When I talk to women who want to launch any type of business, there are often a lot of thoughts and perceptions about what it’s going to be like to be s business owner. So today, I want to hit some of those myths and perceptions head-on…

You’re going to launch your coaching business and you’ll make six figures working three days a week.

Although my niche is helping women launch and grow successful businesses – while working smarter, not harder, I still want to be crystal clear that this doesn’t happen overnight. When I first launched my consulting business, I was still running two brick-and-mortar businesses. Over the first two years, I brought on TWO consulting clients. Now in my case: My attention was fractured. I had never run an online business before. I had never launched a program before. I had never created a course before. And ultimately, I had no idea what the heck I was doing. Fortunately, I had two other successful businesses that could pay my mortgage while I was figuring it out. But there was a lot of trial and error. I hired business coaches to help me. I started buying online courses to learn what I didn’t know. And at first, between the three businesses, I was working seven days a week, waking up to check my phone at 3 am and 5 am panicked that I missed something! It took me about two full years to really get some traction and understand digital marketing enough to build a steady stream of prospects. Once I had traction in my marketing and promotion, it became a snowball. I was making more money, so I had more money to reinvest in coaches and programs. I could afford to test other marketing strategies to see what worked. I could afford to retarget prospects. I could afford to raise my prices. And the business just changed its entire trajectory. But I certainly didn’t start as a multiple-six-figure business!

You can launch an evergreen program as soon as you start your business!

I have done MULTIPLE launches. Some successful. The first few – complete FLOPS. I tell the story about how during one of my launches, my VA accidentally deleted my entire Infusionsoft account! The day the cart opened, as client welcome emails were supposed to be going out, I found that the sequences and automation that were supposed to make it work were all GONE! I FLIPPED OUT!!!! For about an hour, I sobbed hysterically. Then I got on the phone with Infusionsoft to see what could be done. Here’s the thing about launching – with every launch you learn something. It may be about your product or service. It may be about your ideal client. It may be about the sales language and the funnel that best converts. I know we’ve all been sold this idea that all you have to do is put up a website, record a webinar, and drive traffic to it, and it will be easy. It’s not that way anymore! My first evergreen funnel used to return $7 for every $1 I spent on ads. Today, that same funnel returns only $3 for every $1 I spend on ads, and that is AFTER we are continually looking at metrics, open rates, click rates and tweaking what needs tweaking. The funnel still works. It’s still successful. But the market has changed. There are more coaches than ever before. The space is noisy. Do you know EXACTLY who you serve and how you help them? If not, then your marketing message probably isn’t perfected. I always like to encourage my clients to start offering one on one services to first test and validate an idea. This allows you to work with clients. Get their pain points. Get clear on the benefits you’re providing them and what services they find the most valuable in you. This then allows you to build your program and your marketing message in line with what you have learned. Once you have created the program, create the funnel and run it live for a few months. Track what is working and what isn’t working. On the things that aren’t working, see if you can get some feedback from your clients to see what doesn’t resonate with them. Then test it again. Eventually, you’ll build something that converts – and THEN you can turn it into an evergreen offer.

You’re going to be wildly popular with all these amazing business besties to jet all over the world with.

Now I want to be clear here – if this is a goal of yours – this is possible. But it needs to be a focus on your business and your life. When you are first getting started, it will take a LOT of time to build it up. I’ve heard many times in business that your net worth is a direct relationship to your network. I’m a huge believer in this. If you have surrounded yourself with amazing people who are all interested in growing together, you’ll grow fast and you’ll go far. But one of the big struggles for so many who are new to online business or the coaching world, they feel like they don’t have enough money to invest in travelling to a conference or paying for mastermind programs. I’ll tell you, my high-level business coaching programs and masterminds have been THE biggest factor in building relationships and friendships in my business. My best friends ARE people I have met in coaching programs and masterminds. But the reality is that you tend to attend events like these once every couple of months. On the other days and weeks, you often spend tons of time behind your computer screen building funnels, reviewing metrics, and building the pieces of your business. Those days and weeks can sometimes feel very lonely. So, if you know that business besties are one of your business goals – make sure you’re budgeting for conferences, high-level coaching programs, and mastermind groups. The access you’re paying for will make all the difference in the world in terms of your relationships, friendships, mental health, business success, and net worth!

The Laptop Lifestyle Is EASY…

If you follow me on Instagram (where I spend my social media time nowadays), you’ll see that I am a HUGE proponent of the LIFESTYLE of an entrepreneur. I launched my own business because I was tired of being at my desk in my office at 7 am Monday through Friday and having to ask permission to leave at 4:30 to 5.

And I knew that when I launched my business, my number one goal for my business was FREEDOM! I wanted to work from anywhere in the world (and do)! I wanted to be able to create my schedule. (I do that too.) I wanted to be able to work from the pool or the beach. (I do that but have had some mishaps along the way.)

The laptop lifestyle is the glamorous life that we’re all striving for. My favourite place to work is by the pool in a cabana. It’s where I’m most creative. It’s where I do my best writing. It’s where I feel most inspired. It’s so important to me that I built a pool and cabana in my backyard to be able to create that environment for me and for my clients to have a place to work and feel inspired.

But when my husband and I first moved to Vegas and we were building our yard, I got complacent in my business. I took that Laptop Lifestyle just a bit too far – and didn’t do any meaningful work in my business for almost six months. We were meeting with contractors, decorators, and landscapers – trying to build the perfect environment! And for me, if I’m feeling overwhelmed in any area of my life, I tend to fill my time with busy work – and am not as focused on the desired result. So for months, my head was all over the place – and my income showed it! One of the biggest struggles for those that have built a life of freedom is staying focused on THE tasks to get results and generate revenue in your business.

Also, if you have a team, it is imperative to ensure that even when you’re jaunting off to Paris for a few days you have set up your team to continue working in the business while you’re gone. Even when I travel and I consider myself “off” for a bit of time, the one task that I still do in my business every day is to check in with my team to see where they are and what they need from me.

You Need a Big, Expensive Team to Scale To Six Figures!

This myth is SO important to dispel right now. I do believe that to get to (and past) six figures, you MUST have a team. But It doesn’t have to be $75/hour VAs or a full-time executive assistant. When I hired my first business coach, she was great about teaching us very early in our business that we needed to get help and needed to focus our time in our zone of genius and money-making activities. If you’re trying to do ALL the tasks in your business – you’re not going to do any of them well, and you certainly aren’t going to do enough of the high-impact activities to truly drive six-figure revenue. I hired my first assistant on Upwork almost three years ago. She is AMAZING at what she does. She is an absolute LIFE SAVER in my business – and I do NOT pay her anywhere near $75/hour. If you’ve hit a point in your business that you need to grow, you need help, but you don’t have a ton of money – that’s ok. Start with something like Upwork. Get support. Start making progress. Start focusing YOUR time and energy on the things that bring the results – and start outsourcing the rest. In the past two years, I have built a team of seven virtual assistants across the world. Two in the US who help me with my social media, content creation, and my customer service. I have three in the Philippines who help me with my Infusionsoft, my podcast production, and my social media creation and graphics. I then have two in India that help me with my web development and my content creation. This diverse team allows me to focus on client service, video creation, content creation, sales calls, and course creation. When I first started building my team, it cost me about $100 per week for 20 hours of support. Now, my team is a couple of thousand dollars a month. But I didn’t start there. And the amount of time and energy they have freed up for me is completely immeasurable!