Ep #51: Making Money During the Holidays

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.

Hello coach lovies of mine. Welcome to episode 51. We’re going to talk about making money during the holidays. The holidays are on my mind. So Neil and I did the most ridiculous thing, and really, I need to just clarify that it was me and my idea that I just made him go along with it.

But we did a doggy holiday photo shoot at our house with our dog, Bear, who you will not see in many photos. He decided today not to participate in the photo shoot in any way shape or form. And then with our puppy Bella and then her brother Blaze, who we gave to Neil’s parents.

So we have worked very hard over the last several weeks to get our tree up, our house decorated, the gifts bought and wrapped under the tree, like on top of it. Coordinating outfits, dog bandanas that all match. Just all of the cuteness. Santa hats for the puppies.

We even did these matching holiday pajamas. One of my friends messaged it to me and said that this was right up my alley, and I was like, you’re right, this is up my alley. Pajamas that my dog and I wear and they match? For sure. That’s definitely my thing.

So I ordered them. I ordered them for Neil and myself and all three dogs. We had all matching red snowflake jammies. And Neil was like, absolutely not, I’m not doing that, I’m not wearing those, and I was like, oh, you’re wearing them. You’re definitely wearing them.

Funny side note, while he was wearing them, he actually had a good time, I think. We got pictures of us rolling around in the bed with the puppies, it was just the cutest thing ever. And afterwards, he let them out to go potty and he was still wearing the jammies. And one of the dogs ran down the street.

And so I just want you to picture my fiancé running down the street after the puppies in these head to toe matching red Christmas jammies. And all of a sudden he hears, “Hey Neil,” and it’s our neighbor outside watching him wrangle puppies midday, mind you. Midday. 12:30 in the afternoon.

And he’s running around in Christmas jammies. Like, come on. It’s the best. I died laughing when he told me that story. But we had a fantastic time. The puppies did not play ball with us. They had to shoot for lighting purposes during the middle of their naps. So they basically were like, falling asleep the entire time and we were holding their heads up to get photos. And then they slept for like, four hours after the photo shoot was over.

But I can’t wait to show you the photos. They will be on Instagram. You can go to @staceyboehman and see them once they get edited. They’re going to be – there was no purpose for the shoot other than fun times at the Boehman household and holiday memories forever.

So we do silly things like that. That is what we did today. It was so much fun. And so now on the podcast, we’re going to talk about making money during the holidays. You ready? Let’s do it.

Okay, so I’ve actually been talking a lot about this on IG, if you are following me. If you’re not, what is happening? Also, if you’re not on my email list, what is happening? Get on both of those. Follow me on Instagram, be on my email list. You will get lots of great truth bombs and inspirations and ideas for your business from me.

So we’ve been talking a lot about making money during the holidays because I see this time of year, with my clients, I see a lot of things happen and I’ve kind of compiled them into – these are like, the top things that I see happening and we’re going to just talk about all of them on the podcast today.

So this is what I see happen with my clients during the holidays. It’s just like the best container for all your drama to come up. Number one, during the holidays, you feel entitled to not working during the holidays. I see this a lot. So number two, you just neglect your business during the holidays.

You stay busy with everything but offers and we’ll talk about why, but mainly because you don’t think people will take you up on offers during the holidays. You don’t think people are buying, you don’t think people are signing up, you think the year is over.

Number three is you use too much urgency and you play too hard on the holiday selling and you kind of rely on the holiday selling to sell for you, and you discount your shit, and it makes you feel sales-y and it comes off sales-y, and nobody likes a sales-y salesperson.

Or number four, you mentally give up because it’s the end of the year and it just feels like you’re about to graduate from high school or go on summer break. So those are the main reasons. We’re going to talk about all of them. You ready? Because I love making money during the holidays.

I love making money all times of the year. Let’s just make all the money all of the time. Okay, so let’s start with the feeling entitled to not working during the holidays. Notice that it’s just that. It’s entitlement. It’s not true. It’s a thought.

And how you know if this serves you or not, whatever your feeling or your justification is that makes you feel entitled is how does it feel in your body and does it align with the results you want to create? Entitlement will always feel bad if you’re being honest about it. Like, I should or I shouldn’t never feels good.

And I want to be clear that it doesn’t normally come up like, I feel entitled to not working. That’s not usually the thought driving your feeling of entitlement. And normally we don’t even think that we’re feeling entitled, right? So that’s why I think you have to check whether it feels bad or not is because the thought is usually a thought that feels justified like, I own my own business, I get to decide when I work, I own my business for my family and I’m choosing to spend time with my family. That’s a good one.

I’m choosing to spend time with my family. That’s usually how it shows up. Or I’m choosing to be present during the holidays. It always just kind of feels justified. And so the way that you figure out entitlement is how it feels in your body. Justification doesn’t feel good, entitlement doesn’t feel good.

It will feel maybe even like a little defiant. It feels off in your body if you’re being very aware. Even when we think that it does feel good, like when we’re saying like, I deserve this cookie, and it’s something that we want, if you really check in, I deserve this cookie usually doesn’t feel good.

It’s very interesting. So even if it’s a thought that you think is positive and great and you think the thought feels great, you have to check in with your body. Does it actually feel good? That’s the first indicator.

But I get a lot of clients who will tell me, I feel great about not working in December, in a very defiant, kind of closed off to being coached on it way. And so the next way that I kind of coach them is I just ask them, did you make the money that you decided to make this year? At the beginning of the year. Have you hit your goal?

So that’s the second way you can check in is if you’re feeling entitled is if you haven’t hit your goal that you decided to hit, so not my goal. If your goal was 50K and you made your goal this year and you feel fucking amazing, great. But if you said you were going to make 100K and you’re at 70K, and then you’re saying I feel really great about not working in December, something’s off.

It’s probably not truly coming from an abundant, clear, decided, amazing place to not be working during the holidays. And I also think sometimes you see seven-figure coaches, eight-figure coaches taking two weeks off during the holidays or whatever, and we’ll talk about this in a second, but just notice that you’re making your decision based off someone who’s way further ahead than you.

This really just goes back to the idea that your business is your baby. If you have a baby and it’s December, there is never a situation where you say, “Well, I’m just going to leave the baby in the crib for two weeks because I have a lot of gifts to buy and parties to go to and I want to see some Christmas lights.”

You don’t leave the baby alone for two weeks while you go celebrate the holidays. It’s not the way it works. And you might be laughing right now because I’m giving you a ridiculous analogy, but we would never do that, so it really does go back to is your business your baby? If you don’t treat it like that, it will not grow to be an adult business. It will die of neglect. Die.

But as all businesses, if you’re watching other seven and eight-figure business owners take two weeks off or month-long vacations or whatever, like I did this year, that’s because they have adult businesses and they can do that. You can go two weeks or even a month without calling and checking in for your adult children.

Because that baby grew into an adult that can take care of itself. My business is an adult. If I want to go on vacation for a month, I have done the very mature work of having processes and systems and other people in place so that it can take care of itself.

I feel like actually, my business is a little bit like it has lots of nannies. Listen, you have to have the nannies in place. You have to have the adult business in order to leave it unattended like that. And really, everything keeps moving when I go on vacation for a month.

My clients still get coaches. There is a live training in our program every single week no matter what. There are people that – customer service emails still get responded to. People get help. Our contractors still get what they need. We have people in place handling all those things.

In fact, projects get worked on. I assigned three big projects to my team before I took a month-long vacation and everything kept working, and we worked ahead. That’s part of the maturity is I spent five months getting ahead in my business so that I could be so far ahead that I could take off a month and it would be fine.

So I spent the time doing the work to get ahead in my business. So if you’re not there yet, if you’re still trying to figure out how to make money, that’s just not where you’re at yet. So you have to work to get to that point. You are entitled from the get-go to that point. If you haven’t made money in your business, if you haven’t made 100K is what I would measure it on, you need to treat December like every month of the year. Get to work.

And don’t do it because I said so. Do it because you want an adult business someday. Because entitled doesn’t serve you. Because you have a strong why. Because you’re investing for every single Christmas or Hanukkah to come. Because clients are waiting on you. Because of how you will feel to hit your end of year goal, which is way better than any present you get or cookies you bake or Christmas shows you see.

And I’m not saying to work on Christmas, but work as if you had a full-time job, like most of the world has to show up to work in December. You need to be your best full-time employee. If the baby analogy doesn’t work for you. The best full-time employees are putting their 40 hours in on all the other days of the week in December.

Okay, so neglect is also very similar to entitled, but I think it comes from a different place. Entitled comes from an inflated self-concept and neglect or avoidance I think comes from a deflated self-concept. It comes from the lack of belief in yourself and your ability to achieve your goals and giving into what’s pleasurable now versus standing for what will be pleasurable later.

It’s more fun to Christmas shop and watch Hallmark movies, than to go to a networking event or host a webinar. Obviously. Especially when you believe it won’t matter and won’t change things and nothing big will come of it. Notice if that’s you.

Deciding what you’re going to sell and what you’re going to offer and making offers based on your impression of what the results will be. Like your motivation to do that will be directly impacted by your belief of how big and impactful the results will be.

When you don’t believe that you will make money doing something, that something doesn’t seem very fun. So there are three basic beliefs that you need to have at all times, but I think that they get very tested during the holidays. Again, I think the holidays are just like a great container, which are people want what you have to offer, they want it from you, and they are able to pay to get it during the holidays.

I think this right here is such a great reason to make sure you are in a community of coaches who are thinking like this and creating results like this, so that you can see what’s possible. I’ve been sitting here screenshot-ing all of the celebrations inside 2K for 2K’s Facebook community because I love the example coaches have been setting in there.

Post after post is coaches celebrating making their money back, making 5K, making 10K, making 50K. All during the holidays. We did – Stacey Boehman Coaching did $750,000 in two days the week before Thanksgiving. The holidays are not the problem. They are not a reason to not make money and not show up for yourself and your clients.

And I know some of you might be thinking, “But Stacey, you have a huge business and a huge following and you’re a business coach.” And you have all these reasons to discount me making money during the holidays, but really, the only difference is I don’t have thoughts that hold me back from making money during the holidays.

That really is the only difference. My first full year as a coach, I was making money during the holidays. I sold a $20,000 four-day VIP to a client who had a family and we went on a trip to Aspen the weekend before Christmas. It was amazing.

She got massive transformation and fulfilled a huge desire of hers to be a snow bunny in Aspen during the holidays. We had an amazing time and it was so effective. So if you love Christmas, add it to your offers. Offer your clients a magical Christmas or New Year’s VIP. Hold a retreat somewhere festive.

I love doing activities based on the holidays. I did a thing called My Favorite Things giveaway in January two years in a row, where I went around and bought all my favorite things, like small items that would be like, $50 and under, things that I would buy myself or buy for gifts, and I live-streamed for three hours straight selling the free items like it was QVC.

And then people could enter by sharing the video and tagging people for entries. And I would talk about an item and then write everybody’s name down and do a drawing, and then I would interlace that with talking about what I do and how I work with my clients and this upcoming program I was selling.

And listen, this kind of thing isn’t for everyone. I just want to be clear. I’m not telling you you should do this. I just love live-streaming and selling, so that’s right up my alley, coming from the pitching world. And I got introduced to a lot of new people and I ended up launching a group coaching program and selling it out from there.

I’m just giving you the belief that there are so many ideas. The point is are you spending time thinking about why it won’t work, or are you being in the energy of it having worked? Are you feeling inspired by the holidays or entitled and disheartened by the holidays?

That’s what you want to just check in with. But come up with all the amazing ideas if you want to. So much fun. Okay, so now it’s also time to talk about not relying on the idea of the holidays to sell.

Too much holiday selling can create the opposite effect. So don’t force it. I don’t recommend for example, hammering hard Black Friday or Small Business Saturday or Cyber Monday. I don’t recommend discounting anything ever. I never have.

Bonuses, yes, do them. I think those are fun and fresh. But I just don’t think that you have to do it in those specific days that are normally for people buying items. It’s different when they’re buying coaching. It’s not the same thing.

But if you want to take advantage of Small Business Saturday or Cyber Monday, I don’t think it hurts. If you feel inspired by it, go for it and learn from it. That’s my new saying. Go for it and learn from it. But just don’t rely on it to do the selling for you. You want to focus on the value you bring and the result your client wants. And the bonus, if you decide to do a bonus, is just that. It’s a bonus.

Okay so lastly, let’s talk about mentally giving up, like you are about to graduate high school or it’s about to be summer break. I think this happens when we are over this year or overly into next year, focused on next year. So we’re working ahead at Stacey Boehman Coaching because of how far we just are ahead and have been ahead this year.

But I am still very much in this year. Because the best opportunity to make change is now. This current moment. And it’s not just the best opportunity really, it’s the only opportunity. The only opportunity for change is now in this exact present moment. It’s the only one we get.

And I love living every single minute of each year I get. I love thinking about my overall vision and mission and thinking what can I do now to contribute to that? In this moment, how can I contribute to my 10-year vision? Which I think, as a side note, is so fun because I remember pitching in a Yonkers department store in Appleton, Wisconsin in the frigid winter in December. Two weeks before Christmas.

And that store, even though it sounds so funny and like, in the middle of nowhere, was the hottest store that we had in the entire chain of all the chains that we worked in the entire country. That store was the hottest store. I was their best sales rep, so I always got it.

And I was making 10K a week in that store selling knives, making more money than I had ever in my life made, and being so unhappy and feeling so empty and unfulfilled and purposeless. And the holidays were always – I think the holidays just remind me also of like, what I was pitching. It was always our biggest money-making times.

And it was always very fun and stressful because you made half of your income in the last three months of the year. But I really spent seven years of my life – I was just talking to my family about this over Thanksgiving. Seven years hustling my ass off to get in as many shows as I could. Getting up at 3am on Black Friday to go do 18 shows, to make 2K y’all, which is so funny. I was thinking about that.

The most I ever made on a Black Friday was $2000 and I thought like, holy crap, I made it. But I was working 12 hours, 18 shows, and had no sleep and no time with my family to make 2K. And now I make it in my sleep, literally.

So I just think the holidays give me the most gratitude that I created this life for myself. And now I can work three days a week and no holidays, and make 1000 times that, literally. And I remember driving all night to make it back by Christmas from selling slicers on a military base in North Carolina and I remember getting yelled at after leaving because I sold out instead of calling for more stock on Christmas Eve.

10 and a half hours from home, I sell out at like, 4pm on Christmas Eve and we leave three hours early to get a jumpstart to drive home to make it back in time for Christmas and I got yelled at. Gratitude doesn’t begin to cover it. Really. Truly.

So if you’re struggling with selling during the holidays and making money and the motivation, can I just maybe leave you with this? Think about where you will be three years from now because of how you showed up this month. And how you will show up next month.

Are you starting slowing down or speeding up? Are you starting fresh and full of energy and connected to your vision and your mission and totally engaged with your business, or neglecting your baby for a month? Or even two weeks. Have you been thoughtful and careful? Because who you want to be three years from now does depend on this moment now and how you utilize it.

And you will be grateful if you give yourself this investment now of being present and engaged and bringing this year home. Alright, go out there and make money during the holidays and have so much fun doing it. Have a beautiful week. Jump on Instagram. As soon as we get the edits back from our doggy Christmas jammie photo shoot, we will post them. Alright, I’ll talk to you next week.

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.