Ep #106: The Gift of Implementation

You are listening to The Life Coach Business Podcast with Amanda Karlstad episode number 106.

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. So glad to have you here. Welcome to today’s show. I want to welcome any new listeners. So glad to have you here. I have a very special episode for you today. I feel like I am on fire with what we’re going to talk about. We are going to talk about the gift of implementation. So this is a new concept that I recently developed. I’m really excited to talk to you all today about this.

Before we dive in, I want to tell you all. I have been doing some deep work recently. I have been thinking a lot about the level of impact, about my clients, about all of you. I want to share that in this next year, in 2022, that I have been working on putting some things in place in my business so that I can help even more of you. Even more coaches create their dream business. Whether they’re working to make their first $100K or their first million, to help them do that in a really smart, intelligent, principled way that truly gets results and truly helps them to blow their own mind.

I have to tell you. I am so, so excited. It has been so much fun to witness all of the growth and all of the money that my clients are making, and all of the impact that they’re making in their business. I just have to tell you. If you are listening to this and you’re a coach, I’m ready to help you do the same. It is your time. The time, my friends, is now. The demand for coaching is here. It is happening right now.

Now more than every is the time that you want to be in the game. You want to be setting yourself up and setting your business up for success. I want you to not sit on the sidelines. Your clients and the business that you so desperately want is waiting on you. I’m here to help. I want you to know that I’m ready for you, and I have the best tools to help you do that.

One of the best ways that I can help you do that is through my two programs that I offer that are specifically for coaches who are looking to build to either their first $100K or for those of you who are looking to scale towards your first million. For those of you who are looking to your first $100K, so you’ve probably been working with one clients one-on-one, or maybe you’re looking to launch your first group program or maybe want to. You’re all in on your business, and your all in on making this happen.

I want to help you do this. I would love to help you take your business to this next level. So I want to invite you to join us for this next cohort of The Mastermind program, which is my six month business accelerator program where that is exactly what we do. We take everything to the next level. We implement. We set the stage. We build your business not only so that you can get to that six figure level, but also go well beyond that.

I want you to know that the program is officially open for enrollment. This only happens a couple of times a year. So I am so, so excited for this next group of clients that I am going to be taking through this process. So, again, this is my six month business accelerator implementation program for coaches who are looking to grow to their first $100K.

So if that’s you, you’ve probably had some level of success in your business. You probably have been working with clients. At the same time, you are ready to go to that next level, and that $100K for you is that next goal, then this is the program I promise that will help get you there.

In fact, this is the program that I’ve developed over the last couple of years that I have to tell you, I’m really, really proud of. It’s truly the program that I believe every coach, no matter what niche you’re in, that this is the program that not only will help you build and get to that first six figures. I talk about this with my clients all of the time. This is truly where we set the stage and we build the foundation for a million dollar business.

What’s been interesting is that over the last couple of months, I’ve actually been observing my clients in this program. It’s really almost becoming more of an incubator to create your first million. It’s really becoming more of an incubator for million dollar coaches. I love it. I love, love, love my clients. It’s so much fun to witness them, to see the amazing work that they are all bringing to the world. The success they are creating, the businesses that are literally helping so many people. It is so, so special.

So if you are listening to this and you’re a coach and you’re at that point in your business and you’re ready to go to that next level and really make things happen in your business, then I want to invite you to join us. I’ve designed this program to be the most comprehensive program for serious coaches who want to grow and scale a highly successful practice that allows them to make a true impact and to make serious money while doing it.

The work we do in this program is literally million dollar work. I would love to help you become an example of what is possible. Again, to remind you, this program is only open a couple of times per year and the enrollment is capped as it’s very high touch. It’s a very high level group and one on one and mastermind program, which is amazing. So because of that high level of support, because of the high touch aspect of this, I do have to cap enrollment.

So go to amandakarlstadcoaching.com/the-mastermind. We’re also going to link this up in the show notes. I encourage you to fill out your application. Set up a call with me as this program will change everything for you.

If you’re a coach and you’re listening, and you are ready to scale your business. So you’ve either already hit that first six figures or you’re on track for that. Maybe you have even made multiple six figures in your business and you’re ready to go to that million dollar level, I also want you to know that there are a few select spots in my high level mastermind. This is the program that I have created and designed to help coaches scale to multiple six figures and ultimately seven.

I have to tell you. What my clients are doing in both of these programs is truly extraordinary. These coaches, they are becoming the examples of what is possible in this industry. So if you are at the more advanced level and you’re looking to, again, take things to that next level whether that’s $250K, $500K, or even a million, I’d love to help you do that. This is what this program is all about.

If you know you need high level support both from a mindset and also a strategy perspective, I encourage you to also to go to my website amanadakarlstadcoaching.com. Set up a time to talk. There’s a short application I’m going to ask you to complete, and I would love to sit down with you and talk about what I see is possible for you in your business in the next six to 12 months.

With both of these programs, I want you to know that you’re going to have my eyes, my expertise, my resources not only on your business but to help you step into and embody the next level version of you. The next level leader that is going to create massive results. I encourage you to apply today. Let’s have a conversation. I would love to talk about what’s possible for you in the next six to 12 months.

All right. Let’s talk about the gift of implementation today. So this is a concept that I came up with a few days ago that was prompted from a conversation that I was having with some colleagues of mine that I think is a really important conversation to have with all of you.

So in this industry, in the coaching personal development, professional development, personal growth industry. When you are a coach, one of the things that I observe very often is that there tends to be a tendency when you’re a coach to slip into a place in your business where you find yourself spinning. Where you find yourself feeling of experiencing confusion. Where you might feel stuck in your business.

In my observation, a big part of what is happening when this happens is that there is really a lack of skill when it comes to operating the actual business. Because the truth of the matter is this. There is a distinct difference between being a coach, coaching your clients, operating as a coach in your business, and being a true business owner.

I’ve talked a lot about this in my podcast before that there is a real distinct difference between being a great coach and being a great business owner. They require two very different skillsets. The truth is that in order to scale to a million dollars, if that is your goal, or even to multiple six figures, you’re going to have to be both.

So one of my mentors actually refers to this as the technician versus the coach. What you have to remember is that the technician employees the coach. So I want you to think about that. I think this is a really useful way.

I know for me it’s been very useful and has served me well in my own journey to think about it in this way because there’s a lot of truth to that statement. Because unless the business has a solid foundation, unless the business is set up and running in a way that can actually serve clients at a high level, there is no work for the coach, right. There are no clients for the coach to coach.

I was recently reading a book, a really great book on business from someone who is very well known in the online business space. One of the things that he talked about in his book was how important it was that if you want to create what he calls uncommon success, which I love, as an online business that your investment needs to be in getting the support, in getting the guidance, and the mentorship that you need to actually grow your business. To be that technician, to be what I call the leader your business needs.

He talked in depth about why this was so important and why this was so critical to the success of any business. And why even when you’re starting out why investing in support that actually helps you grow the business, that actually helps you build a solid foundation in the business is way more important than investing in something that doesn’t actually help you with that. That doesn’t actually have any tangible strategy to it. I couldn’t agree more.

It’s actually one of the reasons that I’ve developed my programs in such a way that not only are we focusing on the mindset, which is the most important, and doing the deep inner work that allows my clients to shift into that next level, but also support that inner growth. Support the leadership growth that they’re experience with tangible systems, with a very powerful process that is build from solid and intelligent business principles that ultimately will power the business. That will power you as the leader of your business and allow you to reach a much larger audience and, by default, be able to help so many more clients.

I will tell you all. For me in my own journey, what became very clear to me from very early on was this. That not only was I fully committed to being the best coach that I could be for my clients. So I worked on that all of the time. I still work on that to this day all of the time. It’s just as important for me to be highly skilled in being the business owner.

For me, that part has come fairly easily. The reason for that is because I’ve always loved business. I’ve always loved the pursuit that’s involved in business. I’ve always been in a career where I—For many of you and for those of you who don’t know, I started in a startup background. I’ve been working over 20 years now in startup environments where I’ve taken organizations, taken teams from the ground level and have literally built them to multimillion dollar organizations.

So a lot of these things are actually second nature to me. It’s why I do the work that I do. Even with all of that experience, even with all of that knowledge, even with all of the things that I have seen throughout the years, I have to tell you there has still been so much that I have had to learn in my own journey, and I will continue to learn. I’m all in for it.

I’ve come to learn in this industry that if you want to play a big game, if you truly want to make a large impact, if you truly want to build a million dollar business, which I know so many of you do, it’s also going to require that you develop certain skills. That you implement certain things in your business. That you consistently implement systems in your business that are what I call the needle movers, okay. That actually make a difference.

I’m not talking about the latest tactics. I’m talking about true foundational business principles that are required no matter what type of business you own.

So this brings me to today’s concept, the concept of the gift of implementation. So let’s talk about what I really mean by this. I will tell you I think there are several reasons why true implementation and what we’re going to talk about, why this is such a gift to you and why this is such a gift to your business.

So I want to preface this by explaining first what I mean when I say implementation or when I reference true implementation. What I mean by this is the act of actual implementation in your business. The actual implementation of strategy, of smart, intelligent strategy in your business.

Implementation of systems and practices within your business. Implementation of a real marketing strategy in your business. Implementation of building an irresistible program, having a way to offer that irresistible program to your clients consistently who actually want to solve the problem that you’re helping them solve. Implementation of true business principles.

So this is not the latest social media tactics. I’m talking about building a real business. A business that is going to be sustainable for years to come. A business that is set up to grow and scale and can support a high level of growth. So what I’m talking about here is building a container that allows you to help a lot of clients and make a lot of money in the process. That is what I’m talking about.

So what I see happen very often in this industry is that I see a lot of coaches doing what I call throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something will stick. Where there’s not a whole lot of strategy. There’s not a lot of thought involved or consideration to what the real impact of focusing on certain things really have in the long term.

What happens is there’s not a whole lot of concentrated focus towards the end result, but it’s more interested in just the short term gains and not truly setting the business up for the level of growth that you actually want. So that’s not what I’m talking about here.

I’m talking about setting things up, implementing things in a way that are going to get you to the finish line. That is going to help your clients get to the finish line. That is going to create the level of success that you so want. That’s the level of implementation that I teach my clients, that I work with my clients on, and that’s what I’m talking about here.

So there are several reasons that I would go into as to, again, why this is so important if you want to grow and scale a highly successful coaching business. But today I want to give you three main reasons why.

So the first reason I truly believe that implementation is a gift is because of the inevitable up leveling that it will require from you. It will require an internal expansion, an internal level of growth, a level of evolvement that is going to be required in order to build to a high level. It’s going to require an extreme up level of yourself, of your skills, of your thinking, of your self-concept that, by the way, will likely feel horrible for you in the process. But it’s the only way to get you to where you want to go.

So that’s the first reason to why I believe implementation is such a gift. Because of what it actually requires of you internally. The personal growth, the personal expansion, the evolution of you. It requires it. True implementation will require that you become that future version of yourself. That you fully step into your greatness. That you shift into a whole new level of self. That is what the level of implementation that I’m talking about and that I work with my clients on truly requires.

I have to tell you. When you are in the process of growing or scaling your business, you have a lot of decisions you need to make. You have a lot of moving parts that you are managing. Especially as you are working with more and more clients that unless you have a really solid way to implement and do certain things in your business, what ends up happening is that your business growth will actually stall.

I’ve seen this happen really often where a coach will come to me, and they might have been trying to build their business for a year or in many cases even longer. They might have some pieces in place. They might have had some success in their business. I’m telling you in every single scenario that I see, I can clearly see that in order for them to get to where they truly want to go in every case, it’s going to require a different level of implementation. It’s going to require an up level of their implementation. 

With that implementation, it’s also going to require that intense internal up level. It’s going to require them to develop a whole new skillset. Skillsets that are going to require that they shift into that next version. So that next level of growth, that it’s powered from those decisions. That it’s powered from that skillset. That it’s powered from the level of thinking that will be required.

This is why, my friends, true implementation is such a gift. Because by stepping forward and implementing new things in your business, by stepping forward and learning these new skills, it’s going to support your business. By default you will grow internally. What you will be doing, what you will be learning are going to be things that you’ve never done before. The only way that you can learn that is through implementation. By taking the action and doing the things that are going to move things forward in your business. So that’s the first reason why I believe the level of implementation that’s required is such a gift.

The second reason I believe implementation is such a gift is because it’s actually the pathway. It’s actually the path that will ultimately lead you to where you want to go. What I mean by this is this. The only way to find out what works and doesn’t work is to implement, is to put the thing, whatever that thing is, into place and to test it. To go out and to implement and see what results you get, to see what happens. Now I want to tell you that my belief is if you are a business owner, you’re a coach, I recommend you don’t do this blindly.

I referenced earlier that one of the issues that I see that see that is rampant in this industry is that there are so many tactics and shiny objects being thrown around. That as you’re building a business, it’s very easy to fall into those shiny objects and spend a lot of energy and spend a lot of time and a lot of mental energy and direct all of that towards the shiny objects. Towards the thing that on the surface it might seem like a great approach, but underneath the shininess, underneath the reality of what it actually is typically is not what’s actually going to help you grow the business or where you want it to go.

In a lot of cases, I see so many of you getting so exhausted and disappointed and even more frustrated in the process. So you have to have a solid strategy behind what you’re doing. When you have this solid strategy, when you can work from the result that you want, when you are able to fully implement in a way that is going to be so much more valuable to your business. The results that you get from that process, the data that you get from that process is in many ways even more valuable than the actual results.

I want to share with you a recent example I had with this. So recently in my High Level Mastermind, I was working with one of my clients. We were going over some of her key numbers in regard to her business. So we were looking at her numbers, which is something for all of my high level clients. It’s something that we do on a consistent basis. I have a really specific process for this that I’ve developed. I teach all of my clients.

So we were going through her numbers. We were looking at some of her recent numbers that she had in regard to an event that she had just done. One of the things that I pointed out to her was that because of the recent conversions that she had based on how many clients had enrolled into her program as a result of that event and a series of events that she had done.

Because we had been working on optimizing this for the past few months, because she has been so heavy in implementation mode, in implementing different strategies and systems in her business in regard to her marketing, her messaging, her offer. That when we take those conversions when we take the data that we now have. If we assume that she maintains and continues to get better and better, I demonstrated to her and showed her through math, literally, because of the implementation, because of the focused implementation that she had done over the last several months that something very significant had just happened.

What had just happened is that her business because of the high level of implementation that she’s been doing, she’s now in a place where, again assuming she maintains those trends. Assuming that we continue to optimize. Assuming we continue to get better and better at what we’re doing. That her funnel is now converting to a point where literally now it’s just about the math.

Here’s what I mean by that. The million dollar plus business that she’s been working towards. I want you all to know. This is a client for 10 years, over 10 years, before we started working together last year, she had struggled for 10 years trying to build this thing. In literally less than a year, she has now built and laid the foundation and has grown her business in a way where now literally her million dollar plus business is inevitable.

It’s literally now just become math. She’s literally now in a situation where we can do the math and decide based on her goals, based on the impact, based on her decision on how many clients she wants to work with and bring into her business, based on her goals, we can do that.

So for all of you listening, I hope you just understood the power of what I just said. That it is now just a matter of math. Meaning if this client wants to bring in 100 clients in the next month, we know exactly how to do that. We have the data. We now can do the math on what that looks like. Once we know what that math looks like, then we just have to go do what the math says, right?

Being able to reverse engineer the data and be able to look at that data and to have the proof of what works in her business and to have this now over the course of several months. Y’all, this is gift of implementation. To be able to have a level of clarity in your business. To be able to have real data in your business, to have real confidence in your business, to be in a place where you are now able to literally do math and look at your goals and be able to see a very clear pathway on how to reach those goals.

Like I told this client, this is the difference maker. This is what playing at the million dollar level looks like. The work, the implementation that she has been consistently doing over this past year. She has literally just created the foundation for her million dollar scale, and she did it in less than a year. That, my friends, is the second gift of implementation. The gift of implementation, when done consistently, will set the stage and help you build the foundation for your million dollar business.

The third gift of implementation is the confidence that you will gain as a byproduct of consistently implementing and taking the necessary actions that move you closer to your goal. So here’s something that’s really important for all of you to understand. A lot of you in my observation, especially if you are newer and you are starting out in your business. There is this tendency to want to feel better.

The reason you want to feel better is because when you go out and start a business, when you go out and put yourself out in a way like you must do, you end up going through a very intense identity shift where you are required to become a different version of yourself. Where you are literally fighting against the strongest part of yourself, which is your identity, who you’ve always known yourself to be.

As you’re faced with becoming that next version of you, a version that in most cases will require a very different way of operating, you end up in what I call the river of misery. I’ve talked in depth about this in several of my episodes. For all of my long time listeners, I know you’ve listened to episode number one. For all of those who are new to the show, I want to encourage you to go listen to that episode. It’s all about the intense identity shift that I just mentioned. It’s a really important episode to listen to.

It’s important because what’s happening is that as humans, our brains are conditioned. We are wired to want certainty. Anything that threatens that certainty, our brains automatically put out essentially warning bells. Even though there’s no physical imminent danger, it recognizes this shift, this movement, this stepping into this next version of ourselves as very unknown, as very uncertain. Because of that, it will do literally anything in its power to keep us feeling safe. To keep us cozy in the cave.

So this is why, especially when you haven’t experienced a lot of success in your business, that you want that certainty so desperately. That things will “work out” in your business, right. The truth is this. The only way to create that certainty, the only way to create the business that you so desperately want is by taking that messy, that uncomfortable, that action. By truly implementing the things that need to be implemented towards your goal.

Confidence does not come first. I see a lot of you who desperately want that confidence. Who maybe even have been waiting on putting yourself, your work, out into the world, who are getting caught up in the lie that you have to have confidence first before you can implement. It really causes a lot of you to stall out. It can slow so many of you down.

True implementation requires courage. It requires courage first to go out and to put yourself out into the world, to put yourself out in social media, to put your work out in this new way all without any guarantee that any of it’s going to work. The process of that, the implementation, the byproduct that you will gain is that you will develop confidence in yourself. You will develop confidence in your capacity to create success.

That confidence, as you take these steps forward, as you learn and you develop competence in the areas through implementation, is what it’s all about. You develop confidence in your ability to be able to learn new things, in what you are offering to the world, in what you have to offer. That confidence then translates into so many other areas of your business.

I want you all to think about something. For all of you listening, I want you to consider how different you would feel. How different your business would be, how different your life would be if you had a solid system, if you had a solid foundation, if you were implementing consistently in your business the things that actually made a difference. Where you’re growth, your monthly revenue, the amount of clients that you had, the program that you offer, the content that you’re creating. That all of these pieces in your business were working together.

This is something that I work with all of my clients on is really creating a solid ecosystem in their business where you don’t have to guess, where you don’t have to wonder. Where you don’t have to throw spaghetti at the wall and be unsure and be uncertain about how you’re actually going to grow the business.

Think about having full control over the level of clients that you bring into your business, how many clients you’re able to bring into your business. Where you know with full confidence that the things that you have in place are what will drive the results that you desire.

Where just like my clients in my High Level Mastermind where we can now do the math. Where we can literally decide based on their goals, based on where they want to take things. We can make the tweaks. They can go out and they can literally create a $50,000 or even $75,000 a month because we know exactly what to do. How confident would you be then? That, my friends, is why implementation is such a gift. Implementation is the path to your desires. It is the path to the business that I know all of you want to build.

So I want to encourage you to not resist it. I want you to welcome it and understand the power of what true implementation actually gives you and the difference that it can actually make for you and for your business. It will change everything.

All right my friends. If today’s episode resonated for you, I highly encourage you to reach out. I highly encourage you to take the first step towards true implementation in your business. I’d love to help you experience what I talked about here today, the gifts of true implementation in your business. This literally will change everything. I promise. All right. Have an amazing week. I’ll talk to you all again 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

amandakarlstad.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.