By: Crystal Haitsma- Guest Author
I’m a Relationship and Life Coach, with no background in marketing or advertising or running online businesses. I never thought of myself as much of an entrepreneur, and in fact, the part that I dreaded most about Coaching was actually building my business.
I started investing in online courses, finding business coaches, and consuming as much information as I could… and what I realized was being an entrepreneur was actually kind of awesome!!
It’s really a lot like mind management and self-help. The theories and steps are so intertwined. Now I LOVE learning and working on my business and implementing these practices and watching them work for me!
Step 1- Learn, Learn, Learn!!
It’s okay to acknowledge that you might be lacking in a certain area… like social media, networking, marketing, etc… Noticing that you have a skill gap and then taking the steps to increase your knowledge is KEY!
There are great programs, business workshops and tons of books out there… you just have to go out and find them! In fact, I would register for TONS of free online mini-courses about how to build your business, and I would jot down key points that I learned from them. I did this ALL the time. Try it out for yourself.
Step 2- Implementation
Learning is great, and gaining more knowledge is necessary, but if you don’t do anything with that knowledge, it’s pointless! It’s like flushing time and money down the drain.
I take courses, write notes, then implement new steps into my weekly schedule. Whatever I just learned, I’ll try it out and see if it works for me. If it doesn’t, I’ll move on to something else.
ACTION is key when building a business. I often tell my clients… “if you were feeling super confident about your business and yourself, what would your next step be?”
DO THAT.
Step 3- Engagement
I do most of my selling on social media, and the KEY to social media is engagement. You don’t just want to increase your followers, but you want to get to know those followers and get them feeling like they are really part of your community.
If you can nail this step, you’ll be able to sell anything you choose to offer!! Nurture your current followers, get to know them, get on your FB/IG stories and show them WHO you are and WHY you do what you do. Offer them amazing free content so they think… “Wow! Their free content is SO good, their paid content must be amazing!!”
Step 4- Networking
Get out into the world (online or in your own community) and get to know people. Tell them what you do. Don’t do it in an “I have this great product/service you need right now” type of way. Just meet them, be confident in yourself, and tell them what you do. I rarely try and sell to them. I just introduce myself, be the real me, and tell them I’m a Life Coach. Often this brings up questions about what I do and how I help… but I never do it to sell, just to genuinely get to know them.
Ask yourself the same question as Step 2… if you were feeling super confident, what would your next step in networking be?
Step 5- Perseverance
This is my absolute FAVE step. Imagine walking down a path. Your walking for a while and things are going really well, you look back and you’ve actually gone pretty far! All of a sudden, you notice several large boulders on your path.
There are two ways you could respond… you could look at those boulders and think that you must be on the wrong path. So you give up and go home.
Alternatively, you notice the boulders, you figure out a way to move them, or you maneuver your way around them. You don’t make it mean that your path is wrong, just that you need to do something different in order to continue.
In Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck says: “The hallmark of successful people is that they are always stretching themselves to learn new things”.
That’s it. That’s all. Just keep trying, keep failing, keep learning.
You’re on the right path.
You’ve got this.
Meet Crystal Haitsma!
Crystal is a Canadian homeschooling mom of 4, and a certified Life Coach! She has her BA in Psychology and always had a deep passion for learning about the study of behavior as long as she can remember! She runs online workshops and meets her clients one-on-one. Her main love is to help moms who deal with feeling overwhelmed and angry to learn how to find joy in their motherhood and become their own parenting expert! She loves living intentionally, focusing on the future, and making her dreams happen now.
She has been building an intentional life for herself for years, from homeschooling, to crazy travelling (buying one-way tickets to Hawaii, or travelling in a trailer across North America!) She helps others build their dream life in their home, in their relationships, and in achieving their goals.
Follow her online:
FB: https://www.facebook.com/coachingwithcrystalnoelle/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/coaching.with.crystal.noelle/
Website: www.coachcrystal.ca
