Ep #406: Building Community & the Net Worth of Your Network

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.

Hey coaches, welcome to episode 406. Today we’re going to talk about building community and the net worth of your network. I’m so excited to be here with you today. I’m actually here on a different day. I don’t normally record the podcast on Fridays. Typically it’s Wednesdays or Thursdays, but I spent 30 minutes yesterday trying to get the sound to work. All the time I had allotted to record this podcast went to trying to figure out why the mic wasn’t working. 

I wanted to tell you that in case you ever get frustrated and lose time to things like that and you think, “Oh, when I have a million-dollar business, things will never happen like this.” They absolutely will. And it will piss you off just as much, if not more.

All right, so here we are on a Friday. And I am excited to talk to you today. I am teaching Clientelle, a mini-course inside the Entrepreneur Coach Membership. If you have not joined us yet, I highly recommend it. Every call, people tend to be blown away. We’re having a very good time, but mostly we’re talking about things that I don’t think anyone’s talking about in the industry in this way, especially.

So, in Clientelle, the very first call that people are still raving about, we talked about building community and the net worth of your network. And one of the things that came up, and I anticipated coming up, is that a lot of my students don’t even see themselves, their self-concept doesn’t allow for them to really see themselves as community builders. And there’s a lot of different thoughts that get in the way of them believing that they could be the type of person to lead a movement, create a revolution, build a community, do something really impactful and big. Like create a group of people with a shared identity. They see themselves as solopreneur coaches.

And so I wanted to record this episode for you, especially if you are a new coach. Especially if you don’t have any clients yet. Especially if you have maybe one or two clients. And your thought is, that’s further down the line. That’s something millionaires do. If you have a thought that building community and creating a movement is something millionaires do, this episode is for you. 

Okay, here’s the question I want to pose for you. What if you were meant to lead a community and you are powerful enough to do it right now? As a very beginning, little bud of a coach, as a newbie little coach, what if you already possess inside of yourself enough power, enough authority, enough experience and knowledge and enough tools to create so much value that you do it right now. 

So I thought about this because this is actually how I built my entire clientele in the very beginning of my business. This is how I created the business that is today. I actually built community before my business coach even built community. In fact, my business coach was inspired to build community from me because I had the audacity to believe I could do it. And really it didn’t even feel like audacity; it felt like connection. 

So I want to talk about what I did and the eight things that I think I used to my advantage and how I did it. And I’m going to talk about it from the lens of the very beginning. So that maybe you can borrow my experience and my thoughts and my perspective and go create your own powerful community. 

So, the first thing I did was identify myself as a leader of my people, who they are, who can I help? What value do I have for what group of people? And then really seeing my value in every room that I walked into.

So for me, I remember this was like such a pivotal story in my life. I went to go get certified at the Life Coach School. I had a belief, I’ve talked about this many times, that I thought I would get certified and clients would just start showing up and money would just start rolling in. There was some belief, I don’t know, it wasn’t super conscious, but there was clearly some belief that once I got educated and had the certification that made me a life coach, and then once you are a life coach, clients show up. And then that didn’t happen. 

And I got certified with my best friend. And my best friend and I and our coach, we both had the same coach. We were all kind of like besties and kind of growing our businesses together, but our coach was a little bit further along than us. And we did everything together, except we had a break in our paths. Once we got certified, my friend went off to do a show in an equity production in theater. And she was gone for many months and signed, like, the whole cast to her practice. Like she was making money right away. And I went off to sell mops in Walmart, slicers and dicers and knives. 

And I remember like this visceral moment, sometimes we would use the phone in the jewelry department of Walmart. And so I was walking into the jewelry department about to make my announcement and feeling so much pity for myself, why it was just not fair that I wasn’t getting clients and I was stuck in Walmart and all of the things.

 And around this time, my friend and my coach, they had invested in this program called Quantum Leap. And they were going to all these seminars and events and retreats. And they had kind of built this like little mini mastermind with people that were also doing this exact course retreat circuit.

And I was not invited because I wasn’t able to pay to do the thing. I had already invested in coach training, and I invested in my business coach, and I had invested in very close proximity things that didn’t really allow for me to, I was paying for myself, I was also paying my partner’s bills, and there wasn’t extra money to do all the extra things. And so I felt a lack of community, a lack of success, and a deep frustration of wanting to share my message.

And I just had this aha that if I couldn’t tap into their community, if I couldn’t be a part of their mastermind, if I couldn’t have access to all the people going to the Quantum Leap, because they were also signing clients there, if I didn’t have that avenue, then I had to create my own. It was like an aha epiphany moment.

What if I stopped trying to be in their lane and I created my own? What if I stopped trying to tap into their community and I built my own community? Like what if I took all of the focus of what I don’t have and put it into what I do have and then channeled that to other people? An aha moment in the jewelry department that I could just build my own community. 

And what would that require? And it was like, okay, go find people who are looking for community. Go find people who have mutual interests that I have. And so for me it was women who want to come into their own, who want to express themselves, who feel like their life was meant to be more than it is, who felt a nudge for more. And that could be a lot of different things, but women who wanted to be powerful enough to go create that more for themselves, which really became the basis of Diva Business School, my Diva community, my Diva Business School podcast, like everything Diva-related, the core of that message, the core of that identity was a woman who wants to find her own power to go express herself and intentionally create a life that she dreams of. In some way, shape or form, it looked like a lot of things for a lot of people. 

And I recognized that I was the perfect leader because I also wanted that, but I was a step ahead of them because I had tools and power inside of myself already. I had been coaching for a year in my own life. I had already created so much change inside of myself that it had inspired me to actually become a coach and take in a huge leap and investing in myself and going to get certified. I had done so much intense work at the certification week, it was so intense. I was coaching myself to create results in my current business or in my current sales job that I was a contractor, so it really was like, I’m an independent contractor. I didn’t get paid unless I sold. So for me that was like my first business. 

And so I was already creating results, making more money than I’d ever had before just by changing my thinking and my state of being and being really intentional when I was working. I had already created so much, if you think about an iceberg, right? Like all the ice under the surface, the clients hadn’t come yet, but there was such a deep, or a tree, if you think about the roots, there were such deep roots that I had already created. So I had so much value to share. If a woman wanted to come into her power and change her life and take the reins and be intentional, I had that. I also believed every room I walked into, because I had been certified with the model, the model changed my life. So I really believed I had the secret to the universe. I had also deeply studied the law of attraction, Tony Robbins’ work. I had deeply studied Byron Katie and The Work and Loving What Is. 

I had a lot of tools at my disposal. I’ve done a lot of work with Eckhart Tolle in his book on The Power of Now and really worked on my being present and engaged in the moment. I had so many tools at my disposal. And so I thought, let me start bringing women together who have the same desires I have, and I’m a few steps ahead of them. And I have the secret to the universe.

I know how to affect deep change in human beings and in their behavior because I have done this for myself. And I was also free coaching at the time, so I had like a handful, 12 free coaching clients, and I coached for six weeks. And so I were seeing change in their lives. And so I just chose intentionally all of these thoughts of I have value to give in every room that I walk into. 

And so that was really the beginning. I identified myself as powerful enough to do it now as a leader. And I identified even though I didn’t necessarily know what they wanted help with because I was general coaching and even though I didn’t necessarily see a face to this person and even though I didn’t have that, who it was going to be, it’s not like I looked at my friend list on Facebook and was like, these 10 people. It was like, I just knew there were women out there. There had to be because they were just like me.

And so then I got out of my house. This is the one that’s going to be the hardest for all of you. I got out of my house and I started building real relationships with my community. I started going out and engaging and finding these women who wanted similar things to me. Not simply getting out to network and get a client, but thinking about people that I want to surround myself with, people who I want to help. And I started engaging meaningfully, inviting people in. I remember one moment where I was at this networking event with 250 business owners. And I walked in feeling like the most powerful person in the room and wanting to connect and wanting to build community, and looking for my people who are looking for a leader.

And I started thinking about the people in the room. I’m an introvert, and I tend to be a little bit socially awkward. And so I started thinking about people who might feel that way too. And I was like, okay, so if I could help one person in this room, what could I help them with? And I thought I could help them feel comfortable in this room. I could help them engage in this room. I could help them feel like they belong in this room. And it had taken me back to the first networking event that I ever went to, where someone had grabbed my hand and said, “Oh, you’re new, let me introduce you to a bunch of people.” 

And so I saw this girl, I don’t even remember her name. She never became a client of mine, but I saw this girl who looked a little terrified to be in the room. And I grabbed her hand and I said, “Let’s go network together. Let’s do this together.” And I had more courage than her in that moment. And I spent the whole day getting us into every single conversation and engaging with people and exchanging numbers and having conversations. That type of energy. 

And I know it’s so intangible because you’re like, “But did you get a client out of that?” Well, no, I didn’t get a client out of that exactly. But who I became in doing that and building those meaningful connections, each one I went to, I met somebody that I stayed in contact with, maybe a few people I stayed in contact with, a few people who I said, “Hey, here’s my social. What’s yours?”

And I was also building that community online. I was building content. I was talking to that woman online. I was speaking to her and telling her what’s possible and showing her how I was doing it online, but also getting out and really talking to real women who wanted the same. And then staying connected with those women, whether it was in person for a little coffee date or another event, or connecting online and paying attention to what she was doing and then what I was doing. Like, no one wants to spend time doing this anymore. We’re like, “Oh, I just want the quick fix online.”

And that’s really the problem because if you want to build a movement, a community, a clientele who is going to invest in you for years and years to come, like their lifetime value of a client will be incredibly high, the people who do that have been invested in. They don’t typically just, like, pay loads of money for year after year after year for no one that’s invested in them, who’s no one that’s been willing to go out and engage with them thoughtfully.

Which is number three, I engaged thoughtfully with my people in building my community, but also in other communities that I was going out and engaging with. Not with get energy of getting a client, but with collaborative energy, giving energy, having a good time energy. I just believed very deeply that my net worth would be tied to my network. That my network would directly create my net worth. 

And I started as a coach in the industry, I had no network. I had been a nomad for many years with the very purposeful thought, I’m not interested in making friends. I’m an introvert. I love being an introvert. I’m not interested in keeping up with people. I hadn’t kept friendships from high school, friendships from college. I had a really tight-knit theater group in college and I hadn’t kept up with them. I tried, and then I was like, oh, I’m just constantly gone. I can’t make any of the things and so we fell off. So I was always falling off with people because I was never invested in staying in a community because I didn’t really have a good reason to. 

But when I decided I’m going to build a community, I’m going to build a movement of women who have this mutual goal, suddenly I was like, oh, this is bigger than even me, and this is bigger than even getting one single client. I want to create a movement, a revolution of women who are going after their lives in a very intentional way, and they’re deciding enough with this whatever life brings me, but I’m taking life by, what is it? Taking life by the horns and I’m like doing this.

And so I put a lot of thought into engaging with other people in my community, in the community I was building and every community I stepped into. I remember being at a dinner, I bought a ticket to a dinner for another coach that had hosted it. And just simply because I wanted to commune with other coaches. I wanted to be in personal development rooms. It didn’t feel like very many were available in Louisville, Kentucky, but there was one that had been made available. And so I wanted to get out. I wanted to be around other women that were doing the things I wanted to be doing and really establish a belief system and a network of people that were doing similar things to me, right? Like not just like I’m leading this, but I’m also tapped into this, whether it’s shoulder to shoulder or a few steps ahead. 

And so I went to this dinner and I also believe in supporting other people, right? If I wanted people to come to my dinner, then I’m going to go to other people’s dinner. Like the gold standard, do unto others as you wish other people would do unto you. And so I’m at this dinner, and we all went around the room to say why we had come and what we hoped out of the evening.

And it got to me and, “Why are you here?” And I said, “Well, honestly, number one, to support you because I hope one day if I create a dinner that other people come to support me. And I was like, number two, I want to be around other women who are interested in creating the same things that I want to create. I want to have a community. I want to meet new people.” 

And that answer was so genuine and also so grounded and so convicted and confident. I ended up signing a client from that room. That was not even remotely my intention. I didn’t have one single thought that was like, I’m going to go sign a client. But I started talking to this woman, she was like, “I really love your energy. I have a business.” And I don’t, I think it was a makeup business. I don’t even remember at the time. But I think she was the makeup artist for the coach who had held the dinner. And she was like, “I’m just really interested. I’d love to have a conversation with you and hear more about what you do as a coach and as a life coach.” And it was just so natural and so easy. And she ended up becoming, much later, I think at this time I had a few clients, but she ended up becoming a member of my Diva Business School, a group coaching client. 

And it was so simple. I wasn’t even trying to get a client, but my energy was very giving, collaborative, have a good time, create networks that are shoulder to shoulder and also a community that I’m leading. And I was just taking myself with that motivation and that energy and my heart and that vision of the future with me everywhere I went. And when that vision is so strong in you, you’re going to bring other people with you because they start seeing the vision too and they want to come. 

So then the fourth thing I did is I started bringing people together myself. I had the audacity to start creating things on my own as a new coach. It wasn’t just I can coach you and I can help you. I believe that the value of coaching can equally be in the community and communing, right? Bringing people together with similar interests and mutual goals, that is a value in and of itself.

If you’re ever in any of my programs, whether it’s my Entrepreneur Coach Membership, 2k for 2k, 200k Mastermind, 2 Million Dollar Group, the value of the content I create, the way I teach, the coaching I give, the mentorship I give, is always standalone. But I also believe the value of the people I bring together stands alone. You could invest just to be shoulder to shoulder with some of the best minds in the industry, with some of the most up-and-coming people, unique people, the most talented coaches, the highest-level thinkers. The people I bring together are, I genuinely want to be around them.

So I’m like, if I want to be around them, if I want to be in this space, it’s got to be really valuable for other people. So I started doing that on a small level, on the level that I could imagine doing it. I remember I held a workshop for one of my clients’ 10 of her friends. And I think I taught the model and a few other things over an eight-hour period with my little whiteboard. 

And then I created a Diva meetup. I don’t remember what I called it, but like a Diva meetup. And I remember a woman said that she changed clothes after work to come to the meetup because she was like, oh, what I’m wearing is not very diva. That was so powerful to me. I’ve created something, I’ve tapped into something that other women want. And I even created the name Diva very intentionally. My best friend was an opera singer, and we were always talking about divas because in opera, like a diva or a divo is like a very celebrated person of talent, like someone who has great abilities and is celebrated for those abilities. 

And so it was very meaningful to me. I know people thought it was a little bit silly or like, oh, what a girl club, and like they had maybe in their mind a diva being someone that’s entitled and bossy. I actually love this because people used to call me diva all the time when I was pitching and like, “Oh, Stacey’s such a diva. Like she’s coming to your city, get ready. She’s such a diva.”

But I loved flipping that and being like, you know who else is an amazing diva? Adele and Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera. I was thinking of these like, incredible voices and these incredible once-in-a-lifetime talents, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, like these incredible women that have voices and power. That to me was like, that’s what a diva is. Like someone who is incredibly celebrated for her talents and her skill and who she is and the impact she has on the world. And so of course, that’s what I’m going to call my women who I’m bringing together to do that. 

And so I brought people together with this shared mission, this shared identity, and people moved for it. It represented something inside of them and even people that didn’t quite understand the whole diva branding, they still wanted in because the mission and the purpose was so clear.

And so I would have meetups, community events, workshops, I started doing online things bringing people together. Then I started like a little group coaching and it was like literally a hundred dollars a month. I think I had 20 women in it. But hey, two thousand dollars a month, that was big when I first started my business. And I was just pouring into people constantly.

Then I got a couple of clients who were network marketers and they would say, “Hey, can you come to my retreat here? Can you come to my dinner here?” I remember doing a dinner in Michigan six hours away. Like, going, I don’t even know if I got paid to do it. I don’t think I did. I think I was just like, yeah, I’ll come to your dinner. And I’ll commune and I’ll invest and I’ll pour in to these women who have similar interests, even though I’m not a network marketer, like we have mutual goals here. And so I was constantly doing that, bringing people together. 

And then eventually that turned into retreats because my people wanted to be together. I brought them together. The value of the community and communing was as important as the coaching to my women. And I remember the first retreat I did, I literally sold it because my people were like, “If you don’t hold a retreat, I’m going to do it without you.” Like, not in those words, but they were like, “Listen, how do we meet up? How do we get together? Let’s do a weekend together. I really want us to be together whenever we were on the group calls.” Like the chat would be blowing up of like, ” Let’s have a weekend together.”

And so I finally was like, okay, we’re going to do a Diva Christmas retreat in the Smoky Mountains. And we all came together, 20 women sharing beds because that was all the house, the house only had, I think, like eight rooms or something. Women who were rich sleeping in bunk beds because they wanted to come together. They wanted to commune shoulder to shoulder with other women who were working on themselves, who were experiencing coaching and experiencing breakthroughs.

Then I held one, a Midnight in Paris in Michigan. I talk about this one all the time. You guys get so caught up in, I can only sell this or I can only sell that. It’s got to be this price point. It’s got to make sense, and it’s got to be what somebody else has done. And I’m over here selling the Diva Christmas retreat and a Midnight in Paris in Michigan retreat. Sold them out. I made a hundred thousand dollars on the Midnight in Paris in Michigan retreat. I brought in a hundred thousand dollars of revenue off that retreat. It was insane. The photos, I still look at them, and I’m like, oh my God, that was the most incredible time of my life.

I created something that, like, only I could have created, literally. No one else would have ever created that. It was all of my things that inspired me. It was like the ultimate self-expression retreat, and women were like, I want that. I want to create something that’s so meaningful to me that nobody else would understand, but also other people want in on. I want to create something that is my ultimate dream and offer it to the world for other people to pay and we all do it. I want that.

I was attracting people like crazy. They loved being together, they loved the coaching, they loved the environment, they loved the energy, the possibility. And so I did that regularly in so many different ways with so many different types of bringing people together. Like, the ideas are endless, but there is value in bringing people together. 

And then the fifth thing I did, which is very similar to really engaging thoughtfully in other communities, but I poured into all of my communities. And I very intentionally poured into mine first and foremost. And the way I did this is thinking infinitely about the community. I’m constantly thinking, where does everyone want to go, and how do I get them there? Always. So many of my business decisions have been made from that place.

One of the things I’ve been very intensely thinking about is how do I get the 200k Mastermind process in the hands of more people? Because I believe if more people could experience the Mastermind, we would have more 200k earners. And I’m still figuring out that equation. I created A Day in 200k, and that was a really big start. I unbundled the Mastermind and made it more accessible to more people for a longer period of time at a lower revenue. Instead of 50k a year, 20k a year, I think that’s a really big difference. And I can see a day where I’ll bring back the live events so that people can commune together again. 

But it’s something I’m constantly thinking about is where I want to take everyone is truly to millions. So if I want to take people to millions, I’ve got to get more people to 200k to even qualify for that room. And so how do I make 200k more accessible? And then how do I get more people to qualify for 200k, which is where the Entrepreneur Coach Membership came in because I feel like the first step is 2k for 2k. And then if you’ve been in 2k for more than 30 days, whether you’ve made your money back or not, after 30 days, you need to get into the Entrepreneur Coach Membership and be bathing in the mindset of that and pulling yourself up to that 20k level to get into that 200k Mastermind as fast as possible. That’s the way I’m thinking about it.

Is everybody going to do that? No. But that’s the way I’m thinking big and infinitely about my community, is where are we all going and how do I and what are all the different ways I can get us there? Every business decision I make has to do with that. If I’m thinking infinitely about three years, five years, 10 years, 20 years, if I’m thinking the long term about the overall goal, how do I pour into my communities? 

And I always poured into mine first. I see a lot of people that are like, “Oh, I can get clients from other people’s communities.” Remember, it’s like get energy. So let me go be in other people’s communities. And there was a time like the Life Coach School had a Slack channel, and I could have been in there all day long because all those people were like my ideal people.

But I had created 2k for 2k and I thought if I’m going to pour into a community, it’s going to be my own. Which is the opposite way you might think if you’re in get energy, you’re like, I got to get new people. So I got to go into other people’s and be selling in other people’s groups. I was like, no, if I have 10 people in 2k for 2k, I’m going to pour into those 10 people in my community first and foremost. And what I found is I didn’t have as much time to be, you know, pouring into everybody else’s communities in a very get energy way.

So the way I would pour into those communities is being invited to pour into them or doing it from the genuine, I want to be a participant in this room, and as a participant, here’s what I have to offer. But I was constantly doing that. Standing shoulder to shoulder, pouring in as an example of what’s possible if invited, pouring into my community that grew from 10 to a hundred to a thousand. And none of it was in this get energy. It was in I know I’m building this. I am building this community with this joint purpose because I want to surround myself with people that I want to be with, doing the thing that I want to do, going the place I want to go. It’s like this is how you love your business so deeply. 

The sixth thing I did and still do is I powerfully direct the community. This is something I don’t think a lot of people who have big communities do well. You have to know what’s best for the majority and be willing to stand for that above all else. And the bigger your community gets, the harder that task will become, especially if you’re a people pleaser and especially if you just care about each individual person, you’ll never want them to be upset with you. But it will become inevitable that there will be individual people who want something from the community that isn’t best for the community. And you will have to stand for that really strongly. 

One of the ways that I describe this is like if you join 2k for 2k or the Entrepreneur Coach Membership, like one of my programs that has a lot of people in it. Entrepreneur, I think we have like 600 or 700 people right now. And then the 2k for 2k has like 6,000 people, 5,000 people. I never know who’s actually active in the Facebook group, but it’s something along those lines

And so when you join, especially a new person, the first five posts tell them if they’re in the right place. And you can’t control all the time what those first five posts are. You don’t know who’s posting in the middle of the night. People are posting in the middle of the night all the time because I have people from all over the world. And I’m not always in that group. So unless you’re going to be in there 24/7 moderating, unless you’re going to have posts that have to be approved before they get posted, which is not as conducive to community involvement. Like, people want instant feedback. So unless you have 24/7 I’m in there or I approve everything before it goes out, the only other way to maintain that the first five posts show someone they’re in the right place is you have very strong community standards. 

So for example, in 2k for 2k, I don’t let people complain. You can have lots of drama. You could be ready to quit and saying I think I’m giving up. You can say I’m in the worst place in my brain ever, can someone help? You can say all of those things, but you can’t come in and complain. No one wants to hear that when they’re trying to build a business.

I don’t also let people talk about really taboo things, political things, anything that’s just happening on the news feed. I always say 2k, all my programs are like the business spa. You’re going to come in and the first five posts, it doesn’t matter if the world is burning down, you’re going to be able to come in 2k and be like, ah, we’re talking about business. Because my clients, what’s on their mind typically is like, oh, the world is burning down, but I also have to feed my family. So what do I do? So they want to come in and be like, I’ve got to focus. So where do I focus? Okay, Stacey’s rooms are going to let me focus. A lot of people don’t do this. A lot of coaches believe I have to let everything get posted. 

I also don’t let people post a bunch of other stuff in 2k. Oh, here’s this podcast from this coach and here’s this course I just did that’s really good, or hey, I just did this webinar and you should do this. We delete all of that. Because people paid to be in 2k. I imagine someone that just spent $2000, and they’re like, okay, this has everything I’m going to need. I’m going to learn how to sign a client. I’ve spent my money and I’m going to create my return and I’m so excited. And then the first post is like, you know, I’ve really been struggling with this and so I hired this coach and they really helped me and they’re like, oh my god, I’m not in the right place.

That could be true for that person, but I’m thinking about the person who just spent $2k and wants the 2k offer. They want Stacey to coach them. They don’t want to think, oh, I need this other thing. It doesn’t mean that other people aren’t working with other coaches and that they’re not also helping. But I want them to be like, I paid Stacey, I want to hear from Stacey, I want to know what Stacey’s recommending because I’m in 2k. I want to learn the 2k process, not I’m learning the 2k process, but oh, shiny object syndrome over here. Oh, do I need to follow this person? Oh, what am I missing here? Oh, they’re talking about needing to learn this. We don’t do that. It’s like, post that on your timeline. Post that on your own thing. In 2k, we celebrate 2k things. We talk about 2k things. 

This is so important, powerfully directing the community. I get regularly told that me doing this has created a space that is people’s favorite places on the internet. Now, one or two people individually, I feel like every six to 12 months, we get an email that someone’s mad that we didn’t let them post something and that they think they should be able to post it. It’s not often, but it does happen.

And every time I’m like, I totally get it and I keep thinking about all the people who think it’s their favorite place on the internet. Everybody that loves how constrained it is. And I consistently get more of that feedback. Like a lot more of that feedback. It’s like a hundred to one. I love that you don’t let people complain. I love that this isn’t a free sale, you know, everybody’s selling their shit in this group. I love all the things that it is in all these other communities where people don’t powerfully direct the community.

It’s so important what is best for the majority above all else. And eventually what will happen is people will either understand that and see, like, oh, I always tell people, listen, when you build your community, you get to decide and it could be the complete opposite of what I’m doing. And you might find a whole crew that love that. So they either decide, oh, I’m cool with these rules because I really love the value of being here, or they show themselves out. But the majority always matters most.

Okay. So that’s the sixth thing I do and I think nobody does that and I think this is the reason why people love my communities so much. All right, the seventh thing I do is I give my communities a common identity and a shared vision or ultimate goal, intentionally, purposefully, often. I reinforce it like crazy.

The people in my Entrepreneur Coach Membership love the idea, they tell me they’re so proud to be an entrepreneur coach. They’re not a contract coach. They’re not any other type of coach you could be. They’re like, “I am an entrepreneur coach.” They love that I’ve included the entrepreneur identity. The number one thing people tell me when they join the membership, “Oh my God, I’ll watch the Identity Series and I’m dying over the entrepreneur identity. This has changed so much for me. It’s opened so much for me. I am an entrepreneur.” They’re stepping into that identity. 

My 2k’ers, they will literally do meetups in Australia, all the way around the world, and be like, “I ran into a 2k’er at a networking event. And now I have an all, like a friend for life and now we’re doing coffee and now we’re doing 2k meetups.”

That only happens when you give someone a common identity. And when you give someone a shared vision and an ultimate goal, it gives them something to do for a period of time with you, right? Like if our ultimate goal, if my ultimate goal, if my people’s ultimate goal is to get as many coaches as possible to 200k and then to millions, then we have a lot of time and a lot of things that we could do together to get there. This is the ascension model.

Join 2k, make your first dollars, get into Entrepreneur Coach Membership and figure out how to create the coach and the entrepreneur and the leader identity that gets you to 20k, get into the 200k Mastermind, become a 200k earner and get into a 2 Million Dollar Group as fast as possible to become a millionaire. I love this. I’ve talked about this a lot.

Not everyone’s going to have an ascension model. Maybe you’re going to have a membership on weight loss and that’s the only thing you ever do. And the community is there and it’s the constant like we’re constantly working on weight loss and maintaining weight loss within the one thing. It doesn’t have to be an ascension model.

The reason I have an ascension model, by the way, I’ve talked about this on the podcast is because I think that what you do to make money at every level is different, and I think it’s important to be focused on the thing you need to do at your level to have the greatest impact.

So I’ve thought about it very carefully from the ultimate goal in mind, but I love to mentor people. I want my community to be my community forever. I would keep you forever if I could. We would be communing together forever. It’s what I love. I love it. I love to watch you make your first 2k and then celebrate the crap out of you when you make your first 100k and then 200k and then, you know, I’ve been with people who have gone on to make their first million and 2 million and 5 million and 7 million. It’s the best feeling in the world.

But when you give people that common identity, when you give them a shared vision and an ultimate goal, it gives them something to stick together on and to stick with. And you, as their leader, get to help them stick with it all the way through until they get it. It’s an amazing feeling, it’s an amazing thing we’re doing here as coaches.

Okay, and then the eighth thing I do is I did build a business model that allows my community to grow. Now, I don’t think it has to be an ascension model, but I do think it’s worth thinking about, is there more that your community wants that is within what you already teach? Is there more that you can give them? Is there a bigger place you can take your people?

I’m always telling people, 2k is the minimum. It’s the beginning. Literally, it’s just the beginning. Don’t stay there. Don’t get stuck at 2k. There’s way more to do here. Let’s do 2k, then let’s do 20k. You get to 20k, okay, let’s do 200k. You get to 200k, okay, let’s do 2 million. We’re not staying in one place. That’s never been the purpose. I always say if I ever do a lifetime access again, I’m going to be very clear in the upfront, the goal is not to stay there for a lifetime. That’s the opposite of personal development. We’re supposed to be developing. 

So build a business model that allows your community to grow. Even job applicants, I get a lot of job applications. We have hired a lot over the years and people are looking for who can I grow with? They’re looking for who can I expand myself with? Who can I get bigger and better and do more with? Who can I reach my potential with?

So think about that. Could you help people reach a much bigger potential than you’re letting yourself think about within your work? Like sometimes people do weird things where they’re like, “Oh, I helped someone lose weight and then my next program is a marriage program because they now they want to work on their marriage.” It’s like, maybe that doesn’t work. Maybe it does.

But I’m not saying leave your work and leave your niche to keep have them keep growing, but can you help them grow over and over and over and reach exponential potential. I would be thinking about that. Everyone wants to be in a community that is selling exponential potential. It’s a mouthful. But that is it, right? Don’t you want to be in that? I want to be in that for sure. I want to be part of something that helps me tap into potential that could be exponential. 

Okay, so those are the eight things I did. I identified myself as a leader to a very certain group of people and I see the value I walk into in every room. I build real relationships with my community. I engage thoughtfully in other communities. I bring people together. I pour into my communities like an investment for my entire future, infinitely. I powerfully direct my community to what’s best for the majority. I give everyone a common identity and a shared vision and goal. And I build a business model that allows them to grow towards that shared vision and goal. 

Now, here’s some thought errors to look out for because we’ve already been coaching on this in Clientelle. I don’t have time. I don’t need new friends. I’m looking for clients only. My people are ashamed or uncomfortable. It’s too heavy of a topic. Any thought, I want you to really question this. I love doing this.

I always tell my people, entrepreneurship doesn’t care. It’s like Mother Nature. Sometimes we’re like, “Oh, but you can’t, it’s too hard or it’s like Mother Nature does not care about anything. The hurricane is coming, the blizzard is coming, the heat wave is coming. It’s just coming and it doesn’t care who it impacts, right?” Well, I feel like entrepreneurship is very similar. It’s very neutral. It does not care about your story or your drama or your obstacle or your reason. And that’s not to diminish it, because I’ve had to come up against myself and a lot of really big obstacles for myself to grow my business. So I understand them with the deepest heart ever. 

But I think it’s powerful to think about entrepreneurship just doesn’t care about your story. It doesn’t care about your reason why you can’t do it. Imagine if you played around with this idea that you wanted to build a community and that a community could potentially directly impact your net worth for your lifetime. And you like play around with that, think maybe Stacey’s right, let me see about this. Whatever thoughts get in the way of you building community, I want you to imagine if you saw them all instead of each individually and uniquely as this is true and this is important and meaningful and it really is a big problem.

What if you neutralized them and you just wrote them down and you were like, oh, these are just obstacle thoughts. These are just thought errors. All of these, regardless of how true they feel right now, are actually just friction in the way of me creating a movement and taking a group of people, a clientele all the way to an ultimate goal and myself to a massively increased net worth because the people who create movements always get paid the most. That’s the truth. 

And here’s the thing I want to offer you. I want to give you guys some thoughts from these main thought errors and frictions that you might have. Here’s what I’ll offer. People are communing on every single thing that you think it’s not possible to commune on. They’re just communing with someone else. That I believe is true. They’re communing on every single thing, all the taboo things, all the heavy things. They’re just communing with someone who believes it’s worth communing on, that people would want it.

And then even if you were the absolute exception to all of the rules, you’re the one special snowflake unicorn where it wouldn’t work for you, even if it’s true, why can’t you be the first? What would be required for you to defy the odds? What would you have to believe about your people, the subject matter, and the importance of communing? What if you did believe it was possible? And what’s it costing you not to believe? Not to be motivated to do it? To keep your friction, to keep your reason why you can’t do it. 

And I think that you might be possibly in the wrong line of work if you want to be a millionaire and you don’t think it’s possible to build community within your work. Look at all the millionaires. Zoom out to beyond coaching businesses. Apple. Apple made so much money because they have brought people together who want Apple products, who consider themselves, I don’t know how to describe what an Apple customer is, but I bet you could look it up. What the commonalities of the type of people who are the first in line to buy the new iPhone every single year.

There are so many Weight Watchers, Orange Theory. I think that’s probably an American company, but it’s like a workout community. Like they have an Orange Theory gym, but it’s like classes that you take, but people who are part of Orange Theory, they wear the shirts and it’s an identity. Like I am part of Orange Theory. Or what’s the other one where they’re like lifting tires? Oh my God, I can’t think of it, but y’all know what I’m talking about. I have a couple clients who do it where they’re like doing really extreme lifting and workouts. Like there’s a whole community for that. 

So there is a community for almost every type of product out there. There’s a group of people who feel this is me, I am this person. Programs, memberships, even if you don’t have a Facebook community, just know that these programs run and grow on togetherness. I have been part of communities, like the Life Coach School never had a Facebook community and they had a Slack channel for a while, but we communed together in person and on monthly calls that they used to do like just to coach the people who were coaches. It’s like that brought everybody together just in itself.

It’s not like, oh, there was this Facebook community. It doesn’t like, don’t think so literally. It could be anything. But these places do run and grow on togetherness. It can be in person, it can be group calls, it can be Slack, it can be school, it can be Facebook, it can be retreats, it can be anything. 

The lone wolf, the private, hush-hush, you know, niche or work, it’s just going to be hard to grow. I had a coach that marketed herself as the invisible coach, referral, word of mouth only. But to get to a hundred million in sales, community. So pay attention to any resistance that comes to this. Where else do you have this resistance? How else is it costing you? Are you okay with paying that price? Or could you exchange the drama of not growing and not creating a ripple on a movement and all the reasons why you can’t and everything that impacts in your business, including low sales? Could you trade that drama for the drama of just doing the damn thing? 

I remember having that aha when I was very deeply postpartum. I had this insane drama of not wanting to work and be away from my babies. But I also was having the intense drama of missed goals and low sales and not meeting my potential and my company suffering and literally losing sales and losing profitability. And that bled into my time with my kids and not being fully present with them and stress at night time and in the morning and going to work in a business that was struggling.

So I traded the time away from my kids growing the business and freeing my brain from the consistent overwhelm of not growing it. You know what I’m saying? The resistance of why you can’t do something often causes more drama than just doing it. And it added presence, aliveness, and engagement to the time I did spend with my kids because my business is working. It’s much easier to work your business when your business is working. 

So if there’s always going to be resistance and drama, why not trade it for the good resistance and drama? I find this topic fascinating. I’m excited that I get to talk about it now in the membership and in Clientelle. But I really wanted to have this conversation not just for my students in Clientelle, but for all of you to be thinking, why don’t you think you’re powerful enough right now, that your niche or your work can support it, and that you’re capable of building a community that drives your net worth infinitely for the rest of your life? Totally worth it. So much fulfillment, so much purpose, so much fun, so much money to be had. 

All right, that’s the episode today. I love you all so much. Happy Wednesday, even though this is being recorded on a Friday. And I’ll talk to you next week. Bye.

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.