3 Mistakes Every Coach Makes Before They Grow

If you are working around the clock but still struggling to grow your coaching business, the issue usually isn't your work ethic; it's your focus. 

In this episode of Fuel The Flow, Valerie Feghali breaks down the three most common roadblocks that keep health and wellness professionals stuck in a cycle of burnout and stagnant revenue. 
Many practitioners hit a massive plateau because they dilute their focus across too many strategies, delay their launches due to crippling perfectionism, and let a narrow mindset dictate their income ceiling. 
Valerie shares her personal journey of breaking industry norms to build a scalable model, explaining why you must prioritize your client's transformation over flawless branding. 
Tune in to learn how to overcome these specific mistakes, streamline your daily operations, and build a highly profitable online coaching business.

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Detailed Chapters: 

• 00:00 - Intro: Welcome to Fuel The Flow and the harsh reality of launching new products without an audience.
• 00:44 - 3 Things Holding Coaches Back: Valerie introduces the top three recurring roadblocks keeping wellness professionals stuck at an income ceiling.
• 01:52 - Thing 1: Distraction: Why diluting your focus across too many offers and platforms actively sabotages your business growth.
• 06:34 - The Wellness Vault Solution: How to reclaim your time and streamline your content creation with done-for-you resources.
• 07:04 - Thing 2: Perfectionism: The danger of hiding behind flawless branding instead of gathering real-world feedback on a minimum viable product.
• 09:34 - Thing 3: Narrow Mindset: How to break free from limiting beliefs and outdated industry norms to build a truly scalable coaching model.

If you found value in today’s episode, please leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! Your support helps us reach and help more coaches.

⭐ ABOUT VALERIE

Valerie Feghali is a physical therapist turned software CEO, helping health and wellness coaches scale their businesses without burnout. As the founder of The Wellness Vault, she provides white-label resources and strategic coaching to help you grow.

⭐ CONNECT WITH VALERIE

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/v.feghali/

The Wellness Vault: https://wellnessvault.com/

Disclaimer: 

The Fuel The Flow Podcast is for educational purposes only. The information provided is not intended to replace professional medical or business advice.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When you very first release a product with no following, you can't expect these massive results from it right out of the gate. And so nothing seems to really take off. But before you get the first thing that works, you need to really focus your time and energy on that one thing. I remember when I first started my membership, my coaches, my business coaches all told me that I would never build a million-dollar business. Welcome to the Fuel Your Flow podcast. I am your host, Valerie Figali, physical therapist, turned software CEO and business coach for health and wellness coaches. We are going to be talking about all things health and business. They might be more closely related than you think. So let's go ahead and get into it. Welcome back to another episode of Fuel the Flow. Today I want to talk about three specific things that I see holding coaches back. And I've seen this on trend. Now I have worked with coaches trying to scale their business over the last six years. And these are things that come up time and time again. And it really holds people back from reaching the goal that they want to reach. And oftentimes it's a small thing that, if let go or pushed to the side, can make a massive difference in the coach's ability to scale and reach their end goal. Now, I too was at a point in my business where I just felt like I was grinding the wheels, I was trying everything under the sun and nothing was working. So if you're in that position and you are a coach and you feel like you're following the advice of all these people and you're doing the work and you're in the grind in the hustle, I get it. I've been there too. I've had that point in my life and in my career where I just felt like everything I did was not working out. I expected to release something and have some success and have some uh results from it, and it just felt like it was a waste of time. Now that leads me into one of the first things that I feel like is holding coaches back, and that is simply distraction. What I see coaches do is they bounce around from course to course, from method to method, and they end up getting lost in the shuffle. So they're trying too many different things at once. Now, as you scale and as your business grows, you absolutely are going to try different methods and say, okay, this thing worked. Now let's move on and see if this thing can work a little better. But before you get the first thing that works, you need to really focus your time and energy on that one thing. Now, I see this in multiple different aspects of people's business. So for example, I see people creating six different products and promoting six different products while at the same time using six different marketing methods. They're on multiple different social platforms, right? They are joining multiple different types of courses. So not only do they have multiple products, but they also have multiple different ways of marketing that product. And so nothing seems to really take off. Now, when you can narrow it down and say, okay, I'm focusing on growing this one thing, and this is the method that I'm going to use to grow it, then you can start to refine that method and the product itself. When you very first release a product with no following, you can't expect these massive results from it right out of the gate. It takes time to get the ball rolling. You also need to collect feedback on the product itself to make it better. Most likely, what you released wasn't the perfect thing. It wasn't the ideal product that your client wanted, but that's okay. And the faster we can get to that result, the better. We want to release it as quickly as possible, ideally with our minimum viable product, meaning that it is the least amount of things inside of the product, least amount of features that the client actually needs to get results. And then we start collecting feedback on that to make it even better to add pieces that maybe we're missing that will help them keep them on track and help get them a result faster. But those do not need to be part of the product when you release it from day one. The first thing is narrow down what is the product that you want to focus on, and then what is the way that you are going to sell this? Are you going to be relying on referral sources? If so, you need to nurture those referral sources and spend time on that. And most likely you need more than one. You can't just rely on one person to be sending you a ton of clients. So you need to get out there, you need to be networking, you need to have some sort of affiliate program for these people to follow. And I don't just mean that they are getting 20% of your commissions. I mean that they are you're giving them email templates, you're giving them social media files to post, you are offering quarterly workshops to do with their um community, and you're creating the opt-in page and you're creating all of the content and slideshows for that, right? This is what I mean by when you focus in on one thing, that thing will get better. It will become more refined. You will become a better leader in that area. And so, what is your sales mechanism going to be? Put, I'm not saying, you know, forever put all your eggs in that basket, but for a little while, you do need to put your eggs in that basket and focus on it in order to get it up and running, in order to get the system flowing. And again, I just weren't used the word system. We need to build systems around our marketing funnel. And so if we are using, let's say, affiliates, for example, or referrals, then we should have a set process in place that we say, okay, when we first reach out to this client, this is what we do say and say. This is how we track that we've reached out to that client, and this is how we track how many times and with which methods we've reached out to them. These are the products that we're going to provide for them, the marketing campaigns that we're going to provide for them. This is the format in which it's going to be, right? We need to create systems around our sales product and then also our actual product that we're releasing for our clients, the way that we're serving our clients. And so narrow in. I heard a quote recently diluted focus gets diluted results. And that is absolutely true. Whatever it is that we choose to focus on is the thing that is going to grow. So if we dilute our focus and we start focusing on multiple different things and multiple different avenues, we are going to have diluted results in each part of those uh areas that we're trying to grow. And so pick one lane and go there until you've nailed it and then you can start to branch out a little bit more. Hey, sorry to interrupt, but if you are a health or wellness professional and you haven't yet checked out the wellness vault, you're missing out. The wellness vault is a content hub for coaches who create their own plans and programs for their clients, run workshops, create digital guides, and so much more. You can now do all of this in a fraction of the time so you can focus on your clients and grow your business faster than ever with more U time. The link to the Wellness Vall is in the show notes. So go sign up for your free trial today. Now, the next thing that I see coaches get stuck on is perfectionism. They are trying to create the perfect product before they actually release it. And I talked about this a little bit already, but you should start with your minimum viable product, something that is going to get a transformation for your client, but it's the minimal thing. So, for example, if you are working with your clients on weight loss, your minimal viable product could be some sort of macro tracking system that they do alongside you, that you're keeping a food log, you are creating accountability for them, but maybe you're not coaching them on all other aspects of holistic health, right? You're just focusing in on that one thing that you know is going to provide a result if they do it well. And so narrow in on what that thing is, get really good at it, get clients in, and then start to ask what else they would need in order to stay on track with that, in order to enhance that, see where they're getting stuck, pay attention to the questions that are continuously coming in. So those repetitive questions that people have, or those time frames. Let's say after two months, people start making progress. Okay, well, what can you offer then at two months to help them get over that hurdle? So you're going to start to see trends. What you don't want to do is spend six months or a year building out a signature program that may actually not be what your client wants or what actually gets the transformation. So again, start with something that's your bare minimum and then start to refine that product. If we really start with something that's um has all the bells and whistles, we're going to have a hard time marketing it because it is confusing not only for ourselves to explain exactly what it is, but it's confusing for the client to understand what they are getting from it. Also, the perceived value of that product might actually go down. If it has all the bells and whistles, they might think that they need to participate in each feature in order to get what they paid for. When you really know that as long as they get the result, they're getting what they paid for. And to even participate in one of the aspects of your product, they'll get that result. Then they, you know, will feel like they're missing out if they don't participate in everything else. When in reality, you know that the result was the whole purpose and the transformation was the whole purpose of the program. So when we start with that one thing, get really good at it, and then just start to branch out based on what you're seeing, where people are getting stuck, and the things that people are asking you for on repeat. The last thing that I see holding people back is a narrow mindset. Now we all have a certain set of beliefs. We have that ingrained in us, right? A lot of them come from childhood or from our adolescence, and we carry that with us into our adult life. And many times these beliefs can actually cause us to be held back when we're trying to make a change or grow in our business. And this narrow way of thinking is oftentimes where coaches get stuck and where they can't seem to move the needle. And there's different areas of narrow thinking where I think people get stuck. Some of it is within the belief that they can actually build a profitable business. They might think that deep down they don't know if they're cut out for this. They don't know if they have the capabilities to have a team as their business starts to grow or what to do, how to manage the money coming in. They don't necessarily know what they're going to do with it. And so subconsciously, they actually hold themselves back because they have these deep-seated beliefs that this may not be the right thing for them. Now, all it is is a thought. All it is is a belief. It's not necessarily the truth. The truth is something completely different. And the truth is malleable, right? It's all our reality is all what we create it to be. It's all our set of beliefs. And so when we can change that and move past that, is where we start to see growth in ourselves personally and also in our business. Now, also, people have a certain belief in the way that we should be selling or the way that we should be buying or the way that we should be coaching, right? We have belief sets around all of this. And if we can start to open up our mind, things start to change. So an example of this would be when I first started coaching, I had a specific philosophy on how I believed people would get results. And I realized that over time that only a certain segment of people are going to get results from that particular style of coaching or style of health and wellness, and that there was a whole other world of people who would get better results from a different method. And so it opened my mind up to that. So when you can see that, things become a lot more clear. Now I still think you need a specific method to move forward, but start to open up your mind to say, okay, maybe I don't need to do one-on-one coaching, or maybe group coaching actually isn't the way to go for me. Maybe I'm more geared towards hosting a membership and having a membership, even if it's low ticket. I remember when I first started my membership, my coaches, my business coaches all told me that I would never build a million-dollar business off of a low-ticket membership. And lo and behold, I have built a seven-figure business off of a low-ticket membership. And because I knew that it fit my lifestyle. Now, it took me a while to be okay with that. I first had to go through the phase where I was only doing large live launches to a high-ticket program. And it took me a couple years to be like, this isn't for me. Even though I'm making some money from this, I'm not making the type of money that I want to be making, and I'm not enjoying it. I'm not enjoying the live launches, I'm not enjoying selling the high-ticket product. And so I started to say, you know what? Even if people are telling me that this method isn't necessarily going to work, I believe it to be able to be true. I'm going to take pieces and aspects of what other coaches are telling me, and I'm going to kind of restyle it for what I want out of my life and of my business. So I had to move away from that narrow mindset that I had, and that quite frankly, the coaches that I was working with had as well. And I had to really follow my own path. So part of it is getting out of your own way. Focus on one thing, limit the distractions, reduce the perfectionism. Yes, make a high-quality product, but focus on the transformation instead of on the design and the bells and whistles and all the fanciness of your program. Focus on the transformation and the service that you will be providing for your client. And then lastly, open your mindset and see what is truly possible. You are capable of growing a business, of making a lot of money and at the same time serving your clients incredibly well. So I hope this helped. I will see you on the next one. I hope you enjoyed our conversation from today. Any links we discussed will be in the show notes below. Also, we would be incredibly grateful if you would leave us a five star review. This helps us keep the podcast going so that we can continue to provide value for all of you. I hope we see you on the next one.