5 Simple Steps to Start a Coaching Business with Chronic Illness

Welcome to Crafted to Thrive, the globally ranked podcast for entrepreneurs living with chronic illness. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and after being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses myself, I figured out the surprisingly simple missing links to growing a profitable business without compromising my health. Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same. If you're ready to own your story and create a thriving business that aligns with your health and wellbeing, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for entrepreneurs with chronic illness. This is Crafted to Thrive.

I am so excited to chat with you about this episode. If you're on my email list, you already know that I am going to be sharing a pretty big announcement. On this episode. And I'm also gonna be sharing and answering the question, what are the steps you need in order to start a coaching business? No matter what place you're starting at, whether you have a business, whether you are in corporate and wanting to add a coaching side hustle, or if you're currently looking for a job or a business and you're like trying to figure out what would be a good fit for you living with chronic illness. And if you were to ask me in my own personal professional opinion, coaching is the best thing you can do in any of those scenarios. And I'm gonna teach you exactly why this is the case with sharing with you the simple steps that it takes to start a coaching business. And that's what we're gonna talk about in this episode. Now, before we start talking about that in this episode, I have a pretty big announcement, and this is kind of just kind of from a standpoint of sharing with you just my journey as a coach. I have been coaching officially, like, as, like, my title since 2018 when I signed my first quote-unquote coaching client. I was looking back at my notes when I started looking at some things that I'm going to be shifting, and I'm like, I've been in the online space for over a decade at this point. I've had a real estate business. I used to do social media and digital marketing, Facebook ads, website design, and all of that. And I've been on the online space for a while. And then also I've done some things like more in-person kind of stuff when it comes to growing my own side house, my own business. And of all the things that I've ever done that I have found that just fit me like a glove and just fit like my personality and who I was. And the reason why I also believe leaning into coaching came so quickly for me was because I had already been doing it since I was like a kid. If you don't know, part of know my story, I've had some kind of side hustle thing since I was like 16 years old, and I've always had this entrepreneurial spirit, and I've always kind of had this idea of like, I probably am going to be working for myself. But along the way, as you may or may not know, especially if you're a new listener here, I went from living like this normal life to all of a sudden being in constant pain. I was a newlywed, and I had no answers to why what was going on with my body. Without me realizing it, I had developed some type of chronic illnesses that I didn't know. So at the time when I really started going into just trying to figure out how best to live my life, I was actually working in a corporate for an agency where I was working at a pharmaceutical company and I was a, a administrative assistant and a secretary. And I really enjoyed that 'cause you know, I love people and I love connecting and I love kind of like planning and organizing and that was my jam., and during that season of my life, I literally was in so much pain and I had no answers for a minute. And during that, I realized that I even more needed to have some kind of side business that could help me contribute to the household income, feel like I could support our family in some way, shape, or form when it came to making a living. And I tried lots of different things. I had my real estate license. I did Mary Kay at some points. I did Tastefully Simple. I did marketing. I did, I did a lot of real estate marketing, administrative assistance, kind of stuff like that. I worked for real estate teams. I was like their go-to person for planning and organizing and uploading and communicating with the customer, doing sales and stuff like that for potential buyers and sellers. And I did those things pretty well, but the challenge was always that I was on everyone else's time and capacity. Even when I was working in a corporate environment, I had to to be reliant on like being in, 'cause I said, you know, my schedule is 9 to 5, I needed to be there. It's also very like mentally draining when you're going through all those things and you don't really know what's going on with your body. And I just remember at one point just being like, I can't, and having that conversation with my husband and he's like, you know, it's okay. You figure out what's gonna work for you. And I totally know that I'm talking privilege 'cause a lot of us don't have, that are listening, many of you may not have a spouse that is supportive in that way, but I'm fortunate and I'm thankful that I did. So I definitely take that privilege on as a blessing, but I do recognize that all of those that I work with have that support system. But you may, you may have, you may not have a spouse. You may have a friend, you may have family that's in some way, shape, or form helping you financially. And there's no shame in that at all. I just want to just say that I have no shame around it. I'm just over think I'm just very thankful and grateful. However, as thankful and grateful as I am for that, I have always thought to myself that no matter what, I wanted to be developing a skill or some type of way that I could take care of myself because anything could happen to either one of us, right? My husband or myself. And so I've always had that kind of the back of my mind. And also I really enjoy working. I know that sounds crazy, but I'm that kind of person who just really enjoys working, especially when it involves people. And so while in the season of trying to figure out what kind of business or what type of things I would be doing, I fell into under, like into the coaching world. And there's a whole episode about that that, you know, you can go back and listen to. I'll put, I'll tag it in the show notes, but I'll probably do an updated story on like my coaching story and this upcoming new announcement I'll be sharing with you because it's important. But going back to what I was saying, so as I was developing and going through all these different kind of things, these chronic illnesses, I started trying to figure out which different business models will work for me. And I'm so thankful that I found— and I feel like coaching really found me. It was really something that came into my world. I'm so thankful for it because it really fits me and my circumstances like a glove. And what I didn't realize over these past you know, 5, 7, 6 years of being a coach is that my clients, many of them have come into the coaching world and have become a coach in some way, shape, or form. A lot of my friends actually are coaches now. They never were my clients, but I was a coach first and many of them became coaches after talking and connecting with me and asking questions. So a lot of my, a lot of my friends are coaches now. And have clients and have businesses. A lot of my clients have coach— are coaches and have clients. And I have this big aha moment recently of that I've been sharing with you guys all of these different things about growing your business, whether it's in a creative space, as a photographer, as a graphic designer, as an artist, whatever skills you had, talking about how you can make them something you can make money on. Online, but I haven't leaned into my own success story of growing a business from home in a coaching industry, in an up and growing coaching industry, right? And doing it from my bed, from the hospital, from doctor's offices even, and not feeling weird about it. Being able to market and grow my business during some of the hardest times of my life living with chronic illness. And it has helped me pay bills. It has helped me have opportunity to find actual tools to help me live better with chronic illness. And I know I kind of sprinkled it in there in some of these episodes here and there, but I haven't owned it. And so I literally went from living a normal life to all of a sudden being in constant pain with no answers, being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses. Then to becoming, while dealing with all of that, an award-winning business and mindset coach. I am a top globally ranked podcast host, and I'm not saying this to like brag on myself in that kind of way. I'm just saying that I haven't owned that, and I haven't owned that I've helped other women do the same, and I haven't owned why I believe that living with chronic illness, and if you're going to have your own business, having a coaching business is the best and easiest way to make a living. And it is so easy to have more flexibility and sustainability, have, have a flexible and sustainable business when you lean into coaching. And what's beautiful about coaching is no matter what, who you are, what your passions are, what your skills are, anything can be coachable. It can be turned into a business. Like every client of mine, no matter, even if you're a past client, Even if you're a current client and you're not a coach and you're in the artist industry or you're creative, you could literally add a coaching service to your business and add some income to your business. And it's so easy to do. So with all of that being said, this podcast is going to have a change. I have named the show and the values of the show has really been around the true belief that I have, which is We are all crafted to thrive. We have all been given beautiful gifts. Some of them are gifts that are literally just innate in our bodies and our minds that we have been given as gifts. Some of them have been developed over time and trial, and some of them are things that we've learned along our journey in our expertise, in, um, our corporate environment, our professional environment. And there are other things that are just quirky things about us that make us us. And I truly believe that even in our darkest hours, we can lean on those strengths because we are truly crafted to thrive. We have literally been molded, if you will, into this space of being able to tap into those beautiful gifts, right? And to use them in whatever areas of our life. Like, I think about myself and I think about my friends some of the greatest qualities of my friends. I see how they bleed into all of the areas of their life. And I truly believe that's what we are. And that's what I will continue to believe. And that will continue to be a part of the values that are behind the reason I do what I do, behind the reason why I think the way I think, the perspective that I have. But, but the sentiment is not really clear to most people who are looking for what I do. Many times I have heard from clients who found me by happenstance. So many people are like, I was searching for you. I couldn't find this. I couldn't find what you were talking about. I couldn't find someone talking about growing a business with chronic illness. I couldn't find someone who even looked like me who was talking about this.. And I always felt like, well, it's just because I'm not doing a good enough job of creating enough content and talking about it enough. But I recently had a more aha moment of, if people are searching for me, why am I not making it easier for them to find me? After much research and like feedback from clients and even my own, like, like I said, research online and just tapping into my community of marketing strategists and coaches and consultants, they're like, as much as we love, as much as we love the name of Crafted to Thrive, no one knows what that really means until they're listening to the show. So they're not searching that. And granted, a lot of you can search the anything about business really and find something to do about me on there. Like on, on, on Google, you'll find my podcast that pops up if you put making a living with chronic illness, business with chronic illness, all of these different kind of things, right? But for the show itself to be named Crafted to Thrive, it kind of hides me. It kind of hides my ability to support all of those who are searching for support like this. And so with that, without further ado, I kind of already said it, but the name of the show is changing. The name of the show is changing. Can you believe it? And I know I've changed it before, but I went from She's Crafted to Thrive to Crafted to Thrive. Like I have really been holding on. To craft it to thrive. And let me tell you a little bit of reasons besides the fact that I've been holding onto that, cuz that value and that word and that phrase means so much to me and it will still be our tagline at the end of every show. But here's the thing, I've kind of been hiding, I've been hiding this aspect of my, like this aspect of being like, I have built a business and I have been successful.. And I have been successful doing it while living with chronic illness. And it's scary to make a big change like this because I've been doing this podcast for 7 years. We started this ep— this podcast back in 2017 before I was a coach. I was doing digital marketing, y'all. So a lot about me has changed. A lot about who I serve has changed. And it was scary to think about changing this, but I'm ready. I'm ready to be seen. I'm ready to be found. I'm ready for me to be able to help so many more people be helped to make a living, living with chronic illness. And so starting in May, our first episode that will come out the first week of May, the next episode will come out on May 3rd. We're going to have a little break, like a couple of weeks, but May 3rd, the show will come back. And the show will be called Business with Chronic Illness with your host, me, Nikita Williams. Nothing else is really changing. You might hear a little change in the intro words. You might hear a little change in our trailer, but that's really what's changing. I'm just wanting to make sure that people know that there's someone out here that's talking about the challenges of growing a business and how to do it with more ease. We're still going to have interviews. We're still going to talk about all of the things we've talked about, but even more so leaning into what it's like growing a business with chronic illness. And I am going to talk a lot more about how coaching can help you make a livable income living with chronic illness and how and what steps you need to do, things you need to know, the mindset, the things that it will help you do next week, this week, next month, next year, because you have a coaching business. And I can't wait to share all of those juicy bits with you. And so today I wanna share with you just some brief steps on what you need to do in order to start a coaching business. First things first, take an inventory and embrace your story, your gifts, your strengths, and your experience and expertise. I talk to so many women in sales calls and just random who are like, I really think I wanna do such and such, which is usually like, I wanna help people with this one thing. And they're like, I don't know, I don't know if anybody will pay me for it. Let me tell you right now, people will pay you for things that they need help with. People will pay you for things that affect health, wealth, and relationships. And for most of us, whatever we do, even if it's in the creative space, can help people in all three of those areas. And also what I love about this one step is taking inventory. A lot of us have discounted our skillset and our passions because, because when we were doing some of these things in a corporate environment, or if you're currently doing them, they felt so difficult because you were dealing with rules that were not meant for you. You were operating in a world that was not designed for you. As a coach and as a business owner, you get to design the rules. You get to design the environment that it can work for you. So really just analyze if you're currently in a corporate position or you're currently in between jobs or you're looking for work, look at the things that you like love to do, the things that you love to do that come so easy, the things that you can lean into, the things that you're passionate about. Maybe it's a hobby that you just love and you teach people all day long, like it just comes easy to you. Those things are things that can be turned into something that's profitable for a business. So this is the first step. Take inventory and embrace your gifts and identify if there's anything in there that you're like, I can help people with this thing. Decide you want to be a coach and look for evidence that you already are. So it is a decision just like everything else in life. Like we can always opt in to thinking, oh, this is a nice dream, this is a nice to have. But if you decide you want to start a coaching business, you, you, you're more committed to it, right? You're more committed to it. And some of us think we're just starting. When you getting ready to start a coaching business, some of us think, well, I'm just going to be starting. I'm brand new. I'm going to be starting all over. And I encourage you that this is the profession as coaches where your experience all that has led you up to here is so valuable for the first person you work with. You don't have to wait to have years of experience as a coach in order to use what you already know. It's like awesome. It's so awesome that you can just take what you know and go ahead and charge what you know and get paid for it and help people, right? Number 3, Think of 3 main problems that you can help someone solve that affects their health, relationships, and finances, or their money. So in this passion and expertise as a coach, because now that you've decided that you are and you've looked for evidence— so let me go back for a second. Look for evidence that you're already coach. Here's what I mean. I didn't know that I was coaching since I was like a kid. People would come to me about business and things like that. I just had a friend recently who helped me plan our last our 10-year anniversary trip. And she's like, Nikita, you've always been about the business thing. Like you've, we would ask you different questions about that. Like that was your jam. It still is my jam. Back in high school, back in, you know, when I was doing different things, people would ask me, I was hired by other small business owners to help them run their small businesses. And so that was just something I naturally gravitated to. Plus my grandparents were entrepreneurs. My mom was an entrepreneur. My dad is a side hustle. Like he's a hustler, right? And so that's kind of like in my bones, if you will. And so it's kind of something that I've always like had a knack for is business and just answering questions and helping people and helping them think things through. And even in my other business as a digital marketer, that's what I did. Even when I worked in real estate, you all, people would ask me specific questions about marketing and doing things differently when it came to networking and community building. That stuff is coaching. So look for evidence where you are already a coach. So, so we did take an inventory and embrace your gifts, decide to be a coach, and look for the evidence that you already are. Think of 3 main problems that you can help someone solve that affects their life today, this week, this month with their health, relationships, and finances, right? So take one, uh, take something that you already love and that you do so well and think about, oh, I can help them solve this problem or that problem this week. Tell people. So this is number 4. Tell people what it is that you do. You're a coach and you help them do what? You help them solve what? That's the easiest part of marketing and selling when it comes to selling coaching. All you have to do is tell people what you help them do and how you help them achieve that goal, right? The beautiful thing about coaching I have, I love, and I love from the beginning, I've, I've always had this belief that business is personal. If you go back to any of the episodes between like 1 and 100. I had a couple episodes about business is so personal. We always talk about, we hear like business is business, numbers are numbers, and I'm like, business is about people. No matter what industry you are in, it affects people's daily lives. And as a coach, this is definitely that, definitely true. As coaches, our business is personal. A lot of the things we're going to be helping people with or that you want to help people with and get paid for helping them with are things that literally affect their every single day. And that is powerful. Okay? Lastly, look for opportunities to connect with people. You don't have a business, you don't have community without people. And that's really the core of what you really need to start a coaching business. Those 5 things, that's it. Those 5 things are really what you need to get started in the thoughts and the actual getting ready and set up to have a coaching business. Obviously there are tech things that you need. There are some marketing and a few, like 2 systems that you really need in order to start this, but most importantly are those 5 steps. And when we come back on May 3rd, I'm gonna start sharing with you the very formation of what you need to have in place in order to start this and booking your first client. Now, if you're like, Nikita, I can't wait. I have been thinking about starting a coaching business. I don't know where to start. I don't know what to do. This feels like it could be scary because I don't know if I'll be able to show up because, you know, I flare up, I have doctor's appointments. I don't know how you make time. Then I obviously want you to book a call with me and jump on a call and get in on the calendar to learn how you can start your coaching business. And sign your first client, which is literally the hardest part. I cannot lie, it is the hardest part for a lot of people. It wasn't for me. I hate to say that it wasn't for me, but that was because I had a business already. So if you're just starting a business, the hardest part is the first client, and the other part is just the identity work and some of the little things you need to have on the backend. And, and it's not a lot, and it's so— and the other beautiful thing about coaching it doesn't cost a lot of money to get into it. So, so much excitement happening here. I'm so excited. Like, this aha, this like click, feel this alignment feels so good to be able to come and talk to you guys about this because this is my story. I have made over— collectively, I've made over 6 figures in my business helping people with different issues and problems in their life when it comes to starting a business, right? From coaching. I've had a part-time gig every year coaching, right? And so I am just so excited to help so many more chronic illness warriors to do the same because I truly do believe this is what gives us more flexibility and freedom and capacity. So stay tuned. I can't wait to share, unveil all of the branding and all of the updated episodes. Be sure that you're on my email list, go to the show notes and be sure you join the email list because that's where all of this stuff is going to be happening before the show drops on May 3rd.

That's a wrap, y'all. Thanks for tuning in to Crafted to Thrive, the podcast that helps entrepreneurs with chronic illness to thrive and build a holistic business and life. Check out our website at craftedtothrive.com for this episode's show notes and all the gifts and goodies. Connect with me on Instagram @thrivewithnikitawilliams for more tips and behind the scenes and more. Tag me to share what you loved about this episode and I'll feature you on an upcoming episode. So until next time, remember, yes, you are crafted to thrive.