Ep #81: How to Be the Leader Your Business Really Needs

You are listening to The Life Coach Business Podcast, episode number 81.

Welcome to The Life Coach Business Podcast, a show for coaches who are ready to up-level their business and take their impact, leadership, and results to a whole new level. If you’re ready to start taking powerful action and become the leader your business needs in order to grow and thrive, this show is for you. I’m your host, Amanda Karlstad, certified life and business coach, and entrepreneurial leadership expert. Now, let’s get down to business.

Hello and welcome everyone. I hope you’re doing well. I’m so excited to have you here today. I want to welcome any new listeners. I’m so glad to have you here. So I’m coming off a pretty epic couple of weeks and we have been celebrating so many client wins, so we just celebrated one of my high-level clients who just had her first 100K quarter.

So she’s generated over and received over 100K in her coaching practice in just the first three months of this year, in 2021. So that’s super, super exciting. I have another high-level client who has also just hit 100K in her coaching business, and she actually did this in only about eight months.

So we started working together in August of last year and she’s already positioned to do multiple six figures this year in 2021. And so it’s just been so much fun to see so many wins, and something I’m really excited about is I just wrapped up my quarterly retreat with my high-level clients, which was so, so good.

And so for those of you who don’t know, one of the things that I do with my high-level clients is we do get together, and we have quarterly retreats. So we actually got together in person for two full days at an amazing venue. They actually came into Minnesota, we met for two full days and masterminded and we built out their full strategic plans for the next 12 months, plans that will take them to half a million dollars and beyond in their businesses.

And we went deep y’all. We went deep into coaching and their businesses and life and the level of clarity that they all left that retreat with and the level of confidence they had to continue to move things forward in their business, I’m just super, super proud of them.

And I have to say one of the most significant parts of the retreat outside of the high-level strategy and the high-level of clarity that they all have in their business and the direction that they are all now taking their business in and creating an even bigger impact and positioning themselves to create an even bigger impact and ultimately make more money, along with everything that we’re doing within their businesses, one of the shifts that I observed in all of them and really hit me throughout those two days was really the shift that I observed in them embodying true leaders of their businesses.

And so that’s what I want to talk to you all about today. Because I’ve been sitting with this over the last couple of days as I’ve been doing my own debriefs in my own business and thinking about my clients’ businesses and what truly creates success in the coaching industry.

And it keeps coming back to what I’m talking about today. One of the things that I have learned in my journey and one thing that I observe with my clients and the coaches that are most successful in this industry is that it really comes down to who you are being in your business. And it really does boil down to you as the leader of your business and how you operate and show up as the leader of your business every day.

And unfortunately, I think this is something that tends to get lost pretty often. I think it’s something that whether it gets lost in translation a lot of times, where I see some coaches who think okay, well I’ve done x, y, and z in my business, I feel like I’m doing all of the things, but I still don’t have the results that I want.

And so what I would say to that is it’s really then a question of who you are being in your business, and it really is the level of leadership that you’re demonstrating each and every day in your business. And so I do have to say that one of the reasons that I attribute my own business growth, as fast as it has happened, and one of the reasons that I was able to build my own business to my first six figures a few years ago in just nine months was because of who I was being every day in those early days as I launched my business.

And it’s the reason that I do believe my business has continued to grow to the level that it has for this reason. Because your business, whether you want to believe it or not, it is a reflection of you. And your business is a reflection of the level of leader you are being in your business.

And I have to be honest about this, I think for some that this does come more naturally. So for example, if I just use my own business, if I just use me as an example, I find this to be very natural for me because of my background and because of my experience, even before launching my coaching practice.

And for those of you who might not be aware, I spent the majority of my career, over 18 years prior to launching my coaching practice, where I was in senior level leadership roles. I was in higher administration, higher education administrative, high level leadership roles.

And so not only was I managing very, very large-scale teams and I was responsible for multimillions of dollars in annual revenue, but I was also responsible for developing other leaders within the organization. I was responsible for developing and coaching both emerging leaders and senior levels of leadership.

And this was outside of the responsibility of the sales and the marketing of the organization and the overall frontend revenue. So for me, leadership, marketing, sales, strategy, this is all of my wheelhouse. This is where I’ve really spent my entire career.

And so when it comes to those things, I’m very well-versed and the great part is now I’m able to impart that knowledge, I’m able to now teach my clients and really coach my clients in a way that helps them grow and scale their own businesses in a very sustainable way.

So when I consider that all of my experiences leading up to and launching my coaching practice, the truth is I was really having to constantly hone my leadership, and this had to happen daily. And I was demonstrating high levels of leadership in a very real way every single day of my career.

So when I look back on all of those years and even though I didn’t recognize it at the time, but as I’ve been reflecting on this over the last few days, as I was thinking about today’s episode, one of the reasons why I’ve been able to consistently lead and build the most successful teams, why I’ve been able to develop some of the strongest leaders throughout my leaders is why in so many cases I’ve been brought in to fix so many organizations and teams within those organizations is because of my ability to lead.

But I have to tell you that that first started with leading myself. So in launching my own business, when it comes to growing my own business, this part comes very naturally to me. And it’s also why I do think I talk about it as much as I do, it’s why I talk about the concepts that I do in this podcast, it’s why I create the content that I create.

Because in order to grow a business, you have to first grow the leader of that business, and that’s all of you listening. And so that will continue to be a big part of the work that I do with my clients, and I will say when I look at the clients that are really, really scaling up this year, and when I look at their leadership and I look at how they’re leading their businesses, and why they’re able to make such dramatic shifts in such a short amount of time, this is exactly why their businesses grow so quickly.

It’s because we’re always working on not just the strategy of it all, but we’re also working on who we’re being. We’re actually developing and honing their leadership within their businesses. So this is why I talk so much about this concept and I think just a great example of this, I had one of the leading pioneers on the podcast last week.

It was last week’s show. For those of you who haven’t listened, I would recommend you go back, it’s episode number 80. I had Corinne Crabtree on the podcast. She’s a coach who’s built one of the largest communities in the coaching industry. She is literally one of the leaders in this industry and has grown her business to well over 10 million dollars in annual revenue.

And because of that, she is able to help 10,000 women, over 10,000 women every single week in her membership program. So again, if you haven’t listened to that episode, I highly recommend you go back and listen where I share my conversation with Corinne. It’s really full of wisdom and there were a lot of really great nuggets in that conversation.

And one of the things that I have to say about this is when I look at a business like Corinne’s, when I look at how she has grown her business and I’ve watched her evolution over the last few years, one of the things that stands out the most to me is how she has led her business. And it’s how she leads herself every day and it’s how she shows up in her business.

And I think this is a really, really important distinction to understand. So when I look at the real differentiator here, when I look at the real differentiator between coaches who struggle, who maybe have a hard time gaining momentum in their business or who can’t just quite seem to get a breakthrough, versus coaches who are really building momentum, who are really making an impact, who are making the type of revenue they want to make in their business, it really comes down to this concept. It’s who they are being in their business. How they are showing up and how they are leading their business every day.

So what I will say about this is whether you want the title or not, when you sign up for a business, when you sign up to build a business, you by default are also signing up to be the leader of that business. And because of that, you have a certain level of responsibility as the leader of your business.

So I want you to really think about that. And I think for a lot of coaches, this can be a real challenge. And it’s also why in my coaching, as I help my clients really step into that next level leader that their business needs them to be, we spend a lot of time on this. We spend a lot of time cultivating that, cultivating their leadership.

Because when it comes to business, it really is about cause and effect. And I did a whole episode on this a few weeks ago. It was episode number 68 entitled Cause and Effect. So I highly recommend that you also go back and listen to that episode if you haven’t already because I talk in depth about the fact that your business and business just in general, it doesn’t even matter if you’re a coaching business or a different type of business, it truly is cause and effect.

And you, as the leader of the business are the cause. Your business and the results of your business is the effect of you as the leader, as the cause of that business. So this concept of who you are being in your business I think is one of the most important considerations I think you can all make when it comes to your business.

And it doesn’t matter where you’re at. It doesn’t matter if you have five clients. It doesn’t matter if you have 100 clients. No matter where your business is today, I want to challenge you all to really look at who you are being in your business.

And I want to encourage you to be honest with yourself about this. Because when it does come to business and the results that you have in your business, it’s really the effect of who you are being in your business. And this also impacts what you are and aren’t doing in your business, which again, will always come back to your own level of leadership.

And so this is also one of the reasons why I believe that one of the most important things you can do is to get support on this as you’re growing your business. And so this is something I want to talk to you all about today. So coming off of my high-level retreat this week and taking that experience and debriefing that experience over the last couple of days, I couldn’t help but keep coming back to how important this point really is.

Is to be able to get full support, and to put yourself in a room. How important it really is to be getting high-level support that not only gives you one piece of the puzzle, but support that really allows you to grow in a way where you’re not only growing one pillar of your business, but you’re growing all the pillars of your business.

So this is something that I know I’ve talked about in previous podcast episodes, but there are certain pillars within your business and especially as you scale your business that have to be in place. They just have to. Any business needs them.

And so we spent a lot of time with this in our retreat, in dissecting and looking at the different pillars within each of my clients’ businesses and really addressing each of those areas. So this is a really important thing and I hope that you’re all really hearing me on this.

Because it’s not enough to be focusing just on sales, for example, in your business. If you’re not properly leading your business from the get-go, if you aren’t also addressing all of the other pillars in your business that have to be addressed in order for your business to be whole, the honest truth is you’re kidding yourself.

And I say that with full respect and full love to all of you. Because there are a lot of great courses out there, there are a lot of great programs that address different pieces of the puzzle. It might be sales, it might be messaging, or it might be something else.

But the truth is unless all pieces are working in your business, whether you’re really approaching your business from a holistic perspective, which is exactly what I do in my programs, the truth is in many ways you’re kidding yourself.

And it’s also why that’s really, really important to me in the work I do with my clients is being able to take a holistic approach in their business. It’s not just about addressing sales. It’s not just about addressing marketing or your message. It’s addressing who you’re also being in your business.

And it’s also making sure that every pillar is being addressed. Not just one piece of it. And so I will share that in my experience, the only way to really grow and scale a business is when you’re addressing all pillars. Not one, not two, but all of them.

And I’m emphasizing this because it’s really important to understand and I think a lot of newer coaches especially get sucked into a lot of shiny objects that don’t pay off. And so part of you leading your business, part of you being the leader your business needs is properly addressing these areas of your business.

And when I say this, I’m not talking about tactics, I’m not talking about things like the latest on Instagram reels or TikTok or whatever the latest trend is. That’s what those are. Those are trends. Those are not business principles.

What I’m talking about here is business principles, solid business principles, and that’s what I teach. I teach and guide clients to build the identity on becoming true business owners and not just playing business owners on social media and not getting caught up in tactics and not getting sidetracked with shiny objects.

It’s really about mentoring clients from a place that is truly going to build their business over the long term and allow them to build sustainable businesses. So one thing that I see happen a lot is that there are a lot of people that come in with really great intentions and want to build really successful businesses, yet they’re not really willing to take the time to do the deep work that’s required, to really slow down and do some of this foundational work that ultimately allows them to speed up, that ultimately allows them to scale their business.

And the reality is this is actually how you’re able to speed up. It’s how you’re able to accelerate your results when you build a solid foundation, when you implement sound business principles in your business, not just the latest trends.

So I want to round this out today by saying it doesn’t matter how good your marketing message is. It doesn’t matter how great your sales consult script is. If you aren’t addressing you and you’re not addressing the things that your business really needs, again, you can’t build a business from a faulty foundation and expect it to sustain over the long term.

So put yourself in a room, get support that addresses the true things your business really needs. This is so vitally important. And the reality of not doing that, of not putting yourself in a position like this to actually be able to sustainably grow, one of my clients actually said this perfectly during our retreat this week.

She said that she knows for a fact that had she not put herself in that room, that she would still be trying to figure it out, that she was actually cringing when she thought about what her life would actually look like if she hadn’t made the decision to do this work, that she hadn’t actually put herself in the room.

And so I just want to tell you that you can make quantum leaps in your business. You can build the business you most want to build. You can grow your business sustainably over the long term. But we have to build it from a solid foundation. And part of that is you being a real leader of your business and making that decision.

And that’s really the power of this. It not only impacts the results of your business, but it also impacts your entire life. So I want to encourage you all to really think about this conversation today and think about how you have been showing up in your business and really look at the decisions that you’ve made or are currently making in your business.

Are you making decisions from your future self? Or are you making decisions from past experience, from past versions of yourself? Are you making decisions from the highest version of yourself or are you just putting Band-Aids on things? Are you trying to put a Band-Aid on your business and only addressing one thing?

Like maybe your sales or your marketing. Are you getting distracted by the fads? Or are you actually making decisions and implementing sound business principles in your business? Are you showing up consistently every day in your business? Are you operating in your business at a level that even lines up with the result that you want?

Or are you spending time blaming external things as to why you don’t have the results that you want? I really encourage you to look at who you’re being in your business. And ask yourself, does my level of leadership and how I’ve been showing up in my business truly match the results that I want? Or am I only showing up when it’s convenient or when I feel like it?

What changes do I need to make in order for my leadership to match the results that I want? What would I stop doing today if I were being honest about this? And what would I start doing?

I’m going to leave you with those questions this week and I want to encourage you to answer them. And if you’re ready to step into the leader your business really needs, so that you can grow and scale sustainably to the level that you want, if you’re ready to grow your business in a way that’s founded in sound business principles and not just fads, I invite you to reach out.

Let’s have a conversation. I’ll help you put a plan in place, both from a strategy standpoint, but also help you grow into the leader that your business really needs you to be. Alright, have an amazing week everyone. I’ll talk to you all again very soon. Take care. Bye-bye.

Hey, if you’re ready for a real breakthrough in your business and want to grow and scale your business to at least six figures or more in annual revenue, I invite you to apply for my exclusive program The Mastermind at amandakarlstadcoaching.com/the-mastermind. I look forward to seeing you there.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Life Coach Business Podcast. If you want to learn more about how to build, grow and scale your business and accelerate your results, visit amandakarlstadcoaching.com.