#237: You Don’t Need Permission Or A Certificate On The Wall To Start Serving Clients

New coach.
Still in certification.
Business dreams ready to go.

But then the brain kicks in…

Who am I to call myself a coach?
Should I wait until I graduate?
What if people judge me?

In this episode, I'm tackling one of the biggest identity blocks keeping talented coaches invisible and broke. 

💡 What You’ll Learn

• Why waiting to finish your program delays your income
• The real reason new coaches hesitate to use the title
• How identity affects visibility and confidence
• What happens when you coach but never invite someone to continue
• The difference between helping and actually serving
• Three steps to start seeing yourself as a coach now
• A weekly action challenge to build momentum immediately

🎁 Free Resource Mentioned
Ready for a step-by-step plan? 👉 Download Michelle’s 7-Step Roadmap to Build Your Coaching Business & Get Clients

🚀 Want Support Building Your Coaching Business? Check out Michelle’s programs, coaching, and free resources:  https://elevatelifecoaching.org

Meet Your Host: 

Hey, I’m Michelle — The coaches’ coach.

I'm a Business and Visibility marketing Coach who helps female life coaches build a coaching biz, get seen at all the right places, and attract paying clients.

I believe your coaching business should feel beautiful and profitable — without sacrificing your sanity, your weekends, or your personality.

Using my 7-Step Client Enrollment Method, I help you build a coaching business that clients can’t help but say, “OMG, that’s who I need!”

More clarity, more clients, more champagne moments. 🥂

Because building your dream business shouldn’t be a nightmare — it should feel like coming home.

 
🐦 SOCIAL STUFF:

Instagram ➔   / elevatelifecoach
Facebook ➔   / coachmichellekuei
Linkedin ➔   / michellekuei
Website ➔ http://elevatelifecoaching.org

Book a strategy call with Michelle ➔ http://coachwithclients.com/strategycall

Transcript

The Identity Block New Coaches Face

Michelle Kuei 0:00

This week on this episode, we're going to fix a common problem that I see a lot of newer coaches and coaches still in training are experiencing. And last week I was launching an open enrollment to my coaching biz builder. And it's an eight-week cohort where I support a group of coaches who are brand new or they are still in training, supporting them in building their coaching business. And I had multiple conversations over the week. And one of the big problems that I saw was the moment you start introducing yourself as a coach, there's almost an underlying belief that I cannot call myself a coach because somehow I don't even buy into that identity yet. We're going to talk about that in this episode. Hey coach, welcome to Make It Visible Podcast. I'm Michelle Quay, your visibility marketing coach, and I help female life coaches to get seen in all the right places, attract happy paying clients, and build a coaching business that actually feels good to run. Even if you are still trying to figure things out. Each week I'm giving you visibility tips, simple marketing strategies, and showing you how to create the kind of content that connects with your audience so that you can stand out, build your authority, and attract clients who's already feeling like a yes before they jump onto your discovery call. So grab a notebook, pour yourself a favorite drink, and that's make your coaching business visible. So if you are a new coach or a coach still in training and you're trying to build your coaching business without this complete meltdown of where do I even begin? What do I even call myself? I hate the term life coach. It almost dropped my price immediately by tenfold. How am I going to make this business work? If that is you, my friend, that is what we're going to talk about in this episode. Because over the week, this last actually I would say month, because I've been working on offering open the enrollment to the starter program, which is the coaching biz builder. And it is a group coaching. So a lot of new newer coaches or coaches who are really working with the budget. And you need that support to have someone in your corner and pretty much guiding you through this whole process of how do I build a coaching business. And so during that open enrollment period, and I only open a couple of times during the year. So you'll notice that I usually offer in the beginning of the year, and sometime, probably going to be around the summertime when things are quiet down for you and you don't have to worry about kids going to school anymore. Those are probably the around that time I would open up the enrollment and registration again. And then usually towards the end of the year, like maybe around September and in October. So that's just to give you a little sneak peek in terms of if you're thinking about I want to join next time, when is Michelle going to open her registration? That's like the time frame that we're looking at. So I usually open up a few times during the year. But that program is really to support coaches who are new or coaches who are still in training. And I always encourage, and this is actually a true conversation I had with a client of mine, a new client of mine, actually, this week. And one of the questions that she had asked was, I'm still in training, so when should I start building my business? And my answer to her was like right now. Right now. And I don't say that because I want you to sign up with me. I said that because getting your certification and building a business are two separate things. You can go through, it's like somehow we have this mentality of it's like going to school. Back then, when you go to school, you have to graduate in order to get a master's degree, in order to get a college degree, in order to get your, I don't know, your doctor's degree. You have to finish in order to get the title, in order to get the qualification, entering the workforce. But that's not the case for coaching. Coaching is a certification, it's not a degree that you have to go through and earn it in order to be functional and place yourself in this working industry. It's a skill set that you go through, you acquire, you get trained, but ultimately you have a lifelong journey of all these skills that you have already picked up. So just because somebody put a label on it, this skill is called validation, or that skill is called acknowledgement, or that skill is called future pacing. Whatever that you're putting a label on, the skills that you have acquired, it's something that you'll probably be doing unknowingly. If you are someone who has struggled with something, overcame an obstacle, and here you are on the other side of the mountain. And I like, I love using the mountain analogy because I am someone who conquered that mountain. So the stuff that you acquire in a coaching certification program or during that process, it has nothing to do with building your business. Building your business means putting yourself out there, you have the audience, you have a market where your market is requiring and demanding the skill set that you have. And that's how you build business. So they're two separate things, but somehow a lot of coaches have this idea of I need to finish one in order to have another one. I need to have certification in order to start a business. And here I am, I'm like trying to like tell you that and educate you, that is not the case. There are two separate paths. And in order for your business to run like a business, you can wait till six months later, because six months later means never. You're gonna have a shiny certification hanging on the wall, and there you are, you're going to spend another six months trying to figure out how do I get this business going? How do I actually use my certification that's hanging on the wall and put it into practical use? I was talking to my client, I said, if you're if you want a business, the answer is now. You need to build your business now because there's no one on this planet of earth who can promise you that, hey, I'm gonna help you build your business, but tomorrow you're gonna get a client. That's not how it works. It takes time to build relationships. If you hear, you'll probably hear heard it multiple times. There's the know and trust factor. If you want a client, you gotta get people to know you, like you, and trust you. Why? Because that process takes time. It happened, it can happen within days for if you're lucky, but for majority of us, it happened over a period of months and sometimes even up to a year. So if you're sitting there and thinking, I'm still a coaching training, so I don't feel comfortable in introducing myself as a coach, then when would you like to be referred to as a coach? So I feel like it's a lot of this, what I'm talking about, is really an identity issue. It's an identity problem because we often don't identify ourselves into something, a new role that we feel comfortable that we can call ourselves to. So if I got promoted as a project manager, I have a title as a manager. Now, do I go out there and start introducing myself as manager? Probably not, because I'm still living in that old pattern of old identity of I was a worker first, I clock in, then clock out, and now I am a manager. That's a different mentality, that's a different identity that you yourself have to believe in. So, how do you know that this is something that's showing up for you, sneaking up with on you, and that you don't even recognize or know? Here's some symptoms and problems that I wanted to point it out to you. Okay, so symptom number one: a lot of these coaches in training, they're scared to claim that title because sometimes we just don't want to be judged. Look at the people who's surrounding you right now. Maybe they don't even know that you went through the coaching certification program. What would they think? What would they say? Oh, you're one of those. What do you mean, one of those? Can you be a little more specific? What do you mean by one of those? So there's that feeling of we don't want to be judged. And a lot of people have this misconception about what life coaching is. Sometimes they're like, oh, they're scammers. That's really very easily triggered that judgment of no, I'm not. And you're like trying to justify why you're not. And so there's that inner, inner feeling of I just don't want to, I don't feel comfortable in calling myself a coach until I can show them I'm not just someone who just show up overnight. I actually went through a program to get my certification and qualification. But that has nothing to do with your skill and your ability to be a good coach. That just shows someone that, hey, if you have a doubt that I didn't go through, or maybe you're wondering if I went through the proper channel, here it is, here's something to prove it. But in the meantime, can you use your skill in a practical sense to help someone out there? Chances are, based on your experience, based on your current knowledge, based on what you have learned through the program that you are in, there's a good chance that you are able to use that skill and helping someone, even just helping that person quit smoking or picking up a new habit. You have plenty of skill to be called and call yourself as a coach. So that's symptom number one of sometimes we're looking for that permission to be called and as a coach or to be referred as a coach. Symptom number two is that they're doing the coach training. So, like I said, a lot of us somehow just pick up that mentality of I have to learn, I have to pass a grade, right? I have to get a grade, and I have to pass the exam in order to graduate and then begin. But coaching is not like that. Coaching is something that you learn, you practice, and it's going to evolve in public. And that was my dog barking. So if you hear the dog in the background, I recently got a dog and his name is Cooper. It's a multi-poo, but sometimes you'll hear him barking. And the other day, actually last week, oh, there we go. And last week, when I was doing a live with a lot of attendees who came to the master class and Cooper was barking in the background. So if you hear a dog bark, that's my Cooper. So somehow we have this mentality of I need to graduate from the program first before I can call myself a coach or before I can take on a client, because otherwise, it doesn't make me qualify. No, my friend, you have years of experience that in itself makes you qualify to start talking to somebody. And like I said, your business is not built overnight. So just by you calling yourself a coach and getting out, getting yourself out there, start introducing yourself, that doesn't guarantee that you're going to get a client booking booking a phone call with you. That only gets you started. So we're not even talking about advanced stuff, we're talking about just placing yourself in a position where people can look at you and see you as a coach so that you can start having that conversation that will facilitate and get people onto a discovery call with you. And it takes time for that process to work. So if you're sitting there and listening to the podcast episode and you're thinking, when should I start? The answer is now. You start now. All right. So symptom number three is that a lot of coaches would go and use that skill to support their friends, and they're very giving. Like anybody who comes across your skills and having conversations with you, you're jumping all in to coach them. You're actually acting and serving as a coach to your friends, to your colleague, as a caregiver, as someone who come across and someone who's struggling with how do I feel more connected to myself? I don't feel good. I feel unmotivated. You jump in and you start talking to that person, and you're actually providing coaching, if you notice, that a lot of time you're using the skills that you have acquired as a coach in those conversations. But the problem is you're not getting paid and you're pouring your heart out. And those are great opportunities that you could turn that into a sales conversation. And I'm talking about sales conversation in a way it's not something that's sousy, it's a natural way of just simply inviting that person. Think about this. If you are giving away your coaching skill and you're helping someone unblocking a blog, let's say they're just not motivated recently and they're doing a lot of eating, they want to create habit. And here you are, you're having a conversation, you're delivering high impact. The way that you're going to invite that person to a sales conversation is you simply offer that person something more sustainable. Now imagine you're having that conversation on the spot and you let that person go away. What is that person gonna do? That person is gonna go home and they're gonna try the things that you told them to try. And it probably may work for a couple of hours or maybe even days, and then they go back into the old pattern because you never told them that you have the ability of helping them to keep this habit sustainable. And that's the key, is that you can have great and amazing coaching conversation with someone, and you just let that person went out there on them on their own because you're so afraid of having a sales conversation with them. That is not serving, that is actually doing somebody more harm than good. If you think about the conversation that you have on a daily basis, you're able to use your coaching skills in those conversations, helping someone to realize and see something that they were never, they would never be able to see before. And you let that person go. That is going to create more harm for that person than serving that person. So I would much rather you not having any coaching conversation, period, because if you're gonna let that person go and not offering that person something more sustainable, then you're not doing a great job in serving that person. So just think about that for a minute. Okay. So you by being afraid to call yourself as a coach, not inviting them into a sales conversation, that you can be their support to keep this sustainable, then you're not doing your best job as a coach. All right, so I spent a lot of time talking about the symptoms. How do we actually fix these? So the way that we can fix this is I'm gonna give you three steps. Okay, so step one is you got to decide you are it, you are in the role. The identity is claimed through your decision first. Decision first, evidence second. You're gonna claim yourself in that position as that with that title, with that new role that you're stepping into. This is your superpower. Don't look for the evidence, evidence to support you, while evidence to prove that I am a coach, that's gonna come later. If you think about the identity, it's a mindset thing, right? I have to believe who I am when I say I am. So, do you believe yourself as a coach? And that would be the most important question you want to ask yourself. Journal in your journal tonight, you want to ask yourself, I tell people that I am a coach, but do I believe it? If you don't, that's a mindset thing that you have to work on before you jump into the business strategy, before you jump into all these marketing, because you have to believe in yourself, in the skills that you're able to provide from your life experience, from your work experience, all these transferable skills that you have acquired in your life. Can you be a good coach? And do you believe you can be? And that's more important than having to work with a client and they telling you, oh, you are a great coach. Those are the evidence that support that decision. And the evidence is going to come later. So that's your step number one is to declare that identity and decide on that role. So I have a colleague, and so I'm I have a background in healthcare, and I went through pharmacy school, pharmacy training, and all the way to get my doctor's degree. So technically, I am a doctor of pharmacy. So I have a doctor's degree. And when I go out there, when I introduce myself, and in especially in the academic settings or at work, I don't refer to myself as Dr. Kwei. I call myself Michelle. It's Michelle. So I have this colleague, and every time he introduced himself, he always introduced himself as doctor. Okay, so all the students will call him doctor, all the colleagues who know him will call him doctor. And he's not a medical doctor, he's a doctor of pharmacy, but his official title for the experience that he had acquired, the schooling that he had gone through, he's a doctor, and he has a doctor's degree. And one day we were having a casual conversation, and I asked him, So, why are you so adamant about having people call you a doctor? And he sat down and he said, It's because I have gone through this much of training. I have studied my way to become a doctor, and I earned that title, and therefore I would much prefer that people call me with that title. And so it was uh what I have learned from that this from that conversation was this is a person who have decided that this is who I am, and this is who I want to be known for. So, same thing I'm gonna come back to you is the step one of solving all this problem. Do you need permission to call yourself as a coach? No, you don't. It's your decision to what do you want to be known as? If you want to be known as a coach, then you have to believe it. You just have to simply decide that this is who I want, this is who I want to be known for, and therefore, please do call me a coach. So that's step number one. Step number two is you want to have to practice the public ownership, meaning that you have to go out there and start introducing yourself as such, right? That includes your social media. Every time you go networking, you wanted to introduce yourself as a coach. So if you have another title, maybe you're a doctor, maybe you're I'm a clinical pharmacist, right? So when I go out, I want to be known as a coach. So a lot of you might not even know that I have a doctor's degree in pharmacy. I am a clinical pharmacist, and I have all these other things that I do. Most of you probably know me as a business and marketing coach. You want to go out there and you want to start using that title and introduce yourself perfectly. Publicly, there's a saying, what comes up for me is there's a saying that goes, you have to fake it till you believe it, or fake it till you make it. But I'm not telling you to fake it, I'm saying that you are on your way to become one. So be one. Um, so step two is really just to practice that public ownership. Visibility is going to create that belief to the self-belief. So go out there and introduce yourself as a coach. How many people know that you are a coach this week? And that would be an important practice that you want to do, particularly this week. And that in fact, that's actually one of the homework assignments I gave to one of my clients. I say, hey, this week you have one task and one task only. Okay, we came up with your iHelp, your positioning statement. I want you to go out there and I want you to start using it. And that's the only way that you're going to get information. And that is the only way that we can solidify the fact that you are a coach. So that's step number two. Step number three is instead of asking yourself, am I good enough to be a coach? Am I good enough to coach someone? Or am I good enough to charge for my service? What you want to ask, okay, you might want to write this down. In fact, do write write this down right now. Can I help this person take one step forward? So instead of asking yourself, am I good enough to coach? I want you to start asking yourself, can I help this person take one step forward? If your answer is yes, then you need to introduce yourself as a coach. And if you said no, then I want you to take a moment and think about whether or not this is a path that you want to be on. Alright, so as we wrap up, I got some work order for you this week. I love this idea of Michelle clocking into work, and this is my work order for you this week. Is I want you to take one action that you have to do this week. Maybe it's introducing yourself to someone new. Maybe it's simply just submit your final. Like if it's a final recording that you have to submit to your coaching program, submit that recording to the to the school, to the coaching program that you belong to. Or maybe it's simply just reach out to one person within your network, or maybe it's hiring a coach. If you've been thinking about working with someone, I do have group coaching and one-on-one, and just wanted to put it out there. Do that one action, just take that one action. And how long do you do this? Just spend 10 to 20 minutes. That's all you need. 10 to 20 minutes, send that person a text, or connect with that person, or hit reply to my email and say, I want one-on-one, or I want to learn about your goop. Just spend 10 to 20 minutes doing that. And over time, okay, you do it again and again. So if you're reaching out to one person, maybe tomorrow you reach out to another person, so two person, and on the third day, you reach out to three person. So it's a compounded effect to lead to the result that you want. Okay. Now you're gonna say, but Michelle, I don't know how to reach out to someone. I'm not asking you to sell to them, I'm just asking you to connect with them. Like their long-lost friend. How do you come connect with someone that you haven't talked to for a while and say, hey, I was thinking about you. And you were thinking about them, right? So send that person a text or send that start a conversation, send that person an email and say, I've been thinking about you. How are you doing? Something that's very casual. Start with that conversation. Or you might say, Michelle, but my my I have so many things that's going on in my life, and I don't know if I can start my business. I don't know, I have to finish my exam. That's a time management issue. And what is the time management issue? It's about how you don't have a structure to how you use your time. And that's something that we address through like how I help my client address it is that here's your assignment. You have a week to figure out when you like to do this. And I'm not asking you to do it on a daily basis, I'm asking you to complete this task so that you can bring it back to next week. So there's a structure that you follow so you never feel like it's pressing down your time. The problem with a lot of new coaches and coaches in training is that they're using the time and they're spending the time in places where it's not generating a revenue for them. It's not leading to the building business aspects. It's more like connection, collaboration, oh, learning. Great, I'm going to learn more classes, but it's not building onto your business. So you gotta look at your time and how you want to spend it. And what you need is a structure of how that what that looks like. So it's not because you don't have time, it's because you don't have a plan for the time that you have. And I was telling my one of my clients this morning that I work two full-time jobs. I have this full-time coaching business and I have to work full-time somewhere else by choice. But like the way that it worked is I'm very conscious about the where I spend my time. And is this going to bring me more joy by having this connection? Or is this a connection that's going to lead into a collaboration, maybe affiliation, or maybe a future client? I wanted to make sure that where my time is spent is where it's most needed. So it's not because you don't have enough time, it's because you don't have a plan. And if you want a full step-by-step plan, speaking of plan, if you want a full step-by-step plan for building your coaching business, while we're going through this whole week trying to figure out whether or not we need permission to call ourselves as a coach, you're welcome to download my seven-step roadmap to build your coaching business and get client. There's a link in the episode notes, show notes. You can download that roadmap and it's a step-by-step roadmap. And I actually have exercises that walk you through on each of the elements to build your business. And next week, we're going to fix a different problem that I see a lot of coaches are experiencing. And if you want a sneak peek of what we're going to talk about, first of all, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast. And every week I have a new piece of content coming to you. Next week, what we're going to do is I'm going to talk about what you can do while you are still a coach in training or you're still trying to wrap it up, finishing your accreditation hours and getting your ACC, PCC, and all that certification or DEI. I don't know if DEI is still a thing. But I know a lot of my clients, they are enrolled into the positive intelligence program. So they're still going through a lot of programs. What you can do to start marketing yourself as a coach. So we'll talk more about that next week. And like I said, if you have not subscribed to the podcast, I think you should because I have a lot of great episodes coming up to you this year. I'm doing this, I've been doing a lot of refining and figuring out what I can talk about that will bring the most value to you on this podcast. And I have a lot of episodes and ideas that's coming to you. And if you know a coach who needs to listen to this podcast, please do share it with them because somebody out there needs some a lot of hand holding. Yeah, a lot of hand holding. And I will see you next week. Bye. Thank you for listening to Make It Visible Podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support for your coaching business, head over to elevate lifecoaching.org and see how we can partner together to turn your passion into a profitable business. I help female coaches launch and scale their coaching business faster than ever without wasting time and money, filling the gaps in your marketing strategies, creating a simple and easy to follow system so you can accelerate on the path of coaching business that you love to wake up to. Head over to elevatelifecoaching.org and wrap a free strategy up today.