The Career-Integrated Entrepreneur™ Podcast
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You don’t need to quit your job to start your side business.
You just need the right strategy and mindset - one that works with your 9-to-5 and personal life, not against it.
The Career-Integrated Entrepreneur™ is the podcast for high achieving corporate women who want to build a second stream of income through coaching -without compromising their career performance, their identity, or their lifestyle.
Hosted by Cindy Excell - Senior Financial Adviser, NLP practitioner, Career-Integrated Business Coach, and mum of two.
This show brings you honest conversations, time-smart strategies, and practical steps to help you create a second stream income, impact and purpose while staying high-performing in your career.
Because job security isn’t what it used to be.
And neither is success.
If you’ve been craving career options, more fulfilment, and more control over your future - you’re in the right place.
You don’t have to burn out or burn bridges to build something of your own.
Subscribe now and learn how to grow a coaching business on the side - with intention, integrity, and impact.
The Career-Integrated Entrepreneur™ Podcast
Ep 34. Validate Your Coaching Business Idea in 30 Minutes (Free Guide Inside)
Are you sitting on a dozen side hustle ideas but not sure which one is worth pursuing?
In this episode, I’m breaking down the “too many ideas” trap that keeps corporate women stuck in indecision - and the exact steps you can take to validate your coaching idea fast, without wasting time or building things nobody wants.
We will cover :
- Why clarity doesn’t come from thinking - it comes from testing
- How to know if your idea is actually profitable
- The 3-step method I use with clients to validate and refine their coaching offer
- How to use my free AI Coaching Idea Validator to shortcut the process
Let’s get you out of your head and into action.
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Welcome to the Career Integrated Entrepreneur podcast. Lead podcast for corporate women building a side hustle coaching business with intention and creating that financial runway while still thriving in the nine to five. I'm your host, Cindy Excell. Each week we talk strategy, mindset, and the real behind the scenes of what it takes to grow a business in the margins without burning out or blowing up your career.
Now let's dive in. Hey friend. Welcome back to the Career Integrated Entrepreneur Podcast. So today's episode is one of the foundational episode, I would say. I've talked to quite a number of corporate professionals, corporate women in the last few weeks. We talk about starting a site business or side hustle coaching business, et cetera.
What I have found is that a lot of these corporate professionals. It's not that they have no idea of what we want to do. It's actually quite opposite. They had too many ideas. And if you've ever found yourself stuck in your head with too many coaching ideas or too many side business ideas, and a zero clarity on which one is actually worth pursuing, then this episode is 100% for you.
So this is probably one of the most common and costly problem I would say I say in corporate women who are thinking about starting a startup hustle coaching business. They are full of ideas and they are full of different directions, but instead of taking action, they feel that they are pulled towards a different path or different directions.
That's why instead of turning any ideas into action, they stay stuck. And that stuckness is that, is that a word? A stuckness it. Then it turns to silence. Delay or even self-doubt. They just sometimes let that idea pass. They ended up not taking any actions at all, and today I'm going to show you how to flush out your one coaching idea.
And how to help you really take action instead. And what I'm going to give you as well is a free ebook with a free customized GPT tool that I've created to help you not only validate your idea, and also help you do that in just 30 minutes if you follow the step by step. Now, let's dive in. When I first started my own coaching business alongside my corporate role five years ago, I was in a very similar place.
I had quite a few ideas I want to help women with, um, you know, getting fit or losing, losing weight. I also wanted to help working moms lose baby fat and to get their confidence back. So I spent a long, long time. Instead of moving forward with one idea, I kept researching, tweaking, and second guessing myself.
The result was that I stayed in that planning mode for way too long. I had no audience, no offer, and also no momentum, and I know that many of you are in the exact same place right now. You have multiple skills. You're very experienced in what you do, and you are expertise in maybe multiple areas as well.
You've got life experience and personal transformation, et cetera, and you want your next chapter in your career or of whatever the thing you are building to mean something, but you probably don't know which idea is the right one to move forward with. Because you know, we all know that you have a corporate job and you probably also have a family commitment as well, and you really don't want to waste the time on things that may not be turning into something profitable or meaningful.
Here is a hard truth. I had to learn on my journey. You can only get clarity from talking to real people because until you start putting your ideas into words and then hearing the real reactions, the real response in the real world, everything is just theory and everything is just stay in your head or stay on the paper.
What's worst was that when you have all those ideas in your head, and if it takes too long for you to take any actions over time, the ideas is just going to fade. And that's why many people, even if they do have ideas of what they want to do as a side business or as a coach or as an online business, but they never take any actions, right?
This is why I never let my clients sit behind the laptop for. Weeks or months to just to perfect that niche. Instead, we tested, we message real people in that network. So that we can find out fast, that if that idea actually solving a real problem is that idea worth pursuing. But I also get it that messaging, random people with abstract can feel scary or even, you know, spamming sometimes.
That's why I create this ebook to help you solve that. So in this free ebook, I'm going to show you the three steps to help you flush out your one idea. To validate that idea in the real world and to put that into action. So you're going to get clear on the exact problems you solve. You're also going to check if people are already paying for that solution, and I also show you how to send a test message to five to 10 real people and get instant feedback so that you can tweak your messaging.
You can trick your positioning to attract the people who need your help. So basically the one goal of this free resource for you is to help you to get clarity on that one idea that is worth pursuing, that has a market that is profitable so that you can take actions. So this is what that looks like. The step number one is to clarify the problem you actually solve because profit follows a pen.
People pay to fix what feels urgent, costly, or emotionally heavy. Using one of my mentors words, what you are offering should be a painkiller, not a vitamin. So start by asking yourself, what do people actually come to me for? What problems have I overcome that others are still struggling with? Or what's something that I could talk about for hours and hours?
It might be something you are actually naturally good at, like public speaking, but most people are probably afraid of getting on the stage and to talk in public. Or it could be something from your corporate life, like you know, leading teams or managing burnout or something from your personal experience like navigating divorce or.
Reclaim confidence as a new mom, et cetera. So in the ebook, I also give you the GGBT prompts and also examples as well. So it's like a plug and play kind of formula that you can actually apply to your ideas. Step number two is to check if people are paying for this. Because coaching is a business and if you want your idea to turn into something that is profitable, to turn into real income, you need to confirm that there is a market demand.
And in this free guide, I actually share with you the different ways on how to do that. You basically are looking for real office. You are looking for the premium pricing and also the consistent interest on the market. We're not copying what other people are already doing, but we are confirming there is already demand in the market.
Building a profitable business doesn't mean that you need to reinvent the whale, and most of the time you don't have to. It does mean that you need to solve a real problem that other people are already wanna help with and willing to pay for. So innovation is great, is awesome, but often the best ideas already exist.
What makes you stand out is your story, your angle, your unique way of teaching and delivering results. That's how you differentiate your method from other people as well. The last step, step number three is to test that with real people. Now, most people skip this step, but you are not most people and you do not need a funnel or massive audience to validate your idea.
You just need five or even 10 honest response in your network and in this free ebook, I'll show how to do that as well. Now, before we wrap up here, I want to share with you this quick story. My client, Sarah, when she first came to me, her coaching idea was helping women thrive in their careers. So she was a head of HR in her company.
She's been in the human resources industry for probably 10, 15, actually no 15 years now. So that sounds great. You know, when you first heard about it, thrive in their career. You know who doesn't want that? But the problem is that is. Completely unclear. So we used this exact process in this free ebook we get the clarity on her real strengths was actually in coaching the first time people, managers on having tough conversations with that team.
And we actually wrote her messaging statement, her offer statement, and she test that with five people in her network. And within three weeks, she signed her first two and a half grand client. So that is the power of validating your idea early with a structure and with real people. If you are sitting on three, four, or even maybe, I don't know, 10 ideas, you don't know which one to move forward with, go download this three guide, validate your coaching ideas in 30 minutes.
Each step has example as well as check GPT prompt. At the end of this ebook, I'll also give you a link so that you have access to a customized GPT tool I built for you to actually brainstorm and get clarity even faster. So. Go download this free resource, follow the steps, and get real feedback. They swipe, so don't sit on this and let this free ebook collect dust, because this is the very first step to actually help you put your ideas into action now.
If your idea passes the test, because I'll also give you a green light test at the end of the ebook as well to see whether your idea will pass the test, if it does, and if you want my eyes on it, book a free 30 minute idea feedback call with me. The link is also in the ebook and there's no pitch on the call.
I just want to help you start to move to the next step with your coaching idea to help you turn your ideas into real business. So the link is in the show note below, go grab it, use it. Message me on LinkedIn or Instagram. Once you've tested your idea. I'm genuinely loving to hear what you come up with.
Until next week, keep taking message and meaningful actions. I'll see you here next week. Bye for now. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Career Integrated Entrepreneur Podcast. If this episode sparked something in you or gave you the little push you needed, I'd love for you to hit follow, leave a quick review or share it with a friend who's also interested in building an online business on your financial runway.
Starts now, and I'm so glad you are here. I will catch you next week.