Revealing how the magic trick is done TL;DR - I’m going to 'unpack' the launch process I've been using to fill coaching programmes for the past few years and show you how you can apply those principles to get 1:1 clients and grow your coaching business. Sound good? Read on… When I started my first coaching business, I didn’t know much about business. Marketing was a mystery and I hated selling. As part of the story of how that changed, I wanted to tell you why I haven’t been very active in this FB group this year. Partly it was because I’ve been working on the 10th-anniversary edition of my book CLARITY, but there was also something else going on… I realised at the end of last year that I was spending more time running my business (marketing, operations, filling programmes etc) than I was doing the stuff I really love, things like: - Exploring and sharing the principles behind clarity - Teaching: Working with groups and individuals - Following my curiosity, passion and fascination - Going for walks with my beloved Emma McDevitt - Hanging out with family, friends and other people I love - Reading books, studying whatever I’m fascinated by and making the space for insight - Basically, freedom! This was a problem for two reasons: 1) The whole reason I started my business was to have the freedom to do what I love! 2) I always want to practice what I preach, and I was running the risk of being a bad example to the coaches in this group See, I’m assuming that the whole reason you got into coaching, therapy or group work is because you’re passionate about it, right? The only reason I even have a business is so I’ve got the time, money and ‘container’ to do the stuff I’m passionate about. I want my work to be a joy, and if it isn’t, then I’m not doing it right. Basically (dodgy metaphor alert!) if you’re putting the business cart before the passion horse, you’ve fallen into a trap. It’s a trap I’ve fallen into on a number of occasions, and when I saw it was happening last year, I called time on it. I decided to find out what happens when I introduce a zero-tolerance policy for stress, pressure and urgency in my business. I announced I wasn’t going to be running our Clarity Certification Training (CCT) in 2023. This meant I didn’t have to spend any time in 2022 doing anything to fill that or any other programme. Instead, I delivered the 2022 CCT programme (I love teaching), delivered my Advanced programme (I really love teaching cool advanced stuff) and continued delivering my monthly Laser-Coaching sessions in ClarityPro (I love coaching in a group context). I appeared on various podcasts and interview series (I love being interviewed) and created the space for insight. As you may already know, my ‘mission’ is to awaken people and support them in awakening others. That’s one of the reasons I love working with coaches, therapists and trainers. By waking coaches up to who they are and what they’ve got going for them, I can share the principles behind clarity with many more people than I could personally. Like I said earlier, when I first started my coaching business, marketing was a mystery and I hated selling. So I learned about marketing. In 2015, I did the pilot of something that would become my Thriving Coaches Blueprint programme. We had a great group of people, but something strange happened… People came up to me during the programme and said, “I love the way you teach; you’re nothing like your marketing!” Getting this genuine compliment was bittersweet. Every time I heard it, I felt bad about my marketing; I wanted it to be a true reflection of the work I’m passionate about! So I knew I had to change my game. Over the years, I experimented with various ways of filling the programme. By 2020, I had it boiled down to a launch structure that allowed me to do lots of teaching (which I love) as part of