to get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_00 41:05

So I am obviously on LinkedIn, but you can also find me on on Instagram, for example. I because what we do on Instagram, if someone is interested, is we actually just repurposing what we share on LinkedIn, we're repurposing it on Instagram, and that's it. We're not kind of, and that's also why Instagram isn't really growing, because the strategy that you want to run on either social media platform is you actually have to be there, you have to engage. But in case, you know, something would happen to my LinkedIn or something would happen to my Instagram, that is also why we are repurposing so we don't lose, you know, we have at least a social media presence somewhere because you never know. Social media is still just borrowed land, right? So we need to um, as I I think you said it before, Cam, do not put all your eggs in one basket, right? So we need to be a little bit careful.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

And we'll link out to a lot of this to make sure people can get in touch. Um, but thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate this conversation. Um, I know I have taken a lot away from it, and I know others will too. So thank you for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us, and uh we'll uh we'll catch you next time.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Thank you so much, Ken, for having me.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Take care. Bye. That's it for today's episode of the Ambitious Coach Lab. My hope is that something here helps you sharpen your craft and keep building a coaching practice you're proud of. Before we wrap, a quick thank you to our sponsor, Nighty. If you're coaching leadership teams, having your clients run their entire world in 90 truly elevates your world. Vision, rocks, scorecards, issues, it all lives in one centralized place. The clarity keeps your clients alive between sections and makes every conversation you have with them more focused and more impactful. I've used Nighty with over 500 leadership teams, and I can say it makes great companies better and great coaches even more effective. Feel free to use promo code AC20 for 20% off. Again, that's AC20 for 20% off. Thanks for hanging out with me today. I'm Cam. Carry on as you grow your ambitious coaching project. We'll see you next time.