The Black Girl Business Bar

How 1-to-1 coaching can help build the foundation of your business, even if you're a service provider.

Show Notes

If you’ve been thinking about incorporating group coaching into your business because you’re seeing dollar signs or have a desire to scale, this episode is for you.

There are a few things for you to consider, but I want to focus on why you’re avoiding 1-to-1 coaching and how that can help build the foundation of your business, whether you’re a coach or a service provider.

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More on Khalida

Khalida DuBose is a business coach specializing in sales strategy and mindset. As a previous crowdfunding coach, she supported more than a thousand crowdfunding campaigns and project creators in their quest to bring their dreams, passions, and ideas to the world. Now, she focuses on helping women of color online business owners nail the foundations of running a successful business and cultivate a rock-solid mindset as they navigate the entrepreneurial journey. For more information on Khalida, visit khalidadubose.com. Follow Khalida on Instagram @khalida.dubose. You can email her at khalida@blackgirlbusinessbar.com.

The Black Girl Business Bar is produced by Zuri Berry (@ZMCPodcasts). Music by Vincent Tone and Die Hard Productions.

Creators & Guests

Host
Khalida DuBose
Business + Mindset Coach
Producer
Zuri Berry
Principal Producer at ZMC Podcasts

What is The Black Girl Business Bar?

The Black Girl Business Bar Podcast is for Black entrepreneurial women who crave practical information to implement in their businesses and careers. They want tips and tactics that work and they want on-the-go mentorship that will make a difference in their businesses, projects, and lives.

Hosted by business coach and crowdfunding expert Khalida DuBose, the Black Girl Business Bar is all about letting Black women know what's possible for them in their entrepreneurial journey.

I want to share a very warm season's greetings to all of my Muslim listeners worldwide who will be observing the month of Ramadan. By the time this episode airs Ramadan will be underway and I want to say, may your Ramadan be filled with blessings, reflection, intimate nights with God, warm celebratory mornings with friends and family when you rise for Iftar.

I've had many Ramadan experiences in my life and each one of them has brought me something that I need. So whether I was alone, surrounded by people, or somewhere in between, I got exactly what I needed in that moment, even when I wasn't sure what that was. I pray that your Ramadan brings you exactly what you need.

Ramadan Mubarak, friends.

Welcome to the Black Girl Business Bar podcast. I'm your host Khalida DuBose. And this podcast is my love letter to all of you, especially you, black women and women of color. I'm on a mission to help you thrive in your business in your life. By bringing you practical advice, tips, and mentorship that will empower you to make bold moves.

I want to see you increase your sales, overcome your mindset blocks, and step into your best self as the leader of your business in your life.

All right. So let's hop into this topic today. I am here to chat with you about the real reason why you aren't confident when it comes to coaching.

I have a couple of tips here for you to consider when it comes to one-to-one coaching. Excuse me, I should make that very clear. One-to-one coaching. And so I know I have some service providers who listen to this podcast. So whether you're an OBM or you're doing some type of VA work, or you're a copywriter, or a podcast producer or manager. This will go for you as well. Especially if you are thinking about potentially adding a coaching element or a course element onto your business at some point in the future, if you haven't already.

So I decided that I want us to talk about this because I had a few people speak to me about how they felt like one-to-one coaching wasn't for them. It wasn't going to help them scale their business fast enough. They had all the thoughts and all the feelings about one-to-one coaching. And so I teach one-to-one coaching when I do my one-to-one coaching program. When I work with coaches, I work with them on growing their business from that point of view. So I'm going to share a little bit about that with you today. And when I work with service providers, generally we're working on anything in the business, but if we're talking about starting a course, et cetera, then my advice to them is usually to go the one-to-one route until they really have a grip on what is going on with our clients.

I know we're all tempted to think, you know what I was there before, especially when you're on the service side. And you were starting with your business. If you were starting with being a VA, you understood how hard it was. Or if you were starting with being a copywriter, and you had to learn all the things you think, okay, the next natural step is for me to train more VAs or more copywriters. And I'm going to do that in a course, because on the one hand I still have client work to get done, right? You're a done for you service provider. And then on the other hand, I want to save some time without having to coach.

So hear me out on this one. I know you might think this doesn't pertain to you, but it does. And I realize, as a caveat here, I realized that some of you really just like the idea of a group setting, because it energizes you. But for this talk, I encourage you to just suspend what you think you want and start to think about what might be best for your client and your business in the beginning.

So just a little bit of background and my story when I first got started in this space, I thought the way to start my business as a coach was to enroll in program on how I could teach my knowledge through a course. I didn't really think about being a one-to-one coach because I didn't understand. I didn't even understand that that was really a thing. I mean, I thought I knew it was a thing, but I just didn't apply it to myself. And so I thought I want to make a lot of money. I want to be able to make this sustainable for me. So I don't have to work with like a bazillion people and the way to do that is just to learn how to turn this into a course.

So my idea here was I enrolled in a course and what I was going to do was I was going to try to enroll like up to 10 people and teach them all at once. And then when I figured out what was working and what wasn't, each time I launched it, I would raise the price as my course got better. That was the overall business plan that I had.

And I spent months and months and months trying to figure that out, going in circles. And it was not working for me. And I was like, darn it. Why isn't this working 10 months in. I started listening to my first business coach's podcast, and I heard her talking about one-to-one coaching. And I heard her talking about what you could achieve in coaching, et cetera.

And I ended up reaching out to her and of course she became my business coach. And we talked about why I'm starting your business with a course, wasn't the best way or adding on to, you know, your business when you're becoming, like, if you're a service provider in a way, it might not be the best to just go the course route.

So I want to talk to you about some of the reasons that I see coming up mindset wise, where people are like, you know what, maybe I need to go the course route. So you're thinking way too much about you. That's one of the things that's coming up or that's one of the things that's happening, sorry, because when you start to have thoughts, like, I don't want to offer one-to-one because it's not energizing enough for me, or I'm not going to be able to make enough money, you're probably thinking about you too much. You make, you might feel so let's just ground this in like a real, a real, a scenario.

You might feel like you don't have enough to offer one-to-one clients. This is something that I've actually heard. Let's, let's keep it to the, you know, something realistic. If you realistic examples.

Some of my clients have done workshops and group stuff, and they feel more comfortable there, but I see them getting stuck in this area where they, they don't really know how to put together a full-on group program that's going to make them money, and they're going to be able to market over and over and it's gonna turn to this big thing.

So what's the difference between these people who have these super successful group programs and I'm going to keep with group programs, because group programs is really what I'm talking about here, where you're still in that program coaching. I'm not talking about an on-demand course. Okay.

And so they feel like they're going to run out of things to say, it's going to be hard to work with people one-to-one or they have so much knowledge. They need to put this into a course. And then there's all the feelings about feeling uncomfortable with just one person. I totally get it. Okay. I don't know about the uncomfortable one-to-one person. I love one-to-one, but I do understand where you're coming from. We all have different personalities. But I just say consider this. Okay. And this first point, when I think you're thinking way too much about you, consider this: the sessions aren't for you. Right.

So if you're that person who feels like, oh, I don't have enough to say to this one person. Or this is going to be uncomfortable energy because it's just going to be us. Like, you know, what do we do after this, after this point, right? These sessions aren't for you. They're for your clients. And it's your client who's really going to set the tone of every single one of those coaching appointments. They're going to tell you what they need and even if they come to you without like, knowing exactly what they need, then next you can then go to your toolbox, all the knowledge that you have, and you can start to apply that to your client.

But nine times out of 10, people do have needs every single coaching appointment, even if they can't identify them before the phone call or the zoom call happens.

Also, it's very likely that with the amount of knowledge that you know, and whatever your specialty is, if you try to just dump that onto clients too quickly, like a one-to-one client too quickly, they're not gonna be able to implement any of it. It's going to become overwhelming and then they won't get the result. So if you're sitting there, if you're thinking right now, hey, I don't have enough to say to this person, realize you have way more to say to them, right? You probably could cover years with them potentially before you got through all of the information, you know, but that's not what your clients actually need. They need you to come and meet them where they are at.

That's what your clients need. They don't need you to be able to tell them all of your knowledge in one go.

So number two, I see that you're afraid that people will discover that you're not great. Yes. Somebody has said this to me, actually, a couple of people have said this to me, that you just have these feelings. And this is a very honest thing that that comes up. Right. So if you're feeling like this, don't feel shame behind this. This is very honest when it comes up. It came up for me. What if I don't have enough to offer? What if people don't think that I'm great? And again, I would say it may help you to feel better if you stop focusing so much on yourself and realize that the coaching relationship is about helping them get from point a to point b.

So a lot of times people have a hard time, you know, accepting that one-to-one coaching could be for them because they're thinking too much about themselves. They're thinking about like, what if I'm not enough? What if they realize that I suck? What if this, what of that? And if you go into the coaching relationship like that, that's probably what's going to happen because you're going to be so focused on yourself that you're not focusing on what they're actually saying to you, what they really need help with, and you're going to be missing things that could be gold, that you could be helping them uncover, that could give them whatever result it is that you specialize in.

So some things to consider again, that this relationship is not about boosting your ego so that you feel great. It's about the client. And also just have this thought too. First, I just want to say, think good thoughts about yourself. Okay. This is something that my coach said to me, actually, all of my coaches have said this to me in some way, shape or form. Think good thoughts about yourself. And that's what I do now. I think good thoughts about myself. If you have marketed to your people, and they like you, and then they followed you, and then they paid you money to help them, they know exactly who you are. They know exactly what you can help them with. And so just help them.

And if it hasn't happened yet, and you're like, well, I don't have that proof yet, get to work. That's what you're going to do. You're going to get to work. You're going to get to work, getting to know them, marketing to them and just letting them make the decision for themselves. Right. Making it about them and not you, and that helps a lot.

So this is number three, what I've seen, and this is kind of an observation of my own is that your programs are too complicated and rigid. And I'm saying this from a person who has literally been in the most simplistic programs to the most complicated programs, I've done it all in these last couple of years. I've spent all the money, I've tried all the things, trying to figure out what is going to be best for me, how am I going to build my knowledge and skills, et cetera. Okay. And a lot of people out there, your programs are too rigid. You think you need fancy frameworks so that people can be attracted to you and so that they can believe you and you can have that authority and you don't. You likely have a lot of knowledge to share with people, and that's great, but think of your knowledge as your toolbox. Instead of like, you know, this kind of fancy thing that you need to showcase so that you can get people attracted to you. Again, I think here, you're thinking too much about what you want versus what they need. Right?

You want them to go through this process because it was a process that maybe you went through or that maybe you've helped somebody else go through and it got this result. And if you can just keep getting these results and it can keep increasing your bank account. And that's great, essentially that is something that we have to consider. But also take a step back from that and consider that your clients may not need a rigid program. They just might need you. So this was something that was game changing. And I want to give the credit to my coach for saying this to me. And I actually think both of my coaches said it, but it was the second coach where it's sunk in. Just consider that your clients need you to just show up. They need you to show up and just be there. You have the knowledge. Now they need you to show up and they need you to tell, they need to be able to tell you their story over and over in different ways and different ways of showing up in their life, each session.

And then you come in with your expertise, right? You help them through it, depending on what you're doing, but we're all, we're all essentially helping them through it. So consider this, this might be very helpful for you to consider. Those of you who have the fancy frameworks. I am not telling you to throw them away, but consider that clients need new information, especially in bite size chunks that they really internalize. And even if you have somebody who comes to you and says, I knew all this information, right. I had a conversation with one of my girlfriends, one of my colleagues here in the online space about this. Even if somebody comes see you and they say, I already knew this information. Great, great. I'm glad that you're actually telling them information that they knew because now they're hearing it again, which is going to further solidify it for them. It's going to help build that foundation for them more. And it's beneficial because they don't have to learn something new that they have to implement. So sometimes when you get into a program and the information, isn't all brand new. That's great. That's great. And for those of you out there who are worried about that, that your programs, aren't going to just be brand new, shiny information, stop worrying about that.

Because for me, personally, as somebody who, you know, I'm a connoisseur of information, right? I'm always taking it in and I love to learn. I love when I don't just learn something brand spanking new that my brain has to wrap itself around and create new neural pathways to understand. I love when it's a concept that I can just, I heard it differently from this provider and then I can apply it. And so I tend to gravitate towards programs where the information is given to me in bite sized chunks over time. Or it's not all new, or the person can work with me. One-to-one to make it make sense for me. And that doesn't happen so much in group programs, especially if you are too new and you don't know how to run them. I'm currently in a group program and it's a wonderful, it's phenomenal.

But it's phenomenal because my coach coached for hundreds of hours one-to-one before she decided, okay, I know exactly what's going on with women. I can see what's happening with my women. Let me help them out on top of that. She was coached for hundreds of hours one-to-one by her coaches. She invested the money in what it was like to be in one-to-one relationships. And then she spent her time doing one-to-one relationships with her own clients. So she's definitely walking her talk. That's what a lot of us need to be doing. Okay.

My central message here to you is you don't need the fancy frameworks for your clients to get the results. And I know that this is going to sound, you know, for some of you, it's going to be blowing your mind because in the online space, everybody's like, everything has to be fancy. It has to be fancy. You want clients, honestly, who are savvy that's, that's what you really want. You want savvy people who know what they want. You don't want people who you're just tricking into your program. And when you think you need all the fancy frameworks, but you don't know how to get there, then essentially you're throwing something together. And then you have to trick people into trying out your methods. Let's that's that's what's happening. Let's just be honest here. Right? So do yourself a favor, coach one-to-one. See what the people need. Talk to them over and over. Take the time to do it. Be patient. It can happen a lot faster than you think, and then build out your methods.

I'm still in that stage. I'm going to be so transparent with you guys. I'm still in that stage where I'm like, oh, this keeps coming up and I'm thinking about programs. And I'm thinking about, you know, things that I can do in the future. And I spent so much time trying to come up with frameworks and acronyms and all these types of things.

And this is just so silly, right? You need to give people what they need. They might need to work with you one-to-one. They will get a lot out of that. And so will you.

Another thing that has come up, that I've noticed, this is my observation. And I have this observation from my clients. I've had this observation from sales calls, strategy calls, and myself, is that you aren't giving yourself enough time to be a beginner. You aren't allowing yourself to be a beginner. So most of us, if you're listening to this podcast, you're at some early stage of your entrepreneurial journey. And by early stage, I don't mean in years or months, I mean, in knowledge and implementation, right. And how much money you've been able to make. It doesn't matter about years. Some people go faster, some people go slower and it that there's so many variables in between. We don't need to get into that. So, what I'm saying here is, is if you haven't figured out what, you know how to do your sales, if you haven't figured out your marketing, if you don't know your people exactly yet, but you're in that journey and you're learning, that's great.

Jumping straight into course, like I did trying to jump straight to courses like jumping over the first four or five steps. And if, if it did work out, I probably would have spent a lot of time trying to figure things out without this proper foundation. So if you want to think about it, one-to-one is the foundational step, like maybe step one for you learning how to then go on to build courses that are group programs and then maybe even eventually an on-demand course that people can take on their own, you know, like a mini course or something like that.

So give yourself permission to be a beginner and just realize that what it means to be a beginner is, is that you are open to being. You're open to learning. You're open to trying something different. If something's not working for you. If you're trying to launch a course right now, and you're trying to do all those things, and it's not working, you might want to consider that one-to-one might be working for you.

And for all of you service providers out there who are like that, doesn't pertain to me because I have clients in my business. This does pertain to you. If you are going to try to launch a course in your business, because let's just say, you know, it's the easiest for me to think about. It's like an OBM or a VA or the copywriters out there who have courses, it's still beneficial for you to have your regular clients and then take on some coaching clients at first. Take on a couple of coaching clients at first one-to-one or maybe even in very small group settings, like two people, two to three people, and teach those people.

Show up for them. Listen to them, actually, coach them, hear what problems are coming up. Hear what they say, hear how they speak about what's going on. See what's working in the programs and do that over and over and over until you know that you have some nailed down concepts that can then become a group program.

A lot of times when the service providers out there are launching, this is exactly what's happening. They're only getting one to two people or three people at first because you really don't know how to market in this way. You really don't know how to solve problems for other people in this way. You might've solved them for yourself, but you're not everybody.

And now you're ahead of where some of those people are. And so it was very hard to think the way they do. So you still need to take those steps and properly doing the market research properly marketing to them, and solving their problems, and then maybe working with them one-to-one before you build out your programs.

All right. And so another thing that is coming up for many of you is that you want to make a lot of money without the work and the time. So if this is you raise your hand, right? And I am definitely raising my hand because we all want to make money. We all want to spend less time doing all these things, but while you're having more people means more money. It's not helpful to people if you happen to get lucky and you're able to market and get a lot of people into your program and then they don't get results. Or most of the people don't get results. You're just getting all these people in. You don't know who they are. You don't know what levels are at.

So some people might get results, but you don't understand why other people get results. Because you haven't taken the time to get to know them. And then market to those specific people who you can help.

So when people invest, they don't want to feel like their coaches are just doing a smash and grab like, okay, give me all the people. And then like whoever works out, that's great. And then I'm going to, I'm going to highlight those people. And then everybody who else who doesn't, we're just going to sweep them in the background. Don't act like this doesn't happen in the online space because it does. It happens. It's happened to me. It's happened to probably a lot of you. And so then it becomes harder and harder for us to want to, you know, invest and we get into our head. Topic for a different time.

But this type of business isn't sustainable. And I can't remember which one of my coaches talked about smash and grab businesses, but if you're listening and it was you, thank you for that term because it's just so funny in my head.

And I'm like that, that is a perfect description of what happens when the person's better at marketing than they are at delivering. And you get better at delivering by taking the time, spending the time with people to understand what their needs are.

Just something for you to consider here, too. Groups take a considerable amount of time. Let me say that again. Groups take a considerable amount of time. Work, planning, support, you know, creating solutions, hiring people who are going to help you with those groups. And these are phenomenal groups, groups that are really, really good take this effort.

And so if you're thinking, well, I don't have to have a group like that. I can just kind of throw it together and people can get their results because yeah, six or seven years ago on the internet, that's what people were telling you to do. Think again. The game has been leveled up. People are stepping up their game. Just stay in your lane for the time being, and learn what your people need.

I don't think that, oh, I have the same target audiences, this coach. So I see her doing it so I can do it. Right. Learn what your people need and then get yourself to that point. So consider this. Focus on how you can help people, what the common issues are. See, what's coming up for a dozen or so clients see what, what things keep popping up.

See how you can potentially create solutions for people or even have really good advice around these areas, help those people solve it so you have case studies later on.

But then when you get to that point, you can implement. You know, a group program, you could even start building it and testing it out. And your one-to-ones, if you want. But the point here is, is that you want to go slow right now so that you can go fast later on. And if you've been doing this for years and you've been on that kind of a course in group model, and it's not working, this could be why this might be something you want to look into, taking clients one-to-one. And then building a proper program based on actual needs and wants, not what just came from your brain.

So I hope this was helpful for you. I hope that kind of cleared up why I think one-to-ones are so great. And I hope that if you are a person who really still feels like, you know what, but the group gives me energy and all the things that you can consider what might be, if you can just suspend that for a little while and what might be great for your clients and what might be great for your business.

Not that you can never get back to group, but that this might be a place for you to come first.

Thank you so much for hanging out and listening to the Black Girl Business Bar podcast. If you haven't already, hit that follow or subscribe button, so you never miss an episode. If you found today's episode helpful or had any aha moments, tag me on social so that I can know about them.

And as always friends, we're dropping podcast episodes on your favorite podcast player, every single Tuesday and episodes on YouTube, every single Thursday. And we can't wait to see you back then.