Make Money as a Life Coach® with Stacey Boehman | Making 100K Without a Niche, Being Authentically You, and Saying YES with Lindsay Dotzlaf

I am so excited to bring you my very first 100K client interview today! I’ve got Lindsay Dotzlaf on and we discuss literally everything about business, niching, and authenticity that I think is going to be so valuable to all of you out there.

Lindsay has done so much work on herself to come this far, and I think she’s a great example of saying yes to yourself, being fully authentic all the time, and a rebel when it comes to niching. A lot of you feel like you have to embody my energy and personality to be a great coach, and Lindsay is the perfect person to shut down any of those thoughts you might be having.

Tune in for an amazing conversation that I know is going to set you free of any doubts or struggles you may be having in your business. We address all the stuff you worry about when it comes to being a great coach and making money and I know you’re going to want to connect with Lindsay after listening to this episode!

If you haven’t downloaded my Make Money as a Life Coach in Three Simple Steps live training, go get that right now. You’re going to find some super valuable content there that will help you apply the tools I’ve taught you to make some serious money as a life coach!

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

  • How Lindsay built her business without all the things you think you need to be a successful life coach.
  • The secret to having people know, like, and trust you.
  • How Lindsay thinks about serving her clients.
  • What you’re doing that is deleting your authenticity.
  • Lindsay’s thoughts on overcoming objections.
  • Our thoughts on having a niche for your business.
  • Lindsay’s advice for being comfortable in being 100% authentic.
  • Why you’re struggling to create a niche.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

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 lovies. I am so excited to bring you episode 10 today. We’re going to be interviewing my client and my great friend, Lindsay Dotzlaf. Lindsay was my very first client and she’s still my client. We coached for a couple of years for her network marketing company, and then she decided she wanted to be a life coach and she just did her first six-figure year last year and I’m having her on as one of my first 100K client interviews.

I cannot wait for you to hear her story. One of the most important things to know about Lindsay is she made 100K – over 100K last year without a niche. What? She was just selling life coaching. Y’all, you can make money selling just life coaching. I know, it’s crazy.

But she’s also really great because she has done so much work on herself. She has coached for years in her own life and I used to call her my muse because I created so much of my content and my concepts coaching her because of her inquisitive nature and how deeply she thinks of everything. She’s worked so hard to turn her entire life into exactly what she wants it to be, and one of my other favorite things about her and we talk about this on the episode is her energy is so different than mine.

I tend to be really loud and in your face and high energy and just kind of crazy, and she’s really contemplative and she thinks about what she’s going to say before she says it. And I love this example, and I think it’s the best example because I do think her and I are kind of like night and day when it comes to energy.

And sometimes I think you all think that you have to be exactly like me and I cannot wait for you to hear what Lindsay has to say about it and what she has to say about building her business the way that she built hers and saying yes to herself when everybody was saying she shouldn’t, and I just think this is really going to be an interview that changes so much for you, gets you out of so much drama, and allows you to say yes to yourself to be who you are, to say yes to yourself and to get your business off the ground.

We’ll link up in the show notes how you can connect with Lindsay through social media and her website, and I cannot wait for you to dive in. Here we go.

Stacey: I wore this – this is my rebel shirt and I wore it today in honor of you.

Lindsay: I love it.

Stacey: I was like, what shirt should I wear that matches the vibe of getting on a call with Lindsay Dotzlaf?

Lindsay: Why is it a rebel shirt?

Stacey: I don’t know, it’s edgy. I think it’s edgy. It’s Alice + Olivia. It’s just like a little bit edgy.

Lindsay: I love it, and I wore my preppy sweater with puffy sleeves.

Stacey: It’s hot pink and it’s got textures on it and stuff.

Lindsay: I love the textures.

Stacey: Yeah, it’s a little bit bold, it’s a little bit loud. It’s the way that I think about you. Welcome to the podcast. It’ll be perfect. So I’m so excited to have you on because well, first of all, I love having all of my 100K clients on because I think you guys all have a different perspective and you all achieved it in a different way. And you all have different backgrounds and different things that led up to it and so I think every perspective lends the listener an opportunity to find their story within yours and self-identify so I’m just super excited to have you on.

And I call you my little rebel. I think that you’re my client that did it differently than what most of my clients are hearing they need to do it in that way. So like, most of my clients come to me and they think they need to be certified to make money as a life coach, and they need to have a very specific niche to make money as a life coach and they need to have a program and they need to have a website and they need to have Facebook ads. And they need to have like, a very specific plan, and they need all of these things and you basically had none of them, right?

Lindsay: Zero of those things I think.

Stacey: So good. How did you do it? Because as soon as people hear that they’re going to be like, wait a minute, well then what did you have? What did you do? So tell everybody. What did you do to make 100K?

Lindsay: Okay, so first I think that that question is just a little bit tricky for me to answer because I didn’t have any of those things.

Stacey: No, but you can answer it. So just think about…

Lindsay: No, I’m going to but it’s hard to say like, here’s the steps. I didn’t create the website and then make Facebook ads and do specific things and as a matter of fact, when I did get into the mindset of oh my gosh, wait, do I need to do this, do I need to have a niche, do I need to do all the things that you just mentioned, my business would kind of stagnate for a while because I would get stuck asking myself all of those questions.

Stacey: And working on all that stuff, right?

Lindsay: Try to start working on it and it would change what was working, which was being authentic, sharing all of my journey, mostly through Facebook, just really connecting with people. Not thinking that I’m posting on Facebook to find all of my clients and to find my tribe but just being so honest and being me. Networking. I love meeting people. Just being myself and not stressing about all of the other things is I would say, that’s my only answer. That’s how I did it.

Stacey: Yeah, but I think that is the answer, right? In my 2K process, the first step is just building relationships, and I tell people, you can make money – the first three episodes of this podcast. Meet as many people as possible, tell them you’re a life coach, and make offers to help them, but not make offers in a sense of like, go to a networking event and tell someone you can help them with whatever they’ve talked to you about. It’s like, you just are showing up on your Facebook and you’re providing your own story, which is the hero’s journey. You’re talking about your own self, you’re being super authentic, and then you have done webinars. At some point you did a couple of those and you have done calls to action where you’re like, hey, message me if this resonates with you and you want to find out more about what I do. In a sense, that’s really broad to everyone but then you let people come to you.

Lindsay: 100%, yes. I was actually listening to your podcast this morning. I think it was the third episode and you were talking about the whole concept of clients coming to you and about when you started you made your first 250K I think with basically clients coming to you. And I thought about it and I thought, yeah, 100%, that’s what I do. I don’t ever go out searching and fishing for clients, I’m just me, and I truly believe that clients are coming to me.

Stacey: Yeah, and I think one thing as your coach, having seen your journey and knowing you’ve worked with me since the very beginning. You’re my first client. Can we take a second about that?

Lindsay: Yes, so fun.

Stacey: But this is what I think that you’re an example of in such a big way is being the change instead of talking about the change. Would you agree?

Lindsay: Yes. I completely agree with that. I think even now, when I post on Facebook, I think in that moment, when I’m doing it, I think of a specific person, either sometimes it’s myself even maybe six months or a year ago, but sometimes it’s a current client that I have and I think of how can I tell my story of what’s happening to me right now in my life in a way that’s going to serve that person, in a way that they need to hear it.

So you know, I could just go on Facebook every day and post about my life and people would, I’m sure, learn stuff from that, but I just take it just that next step of how can it serve the people who I am working with right now. How can I say this in a way that they’re going to read it and they feel like, oh my gosh, is she talking specifically to – I’ve had clients text me and say, were you talking to me? And I’ll say no. Multiple clients actually will ask me that sometimes and it’s so funny because I say no, but kind of yes because that is the thinking that I go into it with.

Stacey: So good because I have all the people all the time – I’ll write an email and they’ll think I’m calling them out very specifically and then they’ll message me about this very specific scenario and I’m like, I was just thinking of myself and my transformation and what might be helpful for you to hear and thinking about all of my clients in general, but I think that’s such a beautiful thing. I always say – people are always like, how do you create your social media posts? Or now, I don’t do really Facebook anymore as much. I send a lot of emails now, and people are like, how do you create that?

And I’m like, I just think about something that I’m going through or something that I’ve experienced or something I’ve learned from or something that I recently just had an a-ha moment on or something my clients just recently learned from or had an a-ha moment about, and I think, would this serve one person today? Like, would one person benefit from me talking about this? And if just one person would, you know my rule, right? Where there’s one, there’s two, and where there’s two, there’s four.

Lindsay: I love that rule, and I completely agree. That is exactly what I do with Facebook. I like to think of myself as it’s like I’m serving myself and all of my experiences up on a platter for people to learn from. And sometimes it means I’m super vulnerable. I don’t hold back. I share pretty much everything, even if I’m feeling sad or I’m feeling unsure about my business or whatever it is, I put that out there because I know that someone else – like, if I need to hear it, someone else needs to hear it. And if they can learn something just from seeing me be vulnerable, then it’s worth it.

Stacey: Well, and I think that that’s the secret. I hope everybody just heard that. I really think it’s the secret because the only thing we’re ever doing as coaches is inspiring people into action. And the only people we’re ever doing in sales is inspiring people into action. And the best way to inspire someone isn’t to talk at them like you are the expert and put them down and kind of reprimand them for doing it wrong and to not even talk from your pedestal of expertise. But from literally speaking as if you’re in the arena, getting trampled by the bulls at the exact same time, right?

Like really just speaking at their level of this is what is happening for me. That’s the most inspiring thing, and it’s the thing that creates the most know, like, and trust, which I think people get confused. They think I have to be an expert so people can know, like, and trust me, and I’ve got to have it all together. And because I don’t have it all together, I clearly have no business marketing my coaching business or even having a coaching business. But it’s like, it’s the opposite.

Being vulnerable and really showing all of you is what creates the trust because then people can identify themselves within you and they’re like, oh yes, I experience that too, and if she can do it and she’s going through this, I could do this. That’s what creates it.

Lindsay: Yes. 100%. I think it’s so interesting, and I don’t know what month this will be coming out but right now you’re doing the 32-day reboot and I have been a mentor in your 2K group and it’s just been super fascinating to me watching all of the people post in there and ask questions. And it’s always like, but like, what exactly do I say? Or like, how exactly do I say it? And my thought is always just, I have no idea. That’s not something I can answer for you because it’s something that has to come from inside of you. Not the perfect way.

Stacey: Yeah, and I think this is super important for people to hear too because people will hire coaches that will give them sales scripts or storyline scripts or what to say specifically, and the problem with that is it doesn’t actually teach you to cultivate that message from within inside yourself. So then it’s really dependent on knowing the exact thing to say and saying it in the exact way and that process of putting your message into some format, what happens is you start deleting your authenticity. You start losing a little bit of your message.

And if you don’t just put it out and be willing to do it “wrong,” not be perfect at it, then you lose the ability also to learn how to cultivate that skillset. I’ve said the reason I’m so amazing at writing copy is I’ve written like, a thousand emails this year. No one taught me how to write emails. I literally remember when I started my email list, I was like, I don’t know what to say and I feel like there’s this right way and I feel like I’m supposed to lead them on this very specific journey and I’m supposed to talk about – because people will teach this.

I’ll see this on Facebook ads, like, opt-ins of like, this is the exact strategy you need of walking your client, you need to talk about it in this way and that way and then you need to leave out this little detail and then you need to add this. And I’m like, oh my god, frozen in like, I don’t know how to do any of that. And I was like, okay, I’m just going to get started. That’s probably pretty important, so I’m just going to not think about any of that, and I’m just going to write them a love letter like every single day. Something of inspiration.

It doesn’t even have to be like, matching the thing the week before. There doesn’t need to be a theme, there doesn’t need to be anything. I just need to get out speaking and that willingness to do that, and I know you’ve done that too, is what got me started, which then got me – the more emails I wrote, the more clear I got, and then I started doing launches and then that was a whole hot mess at the beginning. And then I started getting clearer and clearer about what I needed to say in those emails, and it’s like, now people are messaging me all the time like, did you write that email just for me? It’s so good. And I’m like, I’m getting clearer and clearer but it happens over being willing to express your own unique message. Not by copying someone else’s format.

Lindsay: Yeah. Actually, do you want me to tell you a really funny story about something like that? So I have a client who is a coach and she reached out to me and she sent me a message that her – I don’t know, I think it was someone she had done a consult with and she said, how would you respond? The person had texted her something and she said how would you respond? And I answered her and I shouldn’t have.

I said, this is what I would say. I was distracted, I think it was breakfast time, I’m feeding the kids. I’m like, this is what I would say. I just shot it off to her and then I didn’t hear back and I thought nothing of it. And later she texted me and said that went horribly wrong. And I was like, what went horribly wrong? I wasn’t even super invested in that conversation at the time, but what I realized in that moment is that the way I show up, the way I coach my clients, I’m kind of no nonsense. I get in there. I find the truth, I find their thoughts. I have no problem pointing them out. But I can’t…

Stacey: You’re hardcore. You might be a little more hardcore than me.

Lindsay: But I can do that because of the relationships that I create with my clients, even on a consult. And I’m in so much integrity because I love hardcore coaching. That’s what you taught me. That’s what you did with me. But when I just shoot her this is how I would respond, that’s coming from that place of like, I know that I would have showed them all of their thoughts, really gotten in there. She, of course, had not maybe gone to that level. So when she responded with what I would say, it came off just so different. It was snarky and not good.

Stacey: Yes, I really like – I’ve been thinking about that so much, even in the 2K group. When I – and you’ve probably seen this – I’m on the Lives and I’m like, this is what I would say and then actually I’m like, don’t say it exactly like that because that is actually probably what I would say but you probably shouldn’t say that because you’re not in the space that I’m in. And so I’ve been thinking about okay, either I come from two places. Where are they at and how could they approach this, but I really love – this is a great example.

When people want – someone messaged me and said I have a re-up coming up. Like, I have a client whose agreement is up and I really want to keep working with them. How should I approach it? And I was getting ready to fire off that same message of exactly what they should do, and then I was like, wait a minute, I want you to learn because this is how I did it. I would just ask myself, what would I do if I just 100% believed they totally wanted to re-up? It wasn’t even an issue.

When I talk to you, every time we would re-up with our one-on-one, it would be like a five second conversation. I’d be like, so our agreement is up, obviously you’re going to keep going. It’s going to be this much, this is what it is, what are your thoughts? And it was so powerful for me to even see that, to remember that because sometimes you forget big areas you used to coach on as you grow because you move on to some new concept that you’re really hot on. And I was like, yeah, that really is the answer. It’s not telling them what you would say. It’s like, how would you approach this if, and then insert whatever result they’re wanting.

Lindsay: Yes. I think of that a lot actually. Our conversations about re-upping because I think back and maybe you remember it differently, but I just feel like my response was always yeah, of course, what is it?

Stacey: Yeah, no it was like that. It was like that with all of my clients. But I had that thought of I just approached it always as if 100% you guys were automatically in. I didn’t think that you would be out, and the clients who I did question and I was like, in my own thoughts like, I don’t know if they’re going to continue, most of the time they didn’t. And I don’t think it’s because they were on the fence or because they were never going to re-up. I think it’s the way I handled the conversation.

Lindsay: Yes.

Stacey: It’s so good, and I think it’s the same with like, with every response that you’re ever writing, even like, I get a ton of this in the 2K group and I know you see this now that you’re a mentor is people saying, they said yes and then it’s been – literally someone posted, which really cracked me up. “It’s been six hours.” It’s been six hours and they haven’t made their payment.

Or usually, it’s like, it’s been 48 hours, I gave them a window and they didn’t pay in the window, but I would tell people if they should pay in the first 48 hours just because it will be like, that’s when their excitement will be the highest and then if they don’t, they’re going to run into maybe their brain or somebody else trying to talk them out of it. But I would just say, I would schedule our call a week out. This is our call, we have our call, make sure you make your payment before your call, and then I would just never think about it again. I would just keep going about it.

And so when people ask like, should I reach out to them? I’m like, well how would you react to this if you didn’t think it was a problem and you knew that they were going to pay? Like, you had no doubt that they were going to pay, what would be the way that you would handle this? It’s so good, but it teaches them to use their brain. Not ours.

Lindsay: Yes. I actually spoke on that exact thing on the Live I did in the 2K group last night and people were saying because it was about objections on consults and people on the Live got into this, well, is it better to just take the payment over the phone right then? And my answer was I guess I don’t see anything wrong with that but why are you doing it? Is it because you’re afraid they’re not going to pay?

Stacey: Yes, and that is 100% always the reason people are taking it over the phone.

Lindsay: Always. I have never done that. Not one time, but I also don’t have people commit and not pay. I think it’s maybe happened once.

Stacey: But I think that is because of the relationship you build ahead of time, the consult that you run, and the things that you’re believing about this person. I was thinking about this too. I’m like, I never really experience this. Like, maybe a handful of times over a three year period, but I just believed that clients, if they said yes – and I also did – I’ve taught you to do this too is prep them in the right way for potential objections, finding the objections even when they’re a yes. Prepping them in that really skilled way for getting them – it really has to do with the consult. But for getting them to make their payment and send everything in and show up for the first call, there is a way you prep them.

But at the end of the day, I also just believe people will do it. When they said they were a yes, I wasn’t in my mind wondering like, well, they haven’t paid, they must not be a yes. It was just they’re a yes and I’m moving on to thinking about other clients and other people coming to me and this is like, not even an issue.

Lindsay: Yes. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Actually, just since last night because it does come up in the group so often. And my thought is when that happens, it’s because when a coach is on a consult and afraid of the objections, then they’re not willing to really get in there and coach through all the objections and the person is like – they get them excited enough that the client commits, but they haven’t actually dug into the objections so then the person gets off the phone and of course all the objections start coming up in their head because the coach wasn’t willing to really get in there and uncover them all.

Stacey: Yeah, so good. Okay, so I have two major questions that I want to ask you before we end this interview. They’re so good. There’s not necessarily a question in one of them, but let’s start with that one because I think this is so important. One of the things that I think I get from coaches a lot, an objection for why they can’t make 100K, why they can’t be successful is because they’re introverts, because they have low energy.

Low energy isn’t the right way to describe it, but you know me. I come with a lot of aggressive energy. It’s really loud and it’s very in your face and I talk really fast and like, people think that they have to have that in order to be successful. And one of the things I see inside of you is you’re so calm and laidback and you think really hard about each of your answers and you kind of like, are really careful with the way that you articulate things, and you just have a different energy than me. It’s just not as loud and in your face. I think you would agree.

But you made 100K, so talk to me about that. Do you know what I’m talking about and do you have that come up for your clients? You probably attract people that are very similar to you, but I’m just curious what your take is on that.

Lindsay: Yeah, so let me think. I do know exactly what you’re talking about and I think it just comes back to the belief in yourself. So I don’t think it matters what the energy is. Yes, I do find that you probably hear – your listeners probably hear it as I speak now. I just speak differently than you. I am slower, I think about what I’m going to say, I really like to be great at articulating it instead of you, which I love listening to. You just let all the stuff bubble and you’re like, I don’t even know what I just said. Is that even a word? I don’t even know what that word is, I’m not sure.

Stacey: Or I’ll be like, you’re watching me think this through this, hold on, ignore everything I just said, this is the thing.

Lindsay: Yeah. But what I would say is we both just inside of us have this certainty of what we’re saying and we know we’re going to get the message across. I know when I’m coaching, either coaching my clients or even on a consult, I’m so certain about my ability as a coach. I don’t doubt it at all. So I know whatever they say, whatever comes up, I can handle it.

Stacey: Well, and I think it also goes back to like, believing that you’re enough. When people think that they have to be like me, it’s because they’re believing that they aren’t enough, that they have to be like me to succeed, and that’s not true. You just have to be like you to succeed and believe that’s enough.

Lindsay: At some point last year, someone said to me, “It’s interesting talking to you because you just have a different – you pause a lot and you really think about what you’re saying.” Now, I take this as oh my gosh, I’ve never noticed that before, I’m doing everything wrong, and I started thinking about it all the time and kind of got in my head about it, and you know, it made it worse because then I was thinking about am I doing it wrong.

And so, yeah, I think it’s just whatever is you, that’s what you have to do. If I looked at you and said oh my gosh, I need to learn to speak like that, I need to have that cadence, I need to have that energy bubbling out of me all the time, it would be so fake.

Stacey: Yeah, but that’s what people, I think so many people are trying to do. Or if they even show up at all, but most of the time they just use me or somebody else similar to compare and despair about how they’re never going to be there. And I’m like, but you don’t need to ever be there. This is just naturally who I am. I’m a loud human being.

Lindsay: Yes. And I think what could be really helpful because I’ve done this is maybe for people that feel like that, not only step into being 100% who you are, but maybe find a couple coaches or people that are out there doing the things that have an energy about them that is more like yours. Like, I look at Brené Brown or Elizabeth Gilbert. When I watch her, I think my energy is very similar to hers.

Stacey: Gabby Bernstein. Her energy is not in your face.

Lindsay: It’s just like a calm but powerful, like I’m just effective in a different way.

Stacey: 100%. Or then you can look at Marianne Williamson. She is like a freaking spitball. Like, I’ve seen her in person. She is crazy in the best way ever, but she has so much energy and she’s like, this little bitty person but she’s just so loud and in your face and it’s so good. There are a million people that could be just like you, the listener, and none of it is wrong. Just who you are, because you will attract clients who match your vibration or who need that vibration.

Lindsay: And I do attract some clients who are very up here all the time and I actually think for those clients, my energy is really good because I can stop them. I literally say, “I need you to stop talking right now for just a second,” and I can just bring them down. Because sometimes, and you’re very good at harnessing it, but if you’re not, it can be this manic almost panicky energy even if they think they’re in positive emotion, it can still be just like, craziness.

Stacey: And I think sometimes that’s why people need my energy is their energy is so low, they need that pick me up of like, just that burst of energy too. So I think it’s so good. So it’s like, literally, it doesn’t matter. Just go with wherever you are and make that be enough. So perfect.

Lindsay: Yes, 100%. I think that’s literally the only way it works.

Stacey: Yes, 100%. I agree. So we have to talk about this. We can’t end the interview without talking about it because you know it’s on everybody’s mind. Tell me – let’s talk about the niche. Because everybody thinks that is clearly like, the only reason they have not made money is because they haven’t defined their niche and they have niche drama. And they’ve got to get it cleared up before they make money because it’s the only way. Let’s talk about that.

Lindsay: And I would say 100% they’re not making money because they’ll allowing the drama. That’s it. It has nothing to do with the niche.

Stacey: Yeah. I don’t even know that you ever even knew anything about niching when we worked together because I didn’t really have one at the beginning either.

Lindsay: Not really. I mean, I knew the concept of it eventually. I don’t remember at what point I realized that other coaches had specific niches. And I think even when I did start noticing it, it was like, oh of course that’s her niche. I think there are some coaches who go into it and they go into coaching for maybe a very specific reason. Like they’ve had a monumental event in their life that has changed their life and it’s like, of course that’s their message and should be.

And then there are people like you and like me who I just know that I love serving my clients. I love serving women and it just took me a long time to really – and even now, I’m becoming more clear but I don’t have like, I help – sometimes I hear people say stuff and they narrow it down like five times. I’m like, there is no one in the world that has that problem. I don’t know what you’re doing.

Stacey: I know. I heard one. I made one up in my head and I used to joke about it all the time. It’s like, I coach moms who have seven year old sons in Catholic school and who overdrink because their son struggles with making friends and is not good on the soccer team.

Lindsay: Right. Sometimes I hear people’s niches and my head starts to spin. I’m like, what is that? Why? And that’s always my question is why. And if they have a super compelling answer then it’s probably going to work. Maybe not the ones that have narrowed it down that specific.

Stacey: Maybe not that one.

Lindsay: Maybe not that one, but if you ask someone – tell you what their niche is and you ask why and they have an amazing compelling story, it’s going to work. If they don’t and they just picked it out of thin air, I just think that that’s not the way it works. I mean, I guess it can work to a certain extent, but you can just feel if someone’s connected to it or not, right?

Stacey: Right, yes. 100%. Like, you have to be – I just think that your niche has to be your experience and your deep story. And I think the reason why some people struggle to create one early on is because they haven’t 100% uncovered their own breakthroughs and stories and transformations. They’re still working through it and they haven’t seen the pattern yet.

Like, you’re in the 200K and you say me go around the room and hear people’s stories and then what I was listening for was the pattern. Like, what is this thing that goes through every story that you talk about, every moment of your life since you found coaching. What’s this one thing that ties it all together? That’s the thing. And until you figure out that thing, it’s a little bit hard – it’s like you’re deciding what the thing is before you have the thing and I don’t think it works that way.

You can totally just decide, but it’s just like your message is going to be so much more powerful when it comes from like, everything I will teach you is from my own experience of having been coached and had massive transformation and it’s like, for me the purpose now of my life is to help other people with this. That’s so much different than well – you saw me coach on this in the 200K mastermind a lot, which is like, well these are all the people that are around me that – I’m just going to help entrepreneurs.

Everybody just default, my niche is weight loss for entrepreneurs, my niche is relationship for entrepreneurs, my niche is business coaching for entrepreneurs. Like, I’m going to teach them to make 100K as an entrepreneur, but I haven’t made it myself yet. Entrepreneurs are just easy, let’s do that. They’ll invest in themselves. And it’s like, if that’s not your true compelling story, it is always going to be a little off.

Lindsay: Yes, I have noticed that sometimes people – kind of what you just said – but people will try to pick something that they’re really good at already. I know I’m really good at – like, I think I’m a great mom so I’m going to coach moms. But if that’s not an area of their life that they have had to really work on, and this goes back to what you just said, it’s very hard to deeply coach people in an area that you haven’t done the work yourself.

Like with you, with sales, you weren’t just born a salesperson. Through your journey, you’ve told so many stories of like, this is what I did, this is what I did. You’ve worked so hard over and over and over learning sales.

Stacey: I didn’t just go out of the gate being a sales coach for life coaches. I went out and made money on my own and learned how to sell life coaching, which is very different than selling a life infomercial product, and I figured out the specific nuances to selling life coaching, even though I kind of knew right away. I remember telling Brooke like, I’m going to teach life coaches how to sell basically, and she was like, no, you can’t do that until you’ve done it. You need to go out and do it first.

And so I was like, okay, and I just went out and did it. But it’s like I think you and I are both in this place where we didn’t let that, not knowing what our niche was going to be, we didn’t let that be the determining factor for whether we could succeed or not, or even whether we could get started or not. And we didn’t entertain any mind drama about it along the way, which is so important.

Lindsay: Right, yes. I, at one point, because I see it keep coming up in your 2K group, and I just remember thinking, the only reason you guys think this is a problem is because at some point, someone pointed it out and said, hey, you don’t have a niche, and then they were like, what? Oh no, oh my gosh, this is never going to work, this is awful, everything has gone wrong, I have to stop everything I’m doing and figure it out before I can move forward at all.

Stacey: Yeah, I mean I think it’s the same thing with people are always like, how did you sell 12-month coaching agreements? And I’m like, because that is what I signed up with my coach for and I had no – I didn’t know there were six-week programs available, I didn’t know there were 12-week programs is something that a life coach did. Just like the same with payment like, why did you offer payment plans in the beginning? Because I paid my coach payment plans. I didn’t know there was a different way to do it.

And my coach at the time also didn’t have a niche. She just marketed herself as a transformational coach. I’ll help you transform every single area of your life. So we coached on dating, we coached on family, we coached on literally everything. Everything was up for grabs, and so that is just the way that I thought life coaches operated. I didn’t have another belief telling me that it was wrong. That’s just the way I did it. And what’s so interesting is like, having a niche isn’t wrong either. It’s like, just whatever works for you, get started.

Lindsay: Yes, and I find with even my clients who do have much more specific niches than what I do, when I talk to them about what they coach with their clients on on their calls, it’s the exact same thing I’m doing. They’re still coaching on all of the things because how you do one thing is how you do everything. So all of it still comes up.

Stacey: So good. I love that you didn’t let that hold you back. I love that it wasn’t even a thing. Like, you can make 100K without a niche and website, and you made more than 100K last year. How much did you make? I always forget.

Lindsay: About 118.

Stacey: Yeah, so good. And so how long did that take you to do that? That was another question I wanted to ask you because you and I started coaching in 2015, but you were in network marketing then and you didn’t decide, I think, for what? At least a year and a half…

Lindsay: A little over a year. Yes, I was just looking at this the other day, trying to figure out the timeline. So I hired you for network marketing and then interestingly, we would get on every single call and I would say, “Okay, I know, but today I want to talk about – can we talk about my husband or can we talk about my kids,” or whatever. It was rarely actually about business, although my business grew as a result of working on all of the other things. But so I think it was a little over a year until I decided and came out and said I’m a coach.

Stacey: You had like, six months of mind drama about what do I do with this network marketing business and this new coaching business and how do I announce and how do I make it work and all the things. So I wouldn’t even consider those six months like, you weren’t fully in yet. But then there was like…

Lindsay: 100%. Yeah, so I remember it was Thanksgiving weekend, like black Friday I think I posted on Facebook and came out as a coach. And I was totally still in the space of I’m doing network marketing and I’m a coach and I’m trying to make it all work and it’s going to be amazing and I’m not going to make anyone mad, I’m not going to push any buttons.

And yeah, I stayed in that space for a while until one day, probably about six months later, maybe a little less, I said, this is not working and I don’t feel good. This feels awful, I need to make some changes. So then I went all in on life coaching that first year. So Thanksgiving through the end of that year I didn’t make any money. So then the next year was when I really stepped in, went all in on the life coaching. I think I made like, $30,000-ish. And then it was 2018 and I made $118,000.

Stacey: So good.

Lindsay: It still blows my mind. I say it and I’m like, did I?

Stacey: You know, it just made me think like, this is really truly part of – such a deep part of the work you do with your clients, which is you help your clients say yes to themselves, right? Say yes to what they truly want, step into what’s right for them, and that is really what happened for you is like you really figured out what was right for you and then you had about six months of trying to please everybody and do it the way that was no one gets mad, and everybody got mad.

Lindsay: Everybody, yes.

Stacey: And you went through so – you literally had people saying you’re ruining my life. It was this whole awful period and you’re still going through – you don’t even know if it’s 100%. You haven’t made any money as a life coach yet and you really learned – I remember the Easter weekend. The Easter weekend going out of town with me, like, all of that of like, just constantly rubbing up against people not understanding what you’re doing and being totally in fear for themselves, for you, having an opinion about it, and you just kept saying like, no, but yes, this is what I want, yes, this is what I want, yes, this is what I want. And that is so – such a big part of why I think you’re making the money you’re making now is because you didn’t let any of that shit be your excuse to not make money either.

Lindsay: I agree, and I would say it comes back to my belief in coaching, which is what helps me grow my business still now. Because I was willing to invest almost all of the money I made back into paying for my own coaching, paying for retreats, paying for – I said yes to everything because I knew like, this is going to keep moving me forward. I want to keep growing, I don’t feel comfortable. Like, right where I am right now is not – this is not where I want to stay. I want to continue to grow, how am I going to do that? What’s my next step? And I just kept asking myself that and along the way, like you said, said you’re ruining my life because I was making a decision for what was right for me…

Stacey: Easter is my favorite holiday.

Lindsay: Disappointing some of my network marketing people, and then Easter is my favorite holiday, said my husband, who when I told him I was going to be out of town over Easter, which in all fairness, I didn’t realize it was Easter when I committed. But then once I had committed in my head to this trip with you and I knew I’d already told myself what my takeaway was going to be from that, so yeah, I let him sit in the disappointment.

Stacey: Of you missing his favorite holiday. That’s still one of my favorite stories ever and you got a lot of heat for that, but you just kept going. I was actually thinking of you. I was walking Bear and I was thinking about you the other day because you and I have such similar stories. We’re in our first kind of like, year where we were really in it, I made like 18K, you made 30K and then our next year you made 118, I did like 150 or something like that. But you know what it was, I wasn’t walking Bear. Not that this matters, but I was telling Neil. Most people aren’t willing to do this, they’re not willing…

Lindsay: Bear, Neil…

Stacey: Bear, Neil, it’s the same thing. They aren’t willing to take all of that money, like, six figures to them is like, the world, and they imagine they would be buying new houses. And I see coaches do this online and they’re posting about fancy cars that they bought. They’re buying all these things, and you and I both took all of that money – like, my profit was out of 150, I think it was $30,000, which was like, what I just lived on. But all of it was just reinvested back in the business into coaching. Not even into ads. But just into becoming the person who can make way more than $100,000 over their lifetime.

Lindsay: 100%. I’m pretty sure that my husband still doesn’t – I mean, he’s seen the numbers but it’s like, I don’t think he – he believes it because he sees the numbers and even on taxes and whatever, but like we haven’t actually experienced it because I have invested so much back in my business. But I have no doubts about it. I feel so good that I’m willing to just hold that belief for myself and for him and for anyone else that needs me to do it.

Stacey: I really think the more money you invest up until 100K, the person who invests the most in themselves up until 100K is the person that wins. They’re going to be the person that makes the 100K because they kept investing, but then that’s going to compound over the next three years in such a big way. Like, it’s going to be so fun to see you do 200K plus this year and what are you going to do the next year? It just keeps compounding.

And eventually, you can’t – this is what’s so fun. Eventually you can’t invest all of what you make no matter how hard you try. Whether it’s in coaching and – like, I’m at the point now where it’s like, I could invest everything I wanted in Facebook ads and all of the coaching I needed and it’s still just like, the tip of the iceberg. So it’s so fun, but most people aren’t willing to wait three years to take the trips and buy the new house and buy the luxury cars and do all the fun things that they think they want.

And that’s not everybody’s story but I see it so often and it’s so prevalent is I want to hold onto the money I make as soon as I make it instead of like, the way I saw it was just like, put it right back in the business, put it right back in the business, and I think it does boil down to your belief about coaching. I didn’t have any question that this wasn’t something I would be doing for life so I was all in.

Lindsay: Yes. And even the things – and I’ve heard you talk about this before, but even some things that I spend money on along the way that I thought for sure this is what I need to help with my marketing or I’m going to learn Instagram or whatever it is, I think it’s the answer in the moment. I pay the money, turns out it’s not the answer. But the beautiful part, and this is I guess this is just my mindset, but this mindset serves me so well and I know you’ll agree with this is that it doesn’t matter if I learned the thing.

It doesn’t matter if I learned Instagram or marketing or whatever it is. I learned whatever it was that I needed from that program even if it was stop spending money before you go all in on what you’re doing right now. Stop looking outside of yourself for the answer. It’s within you and you just need to get coached on it. You don’t need to pay for all of these other – all the other things until you actually need them.

Stacey: I know. Sometimes you tell people that and they can’t grasp it until they’ve done it, and then they’re like, oh yeah, I see what you mean by that.

Lindsay: Yeah. There are things that I’ve paid for that I just never used but when I look back I’m like…

Stacey: Obviously nothing with me.

Lindsay: No. Really nothing. Literally nothing with you because I’ve only – the only thing I’ve ever bought from you is coaching. And that is the answer, in my opinion. The other things were like, outside things that I thought were going to fix a problem. Like, teach me how to do something. And there is a place for that. It’s just I was occasionally buying something that I thought this is going to change my business, it’s going to fix everything.

Stacey: Right yeah. And so even that like, I think that’s just the mindset of taking responsibility and getting your transformation no matter what. And I’ve had transformations like that where I remember thinking funnels and Facebook ads were the only way I could make $500,000 and so I bought this $4000 program and then I didn’t do it. But what’s amazing is part of the reason I didn’t do it is because – this is the way that I tell this story.

I don’t know that it’s actually accurate, but I’m here in this program, it’s awful, I don’t want to learn anything about it, and the awfulness of not wanting to learn anything about it, my brain was like okay, how can I do this without learning this? Because it’s so awful. And my brain came up with this reason and then I got so busy and I did my first 100K launch without having done it and I was like, oh my god, I really thought that was the answer but it’s not. It goes back to building relationships. Building relationships is what makes you money.

And it was just even that to me was a transformation. I didn’t even ask the woman for my money back. I was like, this is – it’s my fault, I didn’t show up, I didn’t do the work, I’m not going to make that your fault. And I still got, to me, $4000 worth of transformation just in like, needing to – just in that place where my brain created this alternate possibility and proving to myself that I didn’t need that, which was so fantastic. So good. Okay, so I have loved having you on. So who do you work with right now and how can people connect with you?

Lindsay: Who I work with is the million-dollar question. So – and it’s still funny because I do feel like I’m stepping into this place of like, yeah, I have a niche, but then when I say it, my mind, and because – I’m saying this because I know your listeners will relate. My mind is like, but wait, is that specific enough? Even after the conversation we just had, right?

But no, I work with women who just are ready to say yes to themselves, are ready to step into – to forget that perfectionism, to let go of that, to stop thinking that there’s one right way to do something, whether it’s in life, in business, in their relationship, literally this is the theme with all my clients is they’re just looking for how do I do it, but how do I do it? How do I get to the life that I want to have? And I just show them their thoughts and show them how to do it, and it’s so fun.

Stacey: Yeah, and I think you help women really truly, I think what you help women do is step into themselves and really connect with their authentic self and use that and move forward. I don’t think it’s this little thing to be able to find comfort within yourself, to be able to find acceptance within yourself, and to be to let yourself guide yourself. I don’t think that’s a little thing. I think for me, that took me years to learn. Not just like, six months. Like, two years to really start to be able to trust myself and be so assured. Like, self-assured. And so I don’t think that’s a little thing and I think that’s one of the biggest things you teach your clients.

Lindsay: Yes, I love that. And as we were saying earlier, that is my journey. That is what I’ve had to do. That’s the thing that I’ve had to work so hard on is being okay just being in my skin, owning who I am, saying yes to myself over and over and over, even when people are like, what are you doing?

Stacey: So good. Okay, so how do they connect with you?

Lindsay: So I love connecting with people on Facebook. Just on my personal Facebook page, I just really love creating that relationship with people. So they can definitely find me there. Just search my name. Lindsay Dotzlaf, and then you can also visit my website, which I know you’ll put in the show notes.

Stacey: We can put the link to your Facebook page and we can also put the link to your website.

Lindsay: Perfect.

Stacey: So people can be your friends or they could hire you.

Lindsay: We’re totally going to be friends. You can see what I’m up to. That’s it. I just really love connecting with people. Just on a personal level.

Stacey: Yeah, you’re actually an extrovert like, 100%, right?

Lindsay: I am. I love it. I love people. I love their stories. Tell me everything. Let’s just really get in there.

Stacey: Yeah. Lindsay’s always down for the party at all the retreats. I’m like, I remember when we were at the Cabo house and they were showing me the house and they were like, this room is amazing but you don’t want to sleep in it because it’s like, connected to the main house and everybody that’s up, and you were like, “That’s the room I want.”

Lindsay: That’s so funny.

Stacey: And I’m like, I want to be away from all of the people. Take me as far away as possible.

Lindsay: Yeah. And then I ended up being up at like five o clock every morning, which was just the funniest thing to me. Just watching the sunrise, just thinking, this is my life, this is amazing. Yeah, I love all the people all the time.

Stacey: So good. Alright, thank you so much for being on. I know this is going to be so inspirational for so many people that want to make 100K and they’re struggling with all that shit that we talked about and you’re going to be – I just know they’re going to listen to this and it’s going to set them free, so thank you for taking the time to be on here. I know you’re busy.

Lindsay: Thank you so much for having me on. I was so excited to do it.

Stacey: You are so welcome. Alright girlfriend, I will talk to you later.

Hey, if you are 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 $2000, the hardest part, and then $200,000 using my proven formula. It’s risk-free. You either make your 2K or I give you your 2K back. Just head over to www.staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.

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