5 Revenue Growth Secrets for 7-Figure Coaches

We're gonna talk about stuckness today, if that is even a word. Why do you feel stuck? Why do you feel stuck growing your coaching business? And what to do about it and how to get unstuck. Let's talk about feeling stuck, because if you're listening to this episode, there's a good chance you have thought something like, 'Oh, I should be further along by now.' 'Oh, I'm doing all the things, so why isn't this clicking? Why isn't it happening yet?' Or maybe you say, 'I know I'm capable of more. I know it's within me, but I just can't figure it out. Something seems stalled. It's just not happening fast enough.' I want to start off by saying this very clearly: if you are telling yourself the story that you're stuck, it doesn't mean you're failing. It does not mean you're behind. It doesn't mean something is wrong with you. In fact, some of the most capable, intelligent, high-potential coaches that I work with feel stuck all of the time, and it's usually right before they have a massive breakthrough. I'm talking about the coaches who are making multiple six figures. They have proof of concept. Lead gen is not a problem. They've got it dialed in. They're scaling to 7 figures, their first million, million-dollar years, they still feel stuck. Why? Because stuck is usually feedback. It's telling us something. There is no failure, there's only feedback. There is no being stuck, it's just feedback. It's not a flaw. So I want to unpack this. You're probably still saying, but Carly, I do feel stuck, and I want to talk about what's underneath actually feeling stuck, but more importantly, what to do about it. Instead of just forcing your way through, how to get unstuck. So this episode isn't going to be about just take more action, just keep pushing your way through. It's not just going to be another mindset episode and thinking your way out of it as well. It's a unique episode. And before I get into this even further, I just want to make a point and put a caveat on the word stuck. Just do me a favor, delete it from your vocabulary completely. Just delete the word stuck out of your vocabulary. Now, I'm going to use it in today's episode for teaching purposes, but from here on out, anytime you catch yourself using the word stuck— I'm stuck, it's not working, I'm stuck, I don't know what to do— I want you to change it because If you can get stuck, you can get unstuck. If you can get stuck, you can get unstuck. So in reality, there's no such thing as being stuck anyways. Stuck has a negative connotation. Anytime somebody comes to me in a coaching call, my clients come to me and they're like, I'm stuck, I automatically go into reframing mindset. Then I can go into the strategy, but I need you to change the narrative first, or you will stay stuck. Our words carry weight, and it's important that you no longer use the word stuck at all. Boop, delete out of your vocabulary. Okay, so again, I'm going to use it in this episode, and I want to talk about why stuck is often misunderstood in the first place. Most people think that being stuck means you're not motivated enough, you don't have the right strategy, you're missing a puzzle piece, maybe you need to try harder, you you just need that other tool. You need that other tactic. Or you're like, I'm stuck. This isn't working for me. It works for other people, but it doesn't work for me. In reality, stuck usually shows up when what you've been doing no longer matches who you're becoming. I'm going to say that again, because this is critically important. And if you get nothing else from this episode, I want you to get this. In reality, Stuck usually shows up when you've been doing something that no longer matches who you're becoming, AKA you've outgrown the old way, but you haven't stepped into the new one yet. You're kind of in this limbo in between, and it's uncomfortable. Stuck is often the moment where the old strategies are no longer working because you've outgrown them, right? But the new strategies, you don't know them yet. They feel unfamiliar. You're dabbling them. You're not fully leaning in and implementing them yet. You're in this learning curve. And welcome to the online coaching world, because you're going to be on a learning curve for the rest of your life. There is endless amounts of information to learn to keep growing and scaling your business. Sky is the limit. It's a fantastic thing, but you're always going to be in a learning curve. But you misinterpret that for being stuck just because you don't understand something yet. Or you're saying, I'm stuck, when you're in this moment where your nervous system, it wants and craves that certainty so bad, but it's not there yet. The outcome has not dropped in yet. You don't have the results yet. You aren't certain when the results are going to happen, if they're going to happen, how they're going to happen. There's a fat question mark. And so you just assume, I'm stuck, because again, you're in that learning curve. This is where high-capacity people feel stuck more often. This is where and why— because you're always in that learning curve. High-capacity people, high achievers, high-income earners, they're not stagnant. They're transitioning 24/7. So they feel stuck more. They're always upleveling. They're always outgrowing an identity. They're always learning new things. They're always implementing new strategies. They're always striving for a higher revenue goal. So you say, Carly, I'm stuck. And I say, congratulations, welcome to the club. Welcome to the club of high achievers. I feel like I'm immune. Let's normalize these challenges. I want you to feel immune to these challenges because it's part of the game. Here's the thing, if you want a thriving coaching business— I know you want a thriving coaching business, that's why you're here, okay? So if you want a thriving coaching business, you better get really freaking good at solving problems, because the bigger your business is, as it continues to grow, as you continue to uplevel, you're going to have more problems. The bigger the business, the bigger the problems. Challenges are always going to exist, but it's how you respond to them that determines your success. Challenges will always exist, but it's how you respond to them that determines your success. Let's zoom in and let's get specific for a second. And I want to talk about, in my opinion, what I've seen over the years coaching thousands of clients, the 5 most common reasons that coaches feel stuck. And I really had to sit down and think about this before I hit record on this episode, but this is what I came up with on a high level. Number 1 out of the 5 reasons is you're unclear or your positioning is way overcomplicated, meaning you feel stuck because you're talking to too many people. You're a generalist. You're not specific. You don't have a specific population that you're speaking to. You don't have that ideal client dialed in. You don't solve a persistent, painful problem, and it's not specific. There's no specific outcome. It's not measurable. It's not tangible. You're talking to too many people. You're solving too many problems. Your heart wants to save the world, or maybe you're skipping around and you're changing your message every few weeks and people are like, well, what do you really do? And who do you really help? Your content sounds fine on an individual basis, your offer sounds fine, but nothing is hitting home, nothing is anchoring. That clarity that you need is going to give you the momentum you need. The confusion that's happening right now for your ideal clients, that's not going to create the momentum that's going to get them to buy. There's this friction, there's this disconnect. So you don't have to think harder, you just need to be more clear in your positioning. You need to go back to the basics, your core messaging. You need to commit longer to a specific niche instead of just niche hopping all of the time because you're saying it's not working, I'm stuck. Okay, if you want to niche shop and do something else because you have an epiphany or you kind of outgrew that niche, then yeah, okay, that makes sense. You have permission to be whoever you want to be and serve whoever you want to serve at any given time. But I don't condone niche hopping just when you say it's not working, because then you're just going to confuse the shit out of your audience. You need to stick with it long enough for the trust to compound. The trust has to compound, and they have to understand that you're speaking to them and they're like, oh wow, she gets me. On a deep intimate level. Number 2 is too many offers. I always say your offer suite should not be comparable to a Chinese menu or Cheesecake Factory. If you have too many offers, there's not enough depth. The magic really is in the subtraction, not the addition. Power of one. You can make a million dollars off of one freaking program. Don't fragment all of your offers. It's okay to have low ticket, mid ticket, high ticket offers. And yes, you can have more than one offer. I'm not trying to, to say don't have more than one offer. I have multiple offers in my own business, but I'm not coming up with a new offer every single week, every single month. I'm not stuck in creation mode 24/7. High achievers often get stuck in this because it, it fuels their ambition. They feel like, yes, I'm doing something. I'm always creating. I'm always creating. But what you're doing is you're diluting the depth of what you offer. Every single time you create an offer and then you do multiple price points and there's multiple directions with it, it requires explanation, it requires energy, it requires marketing, and you're gonna be busy doing all of that, but it's not necessarily gonna equal the momentum that's gonna bring in the sales that you want. We need depth. When you have depth and you have that intimate connection with your ideal client, it's going to create the demand that you want, and that is going to reduce the overwhelm that's leading you to the story of I'm stuck. Oftentimes your business is just asking you to simplify, scale back, not expand. And I had to learn this the hard way because I love freaking creating things. And I had to go back to the basics. Subtract things. Let's get rid of things. Simple always wins. Number 3 is avoidance. So many entrepreneurs avoid things, and it is disguised as planning. You're saving it for a rainy day. You're not stuck, you're just avoiding this next level of visibility. There's visibility wounds that run deep. Maybe you're avoiding the next level of leadership or responsibility that you have to step into. So instead you do busy work. Maybe this sounds familiar. You tweak your website, you rewrite your messaging, you wordsmith your niche again, you research more, you're scrolling more, you're planning more. One day I'll do this and one day I'll do this. And you're getting ready for it all. And you're in this constant state of getting ready, just a little bit longer. And this planning feels really productive for you. You're just full of plans, but sometimes it's just fear. It's just fear with this mask on. It's fear that's wearing this professional outfit because you're planning and it all looks good from the outside. But ready is not just a feeling. Ready is a decision that you have to make. So let's make some moves. Number 4 is you've outgrown the strategies that got you to where you are now. This happens all of the time. What used to work for you is not working anymore for the level of revenue that you're trying to hit. What worked at one stage doesn't always work in the next when you're moving from that early traction founder stage into consistency, growth, scale, evergreen. The more freedom that you're craving in your business and you have to buy your way out of that, that's not going to work. The strategies that you used before, that's not going to work when you're craving that level of freedom in your business. So at this point, trying harder with the outdated strategies, it's just gonna feel exhausting, especially if you're doing it all alone without a team. But you're at this point where, well, it's worked for you in the past, so trying something new feels risky. You don't want to risk the safety of the business, and then you stall and you're like, I'm stuck. I'm stuck here at this income cap. I'm capped at $10K months. I'm capped at $20K months. I just can't break the ceiling of $50K months. I'm stuck. Well, you're not stuck. It's just what you did to get you there. You can't keep doing that. Something's gotta shift and change. We need to make changes in your operating system systematically, but also internally. There's an identity shift that needs to happen, which leads me to number 5. Actually, there's an identity lag. This is the one that not enough people talk about, in my opinion. Your results have grown. Yay you! But your self-concept, your internal operating system, it hasn't fully caught up yet. You're still operating with these old limits, these old expectations, these old patterns of safety. So when these opportunities arise, you don't even see them as opportunities. You see them as hesitations. So then you start maybe self-sabotaging a little bit. Identity always lags behind growth until it doesn't. So you have to uplevel your identity. There's going to be new expectations. Let's break out of those safety patterns. Things have to change. Let's now move into talking about why doing more— because oftentimes you think, all right, well, to get unstuck, I just need to do more, do more, do more. So let's talk about why doing more makes this whole thing worse. When people feel stuck, their instinct is usually do more, more content, more offers, more effort, more noise. I just need to add something. I just need to tweak this. But more without that clarity, this is just gonna create pressure, unnecessary pressure for yourself to do more. And it's not actually going to result in the progress that you're looking for. If you're doing more just for the sake of doing more, because you don't want to feel stuck anymore, but you're avoiding decisions that really need to be made, it's just going to keep you busy. You're back to doing that busy work that I was talking about. You're not actually moving the needle forward in your business. So at this stage of growth that you're in, it's not necessarily about doing more. Growth doesn't come from more output. It comes from more strategic decisions. And usually it's the decisions that are outside of your comfort zone, and it requires a level of discomfort. You gotta make those decisions, whether it be, you know, reducing your profit margins because you have to hire another team member. Redoing all of your SOPs and getting your systems in place, upping your ad budget. Okay, I'm talking next level when you're kind of moving in this stuck phase from 6 to 7 figures. It's possibly adding more conversion events to your calendar, is reworking things, but it's not about adding more, adding more, adding more. It's about making decisions. So Let's recap all of this. How do we get unstuck? What actually gets you unstuck? I'm gonna reverse engineer as I recap, cuz I just talked about all the things that are keeping you stuck, but I don't wanna leave you with that. Okay. So here's what I see over and over again. Decision over certainty, AKA momentum is gonna return to you and your business. When you can make strategic decisions. When decision-making returns, momentum returns. You have to be the leader. Clarity will only come after committing, not before. And you have to simplify the process. Remember when I said it's about the subtraction, not the addition? Trim the fat, cut the fluff, simplify. Over adding, adding, adding all the time. Ask yourself the question, what would make this 50% simpler? And if you don't know that, get yourself a mentor who can get eyes on your business and tell you how you can simplify it. That's why mentors exist. You have to have consistency. Stop with the shiny object syndrome, chasing what's new all of the time, and start deepening what's working. Let's dial in and double down on what's working. Every growth edge is gonna feel uncomfortable to you, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. Usually it means you're right on that edge of the breakthrough. So if you're feeling stuck— and remember, we deleted that from our vocabulary— but if you're feeling stuck, I want you to sit with these powerful questions: What decision Am I avoiding? Where am I waiting to feel ready instead of choosing to feel ready? What would simplify this dramatically, at least by 50%? This is important. Who do I need to become to hold that next level? What am I afraid will change if it actually works? What information do I not have? Who can provide it for me? Oftentimes people don't need more time to think about things, they need more information. You need to make a decision, but you're avoiding it. You're waiting to feel ready instead of deciding. You probably just need to subtract and simplify. You need to make an identity shift and change to meet yourself at the next level. You're afraid of what's on the other side. Maybe you're afraid of success. You're not even afraid of failure. Maybe you just need more information and you don't have the right business mentor. So these are strong, strong leadership questions that I need you to check yourself with if you're feeling stuck. Stuck is not the end. It's a threshold. You're right on the edge of a breakthrough. It's that space between who you were and who you're becoming. It's that uncomfortable in-between, and to get out of it, you gotta level up. And you don't need to force your way out of it, but I need you to listen, check your words, decide, lead yourself through it. And if you're ready to hit that next level and you want clarity, you want support, you want grounded leadership, you want a team behind you, just know that you don't have to do this alone. This is exactly why mentors like myself exist, why my team is here to support you. It's not only me. So if you're curious about mentorship options, please check out the show notes. There's a million zillion bajillion ways that you can work with us. My love is with you, and I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to the Thriving Therapreneur podcast. I hope that this episode has inspired you to reduce burnout, work smarter, and see the freedom potential you have as a therapist. We would love to have you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator. Accelerator Facebook group where we have live trainings and cheat sheets on all things marketing, sales, and adding coaching ethically and legally. I am here cheering you on, and I'll see you around.