Ep #367: The Best Business Christmas Ever

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and Master Coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first $2K, $20K, and $200K using her proven formula.

Hi coaches. Welcome to episode 367. Merry Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas. Or happy holidays, especially if you’re listening to this after the fact.

My podcast producers were telling me that this week is not a highly listened to week on any podcast because people are enjoying Christmas, and I’m feeling that. I’m not going to be necessarily listening to podcasts and studying and doing all the things on Christmas Eve and Christmas. But even though I will be off for two weeks for the holidays, I will be doing some working and doing some thinking, and I will be listening to some podcasts. So I wanted to record one for you.

So I wanted to record one that would be different and fun in case you’re taking the full two weeks off and you’re not thinking, you know, if you’re taking off from basically Christmas Eve through New Year’s and you’re not thinking about work at all, but you want something fun and sweet and inspirational to listen to, I think this could be the episode. I’ve never done an episode like this before.

So, what I want to do with this episode, no matter where you are in your listenership for this week, I want to tell you about the best business Christmas I ever had. So it’s storytelling time. I’m not even sure what the lessons are going to be. There’s going to be a few in there. But I want to just put possibility in your head.

A lot of times, coaches tell me that nobody’s buying during the holidays. I think sometimes we have that thought if we are not buying during the holidays. If you are not thinking of any investments that you would make in your life or your business, if you are checked out of goals and things you want to create in your life by the end of the year or the beginning of next year, you might experience the belief that people aren’t buying. But I’m always like the week of Thanksgiving, I actually was considering two different business investments. And in fact, I was texting with one coach about it, and I forgot it was the day before Thanksgiving.

And so I think if you are actively looking to make a big change for yourself, you are thinking other people are buying because you’re buying. And the same at the beginning of the year. So that could be one thing, but you may also just not have any amazing stories of people buying during the holidays. And so I want to share this one with you.

So this story starts the winter, the, I guess, actually it would be considered fall, but the December of my first full year of business. The year that I made $150,000, which would have been 2016. So this story starts in 2016.

I had at this point, at the end of the year, a full coaching practice, and I had started, I had started a group that, if you bought my 1-on-1 coaching, you got to do the group. So all my 1-on-1 clients would come together every week, and we would coach as a group. And it was super fun because at that point, they were all creating something major in their life. They all didn’t have businesses. Some of them did, but some of them were creating just big things. Like I had a professional athlete in there and some network marketers and a coach or two. Like I had people doing big things. And so we all would come together and work on that. And I had one person who was just deeply working to change her life. So it was a lot of mindset work.

So it’s important to know those two things were happening at the same time. I had a full 1-on-1 coaching practice and a group. And my group, I don’t remember the exact details around it, but my group started talking amongst themselves, I’m guessing in the Facebook group, about wanting to get together and see each other in person.

And it started coming up so often that I had this thought, I’m going to have to create a retreat, or they’re going to do one without me. It felt like the demand was so high. Like they were literally talking about when they could get together with each other. And I thought, I mean, they could do it on their own, that’s fine, but I could also offer them an experience.

And so I created my very first retreat. And I did not have, at the time, or I mean, I really don’t have that thought at any time, but I really didn’t have the thought at the time that no one would buy because the holidays were coming up. In fact, my thought was, I love the holidays. What if we created, I created a holiday retreat? That would be, in my brain, that was like the most exciting thing that you could do.

And the first two years of my business, I think this could be the first lesson you can take from this episode, the first two years of my business, I did a lot of what felt fun and exciting and a dream come true for me. If it lit me up, I did it.

Even if like all of my offers, my second retreat, this really is a story about my first retreat, but my second retreat, I called a Midnight in Paris in Michigan. I love to tell this story because it was just such an outrageous concept. I loved the movie Midnight in Paris, and I had this like before and after triumph story that really happened in Michigan where I got my heart really broken and very publicly humiliated and then kind of staged a comeback where I made $100,000 and then my last ever store, what we called store run for my pitching job was in Michigan, in the same city where I had been humiliated and had been just heartbroken. Muskegon, Michigan.

And so I wanted that retreat to represent this like triumphant journey, this deep dive into a woman’s soul, into her heart, into her mind, into her expansion. And I wanted it to have this like dreamlike vibe. And we did, we did like, what do you call them? The like kind of erotic photo shoots. I can’t think of what they’re… boudoir photo shoots. That’s what it was. We did yoga on the beach. We had this insane catering company come in and do like a carnival masquerade night.

And I drove, literally drove 9 hours to the French Quarter in New Orleans to have custom masquerade masks made for my retreat attendees. And we stayed in this insane French-inspired, which is so crazy, right? Midnight in Paris is I was into that movie. And then I find a French-themed house in Michigan. I mean it was the wildest thing.

But I look back, and I’m like, I can’t believe people bought this. I can’t believe this sold, but it was my heart and soul that was actually selling. And it ended up being one of the most incredible experiences. I did two retreats back-to-back. So that was my second retreat.

But I just have this belief that anything can sell, especially if your heart and soul is into it, especially if you don’t have negative thoughts around it. If you’re not having limiting thoughts around it. And so my thought was, I love Christmas. I cannot wait to throw a Christmas retreat for my people. And so I rented this beautiful log cabin in the Smoky Mountains. And which is like a few, you know, maybe a 6-hour drive for me.

I bought a Christmas tree and put it up in this house for a three-day retreat. We did champagne cocktails with cranberry, like cranberry mimosas. We did hot cocoa. I mean, it was like the most I made, had custom ornaments made with all the retreat, like the participants’ names on them. We had these this beautiful sign. We called it the Diva Christmas retreat, I think. This was when I was selling something called Diva Business School at the time.

And it was just like the, I had someone else make a homemade, one of those like picture frames that you can hold, and then someone takes a photo of you, so you’re like holding a fake frame with your head in it, and they take a photo. And then I bought all these like Christmas face, I am at a loss for all the words today. But you know, when you put something in front of your face and it’s like a mask and there’s a stick on it? Why can’t I think of what that’s called? Like photo props. We had a ton of Christmas photo props, like the googly glasses and reindeer ears and things like that.

And then everyone dressed up like crazy. Like women were wearing gowns for one of our like fancy dinners and I remember I was wearing the cutest Kate Spade dress. It was bright, like satin red with black bows on the back. It was like mostly backless, but it had black bows on the back. It was so gorgeous. The whole thing was just like a Christmas vibe. I mean, it was like a winter wonderland.

And I sold a VIP experience with it. So I had a couple of girls come early, and I took them to the Grand Old Opry, and we had morning like hot coffee overlooking the beautiful Smoky Mountains, and just had like the most intense conversations about what we wanted in our life and what they were creating. And I coached them. And it was just absolutely stunning.

I had I think 20 girls come. Like 20 women took time out of their lives to come to a Christmas retreat in the month of December for an entire weekend. We coached, we did gift, like Secret Santas. It was stunning. It was truly the most magical experience ever.

And I walked away with the belief that if you create an incredible experience, people will come. If you create a vibe, like something that feels like I have to experience this. I have to be there. I can’t miss this energy. I can’t miss this these memories. I can’t miss this experience, this luxury thing for me to fill my soul. Like I can’t miss this. I think if you have that, whether it’s an online offer or an offline offer, people will come.

It 100% has to do with you selling the offer, making that offer right. You can literally sell something, a Christmas retreat in the Smoky Mountains, the Diva retreat, and you can sell something called a Midnight in Paris in Michigan if your heart and soul is connected to it. 

But then as I’m selling this retreat, I have a client. I would call her a VIP client because she didn’t want anyone to know who she was, that she was coaching with me. She had coached with a really big name in the network marketing industry and had told people about it because she was so excited about it. And then everyone wanted to coach with this coach, and she felt like now it wasn’t this like private personal experience that she’d been hoping to have.

And so when she hired me, she was like, listen, I have a huge audience, but I really don’t want you to tag me in things and post about me because I want this experience to be my own. I actually remember at the time thinking, that’s so strange. But I actually feel that now. I mean, I honored it 100%, but I remember thinking, okay.

And now I’m in a program where I feel a little bit like that. Like, I don’t talk about who I’m coaching with because I’m having an experience where I get to fully be the client, and I’m loving it. And I don’t want a bunch of my clients in the group. Like I want to have the experience for myself, at least for now. So I really get that now.

And so she wanted to do this retreat, but she just didn’t want to be seen at the retreat. She didn’t, I don’t think she wanted me to have to edit her out of photos or like stand out of photos. Like, it just wasn’t the vibe she was looking for. And it sold out so easily. We only had so many rooms and so many beds and so many places to be. So it sold out so fast that it was like only sign up if this is the perfect offer for you.

And so I started thinking about it, and I said, so, you know, I know you’re wanting something that’s like very intimately private. What about a VIP weekend where I can come and for four days straight, I can coach you morning, afternoon, evening, day and night, 24/7, doing the most luxurious things anywhere in the country that you want to go?

And she was like, I’ve always wanted to be a snow bunny and go to Aspen at Christmas. She was like, I don’t want to take my kids. I don’t want to bring my family. Like I want to one day, but like I want something for me. And I want to do something that’s this luxury experience for me.

And so I sold her a $20,000 VIP four-day event the week before Christmas in Aspen, Colorado. And I went all out. Private helicopter rides over the Aspen Mountains, landing on private property that you can only land on or get access to through via helicopter. L’Oreal had shot a commercial the week before there. Like, champagne toast on this private property in the middle of the mountains with helicopter-only access.

We did, we stayed at the St. Regis in Aspen, which is where I love to stay when I go to Aspen. Spa days, going, we didn’t ski. I didn’t ski at the time. She didn’t ski, but we went up the to the mountain and had hot cocoa. It was just walked around town. Like, it was the most incredible, luxurious, like high vibe experience.

We did the most insane dinners out. Aspen has like the best food scene. And we really got to the root of one of her like deep issues that she came to coaching for and worked through it over an extended period of time. And it was just incredible.

And I remember feeling that year like anything was possible. It was just the most fun I ever had. I was gone for so long in the month of December that I did not put my Christmas tree up until December 24th. But I was so full of magic and dreams and just heart and soul and holiday magic that when I did get home, I was like, who cares? I’m staying up all night and putting my Christmas tree up. And then the next day, I left for my family’s house to go celebrate in a different city.

So I didn’t even, like I put it up just to come home after Christmas to my Christmas tree. That’s how full of Christmas spirit I was after a three-day retreat in the Smoky Mountains and a four-day VIP in Aspen, Colorado.

Like, I don’t know if you guys have been to Aspen in the winter, and especially at Christmas time, it literally to me feels like if you’ve seen A Nightmare Before Christmas, when Jack Skellington goes into Christmas time, when he opens the door, and he enters the land of Christmas time, to me, this is Aspen at Christmas. It has the same exact vibe. It feels a little bit like Whoville. I love it so so much.

So I put my Christmas tree up and then went to celebrate Christmas with my family, and came home and kept my Christmas tree up and the magic in my heart alive until I think April of that year.

In fact, if you’re in 2k for 2k and you take my Interrupt training that is in the bonus section, people say to this day they love that training so much, but they laugh because I filmed that in March or April, and I filmed it in front of my Christmas tree that was still up and like it was no big deal. Like that wasn’t abnormal in any way, shape, or form because I just felt so good about it.

It was the best business Christmas ever. It blew my mind for what’s possible. It made me think that coaching could literally be magic, that having a business could be 100% on your terms.

Like, I think why I feel so passionately now and what’s been coming out in my Entrepreneur Series is this overarching lesson that you just can’t take the typical, you know, entrepreneur business rules and apply it to coaches because if you do, coaching will start to feel really dry. It will start to feel like your corporate job, like another heavy thing you have to do every day, like another hard thing.

It won’t feel like this magical, beautiful expression of my own ideas and creativity and my heart and my soul and what lights me up and you won’t then find clients who match that same energy where your best idea that feels like magic to you, that feels like everything you would ever want, like just radiating outside of you, this is my greatest expression of love. Like, there are people in the world that will connect with that and be like, mine too.

People loved my students loved my Midnight in Michigan retreat. The photos were insane. Like, lives were changed from that event. At least two of the people that were there are still my clients to this day and have $100,000 coaching businesses themselves now. Like real transformation happened there. It wasn’t just like selling random stuff and having a good time and, you know, raking in money and not caring. It was like deep transformation was happening.

And so I think about that often with coaches, like, does your coaching business feel like a dream? Does it feel like something that is your greatest expression of your creativity? Does it feel like love? Does it light you up? Does it blow your mind? Are you having the absolute time of your life? If you’re not, you might be doing it wrong. And I know there’s a solution.

100% it can feel this way, especially when you don’t have a business that’s like really bogged down with funnels and ads and like I just feel so passionately about building your business one 1-on-1 client at a time until you can’t sell 1-on-1 anymore and you have to go to group and then building it one group at a time until you can’t sell group anymore and you have to go to a program or a course because selling 1-on-1, doing retreats, like not having like a business that has like it’s not having an operational-heavy business is so much fun. So much fun.

Now, I am having so much fun in my business right now, but I will tell you, I haven’t had this much fun in my business in many years because it has been so operationally heavy for a long time. And I think I needed to go through that to get here and to extract wisdom from having both because I do coach people who have operationally heavy businesses as well. And if I ever want to go to 20 or 30 million, it will also be operationally heavy.

But I always tell people, your first 100k, 200k, 300k, 400k, you have got to enjoy the crap out of it because it really is a time where you could throw things at the wall and see what sticks. It really is a time where you could be like, this would be fun, let’s go do that. It’s really a time where you can say, deep in my soul, I’ve always wanted to do this, let’s do that.

I also remember a couple of years later, actually the year that I was going to start scaling my business, I sold a retreat in Cabo, San Lucas, to maybe like 10 or 12 women. We stayed in this insane house that is, if you’ve ever stayed at it’s the Waldorf Astoria in Cabo, San Lucas, now, but it used to be called Resort Pedregal. And if I pronounce that right. And it’s like right above the resort. You can see this insanely beautiful mansion on a cliff, and it was that house.

And that retreat was like if you could just say, what would be the most fun and life-giving experience I could ever have is take all of my favorite people to my favorite place in the entire world. Be in the sun. We went on a yacht and saw actual whales jumping out of the water. Like what dreams are made of with like imagine your best clients watching whales jump out of the water with you in like beautiful 80-degree weather in your birthday month. Like those types of things. And that is the retreat where I created the three-year plan. Like I, the very first iteration of the three-year plan was offered at that retreat.

Like, I just think when you’re in such connection and alignment, and you’re just feeling the vibes, and you’re doing your like heart’s work, the best ideas come out of you. Your coaching business, especially in the beginning, it should feel this way. It should feel like you’re having the time of your life. It should feel like all of the things.

I know I’ve said that a lot in this episode, it should feel like it should just be magic. It should be pure magic coming from your heart and soul. It should be your biggest transformations, offering it to other people, bringing in the best people that light you up, that you’re so proud and honored to coach. It should be breaking all the barriers of what you think is possible for business, the greatest expression of your personality, and what you care about. I mean, it really should feel like art.

I want that for you so much. This was my best business Christmas ever. The Diva Business School, Christmas Retreat for my Divas, the Aspen VIP Experience. And then my Christmas tree up until March. Carrying the magic of the holiday season with me the entire way through.

And y’all, let me just tell you one last story because this is so crazy. These experiences are not without friction. Like I’m in the middle of doing a behind-the-scenes experience of making a new offer for my business. And one of the things I want, because I think sometimes when I tell these stories, like people imagine it a little bit like Instagram.

I was watching a reel the other day on Instagram of this woman, who I don’t know if she’s a trad wife. I don’t and I have nothing against that. PS. I think everyone should do them. But like her whole thing is like how beautifully kept her house is, and how she like perfectly cleans it for her children and her husband while they’re away, and that’s from what I’ve gleaned, that’s the thing.

And I was watching it, and I remember catching my brain, and my brain was like, wait a minute. Nothing is, like cleaning a house is not. She’s making it look effortless because it’s like, you know, the sped up like little caption of it, but actually, this is hours and hours of work. We’re talking like cleaning up every ounce of mess made by their Christmas decorations, folding the laundry, making all of the beds in the household, dishes, all the vacuuming of this, like what must be a 10,000, at least 10,000 square foot house, if not bigger. Like this is like what whole cleaning teams come in to do, but in the video, she makes it look like nothing is really happening, like completely effortless. And so I know that sometimes that happens on the podcast, on social media, like you see the perfection of things, but there was friction during these experiences as well.

So I’ll tell you about two of them. When I marketed the retreat and sold it out the week before we were supposed to go, the Smoky Mountains burnt down. Like Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge burnt down. I’m not exaggerating, you can Google it. It was wild. Every day we were like, is the cabin still standing? When I was thinking of my VIP things, like the Grand Old Opry and doing things with my clients, I’m like, what can we actually do?

When I was leaving from the retreat, I saw so much of the fire damage. Like we were heartbroken. We were so sad for all the people at Christmas that their houses burnt down, maybe their vacation properties burnt down, staples in the towns burnt down. Like we were so devastated for them and so scared for us. Like were the fires going to be contained? Were we going to be able to get to do it? Were we going to need to refund? It was wild.

And they got it contained under control and then out within days of our retreat happening, which is so wild. Like I remember just holding, if you’ve listened to my uncertainty tolerance podcast, that was one of those moments, just holding the uncertainty of the fires and then holding the dream and the vision in the other hand.

And then when we went to me and my coach at the time did the VIP retreat in Aspen. And on our way there, I think our flight was at 4 p.m., and I remember we got to the Louisville airport, and I was like, I’m a little hungry. I think I might go get a snack. And I was like, no, I’ll wait if we when we land in Denver, and we had a connector to Aspen. I’m like, Denver’s going to have so many more options. I’ll wait.

And then our flight got delayed and then delayed and then it got delayed to the point where like no announcements were made. Like, oh, the airport food is closing. Nope. They didn’t make any announcements. And suddenly, every single thing in the airport was closed, and you could not get food or even water. You could not get even water in the airport. And it wasn’t until like 8 hours into the delay that they’d offered water to people standing around being like, what is happening? You can’t keep us in this airport without food or water.

So we finally left sometime after midnight, and we’d been there since, I think 2 if our flight was at 4. Sometime after midnight, we land at like 2:30 in the morning. We’ve missed our Aspen flight, and our client is landing the next day. They’re also getting a snowstorm in Aspen. Like, I think every time I’ve gone to Aspen, we have landed right as a giant snowstorm dumps onto Aspen. We’ve gotten lucky every time and gotten there, and we’ve never gotten stranded, but it always seems like they’re like, oh, we’re about to, you know, we land and then 36 inches of snowfall.

And so it was one of those things happening, and I remember eating pizza at 2:30 in the morning from a gas station, sleeping two hours, and then having to get up and get back to the airport for a 6:00 a.m. flight to Aspen, no sleep. And then we were behind a day of execution, like prepping for this VIP weekend, and like talking to people, you know, we would just set the stage for everything. So every single place we went was like expecting our client and ready to, you know, welcome her and call her by name and treat her to an incredible experience.

And all of that we had to do on no sleep in approximately 4 hours before our client landed. And then we were afraid she wasn’t going to land because of the snow. And so we’re sweating a $20,000 experience where we’ve already booked all these things, and maybe she doesn’t even land. It was wild.

Holding uncertainty tolerance like crazy and or building that up, holding the uncertainty, building up the tolerance, and then holding the vision and the magic in the other hand. And it all ended up working out so beautifully by the time my client arrived. Like, there was no indication that any of that had happened.

That was one of the rules of a retreat and a VIP that I learned early on is that no matter what happens, the client can never know. So whatever is going on behind the scenes, like that, the client cannot hold that stress. You hold it, you figure it out, you make sure the client feels like a million dollars. I do think these experiences are why I’m so good at hosting live events and retreats, is because I have been through the fire with them.

So they were not without friction, but if you can get through the friction, if you can believe deep enough, I mean, it was the most magical experience ever.

So I just wanted to share that with you. I wanted to share that there’s always possibility during the holidays. And if you have a beautiful dream in your heart, execute it. Don’t let the holidays hold you back. Don’t let the idea that people wouldn’t buy it, that you’re the only person ever that would want it. No, decide you’re going to compel them to want it too, because you see something that they don’t see yet, and you know it’s going to be immensely life-changing and valuable. That’s what you do. That’s the work.

And if your business does not feel magical and fun and like you could create anything, you might just need to develop a mindset or some skill sets that allow you to do that. That is it. You need support, you need a bigger, more open mind. Like you just need different things. Like, we have to rewrite the ship because it really can be this fun, this magical, this level of connection, it can be this creative, it can be this mind-blowing, it can be this transformational. I want that for you.

All right. I hope I caught you at some point after the holidays, before the holidays, whenever. I really wanted, I didn’t want to do a previously done episode. I just wanted to get on here and talk to you and wish you a merry Christmas, and offer you this, these few stories to encourage you for what is possible.

All right, have an amazing rest of your week. Hug your babies, hug your parents, hug your grannies. Eat lots of amazing food. Appreciate every gift and give from your heart. I love you all so, so much. Talk to you next week.

Hey, if you’re ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2K for 2K program; where you’re going to make your first $2,000 the hardest part using my simple five-step formula for getting consults and closing new clients. Just head over to StaceyBoehman.com/2Kfor2K. We’ll see you inside.