What I Would Do If I Was Starting From Zero Tomorrow

PRIVATE PODCAST IS LIVE

"0 to 100: BTS Secrets Of Building A 6 Figure Business in 1 Year"

Instant access HERE

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If everything was gone tomorrow and I had to rebuild from scratch, what would I actually do first? In this episode I'm breaking down the exact mindset shifts and real moves I would make starting over with zero audience, zero clients, and zero runway. 

And if you want to see how it all played out in real life, I just released a private podcast called "0 to 100: BTS Secrets of Building a 6 Figure Business in 1 Year." Four episodes. The real story. A secret announcement inside that I'm not sharing anywhere else. Available until May 22nd only.

Transcript

0:00

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Building Her podcast. I'm your host, Katia Lillian. If you've been loving this podcast, go ahead and rate the podcast five stars and DM me on Instagram when you do that because I want to connect and personally thank you. If you are new here, hit that subscribe button. It really helps the podcast grow, and that way you will never miss an episode. So let's dive in. Hey, my name is Katia Lilian, and I am obsessed with all things mindset, personal development, and helping you build the best version of yourself. I'm a women's life and mindset coach and an entrepreneur who started a fun hobby of posting#sweatyselfies, grew a successful side hustle, and now I run a six-figure coaching business. I teach you the secret of building a life that aligns with your deepest values and one that you wake up excited for. This podcast is designed to expand your mind and challenge the status quo. So get ready to uplevel your life and let's start building her. As you listen to today's episode, I want you to imagine something with me. It's tomorrow morning on a Saturday, hopefully you slept in, and you wake up and everything you've built is gone. Stay with me, I know this is kind of scary. Your body might have just tensed up. But everything you've built is gone, the followers, the clients, the reputation, perhaps the revenue, all of it, and you're starting from scratch. What would you do first? I've been sitting with that question lately because I've been talking to early and aspiring coaches in the DMs on Instagram. I have been posting obviously a lot of content geared towards them, and I just launched my private podcast, Zero To 100: Behind the Scenes-- Behind the Scenes Secrets of Building a Six-Figure Business in One Year. If you haven't caught that private podcast yet, go ahead and click on the link in the show notes below. It's good until May twenty-second, and then I'm taking it down from the web. But in those DM conversations, a lot of it is those early and aspiring coaches who haven't even signed a client yet, or maybe they signed a client and they, you know, are thinking that they're lucky or, um, you know, y- kinda like it just fell in their lap, and it's not based off of the work. And so I've been trying to put myself in their shoes because I started my business in twenty-twenty, right? I signed my first client October of twenty-twenty. So I've been thinking about that a lot, and honestly, the answer that I'm about to share surprised me because what I would do now looks nothing like what I did then in twenty-twenty, right? And that gap, that is everything that I am going to share. So let's dive in. I do first just want to acknowledge content that are, that is titled what I do differently is everywhere and clickbaity, and I understand that. But my genuine thoughts around my career in the last six years of coaching is truly everything that I've learned and what I would do differently so that you don't have to, right? I go first, and I made the mistakes so that I can teach you. Um, this absolutely is not about regret and, you know, feeling shame or guilt or any low vibration around my career and my past. It's more so just extending the olive branch or, you know, reaching behind me and carrying the next woman and, and bringing her with me, um, speeding up time for her so that she doesn't have to go through the same trial and errors and mistakes that I did, right? I, I've learned so much and, and still learning. I think building a business will always be a little bit of trial and error. But what I do intend for this episode is to essentially speed up time for you. Like, take 10 years of lessons, which is my entire personal development journey, and collapse them into a timeline that actually works for you. When I think back to 2020 when I first signed my client when I signed my first client, I was still posting about Tone It Up and, um, my sweaty selfies and what I was eating in the day, and none of that by any means is wrong. I was life coaching, so all of that is, you know, all-encompassing. Um, but when I look at my marketing and my Instagram and the reels and the content and the captions, none of it was helping me. None of it was screaming,"I'm a coach." It was more of just like,"This is Katia. This is me." I was documenting my day-to-day lifestyle, and I was just sharing that on Instagram. And I wasn't really overthinking because I was still much more in that influencer brand type world, which I think really served me when I did lean into coaching because people already trusted me, and they saw my story, and they have been following me already for a while. My first client ever was actually a follower of two years. Two years, and then she DM'd me because of something going on in her life, and she wanted to, um, start coaching, right? But, like- I think about that. Like I didn't have the followers. I didn't have the messaging. I didn't have anything that said coaching. I didn't have any links in the bio. Literally nothing. I just knew that I could help someone, and I just had conversations in the DMs, w- whether it was inbound or outbound. And a lot of it was just, um, a very natural segue into consultation calls. And then, yeah, I had this offer, and it was definitely m- you know, more affordable at that time. It was the$600 six-week program. Um, but I just... I started somewhere, and I didn't have anything. Like no one knew my name. No one knew that I was life coaching. I just transitioned into that role. So I wanna be really, really clear with this episode. It's a lot of mindset, right? Like, I'm giving you the mindset first that I would lock in and, and truly commit to, and then the actual moves that I would make if I was starting from zero, if I was starting my business from zero. And I, and I also want you to know this is truly based off of my experience and my timeline. This is not theory. This is not what I read in a book. This is not a video that I watched on YouTube. This is not someone else telling you, me how to build a business. This is truly from my past and my experience Beginning with mindset, I'm going to offer four different mindset shifts for you that are absolutely paramount if you are building your own business. Here's what I know for sure. Strategy without the right mindset is honestly a to-do list that you'll find very overwhelming and therefore reasons to avoid that to-do list. So strategy is not the thing that you need to start with, it's your mindset. So number one, stop waiting to feel ready. I always say it. I feel like it's plastered everywhere, on my website, on my content. Ready is not a feeling, it is a choice. Readiness can be a feeling, but it does not come before you start. Oftentimes when we feel fear, it comes after the fact. So I can't feel excited, confident, and v- really convicted and committed in my decision. I have to feel the fear, and I have to dance with it, and I have to feel the butterflies, and I have to feel the nerves, and I have to feel my heart beating 10 times faster and still make a decision. Then after that decision, then it's like I'm just choosing to be ready, right?'Cause you don't get confidence and then act, you get confidence by acting first, right? You have to act in the fear, in the fog, as I say, right, with blind faith, and then you get clarity, and then you get confidence. You will always be the woman who waits until timing is right, until she feels ready your whole life. If you're listening to this right now and you can resonate with that, tell me right now, how long have you been waiting to make a decision to move the needle forward in your business and your dream and make money? Months? A year? Two years? Three years? Five years? Industry doesn't wait for you. It's just gonna keep on going, and it's gonna keep on shifting, and it's gonna keep on changing, right? Like the m- the longer you wait, the more outdated all the information you had learned before is going to become because the industry doesn't change. Or I'm sorry, it doesn't wait for you. I remember I was at my tech company. I was already one foot in, one foot out, and I was coaching on the side, and I was making good side hustle money. But I was still so afraid of taking that, quote-unquote,"leap," even though I replaced my salary, to actually do it on my own, to actually carry the weight of being an entrepreneur. And I went part-time in my company first, which was another year before I finally went all in, even though I had the financial proof to go all in a year before that. And when I finally went all in, guess what? No one cared. No one was waiting for me. No one was clapping like, oh my God, you finally did it. It was just me like, finally, okay, I've got to post on Instagram and okay, we've got to learn the social media thing and okay, I've got to learn how to talk to the camera and I have to edit and I have to use captions and I have to learn AI and whoo, right? Like all of that was still waiting for me. Nothing had changed in a year. It was just my fear. But if I look back on that now, again, I don't regret anything, but all I was doing was losing time. That's the only thing I lost. So stop waiting to feel ready. Mindset shift number two. And hopefully this is exciting and a breath of fresh air for you. Your story is your strategy. So in the beginning, I remember thinking I need more credentials. I need more certifications. I need more experience. I need more social proof, right? I need all these things before I can position myself as a professional, quote unquote, as an expert. But it's so interesting, right? Because how do you even get experience and how do you get social proof? You actually have to do the thing. You have to collect it. And so you have to actually coach to then get the experience of coaching, to then get and collect the social proof that you're looking for. People don't hire credentials. They hire solutions. They hire human connection. Your lived experience is the thing that nobody else has, and that is why people would hire you. If you're a mom who figured out how to build a business between school drop-offs and during nap times, like, that's your niche. That is the thing that you figured out, and that is the thing that you can package up and sell. If you are If you healed some kind of eating restriction, mm, let's call it like binge eating, right? I have some of that in my history as well. But if you solved that for yourself, and you, um, surpassed that and grew out of it and, um, got to the other side, well, that's now something you can package up and sell, whether it's, again, one-on-one or digital course or group program, whatever it is. So anything that you have overcome in your life, right, with that A to B transformation story, that is the story. That is the strategy. You keep sharing that story. That is what will set you apart, I promise you, and that is what can sell. Mind shift number three: money is allowed to come to you easily and quickly. This one is big because this is the one that I also needed to hear. So many of us women have been conditioned to believe that success has to be slow to be real. I'm working with a private client right now, and she's like,"Ah, this will take time." She's in month four."This will take time." And I'm like,"No, it doesn't have to. What if you decided to choose to say,'I will sign my first client this month.' Now in May. This month," right? And you can say that and f- and feel it and believe it that, yeah, I can sign my client, my first client this, this month. You have to believe that money can come easily and quickly. If it comes fast, sometimes there's a story in our head where it's like, oh, it's wrong, or it was luck, or it won't last, right? Kind of like a floof. But it's like, well, that's a story in your head And it doesn't have to be your story. You're choosing to believe that story. So give yourself permission to release that story and rewrite it into something where,"Actually, I can make money pretty quickly. I can build this business pretty fast if I wanted to, and this will work, and I will make it easily." Right? So you have to be aware of the story, or I should say stories, around money. That was really, really big for me because, I mean, gosh, you name it. I always thought, especially in my relationship, if I left my tech company and started my own business and then struggled for whatever reason, then that would actually hinder my marriage, and that was more of the subconscious belief that I had. Had no idea. That came out on a one-on-one coaching call years ago. Um, th- there are so many stories and beliefs that are running on autopilot in the background. And so you really need to pick apart your money beliefs and look at what is holding you back from actually building a business. But, but that would be probably one of my top three is that you are allowed to build and make money easily and quickly. Mind shift number four: You are the product. Especially in coaching and service-based businesses, people are not buying, again, your frameworks or your methodology. That, that's important, like, in addition to, but at the foundation level, they're buying you. They're buying your story. They're buying your energy, your approach, your experience, the, uh, way you see things, your perspective. Which means the most important thing you can invest in is becoming so clear on who you are, what you stand for, and how you help people feel that, right? before they even book a call. They-- You want this to translate into your content, how you talk, how you show up, how you take photos. What are you wearing? How are you carrying yourself? How are you living your life? What's your day-to-day routine? You are the product, and that's why I believe I had so much success in the beginning. Again, not financial success but in 2020 when I signed my first client and then nine more after that, was because I was just showing them who I was, who Katia was, right? Not like some perfectly crafted watered-down version where AI told me to be like this and wear this and... It was just me documenting my life, and that's what people gravitated to. So don't underestimate the power of you being you. Now, I, I do need to say the caveat of that is embodiment of your message. So I started as a life and mindset coach, and so in life I was like,"You can literally choose whatever you wanna be and go be that, and you can be happy in that." And I s- and I shared that. That was my message, but that was also what I was living. Remember, I was working for my tech company, but I was remote, and I was, uh, on an island from the office'cause they were in LA. I was in Chicago. Chicago became my playground, so I started leaning into, um, my health and my fitness and my wellness goals and surrounding myself with like-minded people and community and going to events and conferences and oh my gosh, like I was living exactly what I was preaching, and that is so, so important Okay, that was the most important. Mindset is locked in. We're good to go. So now here's what I would actually do in order if I was starting tomorrow. So I'll go through these pretty quickly'cause they're pretty self-explanatory. Um, five moves in total. So pen and paper is out. Move number one: pick one person and one problem. I'm not talking about a niche. I'm not talking about a brand. I'm talking about one person with one specific painful problem you know how to solve because this was the problem that you dealt with. This is the problem that you helped solve for yourself. Remember, you are your first client, so you have to get so specific that it feels so spot on for that same person who is going through that same thing. You have to be very, very specific, and that's what makes people feel like you are talking directly to them. You're basically talking to past versions of yourself. That's who's going to resonate with your message. You don't wanna do broad messaging, right? That makes you invisible. Specific messaging is magnetic, and to get specific is through your story. So pick a person, your past self, and the problem that you helped solve for yourself, okay? That's who you're gonna pick. And you're just gonna pick. You can always change later down the road. Move number two: create one offer, and then sell it before you build it. The one offer is going to be private coaching. You don't need all of the, um, modules. You don't need, like, Kajabi or Teachable or School, right? We're not talking about a course. We're not talking about a full program with sales pages and launch sequences and nurture. No. We're talking about one private coaching offer, right? That's it. I sell one-on-one coaching. I sell private coaching. I don't even need a damn title, okay? It's just a container where you get to show up on Zoom, whether it's an hour every week, every other week, whatever you feel like is, um, the best amount of time that you can offer, right, to actually help them transform, and that's it. You help, you help them solve that one problem call by call, right? That's it. That's it. That's all, that's all you need to do. Move, move number three, show up and say the thing out loud. What I mean by that is not just on social media, which is self-explanatory, but what it also is, is out in your real life. So talk to your friends, talk to your peers, talk to your acquaintances, talk to friends of friends, talk to strangers, talk about your coaching and what you help people with, right? It's about the transformation. You don't have to really harp on the problem, but just about the transformation, about what you know. And of course, then take that also online, but I want you to dive into the low-hanging fruit first. Move number four, have five real conversations a week. Having a number as a goal per week is really good because then you get to focus your wins on your effort, not the results, because the results will be wonky at the beginning. No one knows you as a coach, right? They're still learning like,"Oh, Katia's a coach. Oh, Sarah's a coach. Oh," um, what's another name?"Vanessa is a coach," right? So it, it takes them a while to, to learn and understand that you're a coach, right? But have real conversations with people that you know, and have a number that you can hit. And I'm ta- I'm not talking hustle, hyper-masculine, you know, feel stress. But, like, a comfortable number that you can truly hit and meet every single week so that you get to be consistent, because consistency is where the success lies. And then move number five, ask for the yes before you're comfortable asking, meaning you have to pitch your offer. You have to get onto consultation calls before you feel ready, before you feel confident. I, I promise you, you're gonna feel nerves, you're gonna feel scared, but that is the way through it. To build clarity, to build conviction, to build confidence is by the messy middle. It really is. And so you have to get onto those calls, and you have to pitch your offer and just be amazed with who says yes I want to be very, very honest with you about something. If I had known all of this from day one, would I have done it faster? I don't know. Right? But that's not the focus, that's not the point. The thing about starting over is that you actually never start over from zero, from empty, because you bring everything that you've learned and experienced and lived, everything, right? And you get to actually start from that new level, right? So you bring yourself and you bring your learned experience. You're never actually starting over completely. That's why my mentor one time said, um, Rob Dial, he was like,"If my business crashed and burned tomorrow, I'd be okay because I know exactly how to build the business up again." So I'm not starting over from scratch, right? I'm actually starting over from a place of knowledge and wisdom and experience. So again, I don't know if I could do it faster, maybe, because it would make sense. But I think the point is I'd have more confidence, um, going into it because I've already done it before. You know what I mean? Like the women I have helped and I've watched build something and sign their first clients and make thousands of dollars. They weren't the most experienced. No one knows their name. They weren't the most polished or, um, you know, going viral on Instagram or anything like that, but they were committed. They just didn't quit. They just kept going, right? Like in my She-E-O program, it's four months. They saw it through for four months. They didn't disappear after month one or month two when it got hard. They showed up for four months. You know what I mean? So here's what I want to leave you with. Everything I just talked about today, I actually lived it. And if you want to see exactly how it played out, the real timeline, the exact strategies, the mistakes I made, oh my gosh, so many mistakes along the way, and what finally clicked, what finally changed everything for me, I put it all inside something I just released. It's called Zero to 100, Behind the Scenes Secrets of Building a Six-Figure Business in One Year. It is a private podcast. I have reduced all of my knowledge and experience into four episodes, and it is some of the most real, most personal, and most detailed content that I have ever made available. There is also something inside that I have not announced anywhere else, and it's an announcement that is only for the people who listen. So if anything I said today resonated with you, I really want you to go over there and listen to this. Again, the link is in the show notes below. You have access until May 22nd, and then it closes. I'm taking it down from the web. If you need to binge it on 2X, please go for it, whether it's on a walk or a car ride or during nap time, whatever it is, go listen to it. You won't want to miss it.